2021 NBA Draft Superthread

Who do you think the Kings end up drafting in tonight?

  • Wagner

    Votes: 24 39.3%
  • Sengun

    Votes: 7 11.5%
  • Moody

    Votes: 12 19.7%
  • Johnson

    Votes: 2 3.3%
  • Kuminga

    Votes: 3 4.9%
  • They’ll end up trading the pick.

    Votes: 8 13.1%
  • Other

    Votes: 5 8.2%

  • Total voters
    61
  • Poll closed .
Durant and Paul George often play 3. The Kings were undersized coming into the draft and are more undersized now. The issue was the team failed to accurately gauge the position and tank after the draft. Compare us to Orlando who did and now have Suggs at the point and Wagner at the 3/4.

the Magic will role into the year now with Suggs at point, Gary Harris at 2, Wagner at 3, Isaac at 4. And yes you go BPA when Suggs is the pick and Hampton is your best player. Not when Mitchell is the pick and Fox is your best player.
Orlando also cleared house. If your opinion is we should have done the same, I have no problem with it, but it's important to explicitly acknowledge that our equivalent of what Orlando did would've been trading Fox. Sure, Fox isn't as old as Vucevic, but tanking means dealing Fox so you lose as much as possible similar to the Magic with Vucevic.
 
#22 ended up being Isaiah Jackson. He wouldn't have been my pick there and I'm not sure he's better than Quetas. And there weren't many wing options available. Christopher, Grimes, Hyland, Tomas and Springer were the next five picks and all are guards. Day'Ron Sharpe went at #29.

Point being, that deal could have amounted to Kuzma, Harrell and a project center or yet another PG or SG, none of whom I'm super high on, especially after the Kings drafted Mitchell.

Harrell is a slight downgrade from Holmes but a decent replacement. Kuzma is a decent stretch four bug doesn't offer a ton else (he's not a great rebounder, playmaker, and is iffy on defense). So I'm not heartbroken that the Kings didn't get those guys.

It wasn't a great deal for the Kings. If it was people's opinion on it wouldn't have been swayed so much by whether the #22 pick was included or not.

But more importantly, Hield is MUCH more valuable for an LA team centered around LeBron and AD than he is in Sacramento. The idea of giving the Lakers a key piece for another title wouldn't sit well with me. I'm happier that they got Westbrook who hurts their spacing more, will struggle off ball with James handling a lot of the playmaking, and hamstrings their efforts to add a supporting cast.
23 was Garuba. I think he would have been a good add.
 
Orlando also cleared house. If your opinion is we should have done the same, I have no problem with it, but it's important to explicitly acknowledge that our equivalent of what Orlando did would've been trading Fox. Sure, Fox isn't as old as Vucevic, but tanking means dealing Fox so you lose as much as possible similar to the Magic with Vucevic.
no we could have traded Barnes. That to me was the equivalent
 
How is trading Barnes even remotely similar to trading Vucevic, Gordon, and Fournier? I.e. the Kings trading their 3rd(ish) best player vs. the Magic trading their three best players including their multi time all star?
Those three were out of the window of their best young players. Same as Barnes. And you only needed to get to 7 or even 8 which would have been one less win. I’m pretty sure trading Barnes and playing Woodard would have been good for a couple more losses.

in an even better model you would have traded Barnes and Buddy.
 
The three guys from this draft class that I'll probably watch most closely are Moody, Ziaire Williams, and Sengun. I'd include Jalen Johnson but his slide probably indicates some legitimate concern against taking him in the top 10.

He's a King now so I'll root for Davion Mitchell but if any or all of those three become better NBA players I'll definitely be upset. All three filled an area of need more than Mitchell. Sengun as a playmaking post scorer and rebounder and Moody and Williams as two way wings. Ziaire even has an existing connection to Haliburton.

I'm trying not to be bothered by the Kings drafting another PG (and one who I didn't think was a top 20 prospect in this draft) but I think I'm more frustrated by the unbalanced roster. McNair can say all he wants about using trades to address that, but over a year into the job he has yet to make a significant trade.

We'll see.
 

Tetsujin

The Game Thread Dude
The three guys from this draft class that I'll probably watch most closely are Moody, Ziaire Williams, and Sengun. I'd include Jalen Johnson but his slide probably indicates some legitimate concern against taking him in the top 10.

He's a King now so I'll root for Davion Mitchell but if any or all of those three become better NBA players I'll definitely be upset. All three filled an area of need more than Mitchell. Sengun as a playmaking post scorer and rebounder and Moody and Williams as two way wings. Ziaire even has an existing connection to Haliburton.

I'm trying not to be bothered by the Kings drafting another PG (and one who I didn't think was a top 20 prospect in this draft) but I think I'm more frustrated by the unbalanced roster. McNair can say all he wants about using trades to address that, but over a year into the job he has yet to make a significant trade.

We'll see.
People forget that Monte was the right hand man for the Rockets pivot towards a Tucker/Covington/Gordon/Westbrook/Harden lineup in the twilight of the Morey era. Maybe our roster isn't as unbalanced in his eyes as it is in ours?
 
Anyone else bummed that we could have drafted Moses Moody and Jared Butler?

And hypothetically (just for the fun of it) if we pulled off the Hield for #22 trade, Barnes for #16, Nesmith, & T. Thompson trade, and didn't trade for Davis & Wright, we could have gone with....

