Grade GP's past drafts?

[rumpled]

Okay, I got interested in looking at our past drafts. I went through all the Petrie years and looked at all the players drafted after whoever we drafted. The idea is, you can look at what level of talent we got out of each draft, and what we _could_ have had. I'm not real big on second-guessing drafts because the true sure things are rare and there's a lot of luck involved. I happen to think GP does a good job drafting, but I'd never really examined it closely. So anyway, here's what I came up with. I actually expected there to be a LOT more sleeper picks that we missed out on than there are. In particular I was looking for project type big men who slipped past us and then turned out well. There's like this myth that we just hate drafting tall people or taking a chance on a big man with a bad attitude.

And I'm just basing it on a sort of rough "who would I rather have" scale. Like I'd consider drafting Gerald Wallace over Gilbert Arenas basically a wash. Not worth arguing which is better since they're both very good and I'd take either.

I'm looking at this site btw:
http://thedraftreview.com/history/drafted1995/board.htm
and you can just change the year number to browse through them and see who you think we should have taken instead.




-----------------------------------

-1995 - 13th Corliss

Ratliff, Finley I guess...nobody jumps off the page as a huge upgrade. You'd hope to do better but Corliss has been a nice piece to have on quite a few teams. Missed our shot to draft Ostertag here. Big deal.

-1996 - 14th Peja

Nash (who knew), Jermaine O'Neal...this was a project pick at the time but a good example of taking a risk on a big man and having it pay off. Peja I consider to be a bit of a dissappointment but he's still having a good career. Big Z I guess but with all the foot surgeries its not a clear upgrade. Peja's plenty talented anyway, thats not the problem.


-1997 11th Tariq (uh oh)

Lots on the list turned out better than Tariq, this is a pretty bad pick. Did he blow out a knee or something, I forget. Still, there's nobody really special, just guys like Croshere and big Mo Taylor. Pollard at 14. Yawn.

-1998 7th J-Dub

Dirk and Pierce. Ouch. Still...I can't see it as an awful pick really. It was too much fun and I'm sure they had that in mind too. He maybe didn't make the most of it either but there was some special talent there.

-1999 No 1st rounder

-2000 16th Hedo

Magloire I guess. Rather have Hedo right now than anyone else on that list actually. No star but a valuable 6th man type piece to have. Starter level talent really.


-2001 25th Gerald Wallace

Parker and Arenas were drafted after him...both steals. Gerald at 25th was a steal too, he's not quite a franchise guy but sort of close. Curse you, expansion draft and Jim Jackson! Tons of talent and still might put it all together and get even better.



-2002 28th Dickau

Boozer...this one doesn't really count because Dickau was only drafted because someone else wanted him in trade.



-2003 No pick (boooo)

I think this was a salary move, but looking at the list and assuming we draft around 20 or so this year...uh...Josh Howard I guess. Surprisingly little here to miss. Diaw I guess.


-2004 26th Kevin M.

All signs point to steal, we're just waiting to see how much. Great pick even if he stays this good and never gets better. Nobody picked after comes close and he's better than half the guys picked before him.

-2005 23rd Cisco

Too early to call this class really...doesn't look terribly promising but who knows. Nobody behind him is exactly tearing it up either though.

-2006 19th Douby

Way too early to tell.

 

[y2kings]

I was thinking the same thing earlier this week. Thanks for doing the research. You know, a few teams that do a great job of scouting/drafting are the pheonix suns and Spurs. We some sucess is the foreign market but we arne't really going there anymore. Hopefully this year the East starts playing better and the kings continue to lose...greg oden1!!!!

 

[Bricklayer]

Amusing -- I just got done looking up that draft stuff this past night, only I was more focusing on bigs, and the fact he never drafts them.

I could, and might if I get time later, got through it draft by draft the way you did, but I will just note that I think the cavalier way that Geoff has at times traded away our #1s may have sinificantly hurt us.

1) In 1999, we would have drafted #16. But somehow/way we had traded away our #1. You know who was drafted at #16 that year? Ron Artest. Andrei Kirilenko was drafted at #24. And then even when we did use our second round pick, we wasted it on Ryan Robertson at #45. You know who was drafted at #57 A young Manu Ginobili. So for those keeping score, that means that we could have come out of the draft wiht either ron or Ak47 and Manu, giving us a not bad young lineup of Vlade/Webb/Peja/JWill/Manu/AK47 etc. etc. etc. Instead we got Ryan Robertson.

