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How well does Danny work the draft?

Btw going through some of the draft resumes made me realize that the golden boy of the NBA draft Sam Presti is somewhat overrated. I mean sure he has a historical stroke of luck to start his GM career drafting 3 future MVPs back-to-back-to-back but since those drafts he pretty much stunk the joint until 2022 when he had another homerun draft.

Here are his worst draft day lowlights from 2010-2021:
  • Traded 2 FRPs to move up to 11 and select Cole Aldrich
  • Traded away Eric Bledsoe on draft day for a future 1st which he later traded for Kendrick Perkins
  • Traded 2 FRP and Ricky Rubio in a 3 team deal to move up and grab Aleksej Pokusevski. Those FRPs he traded away were used to select Jaden McDaniels and Immanuel Quickley.
  • Traded the 2021 16th pick (Alperen Sengun) for two heavily protected future firsts that he later traded away to select Ousmane Dieng
  • Traded Brandon Clarke for Darius Bazley
  • He also drafted just 3 guys (Adams, Jackson and Giddey) who turned out to be starter level players vs 9 first round busts in that 11 year stretch. I may have missed some transactions.
Also zero chips despite the mad start.
 
HermanG said:
I wont repeat what @Saint Cy of JFC said despite it being 100% true. But I will throw some more cold water on your "research".

Yam Madar was a 2nd round pick (47th overall)
Leon Powe was a 2nd round pick (49th overall)
Henry Walker was a 2nd round pick (47th overall)
Semi Oljeleye was a 2nd round pick (37th overall)

....god I'm starting to sound like a broken record here...

And the worst of that list was Semih Erden who was not only a 2nd round pick but the 60th overall pick!!

So if we remove the 3 guys that Cy listed who are NOT busts and also remove the 5 2nd round prospects... we end up with 9 first round busts with an average draft position of #22 to go with the 4 all-NBA guys, 1 DPOY and a long list of real solid players.
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I grabbed the list off of a reddit thread. Remove the 4 players from the second round and it is still 25 players on thst list of which only 5 are more than a starter at best. Lindsey did more with less. Other GMs as well.

Reviewing the list it is clear Ainge drafts lots of role players. But the cream on the list is a very short list. But I hope it turns out better this round for Ainge.

Also, Saint hates everyone. Blocked him years ago. Best thing I ever did on Jazzfanz. He has hated everything I ever post here even if he agrees with it.
 
HermanG said:
Btw going through some of the draft resumes made me realize that the golden boy of the NBA draft Sam Presti is somewhat overrated. I mean sure he has a historical stroke of luck to start his GM career drafting 3 future MVPs back-to-back-to-back but since those drafts he pretty much stunk the joint until 2022 when he had another homerun draft.

Here are his worst draft day lowlights from 2010-2021:
  • Traded 2 FRPs to move up to 11 and select Cole Aldrich
  • Traded away Eric Bledsoe on draft day for a future 1st which he later traded for Kendrick Perkins
  • Traded 2 FRP and Ricky Rubio in a 3 team deal to move up and grab Aleksej Pokusevski. Those FRPs he traded away were used to select Jaden McDaniels and Immanuel Quickley.
  • Traded the 2021 16th pick (Alperen Sengun) for two heavily protected future firsts that he later traded away to select Ousmane Dieng
  • Traded Brandon Clarke for Darius Bazley
  • He also drafted just 3 guys (Adams, Jackson and Giddey) who turned out to be starter level players vs 9 first round busts in that 11 year stretch. I may have missed some transactions.
Also zero chips despite the mad start.
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Presti has Chet, J Williams, Durant, Westbrook, Harden, Green, Cason Wallace, and a ton of role players in the league. I would rather have Presti drafting given his record.

But I have an agenda.
 
HermanG said:
Just out of curiosity, I went to check who he has drafted over the years and where. Here is a short summary listing every DA FRP made before his Jazz era. I excluded guys who he traded away on draft day. I may have missed some incoming trades that he did on draft day but the transaction logs are kinda painful to check for rookies, so maybe I come back to check those later.

Top 10 draft picks
  • Marcus Smart (#6 in 2014)
  • Jaylen Brown (#3 in 2016)
  • Jayson Tatum (#3 in 2017)
In addition to these three, Ainge also had two other top 10 picks that he traded away on draft day in the early 2000s' (Randy Foye and Jeff Green were selected with those).

