2023 nba draft thread: starring victor, scoot... and more!

so if i'm reading this right, not only did the spurs win the lottery but by the end of the draw they won the lottery despite having an equal chance as 4 other teams all of which were behind a fifth team that had a 54% chance? crazy

Wemby was happy Houston didn’t get the 1st pick 😅 pic.twitter.com/PhF1xyckSd

— NBACentral (@TheNBACentral) May 17, 2023

their chances got worse along the way but then they pulled it out in the end, clutch draw by the spurs

haa wemby knows whats up

that ol popovich magic

oh yes forgot the Bulls don't have a pick now, thanks to the Lonzo stuff.

Does Pops have enough juice to get the Spurs back to the top? He hasn't coached a good team in a few years now. Obviously he's a tremendous dude and has a great track record but he's no spring chicken.

i wonder the same thing

is there a particular assistant there whos well suited to be his successor?

brett brown haha

chase buford

pop has definitely mellowed out in recent years...he had said he was going to retire when tim did, but the title window was still open with kawhi and he had made commitments to lamarcus to get him to come to sa. when his wife passed, i think retirement would've taken away a sense of purpose. plus i think he's just in love with hoops. he can't quit it. he'll die cussing out a ref.

I would say Becky Hammon but https://www.cbc.ca/sports/basketball/becky-hammon-suspension-wnba-aces-1.6845099

jfc becky

it isn't great

tomorrow night we flood this thread with Content

i want for the record to say that kobe bufkin will be a solid nba pro

yeah i would love for us to use this thread tomorrow just so we can take a look back down the road :)

haa

Hornets GM Mitch Kupchak said today at a pre-draft press conference that final say on who Charlotte selects at No. 2 on Thursday night -- Brandon Miller or Scoot Henderson -- will belong to outgoing owner Michael Jordan.

More NBA from me: https://t.co/A6ycVmnrjq

— Marc Stein (@TheSteinLine) June 21, 2023

hmm

getting one last kick in on his way out the door

thx for the video, seems like the comps are pretty obvious -- rose, wall, westbrook, ja etc. he looks like he'll be fun to watch. being undersized and not really shooting or playing defense is a bit of a red flag for me, though of course he could get better, by all accounts he seems to be a hard worker. I'm not saying it would be wrong to take a guy like that second, when it comes down to it the draft is really just a crapshoot, but to me that's not the type of player that you're seeing on a lot of championship contending teams

― k3vin k., Wednesday, June 21, 2023 12:42 PM (three minutes ago

posting this here so i can be dunked on in the future

i want for the record to say that kobe bufkin will be a solid nba pro

― slai gorgeous-alexander (m bison), Wednesday, June 21, 2023 11:26 AM (thirty-three minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

i'm glad that he and jett howard have basically switched draft stocks this offseason because kobe did all the little things right, while jett completely lost focus whenever the ball wasn't in his hands. pretty astounding how terrible of a rebounder he was, and he was somehow even worse of an off-ball defender. his jumpshot is silky tho

bufkin was a great engine of offense on a ramshackle team, lots of crafty moves to get to the basket and great court vision. he's not unathletic, but that's not really his game. he's smart, and has been one of the best players in his age group (he was a sophomore, but is younger than many of the one-and-done freshmen), with lots of room to develop.

kobe bufkin sounds like a tim robinson character name

guys i like as a watcher of college ball:
- kobe bufkin - explained above
- jarace walker - incredibly strong, great on defense, powerful on offense. better footwork and handles than you might expect.
- jalen hood schifino - great size for pg position, really good at everything but inconsistent at scoring efficiently. when his shot falls, he is a force.
- jordan hawkins - best shooter in the college game, doesn't need much room. not amazing at much else, but his shooting is good enough to play anywhere.
- trayce jackson-davis - a tweener, played center in college, where he's too small in the nba, but an underrated athlete with a deep bag of offensive moves.
- jaime jaquez - hard to believe he won't grab a bench role somewhere, great rebounder and defender

kobe bufkin sounds like a tim robinson character name

― Blues Guitar Solo Heatmap (Free Download) (upper mississippi sh@kedown), Wednesday, June 21, 2023 12:12 PM (twelve minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

little buf boy

seems like the comps are pretty obvious -- rose, wall, westbrook, ja etc. he looks like he'll be fun to watch. being undersized and not really shooting or playing defense is a bit of a red flag for me, though of course he could get better, by all accounts he seems to be a hard worker. I'm not saying it would be wrong to take a guy like that second, when it comes down to it the draft is really just a crapshoot, but to me that's not the type of player that you're seeing on a lot of championship contending teams

― k3vin k., Wednesday, June 21, 2023 12:42 PM (three minutes ago

between his athleticism, build & wingspan it seems like he has the tools to be a good defender at the position. but unless you're either a jrue holiday type defender or a trae young type defender, your defense at PG prob isn't that important at the end of the day. it seems like a lot of it will come down to the shooting development

i think you can look at the very recent history of champions and say that a key component to winning is having a grossly overpaid 3 and D wing who hasn't lived up to his pre-draft hype on your team... but it's hard to reverse engineer the situation in that way. when rose, westbrook & to a lesser extent wall were healthy in their primes they were mvp, all nba level players on teams that were right in the thick of the top 4 seeds in their conferences. off the court stuff on ja aside he's another guy at that same level.

the scoot/miller situation feels kinda like fultz/tatum in terms of the positional value argument except maybe w/ the talent flip flopped. but maybe it will end up being the same thing all over again

