Chad Ford: Well, obviously Jabari Parker is the safe pick here, and I think he makes some sense. Milwaukee struggles to score, and Jabari would establish himself almost immediately as the alpha dog on this team offensively. I like that fit. However, I don't like that he showed up at the workout at 255 pounds. And at 6-foot-8½, that causes some concern for me about his abilities to guard small forwards.
That said, I'm intrigued by Dante Exum. I could see him being the sort of player you pair with a Giannis Antetokounmpo. He's a great off-the-court citizen; he blew the Bucks away with his speed for his size and his position, and he's versatile. I think he could play the 1 or the 2. Brandon Knight is not a point guard, so this is a need pick for us. In three years, Exum and Giannis could be a Russell Westbrook/Kevin Durant type of duo -- I'm not saying they'll be as good as those players, but that type of dynamic in Milwaukee. So as much as I love Jabari, my vote is for Dante Exum here.
Penn: Wow. Now that's quite a comparison. Kevin, could you talk to Coach Karl about what the numbers show as far as Parker versus Exum -- comparables, that kind of thing? And then Amin, give Coach your feel on those two guys and how they project the next couple of years.
Kevin Pelton: Exum is the most difficult guy to project in this year's class because the only thing we really have to project him on are the nine games he played last summer in the under-19 FIBA World Championships. So I looked at other guys who played in that competition -- guys like Tyler Ennis and Marcus Smart and Aaron Gordon -- to see how their statistics in those nine games compared to what they did in the NCAA. So it's kind of an equivalent of what Exum's stats might have looked like if he were a college prospect.
Based on that, he is one of my top five prospects in this draft -- ahead of both Jabari Parker and Andrew Wiggins. But there's a lot of error around that. He could be much better than we're projecting because it's based only on nine games, or he could be much worse. It's kind of similar to when the Cavaliers took Kyrie Irving No. 1 overall after that one season at Duke in which he played a similar number of games.
Here's the argument I'd make, and I agree with Chad that I would take Exum here: We don't know whether Exum is going to be great or not, but we do know about the other guys, and their college seasons lowered their ceilings a bit to where their ceilings are both below where Exum's is.
That said, I'm intrigued by Dante Exum. I could see him being the sort of player you pair with a Giannis Antetokounmpo. He's a great off-the-court citizen; he blew the Bucks away with his speed for his size and his position, and he's versatile. I think he could play the 1 or the 2. Brandon Knight is not a point guard, so this is a need pick for us. In three years, Exum and Giannis could be a Russell Westbrook/Kevin Durant type of duo -- I'm not saying they'll be as good as those players, but that type of dynamic in Milwaukee. So as much as I love Jabari, my vote is for Dante Exum here.
Penn: Wow. Now that's quite a comparison. Kevin, could you talk to Coach Karl about what the numbers show as far as Parker versus Exum -- comparables, that kind of thing? And then Amin, give Coach your feel on those two guys and how they project the next couple of years.
Kevin Pelton: Exum is the most difficult guy to project in this year's class because the only thing we really have to project him on are the nine games he played last summer in the under-19 FIBA World Championships. So I looked at other guys who played in that competition -- guys like Tyler Ennis and Marcus Smart and Aaron Gordon -- to see how their statistics in those nine games compared to what they did in the NCAA. So it's kind of an equivalent of what Exum's stats might have looked like if he were a college prospect.
Based on that, he is one of my top five prospects in this draft -- ahead of both Jabari Parker and Andrew Wiggins. But there's a lot of error around that. He could be much better than we're projecting because it's based only on nine games, or he could be much worse. It's kind of similar to when the Cavaliers took Kyrie Irving No. 1 overall after that one season at Duke in which he played a similar number of games.
Here's the argument I'd make, and I agree with Chad that I would take Exum here: We don't know whether Exum is going to be great or not, but we do know about the other guys, and their college seasons lowered their ceilings a bit to where their ceilings are both below where Exum's is.
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