Picks at 11-20
  • Troy Bell (#16 in 2003)
  • Dahntay Jones (#20 in 2003)
  • Al Jefferson (#15 in 2004)
  • Gerald Green (#18 in 2005)
  • Avery Bradley (#19 in 2010)
  • James Young (#17 in 2014)
  • Terry Rozier (#16 in 2015)
  • Guerschon Yabusele (#16 in 2016)
  • Romeo Langford (#14 in 2019)
  • Matisse Thybulle (#20 in 2019) (traded the next day)
  • Aaron Nesmith (#14 in 2020)
Picks at 21-30
  • Delonte West (#24 in 2004)
  • Tony Allen (#25 in 2004)
  • Rajon Rondo (#21 in 2006) (traded a 2007 FRP for Rondo + Brian Grant on draft day)
  • J.R. Giddens (#30 in 2008)
  • Jared Sullinger (#21 in 2012)
  • Fab Melo (#22 in 2012)
  • R.J. Hunter (#28 in 2015)
  • Ante Zizic (#23 in 2016)
  • Robert Williams III (#27 in 2018)
  • Grant Williams (#22 in 2019)
  • Payton Pritchard (#26 in 2020)
  • Desmond Bane (#30 in 2020) (traded two days later)
I would say overall he has done much better than average on his picks. He has traded out of the top 10 twice but other than that Taylor Hendricks is actually only the 4th top 10 selection of Ainge's career who he has kept beyond draft day, with every top 10 pick before TH making either All-NBA 1st or 2nd or All-Defense 1st team.
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Agreed. Looks like he hit on more picks than most GMs do

Sent from my CPH2451 using Tapatalk
 
The Jazz Wonderbra said:
I grabbed the list off of a reddit thread. Remove the 4 players from the second round and it is still 25 players on thst list of which only 5 are more than a starter at best. Lindsey did more with less. Other GMs as well.

Reviewing the list it is clear Ainge drafts lots of role players. But the cream on the list is a very short list. But I hope it turns out better this round for Ainge.

Also, Saint hates everyone. Blocked him years ago. Best thing I ever did on Jazzfanz. He has hated everything I ever post here even if he agrees with it.
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Nah, I just hate posters who post obvious BS without any thought or intelligence.
 
HermanG said:
Btw going through some of the draft resumes made me realize that the golden boy of the NBA draft Sam Presti is somewhat overrated. I mean sure he has a historical stroke of luck to start his GM career drafting 3 future MVPs back-to-back-to-back but since those drafts he pretty much stunk the joint until 2022 when he had another homerun draft.
...
Also zero chips despite the mad start.
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I think you misunderstood the strategy employed by Presti. He is working for the small-market, undesirable OKC team. Nobody is going to sign with them if they have other options. So, instead of going for the almost guaranteed future solid starters he often swings for the fences hoping to draft a player who could become a future star even if they have a high bust potential. Pokusevski and Giddey fall into that group. You are bound to have many misses but it is the only way to get some homegrown stars in a bad location (well, actually, you can also do via shrewd trading and Presti did it with SGA). Also, he could have had way more success if his team owner had not been so cheap and had not forced him to trade Harden. But such is the fate of small-market teams in bad locations.
 
jazznik said:
I think you misunderstood the strategy employed by Presti. He is working for the small-market, undesirable OKC team. Nobody is going to sign with them if they have other options. So, instead of going for the almost guaranteed future solid starters he often swings for the fences hoping to draft a player who could become a future star even if they have a high bust potential. Pokusevski and Giddey fall into that group. You are bound to have many misses but it is the only way to get some homegrown stars in a bad location (well, actually, you can also do via shrewd trading and Presti did it with SGA). Also, he could have had way more success if his team owner had not been so cheap and had not forced him to trade Harden. But such is the fate of small-market teams in bad locations.
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I'm not even calling him bad, just somewhat overrated and you feel the need to apologize for him?

Also the schrewd trading with SGA comment is silly, since Kawhi Leonard had more to do with OKC getting that package than Presti. Clippers paid that price to get 2 stars and its well documented that Presti knew it and that one of the conditions for the deal to go through is that Leonard signs as well. Cant call it shrewd when you have 100% of the leverage and its essentially a gimmie.
 
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HermanG said:
I'm not even calling him bad, just somewhat overrated and you feel the need to apologize for him?

