Pre-Draft Workouts

I saw that 7-footer Branden Carlson who runs well, blocks shots and shoots 3's reportedly worked out for the Kings, this is a very interesting player for us IMO. Would really like to see him signed as an UDFA. I'm a fan of his, liked what I saw from him in college this season, very productive, to me he was one of the better players on the west coast, actually has some face-up moves too. I mentioned in the draftee threads if Queta is due to promote to the bigteam Carlson would be an interesting low cost replacement for the G-League. He turns 24 in June was playing with his brother at Utah, so he's extremely old for this draft and unlikely to be selected, still a player worth taking a flyer on though, hes got an interesting blend of height length skill and mobility, seems to still have plenty of room to grow as he continues to strengthen up. I feel like a year in the G-League will do him well.
They're also saying Jaylen Forbes from Tulane, a skinny 6'5 guard, 4th year junior who shot 39% from 3 and almost 19ppg 2stls worked out.
 
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Vinny Basketballerino said:
Remember how the Spurs kept drafting and developing stars and main rotation players from the late first round to keep their dynasty going for like 20 years on and off?

Don't see why the Kings can't do that.
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Monte has yet to have a first round pick this late into the round and eventually he ought to hit on one of those 2nd round picks, right?
 
Albatros said:
Victor Wembanyama won't work out for us. Yet again the top prospects are snubbing us.
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That one I kind of understand. These guys have super busy schedules before the draft and the endless travelling takes a toll. If you know you're not going to be drafted by a team - you don't owe them a workout.

We're not trading for the number one pick, and San Antonio is not giving it up.
 
Vinny Basketballerino said:
Remember how the Spurs kept drafting and developing stars and main rotation players from the late first round to keep their dynasty going for like 20 years on and off?

Don't see why the Kings can't do that.
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I remember them having Tim Duncan. A #1 pick. Then years later Kawhi Leonard, a top 15 pick.

Nobody else mattered w/o Duncan or later Kawhi with an aging Duncan. None of those late round picks would be remembered for anything w/o Duncan or Kawhi.

I also remember the KINGS being good at finding Gerald Wallace, Hedo, Francisco Garcia and KMart with later 1st round picks when they were a contending team. It’s a lot easier to find capable parts when you already have a bonafide engine in place. But none of the complimentary parts matter w/o the engine.
 
Jalen Wilson is a bigtime winner. Ferocious competitor, bigtime energy guy, plays with a lot of fire all that stuff. he somehow managed to single handedly erase deficits for Kansas consistently. Is there a chance he falls deep into the 2nd or are the Kings looking at him with the early 2rp? How has he tweaked his game this offseason to prepare for NBA competition? I'm sure all the teams will wanna see that as it'd seem he'd have to transition more to a SF-oriented playstyle as he's undersized for the NBA 4. Obviously he is of excellent character as well, for a locker room.

Trayce Jackson-Davis, is he able to play PF for us? or is he strictly a backup C? Can he help us on the boards from day 1? Seems likely. Could he possibly fall to us at 37 or are we talking the first rder? Completely inconsequential but it's a bit difficult for me to imagine the Kings going into next season with TJD AND Richaun Holmes on the roster. Longtime NBA fans will surely remember Dale Davis who played for the Pacers in the 90's, Trayce is his son.


Seneca Knight is the spicy name there, 6'6 225lb 5th year senior who shot 40% from 3 this season at Illinois State. Seems like he's got a jack of all trades type of game, long arms and like things really came together for him this season.]

Julian Phillips... is he going to stay? He's the odd man out of the list we know of so far because he's a teenager --- Are we doing homework for next year? He's absolutely an upper tier athlete in this draft, whats the range? We're about to know a lot more about which college underclassman pull out of this draft in the coming days. All season long he's been projected in the 50's so, if thats to be believed, its sort of a situation like how the Heat developed UDFA Derrick Jones Jr? If its to be believed he's a 1st rd talent then is he more like a young Mo Harkless? He's someone whos already made decent $$$ from NIL and there's probably a whole lot more on the table so idk if its worth it for him to stay unless hes going decently high.
 