Dink Pate can't be real

ive said it elsewhere, but i do not buy brandon miller as a #1 scoring option or paul george type. im not saying he'll bust or anything, but a guy who cant finish at the rim at his size is going to have trouble doing much anything besides camping out on the perimeter of teams scheme against him.

when rose, westbrook & to a lesser extent wall were healthy in their primes they were mvp, all nba level players on teams that were right in the thick of the top 4 seeds in their conferences. off the court stuff on ja aside he's another guy at that same level.

this is true, but to me, this is the model for the most overrated type of player of the past 10 years or so. rose and westbrook were probably the 2 worst MVPs of the past 20 years. ja’s reputation has outpaced his actual production too imo. wall…we’ve disagreed on him in the past too but ultimately injuries derailed his career. my sense, and this could just be my bias, is that these are floor raisers but not necessarily ceiling raisers, and players who are at risk of having shorter production windows. these are the types of guys you’re ultimately going to offer the supermax, but are you super thrilled about that?

you def need another star to balance a strong scoring pg in this mode, true. longevity thing is a question too, but not as big a concern when theyre 19, more a concern for if theyre getting supermaxed

all those things might be true but ultimately the question is is there anyone else you like more

a: no

well, wembanyama, but hes taken tyvm

amen is the only one i think has a higher ceiling besides scoot (and besides vic) but there are several ifs to get there, mostly 'if u learn to be an average jumpshooter ever'

my draft prediction is that with the number one pick the spurs will select victor wembanyama of france

thats what i love about ilh, it's is the place for bold takes

you def need another star to balance a strong scoring pg in this mode, true. longevity thing is a question too, but not as big a concern when theyre 19, more a concern for if theyre getting supermaxed

― slai gorgeous-alexander (m bison), Wednesday, June 21, 2023 6:16 PM (twenty-one minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

all those things might be true but ultimately the question is is there anyone else you like more

― lag∞n, Wednesday, June 21, 2023 6:20 PM (seventeen minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

you’re both right and I’m probably overemphasizing the long-term ceiling, if he pans out he’s probably great value over his first 1.5-2 contracts. I can just see the argument for a guy like miller if you’re truly talking about a franchise cornerstone, though his floor is probably lower

these are the types of guys you’re ultimately going to offer the supermax, but are you super thrilled about that?

― k3vin k., Wednesday, June 21, 2023 6:01 PM (thirty-seven minutes ago)

this is a tricky game to play because how many players are really actually worth the supermax? like, 5? if you take westbrook as an example i think the thunder were happy to pay him his second and third deals and were still able to trade him for value

d rose & john wall are diff stories bcuz of the injury stuff but if they have just standard injury careers i do think both of those teams would have been happy paying those guys their third deals too

as far as the basketball part of ja morant goes, i think memphis would be happy paying him the supermax too

were any of these teams title winners? no, but that is a very high bar to clear. you could go down the positional ladder and ask how badly you wanna be paying guys like brandon ingram, jaylen brown, joel embiid that money too

i don't think your point is invalid, and you may end up being right. but if brandon miller is the next andrew wiggins well... that was a highly negative contract that the wolves had to take a bath on in order to move. so it's all a matter of degrees

if you went by the the last two seasons i'd say the following players are "worth" the supermax

jokic
giannis
luka
steph
butler
tatum
booker

lots of ppl would throw embiid on there, i think there's a great case for leaving him but off but that's beside the point. by definition there's 15 all NBA spots so the number of players available to be supermaxed far outstrips the number of players who should be supermaxed. but that's the whole NBA salary structure

one thing that's crazy is that for the purposes of the supermax all nba first team is no different from all nba third team. it certainly benefits the players & i think the owners thought it benefited them too bcuz it allows you to grossly overpay your third tier homegrown "star" if he has one great season but that's not actually a benefit at all

supermax was a horrible miscalculation.

i don't think your point is invalid, and you may end up being right. but if brandon miller is the next andrew wiggins well... that was a highly negative contract that the wolves had to take a bath on in order to move. so it's all a matter of degrees

― J0rdan S., Wednesday, June 21, 2023 6:50 PM (thirty-two minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

yeah this this the rub, for arguments sake say you have ja morant in hand but a certain percent chance the other guy turns into the best version of paul george vs andrew wiggins (or worse), it’s tough! from a fit perspective it seems like miller is better for charlotte too

plus I’m sure the gun laws in north carolina are more favorable

on the lowe podcast from today givony says that plenty of teams in the NBA have miller over scoot & that charlotte isn’t picking miller just bcuz of fit. but if they had brandon ingram on their team instead of lamelo they’d be picking scoot let’s not kid ourselves

he also says that in miller’s first work out with charlotte his conditioning and effort weren’t good and he was basically told if he wants to be the second pick he needs to show it. so then the second workout he showed up and was better. i’m sure there’s no way such stories will come back to haunt this franchise

what they told him he needed to get better at basketball and he did it

the old wiggins gambit

also tbf to your argument k3v we do have to account for even the small possibility that miller is a 5 time all star type wing or whatever in which case he’s prob more valuable than scoot no matter how good scoot is

i’m bringing up all star comps for scoot and disappointing but still good role players for miller but there is some upside with miller even if ppl don’t see it athletically or whatever

insofar as lots of great players including most of the very best players in the league have far exceeded the “upside” they were ascribed prior to the draft