2) In 2002, we basically had to sacrifice the draft to satisfy a committement to teh Atlanta Hawaks as I recall. And hey, we picked last in the first round (#28 due to the TWolves serving their penalty for the Joe Smith case), so no big deal right? Well depends if Carlos Boozer, currently averaging 22 and 12, being available at #34 that year doesn't raise big !!!!s. Also availabel were lesser lights, but people we;ve talked about. Darius was out there. So was Gadzuric, Flip Murray, and good ole Matty "32" Barnes. Worst part is I think this may have been a pick we lost for the honor of having Mateen Cleaves on the roster.

3) In 2003 we did not have a pick in either round. w were still very good, so we would have picked very late. Of course given that the last two picks of the first round that year were Leandro Barbossa and Josh Howard, would have been nice to have that late pick. Other guys who could have helped sustain us were also still on board as well, including Kyle Korver and Zaza Pachulia.

 

[HighFlyingMonkey]

I think it's kind of unfair to bash GP for not drafting guys like Manu/J.Howard/Boozer, because nobody expected them to be as good as they are. Pretty much every team passed on them in the first round too.

Though it is disturbing that Petrie's never drafted a big before. Corliss and Peja don't count. Who wants to bet that if GP get's the #2 pick this year he drafts Kevin Durant?

 

[Venom]

Petrie selected Brian Grant. He was quite new to the job, but he made that selection. So, he has selected big men before, and a guy that wasn't even that good at offense. Of course, we had Mitch back then to just fill it up.

That said, we can absolutely second guess Petrie for missing on some of these late round steals. As much credit as he gets for scouting Europe to find Peja and Hedo, he also completely missed the boat on guys like Nowitzki, Manu, and Parker, all of whom were in good leagues and playing for their national teams. Of course, none of those guys were known for shooting, with the slight exception of Dirk. Petrie is VERY good at evaluating shooters, guys who will be able to bury shots in the NBA game.

 

[bozzwell]

Petrie selected Brian Grant. He was quite new to the job, but he made that selection. So, he has selected big men before, and a guy that wasn't even that good at offense. Of course, we had Mitch back then to just fill it up.

That said, we can absolutely second guess Petrie for missing on some of these late round steals. As much credit as he gets for scouting Europe to find Peja and Hedo, he also completely missed the boat on guys like Nowitzki, Manu, and Parker, all of whom were in good leagues and playing for their national teams. Of course, none of those guys were known for shooting, with the slight exception of Dirk. Petrie is VERY good at evaluating shooters, guys who will be able to bury shots in the NBA game.

Correction, Dirk and Parker played in the backwater of Euro basketball (Germany and France respectively), Manu was playing second division ball (in Italy). Only Gregg Popovich with his Euro ties had Manu and Parker on his radar (as well as Krstic who NJN stole in front of him).

It's no coincidence that only after Parker had success, NBA discovered French talent. Noone was looking there before. As for Germany, the book starts and ends with Dirk (Schrempf played NCAA ball, so I don't count him as a German-German player).

 

[nbrans]

I agree with HighFlyingMonkey -- bigs drafted late in the draft very rarely pan out, and when they do they rarely pan out for the team that drafted them.

And Bricklayer, teams trade their firsts all the time. Every team misses out on a draft here and there. One of the firsts was traded because the Maloofs wanted to dump Barry's salary. All the same, I don't think the Kings have missed out on more drafts than the average team.

Overall it's a pretty positive record made all the more better by Martin. It's not perfect, but no team has a perfect record, and you can play the second-guessing "shoulda drafted X" game with every single team.

 

[Venom]

Correction, Dirk and Parker played in the backwater of Euro basketball (Germany and France respectively), Manu was playing second division ball (in Italy). Only Gregg Popovich with his Euro ties had Manu and Parker on his radar (as well as Krstic who NJN stole in front of him).

It's no coincidence that only after Parker had success, NBA discovered French talent. Noone was looking there before. As for Germany, the book starts and ends with Dirk (Schrempf played NCAA ball, so I don't count him as a German-German player).

But, they were all featured on their National Teams, at least for their age group, correct? And Dirk blew up after his performance in that All-Star game, which every GM had access to. Correct me if I am wrong, but didn't Parker play on the same team as Pietrus and Diaw? I know and agree that Parker opened the door to French talent, but it seems that he should have been on everybody's radar considering his basketball pedigree and the talent on his team. Wasn't that Paris team consistantly in the Euro championships?