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Ozymandias said:
Jalen Wilson is a bigtime winner. Ferocious competitor, bigtime energy guy, plays with a lot of fire all that stuff. he somehow managed to single handedly erase deficits for Kansas consistently. Is there a chance he falls deep into the 2nd or are the Kings looking at him with the early 2rp? How has he tweaked his game this offseason to prepare for NBA competition? I'm sure all the teams will wanna see that as it'd seem he'd have to transition more to a SF-oriented playstyle as he's undersized for the NBA 4. Obviously he is of excellent character as well, for a locker room.

Trayce Jackson-Davis, is he able to play PF for us? or is he strictly a backup C? Can he help us on the boards from day 1? Seems likely. Could he possibly fall to us at 37 or are we talking the first rder? Completely inconsequential but it's a bit difficult for me to imagine the Kings going into next season with TJD AND Richaun Holmes on the roster. Longtime NBA fans will surely remember Dale Davis who played for the Pacers in the 90's, Trayce is his son.


Seneca Knight is the spicy name there, 6'6 225lb 5th year senior who shot 40% from 3 this season at Illinois State. Seems like he's got a jack of all trades type of game, long arms and like things really came together for him this season.]

Julian Phillips... is he going to stay? He's the odd man out of the list we know of so far because he's a teenager --- Are we doing homework for next year? He's absolutely an upper tier athlete in this draft, whats the range? We're about to know a lot more about which college underclassman pull out of this draft in the coming days. All season long he's been projected in the 50's so, if thats to be believed, its sort of a situation like how the Heat developed UDFA Derrick Jones Jr? If its to be believed he's a 1st rd talent then is he more like a young Mo Harkless? He's someone whos already made decent $$$ from NIL and there's probably a whole lot more on the table so idk if its worth it for him to stay unless hes going decently high.
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I wouldn't mind seeing the Kings nab Jackson-Davis if he's there at 37. In yet another example of sometimes all you have to do is let college programs recruitment preferences be the thing that does all the work for you in terms of scouting it's crazy how similar Jackson-Davis is to former Indiana big Noah Vonleh. The only issue is that Vonleh was a notch above in terms of mobility.
 
SacTownKid said:
I wouldn't mind seeing the Kings nab Jackson-Davis if he's there at 37. In yet another example of sometimes all you have to do is let college programs recruitment preferences be the thing that does all the work for you in terms of scouting it's crazy how similar Jackson-Davis is to former Indiana big Noah Vonleh. The only issue is that Vonleh was a notch above in terms of mobility.
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Funny you bring up Vonleh, when I saw TJD's combine vert measurement I thought about Noah's vert measurement. Vonleh was, despite being projected in the lottery most of that season, considered to be a guy who's really long and mobile but not that explosive, then he showed up to the combine and jumped 37" (iirc), TJD on the other hand was considered more to be a guy with slightly above average length whos truly explosive, yet he jumped 36.5"

but yeah if were talking strictly undersized C's which is what Vonleh became (he actually could shoot the 3 in highschool and surely vs lesser competition you'd see more of his repitoire but at the NBA level hes 3rd string hustle guy), there's a lot of cautionary tales out there, thats a tricky minefield to maneuver -- see the richaun holmes contract.
 
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and hey the Heat just made the finals with their lottery pick Tyler Herro injured.. and really Herro and Bam are 13th and 14th picks, so very end of the lotto..

Jimmy Butler was only the 30th pick, evaluators didnt have a clue about how devastating his footwork would become and enable him to be a big factor on both sides of the ball. Kyle Lowry was the 24th pick (thats the pick we hold this year) - Prototype player whos not a 1st rd athlete but he's for damn sure a 1st rd competitor.

But Caleb Martin went crazy! he was the Heats most consistent player in the Conference FInals --- Undrafted player

An Undrafted starting backcourt! Gabe Vincent and Max Strus!! The 3pt shot is truly the great equalizer. In game 7 they start 3 undrafted guys!!!!!

also Duncan Robinson got overpaid so he gets lots of hate but he was excellent for them n shot the lights out in the conference finals, another UDFA..

