Telling Quote

[Pinwheel1]

A first rounder. As I typed in my post.

Ed O.

So who was it? We only had a 12 man team at that time, so did he make it? Whitsitt would have been better off taking a 6'6" white guy with the 8th pick. Yes that was too high for Brent Barry (who was projected to go later and did at 15) but they instead went for more "value".

The point is that Whitsitt was far from perfect on draft day.

 

[Ed O]

So who was it? We only had a 12 man team at that time, so did he make it? Whitsitt would have been better off taking a 6'6" white guy with the 8th pick. Yes that was too high for Brent Barry (who was projected to go later and did at 15) but they instead went for more "value".

The point is that Whitsitt was far from perfect on draft day.

Who's saying he was perfect? He was obviously going to take the best players he could... but he picked the best players he could WHILE OPTIMIZING the value.

It doesn't matter who the Blazers ended up with that first rounder. The point is that they received it. Whether they sold it or drafted a guy and then declined to sign him or drafted a future HoF, the process is the exact same. And it's far superior to just "taking our guy".

Ed O.

 

[Pinwheel1]

Who's saying he was perfect? Ed O.

My post was in response to Fez: " Bob Whitsitt would never have ran a draft like Nate McMillan did last night. (I mean Chad Buchanan). Amateur hour for sure. "

And i obviously disagree with the amateur hour part.

 

[RR7]

I dunno, if they like him at 21, and you're CERTAIN you can slide down, you do it. But, just looking at DX's last mock, they had Smith going 36. So say we traded down to 36. Between 21 and 36, you had Jackson, Mack, Joseph and cole all drafted. All except for Jackson were "mocked" to go after Smith. There's a chance we slide back there, and Smith is gone, with one of those teams preferring him to Cole, Mack or Joseph.
Similarly, Bertans was mocked to go 26. If we liked him, we would have been trading up to 25-ish to grab him, and he went at 42. So we would have wasted value. I know a lot of the mocks do fairly solid, but I think that's more so in the lottery, and then when there's a clear guy a team likes. Otherwise, there's lots of misses late, and it's pretty easy to assume the mocks teams do privately are probably more accurate.
Hell, a day or two ago, everyone was thinking brooks at 15. What if we were excited for him and jumped to 14, only to see he would have fallen all the way to 25.

 

[Ed O]

My post was in response to Fez: " Bob Whitsitt would never have ran a draft like Nate McMillan did last night. (I mean Chad Buchanan). Amateur hour for sure. "

And i obviously disagree with the amateur hour part.

You can disagree all you'd like, of course.

But taking a player just because you want him--and ignoring where you could probably get him--is leaving money on the table.

Amateur.

Ed O.

 

[RR7]

Where you could probably get him. So you read Chad Ford saying a guy will go here, and then you think teams are just trading up and down based off of a consensus of the mock drafts. Amateur. Fact is, you have no clue where we could have gotten him at. I think if you do that in the top 10 with a guy l;ike that, fine. At 21, when maybe a guy goes 22, maybe he goes 50, no. You take him. An extra 2nd rounder isn't worth the risk of losing out on a guy if you trulylike him.

 

[Ed O]

Where you could probably get him. So you read Chad Ford saying a guy will go here, and then you think teams are just trading up and down based off of a consensus of the mock drafts. Amateur. Fact is, you have no clue where we could have gotten him at. I think if you do that in the top 10 with a guy l;ike that, fine. At 21, when maybe a guy goes 22, maybe he goes 50, no. You take him. An extra 2nd rounder isn't worth the risk of losing out on a guy if you trulylike him.

Listen. I'm not the one who said that if you like a player, you take him.

That's Buchanan, right?

That is a loser's approach to the draft, IMO. And I consider it to be amateur.

It has nothing to do with where I think a player would go. It has nothing to do with which players I like.

It has to do with the team deciding, of the players it likes, where the optimal place to select the player is. To maximize value.

The team would not have picked Nolan Smith at #1, right? Or at #2. Or at #10, presumably.