What are Pop's Euro ties? He played for USAFE while in the AF, I think, but beyond that I am not aware that he has any better scouting foundation than other front offices.

I would agree that the true find of the three was Manu, considering Latin America was not considered a hotbed of talent at the time of his selection.

 

[AriesMar27]

everyone passed on boozer and arenas... though i wanted gilbert... that wouldnt have worked out at the time with bibby and bobby tearing the league apart.... we were set at pg.... that was the one position that we were perfect at....

 

[fnordius]

-2005 23rd Cisco

Too early to call this class really...doesn't look terribly promising but who knows. Nobody behind him is exactly tearing it up either though.

As for bigs, David Lee has been looking excellent lately, and Ryan Gomes also seems to be going places. Ronny Turiaf may or may not make it to starter level, but looks to be fine as a PF off the bench.

Of the smaller guys, Luther Head and Salim Stoudamire aren't bad, but Monta Ellis is the one GP might want to kick himself for missing.

Lee, Gomes or Ellis are all guys I'd have on our roster over Cisco, hands down. They would not only fill our current needs a lot better, but they are already playing well enough to deserve lots of minutes, or even a starting slot, on a good team. While it's possible that Cisco may rise above the level of low-minutes roleplayer, I have a hard time holding my breath over that prospect.

 

[mdme]

hindsight is 20/20. GP is still above the norm. He built the 2001 kings and came 1 F@#$%ng Horry 3 pointer from the NBA finals against Shaq+Kobe. remember too that during that time the replay rule wasn't invented yet: Game 7 Samaki walker halfcourt 3 pointer that shouldn't have counted. Game 7 went into OT, without it, we would have won.

 

[Mr. S£im Citrus]

I think it's kind of unfair to bash GP for not drafting guys like Manu/J.Howard/Boozer, because nobody expected them to be as good as they are. Pretty much every team passed on them in the first round too.

No one knew if Howard was going to pan out? He averaged 20 and 8 his senior year, playing for a major program in the best basketball conference in the country; I can understand not being sold on Bam-Boozer (well, no, not really) because of his height, because he played center at Duke, but Howard was drafted to play SF... Who didn't know?

 

[HighFlyingMonkey]

No one knew if Howard was going to pan out? He averaged 20 and 8 his senior year, playing for a major program in the best basketball conference in the country; I can understand not being sold on Bam-Boozer (well, no, not really) because of his height, because he played center at Duke, but Howard was drafted to play SF... Who didn't know?

I don't know, maybe the 27 other teams that passed on him? It was a late round surprise. Hindsight is 20/20

 

[Mr. S£im Citrus]

I don't know, maybe the 27 other teams that passed on him? It was a late round surprise. Hindsight is 20/20

You know what? Call me a tough critic, but that's not good enough for me. In my opinion, you don't get to pretend like you didn't **** up by pointing out how many other people ****ed up, too.


Six of the players drafted ahead of Howard are averaging fewer than six points a game, and three aren't in the league anymore... But it doesn't matter to me how many other GMs missed the boat on Howard; what matters to me is that Petrie missed the boat.

 

[nbrans]

You know what? Call me a tough critic, but that's not good enough for me. In my opinion, you don't get to pretend like you didn't **** up by pointing out how many other people ****ed up, too.


Six of the players drafted ahead of Howard are averaging fewer than six points a game, and three aren't in the league anymore... But it doesn't matter to me how many other GMs missed the boat on Howard; what matters to me is that Petrie missed the boat.

uh.... Slim? Kings didn't have a pick that year.

 

[Mr. S£im Citrus]

Traded to Memphis, I believe?

So, essentially we traded our first rounder in that draft for Brent Price...

 

[nbrans]

Traded to Memphis, I believe?

So, essentially we traded our first rounder in that draft for Brent Price...

No, worse, Nick Anderson. (That was a pick that Orlando owed Memphis) -- definitely Petrie's worst move (although thankfully Nick Anderson became part of the Bibby trade).

 

[HighFlyingMonkey]

You know what? Call me a tough critic, but that's not good enough for me. In my opinion, you don't get to pretend like you didn't **** up by pointing out how many other people ****ed up, too.

Fine, if you want to hold Petrie to God-like standards, then that's your perrogative to do so. If you want to believe that there's no such thing as a good GM in the league, fine.

 

[tjobrien]

You know what? Call me a tough critic, but that's not good enough for me. In my opinion, you don't get to pretend like you didn't **** up by pointing out how many other people ****ed up, too.


