Who would we even take at 9? Kasparas Jakucionis?
#9 is kind of a tricky spot because Bailey is super unlikely to fall that far no matter how many feet he shoots himself in, and there's a good chance that Jakucionis is snapped up off the board right in front of us.
At that point, if it's Maluach that falls you probably have to take him and see if you can't use him as a defensive C with Sabonis getting more of a PF assignment. That might be tricky, especially if Sabonis has to extend out to the perimeter on D, and it's not clear that it worked well in the past with Turner.
The other possible fallers there are Fears, Johnson, Knueppel. We probably just take any of those, but I will admit to not being very high on Fears and seeing Knueppel as more of a can't-miss role player. Johnson is interesting, but I have questions about his attitude and he's pretty clearly a SG which just adds to the logjam.
If you look at the guys on the board immediately after #9, it's a bunch of PFs that don't thrill me, and Carter Bryant who doesn't thrill me, and maybe Coward, who is a lot of a black box (and also a SG).
So, if it's
not Jakucionis, at that point I'm probably leaning towards trading down a bit and then rolling the dice on Egor Demin - with the caveat that a squad with Demin probably looks a lot better with Demin running the show from the 3 and Devin Carter taking on the defensive blunt guard role at the 1. So if we trade Devin Carter to get there, Demin starts to look a bit less like a good bet to me.
Yeah, #9 is tricky. It's a pick that you can't afford to mess up, but it's a pick that's easy to mess up.
One strategy would be to line up two DDR trades - one with Toronto for the #9 + salary, and the other potentially with Miami for the #20 and Jaquez + salary. If Jakucionis is there at #9, pull the trigger with Toronto. If not, pull the trigger with Miami and take your best shot a bit lower down in a lower-pressure slot, with Jaquez as the defensive consolation prize for "moving down" 11 slots.