#9 - Moses Moody
#16 - Trey Murphy
#22 - Usman Garuba
#39 - Jared Butler
#46 - BJ Boston
#52 - Aaron Henry

PG - Fox / Butler / Ramsey
SG - Haliburton / Moody / Caldwell-Pope / Boston
SF - Nesmith / Murphy / James / Henry
PF - Bagley / Garuba / Woodard
C - T. Thompson / Harrell / Metu / Jones

You could probably make the argument that #9 could have been a better pick since we would have swapped Barnes, Wright, & Davis for Joseph, Nesmith, & T. Thompson
 
People forget that Monte was the right hand man for the Rockets pivot towards a Tucker/Covington/Gordon/Westbrook/Harden lineup in the twilight of the Morey era. Maybe our roster isn't as unbalanced in his eyes as it is in ours?
I think Monte just likes 3s and D and he isn't all that bothered about which position guys play so long as they have positive traits related to either or both of those areas. I think there's a 99% chance Buddy and Bagley are getting traded before the start of next season. He's already offered them both multiple times at the trade deadline and before the draft. Subtracting them our depth chart right now looks like this:

G Fox / Mitchell / Ramsey
G Haliburton / Wright (expiring)
F Barnes / J. James
F Metu / Woodard
C Queta / D. Jones

FREE AGENTS:

Richaun Holmes (C)
Hassan Whiteside (C)
Moe Harkless (F)
Terence Davis (SG) (Restricted)


All the names in italics are making less than 2 million and would be easy to cut if we needed more roster spots. All the names in bold are on multi-year deals. Wright can play either guard position but he's only got 1 year left on his contract so I don't think we need to plan as if he's going to be here in 2 years. Obviously there's more work to be done especially in the front court but nothing about the current composition of this roster is small. It's just incomplete until we know what return Monte can get for Buddy and Bagley and whether we're going to re-sign any of our free agents or not.
 
If Queta going to us in the second round is any indication, it’s that big men are no longer as “hard to find” or valuable as they we’re considered during the Hinkie process. (Also loading up on bigs is what’s gotten the Sixers into their current predicament)
Guy was the 3rd or 4th best C in the draft which means he'd have gone top 20 through the 00s.

I think folks are more concerned that the team has bigger holes to fill and overly focused on that rather than if we got the best player. But really, all the players we discussed as likely to the Kings had so many question marks that a number of them fell almost 10 spots back. Wagner who was the one I talked myself into got picked ahead of us and I think that may had to do with Giddey throwing off all the mocks.

This team has so many holes and at least Buddy and Bagley to turnover that I'm hopeful we can find guys that fit an overall vision. Because this defense first thing is pretty god danged clear right now. A lot of things that make this pick hard to swallow in "the now" are also the things that folks have been griping about forever like drafting for fit or throwing darts at the draft board (or even the more recent trend of "really excited to play in Sacramento!" that was lampooned in the Onion as recently as yesterday). There's also the possibility that Fox is on the table, which I hate but if we're truly starting from the ground up - and it looks like despite the "win now" chatter there is a bit of a stealth ground up rebuild happening, could ultimately be a huge win if we trade him before we "have" to trade him like where we ultimately were with Boogie.
 
Guy was the 3rd or 4th best C in the draft which means he'd have gone top 20 through the 00s.

I think folks are more concerned that the team has bigger holes to fill and overly focused on that rather than if we got the best player. But really, all the players we discussed as likely to the Kings had so many question marks that a number of them fell almost 10 spots back. Wagner who was the one I talked myself into got picked ahead of us and I think that may had to do with Giddey throwing off all the mocks.

This team has so many holes and at least Buddy and Bagley to turnover that I'm hopeful we can find guys that fit an overall vision. Because this defense first thing is pretty god danged clear right now. A lot of things that make this pick hard to swallow in "the now" are also the things that folks have been griping about forever like drafting for fit or throwing darts at the draft board (or even the more recent trend of "really excited to play in Sacramento!" that was lampooned in the Onion as recently as yesterday). There's also the possibility that Fox is on the table, which I hate but if we're truly starting from the ground up - and it looks like despite the "win now" chatter there is a bit of a stealth ground up rebuild happening, could ultimately be a huge win if we trade him before we "have" to trade him like where we ultimately were with Boogie.
Yep. :) Well said!
 
Also if we want Moody (which it seems we don't) we should explore trades with the Warriors that could balance the roster out but folks will scream bloody murder that we traded with an in-state rival even if it 3-4 years down the road we wind up the better team for it.
 
He’s had 2 substantial trades blow up? On the contrary, he’s had 2 potential deals in place, IF everything we read was to be believed. Was 22 involved or not because there are 2 conflicting stories.

And explain to me this, how do you get another GM to say yes to a deal? If everything was in place and the Lakers didn’t pull the trigger and instead went in a different direction, how is Monte supposed to make a GM say yes? Drug them and hypnotize them to say yes. Like I don’t get this.
Please make this make sense! Thank you for this post. I really don’t understand the post you quoted
 

Tetsujin

The Game Thread Dude
Also if we want Moody (which it seems we don't) we should explore trades with the Warriors that could balance the roster out but folks will scream bloody murder that we traded with an in-state rival even if it 3-4 years down the road we wind up the better team for it.
Musn't help the Warriors in their bid to be the 4th seed in the western conference!
 
Musn't help the Warriors in their bid to be the 4th seed in the western conference!
I'm not running numbers or doing any kind of analysis but Buddy, Bagley and Barnes for their last two years of picks and Wiggins stupid deal.

We'd get insanely younger and have two years to figure out if we can win with Fox or trade him while he still has value while basically taking on a bunch of unknowns, that at least theoretically give us some size. We'd probably also suck for another year or two but hopefully in a fun to watch way that at least gives hope the way 2018-2019 did. Warriors get Barnes who we know works, another elite shooter and a flyer on Bagley who they could at least re-sign and move later a lot easier than the other disappointments they've been in similar positions with. And maybe it's enough to re-open their 3 year window, especially if Klay is limited to under 25 mins a night.

Not sure what else would be needed either way to get it done but now that we know who the players are its a little easier to sort it all out.