Six of the players drafted ahead of Howard are averaging fewer than six points a game, and three aren't in the league anymore... But it doesn't matter to me how many other GMs missed the boat on Howard; what matters to me is that Petrie missed the boat.

Calm down there, big fella.

You've changed your argument. At first you said that Howard averaged 20 and 8 in the ACC and, quote, "Who didn't know?" HFMonkey responded, "The other 27 teams that passed on him?" He didn't excuse Petrie's mistake (ignoring the fact that the Kings did not own a pick that year any longer), he just responded to your question: Who didn't know?

Apparently, everyone. Except the Mavericks.

 

[Mr. S£im Citrus]

I give eleven of those teams the benefit of the doubt; they also got quality players, and a handful of them got better players. I'm certainly not going to begrudge Denver for passing up Josh Howard to take Carmelo Anthony. Frankly, I'm not sure I even begrudge Chicago for passing up Howard to take Hinrich.

If Petrie hadn't traded our pick, maybe we would have gotten him... or maybe he would have wasted the pick on Maciej Lampe...

Fine, if you want to hold Petrie to God-like standards, then that's your perrogative to do so. If you want to believe that there's no such thing as a good GM in the league, fine.

On the contrary: I absolutely recognize that there are good GMs in the league, and I even concede that Petrie is one of the better ones. I simply contend that he is not the best, nor is he nearly as good as the majority of Kings Fans seem to think that he is; he is grossly overrated by the "hometown" fans, in my opinion.

And, like I've said before, pointing out the mistakes the other guys make does not absolve our guy for the mistakes that HE makes.

 

[Burrito06]

Okay, I got interested in looking at our past drafts. I went through all the Petrie years and looked at all the players drafted after whoever we drafted. The idea is, you can look at what level of talent we got out of each draft, and what we _could_ have had. I'm not real big on second-guessing drafts because the true sure things are rare and there's a lot of luck involved. I happen to think GP does a good job drafting, but I'd never really examined it closely. So anyway, here's what I came up with. I actually expected there to be a LOT more sleeper picks that we missed out on than there are. In particular I was looking for project type big men who slipped past us and then turned out well. There's like this myth that we just hate drafting tall people or taking a chance on a big man with a bad attitude.

And I'm just basing it on a sort of rough "who would I rather have" scale. Like I'd consider drafting Gerald Wallace over Gilbert Arenas basically a wash. Not worth arguing which is better since they're both very good and I'd take either.

I'm looking at this site btw:
http://thedraftreview.com/history/drafted1995/board.htm
and you can just change the year number to browse through them and see who you think we should have taken instead.




-----------------------------------

-1995 - 13th Corliss

Ratliff, Finley I guess...nobody jumps off the page as a huge upgrade. You'd hope to do better but Corliss has been a nice piece to have on quite a few teams. Missed our shot to draft Ostertag here. Big deal.

-1996 - 14th Peja

Nash (who knew), Jermaine O'Neal...this was a project pick at the time but a good example of taking a risk on a big man and having it pay off. Peja I consider to be a bit of a dissappointment but he's still having a good career. Big Z I guess but with all the foot surgeries its not a clear upgrade. Peja's plenty talented anyway, thats not the problem.


-1997 11th Tariq (uh oh)

Lots on the list turned out better than Tariq, this is a pretty bad pick. Did he blow out a knee or something, I forget. Still, there's nobody really special, just guys like Croshere and big Mo Taylor. Pollard at 14. Yawn.

-1998 7th J-Dub

Dirk and Pierce. Ouch. Still...I can't see it as an awful pick really. It was too much fun and I'm sure they had that in mind too. He maybe didn't make the most of it either but there was some special talent there.

-1999 No 1st rounder

-2000 16th Hedo

Magloire I guess. Rather have Hedo right now than anyone else on that list actually. No star but a valuable 6th man type piece to have. Starter level talent really.


-2001 25th Gerald Wallace

Parker and Arenas were drafted after him...both steals. Gerald at 25th was a steal too, he's not quite a franchise guy but sort of close. Curse you, expansion draft and Jim Jackson! Tons of talent and still might put it all together and get even better.



-2002 28th Dickau

Boozer...this one doesn't really count because Dickau was only drafted because someone else wanted him in trade.



-2003 No pick (boooo)

I think this was a salary move, but looking at the list and assuming we draft around 20 or so this year...uh...Josh Howard I guess. Surprisingly little here to miss. Diaw I guess.