Also the schrewd trading with SGA comment is silly, since Kawhi Leonard had more to do with OKC getting that package than Presti. Clippers paid that price to get 2 stars and its well documented that Presti knew it and that one of the conditions for the deal to go through is that Leonard signs as well. Cant call it shrewd when you have 100% of the leverage and its essentially a gimmie.
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I think you may want to step back and take a broader look: compared to other small-market teams with stingy owners (like, say the Jazz) Presti achieved way, way more. Also, you can call the PG-SGA trade a gimmie but to have this gimmie you first need to somehow acquire PG in the first place. Presti took a risk and traded for George on the expiring contract when everybody believed that George would bolt for the Lakers in several months. And there were several more deals like that. Presti consistently creates opportunities by getting and flipping good players, he is very good at that.
 
jazznik said:
I think you may want to step back and take a broader look: compared to other small-market teams with stingy owners (like, say the Jazz) Presti achieved way, way more. Also, you can call the PG-SGA trade a gimmie but to have this gimmie you first need to somehow acquire PG in the first place. Presti took a risk and traded for George on the expiring contract when everybody believed that George would bolt for the Lakers in several months. And there were several more deals like that. Presti consistently creates opportunities by getting and flipping good players, he is very good at that.
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He has gotten incredibly lucky with trade demands from players working in his favor
 
jazznik said:
I think you may want to step back and take a broader look: compared to other small-market teams with stingy owners (like, say the Jazz) Presti achieved way, way more. Also, you can call the PG-SGA trade a gimmie but to have this gimmie you first need to somehow acquire PG in the first place. Presti took a risk and traded for George on the expiring contract when everybody believed that George would bolt for the Lakers in several months. And there were several more deals like that. Presti consistently creates opportunities by getting and flipping good players, he is very good at that.
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Dude you are trying way too hard to argue against my vanilla take of "somewhat overrated". Its not me who needs to step back.
 
The Jazz Wonderbra said:
There is no AGENDA. He ranked poorly because he has made a lot of picks and very few of them have turned into all nba players.

To satisfy your need for more evidence I took a deeper dive from his time with the celtics from 2003 - 2020.
 
More first round busts for you...
  • James Young
  • Guerschon Yabusele
  • R.J. Hunter
  • J.R. Giddens
  • Fab Melo
  • JaJuan Johnson
  • Aaron Nesmith
  • Payton Pritchard
  • Grant Williams
  • Yam Madar
  • Leon Powe
  • Marcus Banks
  • Bill/Henry Walker
  • Semi Ojeleye
  • Ante Žižić
  • Semih Erden
Some decent players, role players, or starters at some point:
  • Jared Sullinger
  • Delonte West
  • Glen Davis
  • Kelly Olynyk
  • Gerald Green
  • Robert Williams
  • Tony Allen
  • Avery Bradley
  • Terry Rozier
His top 5 picks of all time:
  • Jayson Tatum
  • Rajon Rondo
  • Jaylen Brown
  • Al Jefferson
  • Marcus Smart
And for those who whine and complain every year about how we could possibly miss a player, he took Kelly Olynyk over Giannis even though he scouted Giannis when he was an obscure prospect. i am sure if i went through the list again from the perspective of who did he overlook it would be littered with players.

So, just counting up picks that's 3 all stars out of 30 picks. If you feel like that's amazing, then compare with other GMs. With that record it is hard for me to get jazzed about how we are going to get a bunch of draft assets to turn the program around.
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Grant Williams, Payton Pritchard and Aaron Nesmith aren't busts considering where they were drafted. They're all decent rotation players.
 
The Jazz Wonderbra said:
Presti has Chet, J Williams, Durant, Westbrook, Harden, Green, Cason Wallace, and a ton of role players in the league. I would rather have Presti drafting given his record.

But I have an agenda.
Click to expand...

I'd argue that drafting top-5 consensus players in any draft doesn't require above-average drafting acumen. To judge a GM's drafting decisions requires considering context. Kevin Durant and Chet Holmgren were no-brainer picks at #2 in their respective drafts. James Harden was probably considered a reasonably conservative #3 pick as well. What's admirable about the Thunder is their willingness to tank and acquire top-5 picks, imo. Whereas, Ainge showed real acumen by trading down from #1 to #3 to draft Tatum, while also acquiring another pick from the Sixers.

The key is to draft BETTER than your counterparts in the same draft. I think the Jazz have done that in the past two drafts, though I don't know how much of that is Ainge and how much is Justin Zanik. Getting Keyonte at #16 and getting Cody at #10 are really solid picks. Getting Filipowski at #32 is also a great pick. Those guys should all have 10+ year careers.
 
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