COULD they have picked him at #30? Maybe. And if they could get value by sliding back 9 spots, and Smith wasn't there, then presumably there'd be someone worth that spot plus the value they got.

It's this manipulation of the draft that I am impressed by and, I believe, is both professional and successful. Whitsitt was good at it. KP was, too. Cho seems to do it.

"If our guy's there, we'll take him" is a weak approach and I'm disappointed that the Blazers' GM relies on it.

Ed O.

 

[RR7]

Sure, there's always just someone else you could pick. But if you trade down from 21 to 30, just to pick up a late 2nd, and then miss out on the guy you want, so you just grab someone else seems stupid to me. Well, we really wanted Nolan Smith, thought he was BPA, but had to go to our 5th choice, because we traded from 21 to 30, thinking or hoping he might be there, because that's what the mock drafts told us, and now, in between 21 and 30, not only did he go, but our top 4 other choices. So then, we're going to reach for someone at 30, and fans will whine and bitch, because they saw a mock draft say he would go later.
I understand the trading back and getting value. It's great if you can do it and still get your guy. It's stupid late to move too many picks back, not knowing if your guy, or your next 4 guys will be there.
Like I said, I think mocking the lotto is a little easier. So trading back from 5 to 8, knowing who is going at 6 and 7 is good. 21 to somewhere like 30 is a lot more risky, and foolish if you like a guy, for what amounts to not much value in return.

 

[maxiep]

The squandering of assets is what had me pulling my hair out last night. If you want a reference of what maximizing your draft value does for you, look no further than Scott Paoli and the NE Patriots. They trade down and trade into future drafts and replenish their team better than anyone.

 

[B-Roy]

Sure, there's always just someone else you could pick. But if you trade down from 21 to 30, just to pick up a late 2nd, and then miss out on the guy you want, so you just grab someone else seems stupid to me. Well, we really wanted Nolan Smith, thought he was BPA,

This quote:

For me it's simply identify the guy you want and go get him.

Makes me think the Blazers went into the draft not thinking BPA. That even if a better talent dropped to them, they would still take Nolan Smith.

 

[Pinwheel1]

The squandering of assets is what had me pulling my hair out last night. If you want a reference of what maximizing your draft value does for you, look no further than Scott Paoli and the NE Patriots. They trade down and trade into future drafts and replenish their team better than anyone.

Technically you guys are right. Get the best value.

But lots of late round footaball players make it on a 53 man nfl roster. Not many late second rounders make it in the NBA. I would much rather have our guys get the guys they want then fuck around and get cute and miss out on someone, just for a useless 2nd round pick.

 

[Minstrel]

Technically you guys are right. Get the best value.

But lots of late round footaball players make it on a 53 man nfl roster. Not many late second rounders make it in the NBA.

With much smaller rosters, you don't need nearly as many draftees to "make it." I don't think the difference in roster sizes or hit-rate on draft picks between the NFL and NBA changes the good sense in trying to maximize the talent/value you get from the draft. You want as much talent as you can get. You can use free agency and trades to balance the roster.

 

[PapaG]

With much smaller rosters, you don't need nearly as many draftees to "make it." I don't think the difference in roster sizes or hit-rate on draft picks between the NFL and NBA changes the good sense in trying to maximize the talent/value you get from the draft. You want as much talent as you can get. You can use free agency and trades to balance the roster.

Which is why I assume the Blazers drafted Nolan Smith when they did. They likely weighed the consequences of getting better "value" (which I think is a dumb concept, anyhow, since draft value is largely based on people outside of the NBA), and decided their best value was to draft Smith at #21.

The other explanation is that the Blazers are a bunch of incompetent boobs, and as you know, I'm willing to consider that possibility as well.

 

[Minstrel]

Which is why I assume the Blazers drafted Nolan Smith when they did. They likely weighed the consequences of getting better "value" (which I think is a dumb concept, anyhow, since draft value is largely based on people outside of the NBA), and decided their best value was to draft Smith at #21.

If the Blazers thought Smith was clearly the best talent available at #21 and that there was a major risk of him being gone at any lower pick they could have acquired, then I have no philosophical problems with the selection. We'll just have to wait and see if they were right.