-2004 26th Kevin M.

All signs point to steal, we're just waiting to see how much. Great pick even if he stays this good and never gets better. Nobody picked after comes close and he's better than half the guys picked before him.

-2005 23rd Cisco

Too early to call this class really...doesn't look terribly promising but who knows. Nobody behind him is exactly tearing it up either though.

-2006 19th Douby

Way too early to tell.

I remember watching a special on Arenas last year on NBA TV. He was talking about draft night back in 2001. He said he was told by the Kings that if he were to drop down to 25th that they were prepared to draft him. He said when the Kings were on the clock he was ready to celebrate but then Gerald Wallace's name was said. I guess GP changed his mind at the last moment. We probably would have lost him anyways because of the expansion draft but some pretty interesting stuff.

 

[pdxKingsFan]

On the contrary: I absolutely recognize that there are good GMs in the league, and I even concede that Petrie is one of the better ones. I simply contend that he is not the best, nor is he nearly as good as the majority of Kings Fans seem to think that he is; he is grossly overrated by the "hometown" fans, in my opinion.

I'm not sure I agree with your criticisms upthread, but I think you're spot on here. Anyone who can architect the 2001-2003 period Kings (in a small market no less) certainly isn't an idiot, but there's no denying there was a colossal amount of luck involved either.

I think he's hit that certain stage in his tenure with the Kings where he will either secure his legacy or see it all come crumbling down. The next year will be crucial.

As for the topic at hand, I think Petrie has mostly done pretty well. You also have to factor in that you draft for need as well as "best overall". And when you're drafting late in the first round you are guaranteeing someone a contract for three years so you have to be really careful who you choose. On the other hand I do believe our inability to draft big men is of major concern.

 

[slugking50]

Amusing -- I just got done looking up that draft stuff this past night, only I was more focusing on bigs, and the fact he never drafts them.

I believe it was last year when I heard GP speak on this issue. He mentioned that smaller 2,3,4's are usually the only ones available when the kings typical draft picks come around. He has said that when there is a big man available, Theres usually a good reason why.

 

[rumpled]

Yep thats what I figured, that he goes after guys who can make it in the NBA rather than drafting for position. Every single year people read the draft hype and decide we should have some guy because they like his height and weight. If they were right, I figured some of those guys would be visible on the list.

Just for comparison, here's the Laker's 1st round picks for the same period of time:

- 1995 (means none that year)
24 1996 Derek Fisher PG Arkansas Little Rock
- 1997
26 1998 Sam Jacobson SG Minnesota
23 1999 Devean George SG/SF Augsburg
29 2000 Mark Madsen PF Stanford
- 2001
27 2002 Chris Jefferies SF Fresno State
24 2003 Brian Cook PF Illinois
27 2004 Alexander Vujacic PG (Italy)
10 2005 Andrew Bynum C (High School)
26 2006 Jordan Farmar PG UCLA


Jerry West left in 2002 though. Good example of the sort of bench-level PF talent thats usually available in the 20s. Also a good example of the fact that even a project high-school center goes at #10. And Bynum looks to be a good swing-for-the-fences project bigman pick...but you got to get down to #10 to get the good risks.

 

[fnordius]

Or here's another way of looking at it, here are some of the best guys picked by other teams at #17 or later in each of those years, with emphasis on bigs.

1996: #17: J. O'Neal, #20: Z. Ilgauskas, #24: D. Fisher, #30: O. Harrington, #44: M. Rose, undrafted: C. Atkins, B. Wallace

1997: #19: S. Pollard, #23: B. Jackson, #38: M. Jackson, #43: S. Jackson, undrafted: D. Jones

1998: #17: R. Nesterovic, #21: R. Davis, #23: T. Lue, #25: A. Harrington, #29: N. Mohammed, #32: R. Lewis, #39: R. Alston, #41: C. Mobley, undrafted: E. Boykins, M. James, B. Miller

1999: #18: J. Posey, #21: J. Foster, #24: A. Kirilenko, #41: F. Elson, #57: M. Ginobili, undrafted: R. Bell

2000: #17: D. Mason, #18: Q. Richardson, #19: J. Magloire, #20: S. Claxton, #21: M. Peterson, #27: P. Brezec, #30: M. Jaric, #33: J. Voskuhl, #37: E. House, #43: M. Redd

