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The Officially Official We should have Drafted Kawhi instead of Burks Thread

Do you wish we would have drafted Kawhi over Burks

  • Yes

    Votes: 8 32.0%

  • No

    Votes: 17 68.0%
  • Total voters
    25
Batman

Batman

Well-Known Member
Kawhi's defense, rebounding, and potential would be perfect for our team. Love Burks, but like Kawhi more. he's tough and he is the kind of guy who helps you win the in the playoffs. Too bad and too sad... (Just imagine if we had Paul George and Leonard on the Perimater for defense. and they both rebound so well. With those too along with Favors and Kanter, I imagine we would out rebound everyone every nightIm happy with Hayward though. Kid is a stud.) Anyway, I'm not hating on Burks as much as I am giving love to Leonard. Dude helps you win in the playoffs. Monta Ellis lights it up some nights but he doesn't help you win in the playoffs on the big stage unless he accepts a non alpha male 5th option type role. Sure hope Burks can become a Leonard type player and help us win instead of a perhaps less talented Rudy Gay Monta Ellis type.
 
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Or we could have just played the Core 4 starting with Burks rookie year. But potato, potahto
 
There are always going to be these types of threads. How many fans do you think were complaining that their teams should have drafted Stockton or Malone?
In Hayward's case, I'm glad there is just one other name behind him on the "should have" list. KOC could have taken Henry, Aldrich, Babbitt, Davis, Patterson, etc. All those players were favored over Hayward on this board. Really, only honz was a fan of Gordon. While I admit George is a potential superstar, he wasn't clearly better than any of the other players taken in the 8-17 range.

As for Burks, well, there might be a few others we should have taken: Kawhi, Vucevic, Faried, Shumpert. But at least we didn't take either of the Morris' or Singleton. I also think it's way too early to make a judgment on Burks. He's shown promise, but hasn't been given consistent minutes, unlike a lot of his peers. Let's wait until he's played 20 mins/per for 82 games.
 
Paraphrasing David Locke, Burks was the only player at the time that had the feel of a future all star, so it was a good pick. There was no obvious talent gap between the two players at the time, and Burks does still have what we saw in him, so no, our pick was fine. Once drafted, it's up to the players and coaches to maximize their talent and it takes some players longer than others.
 
The strange thing is that I remember leonard being on a lot of mock drafts at like #5 because he tested out so well at the combine (lots of length, huge hands)
And burks was projected to go like 8th in the draft
 
Thing is, had we drafted Leonard and the Spurs took Burks, this thread would be flip-flopped as we watched Alec drive to the hoop at will against the Heat's D while flourishing under Pop's mentorship.
 
ABAB. Anyone But Alec Burks.

Taking Kawhi over him was as big a no brainer then as it is obvious today. KOC just doesn't have what it takes to spot talent in the 10-20 range.
 
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The way some people are down on Burks right now is almost as bad as how down people were on Kanter a year ago.
 
jazzman12 said:
Thing is, had we drafted Leonard and the Spurs took Burks, this thread would be flip-flopped as we watched Alec drive to the hoop at will against the Heat's D while flourishing under Pop's mentorship.
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Excellent point. Kawhi averaged 31 mins per game; Burks just 18. Kawhi averaged 12 pts; Burks 7 pts. I tend to think in 13 mins, Burks would likely have scored another couple of buckets. And, with more minutes, Burks likely improves a lot more over the course of the season.
 
spycam1 said:
The way some people are down on Burks right now is almost as bad as how down people were on Kanter a year ago.
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It's different. Some of us screwed around with the Kanter is teh messiah nonsense because nobody knew what he was except strong as a bull, and every time he stepped on the court he looked like a bonehead. He was also slow and couldn't jump like Kosta Koufus. But EVERYONE held out hope for him to grow.

With Burks, it's that he's not that good and his potential is a role player at best. No sixth man hope even. You'll eventually agree.

Core4 said:
Excellent point. Kawhi averaged 31 mins per game; Burks just 18. Kawhi averaged 12 pts; Burks 7 pts. I tend to think in 13 mins, Burks would likely have scored another couple of buckets. And, with more minutes, Burks likely improves a lot more over the course of the season.
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Burks would have a great role in Pop's system since he's a pretty dang good three point shooter when his looks are open. He's nowhere near the driver that Danny Green is and has maybe 1/5th the tools. Green controls himself in the air so he can make floaters and pullups much better, and also jukes opponents in a way Burks could only dream of.
 
These poll results are ridiculous. Leonard in his second year playing as MVP in finals and you folks still dream about Burks eventually becoming better. Leonard is a beast and will be All-star no matter where he plays, Spurs or Hornets. Kid is amazing. Get over it, KOC screwed up.
 
It doesn't bother me if we pick a guy and someone else picked later ends up being awesome. It does bother me, however, if the guy picked behind was the guy I wanted and thought should have been a no-brainer. The guys I liked from that year were Kanter, Leonard and Jimmer. I wanted Kanter early when he was projected in our pre-lottery range. Then he jumped up and my next guy was Kawhi, but then we landed in the top three. I never would have thought Kawhi would be available when we picked. Since we had Hayward and could go much bigger with Kawhi than with Burks, I thought that would have been big too.

Anyway, George was also my guy, but I'm also sold on Hayward so I don't care early as much. With Burks he has some very unique skills but I don't know that I'm sold on the total package.

As was said before, Kawhi never would have worked for us for more reasons than him not getting playing time. This is a multifaceted game and I'm afraid our coach and/or FO can't recognize the different components to be able to effectively play someone like Kawhi. Or, perhaps, they recognize aspects of the game that we mere mortals cannot comprehend which would explain our system and who is being allotted minutes. I'm not too confident Corbin would be sharp enough to recognize what Kawhi could bring the game and he would look very, very average on our squad and his defensive effort surely wouldn't be rewarded or recognized. Perhaps there may be more to Burks' game than I can see.
 
Kawhi isn't all that. He's a role player like Bryon Russel playing off of talent at every other position on the floor.

Leonard is fairly well suited to guard Lebron, and he makes some of his shots, but I don't think he's really the MVP of the series. Popovich is the biggest factor so far.
 
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