 

[UKRAINEFAN]

Yeh, the whole thing doesn't make sense; the two major draft sites had Smith going 36-38. With Fernandez going out and no reason to keep Barron and either Mills or Armon Johnson going, we have three open roster spots. Drafting Faried is acquiring an asset, why not do it and then buy a late first round or early second round pick for Smith? The only reasonable explanation is that they promised Denver they would do this and I'm not happy that they aren't being truthful about it. I understand when it's OK to tell lies about trade and draft intentions. But this would be lying to the fans just to make themselves look better, I don't think that is right. But the other explanation is that without a guy like KP in there, the rest of them are just little scaredycats, afraid they would somehow lose Smith (wow, wouldn't that have been a big tragedy?).

After thinking it over, I have a third theory; they weren't lying so the fans wouldn't know how much they gave up; they were lying because they did something against the rules. I think Denver demanded that they switch picks without a formal agreement (presumable so they could pay Faried a little less). I'm thinking this is a violation of NBA rules; there is probably a rule that all the subagreements in a trade need to be presented in writing to the league office, so the Trailblazers could be in trouble if this got out. It's also possible that the players union could make a stink on behalf of Faried.
I think this theory also explains why the Blazers took Smith so early. They could not trade down with this pick because they had to be there at that spot to insure that Denver could select Faried.

Is this theory plausible? I don't know. I don't want to think that Blazers were so desperate to make this trade that they let Denver really bend them over, made them bend the rules, and put them in a position where they had no room to maneuver with their pick. But to me, this theory makes more sense than anything else.

 

[Ed O]

If the Blazers thought Smith was clearly the best talent available at #21 and that there was a major risk of him being gone at any lower pick they could have acquired, then I have no philosophical problems with the selection. We'll just have to wait and see if they were right.

Me, neither. I might disagree with their opinion, but I totally acknowledge that I haven't spent 1% of the time that they have in researching players.

I don't hesitate, though, in complaining about the PROCESS of their decision-making.

If he was the best player at 21... OK. I'm not sure that the quote from Buchanan would have been made, though, if that was the case. They didn't trade up to get Smith. They just waited for him. The quote seems to say that the Blazers know they might have been able to get him later, but he was so important to him that the could not risk losing him... and that maybe there were better players at 21, but that they wanted Smith so they took him there.

Both of those decisions (procedurally) are bad ones.

Ed O.

 

[UKRAINEFAN]

:

On the plus side, they say he is a "good character guy."

Don't forget "solid" and "class act"!

 

[Nikolokolus]

Me, neither. I might disagree with their opinion, but I totally acknowledge that I haven't spent 1% of the time that they have in researching players.

I don't hesitate, though, in complaining about the PROCESS of their decision-making.

If he was the best player at 21... OK. I'm not sure that the quote from Buchanan would have been made, though, if that was the case. They didn't trade up to get Smith. They just waited for him. The quote seems to say that the Blazers know they might have been able to get him later, but he was so important to him that the could not risk losing him... and that maybe there were better players at 21, but that they wanted Smith so they took him there.

Both of those decisions (procedurally) are bad ones.

Ed O.

Indeed. It definitely felt like amateur night for this team.

 

[barfo]

Me, neither. I might disagree with their opinion, but I totally acknowledge that I haven't spent 1% of the time that they have in researching players.

I don't hesitate, though, in complaining about the PROCESS of their decision-making.

If he was the best player at 21... OK. I'm not sure that the quote from Buchanan would have been made, though, if that was the case. They didn't trade up to get Smith. They just waited for him. The quote seems to say that the Blazers know they might have been able to get him later, but he was so important to him that the could not risk losing him... and that maybe there were better players at 21, but that they wanted Smith so they took him there.

Both of those decisions (procedurally) are bad ones.

Ed O.

I know it's all we have to go on, but there is a danger in reading too much into the quotes. The quote might mean their process was flawed as you suggest, but it might also be intentionally or unintentionally misleading.

barfo