2001: #18: Jason Collins, #19: Z. Randolph, #20: B. Haywood, #26: S. Dalembert, #28: T. Parker, #31: G. Arenas, #38: M. Okur, #42: B. Simmons, #53: Jarron Collins, undrafted: M. Evans, C. Arroyo

2002: #23: T. Prince, #24: N. Krstric, #26: J. Salmons, #34: D. Gadzuric, #35: C. Boozer, #50: D. Songaila

2003: #18: David West, #21: B. Diaw, #27: K. Perkins, #28: L. Barbosa, #29: J. Howard, #42: Z. Pachulia, #45: M. Bonner, #47: M. Williams, #51: K. Korver, undrafted: U. Haslem, M. Daniels

2004: #17: Josh Smith, #18: J.R.Smith, #20: J. Nelson, #24: Delonte West,#30: A. Varejao, #38: C. Duhon, #43: T. Ariza, undrafted: A. Nocioni

2005: #17: D. Granger, #22: J. Jack, #24: L. Head, #25: J. Petro, #30: D. Lee, #21: S. Stoudamire, #37: R. Turiaf, #40: M. Ellis, #50: R. Gomes

So there's only been a year or two out of the last 10 where there weren't any bigs of starting caliber available by the mid-late 20s, and usually there are some left going into the second round.

Yeah, it is hard to know who they are going to be, and no manager guesses perfectly -- or even sets eyes on 3/4 of the available candidates. Just the same, it should be clear that there are good players available late, even in the very worst of years. And they aren't all tweener guards and 6'7" swingmen.

 

[rumpled]

Or here's another way of looking at it, here are some of the best guys picked by other teams at #17 or later in each of those years, with emphasis on bigs.

Why 17 or later? I was thinking it was more fair to judge* based on who he actually took and who he left on the table.

* If I was going to judge in the first place and assume that I myself, or drafthype.com, know more about what it takes to make an NBA player than Petrie. Who was an 8 pick himself and had a probable hall of fame career derailed by injury.

 

[Bricklayer]

* If I was going to judge in the first place and assume that I myself, or drafthype.com, know more about what it takes to make an NBA player than Petrie. Who was an 8 pick himself and had a probable hall of fame career derailed by injury.

Charles Barkley actually DID have a Hall of Fame career. So did Kevin McHale. Wes Unseld. Bill Russel. I might suggest genuflection based on such irrelevancies is a tad misplaced. There are thousands of people out there wiht a better feel for the game than those guys (off the court of course).

 

[fnordius]

Why 17 or later?

Why compare our picks to the Lakers', when those have been later picks in all but a couple of years? 17 happened to be about average for where the Kings have picked over the last 10 or 12 years, and around where they seem to be headed this year. 17+ means you're a playoff team, one of the top dozen in the league. It was arbitrary, meant primarily to dispel the idea that there are no good guys (and particularly no good bigs) left after the first 8 or 10 picks.

The list of guys picked after the Kings got their turn wouldn't be very different, we'd just be back to agonizing over how GP picked JWill over Nowitzki and Pierce, Peja over Steve Nash, traded away our pick instead of taking Artest at 16, and much other territory that's been covered before.

 

[HighFlyingMonkey]

On the contrary: I absolutely recognize that there are good GMs in the league, and I even concede that Petrie is one of the better ones. I simply contend that he is not the best, nor is he nearly as good as the majority of Kings Fans seem to think that he is; he is grossly overrated by the "hometown" fans, in my opinion.

And, like I've said before, pointing out the mistakes the other guys make does not absolve our guy for the mistakes that HE makes.

Ok, that makes sense. Not picking Howard means he made a mistake, but it doesn't mean he's a horrible GM.

 

[pdxKingsFan]

17 happened to be about average for where the Kings have picked over the last 10 or 12 years, and around where they seem to be headed this year. 17+ means you're a playoff team, one of the top dozen in the league. It was arbitrary, meant primarily to dispel the idea that there are no good guys (and particularly no good bigs) left after the first 8 or 10 picks.

If you want to prove there are decent picks left in the lower half of the first round that's a great way to do it, but its horrible to use when measuring a GM since it will include a bunch of players we had no shot at.

I don't really think J-Will over Pierce (Nowitzski was a huge gamble) was terrible because we absolutely needed a point guard and had a promising SF coming in. If we had picked Nash earlier I'm sure we would have grabbed Pierce but I bet we'd have given up on Nash before he arrived. Just about everyone else should have picked Pierce that didn't though. I loved watching J-Will though and we pretty much turned him and into the #2 pick of the same draft a few years later. Not bad.