They even got 15 points in game 6 out of Haywood Highsmith. Plus they've got Yertseven and Haslem on the roster, thats 3 more UDFA's. While all these teams loaded with lotto picks are on vacation this is the team that made the finals.

So anyone trying to downplay the importance of the fringe guys and really just focus on the top picks is missing out, the pool of talent is deep, there will be sleepers. Why I wish we'd get more leaks from the Kings :mad:!!!
 
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Ozymandias said:
and hey the Heat just made the finals with their lottery pick Tyler Herro injured.. and really Herro and Bam are 13th and 14th picks, so very end of the lotto..

Jimmy Butler was only the 30th pick, evaluators didnt have a clue about how devastating his footwork would become and enable him to be a big factor on both sides of the ball. Kyle Lowry was the 24th pick (thats the pick we hold this year) - Prototype player whos not a 1st rd athlete but he's for damn sure a 1st rd competitor.

But Caleb Martin went crazy! he was the Heats most consistent player in the Conference FInals --- Undrafted player

An Undrafted starting backcourt! Gabe Vincent and Max Strus!! The 3pt shot is truly the great equalizer. In game 7 they start 3 undrafted guys!!!!!

also Duncan Robinson got overpaid so he gets lots of hate but he was excellent for them n shot the lights out in the conference finals, another UDFA..

They even got 15 points in game 6 out of Haywood Highsmith. Plus they've got Yertseven and Haslem on the roster, thats 2 more UDFA's.

So anyone trying to downplay the importance of the fringe guys and really just focus on the top picks is missing out, the pool of talent is deep, there will be sleepers. Why I wish we'd get more leaks from the Kings :mad:!!!
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With the success of Miami and other under the radar players, I think there's plenty of NBA talents who just don't get the opportunity. With a team like Miami, they're patient and actually willing to see it through with their players. Maybe even more important, they're willing to give them consistent rotational minutes. Lot of NBA guys sticking around in the League instead of going overseas to make 4x more money in hopes they'll get called up... but these NBA teams won't take a shot on them unless it's a 10-day signing with 5 games left in the season..

But looking at those successful "sleeper" prospects, high ball IQ seems to be the common denominator in most cases. I think some fans got too used to Vlade missing on his mid/late 1st round draft picks (Papagiannis, Jackson, Giles, Malachi, and Skal) that might lead them to assuming that the 24th pick isn't valuable.. which is the furthest thing from the truth. Monte hasn't done a very good job with his 2nd round picks, but he'll need to hit the Pacers one this year. Jaden Hardy stings a lot.... even Gary Trent Jr too (under Vlade). Those two guys were low-risk, high reward players. I wouldn't mind those swings either in the 2nd round.
 
206Fan said:
With the success of Miami and other under the radar players, I think there's plenty of NBA talents who just don't get the opportunity. With a team like Miami, they're patient and actually willing to see it through with their players. Maybe even more important, they're willing to give them consistent rotational minutes. Lot of NBA guys sticking around in the League instead of going overseas to make 4x more money in hopes they'll get called up... but these NBA teams won't take a shot on them unless it's a 10-day signing with 5 games left in the season..

But looking at those successful "sleeper" prospects, high ball IQ seems to be the common denominator in most cases. I think some fans got too used to Vlade missing on his mid/late 1st round draft picks (Papagiannis, Jackson, Giles, Malachi, and Skal) that might lead them to assuming that the 24th pick isn't valuable.. which is the furthest thing from the truth. Monte hasn't done a very good job with his 2nd round picks, but he'll need to hit the Pacers one this year. Jaden Hardy stings a lot.... even Gary Trent Jr too (under Vlade). Those two guys were low-risk, high reward players. I wouldn't mind those swings either in the 2nd round.
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Well one other common denominators with some of those sleepers on the heat is they are JUCO players... Which actually makes a bit of sense cuz some of these guys come out of nowhere and they put up big stats on high volume and teams dont have tons of footage and homework done on them (obviously though stories like Derrick White at Colorado occur where he ends up from a situation liek that at some D3 Culinary school into the 1st rd)

Max Strus is a player I watched a lot in college at DePaul, he was an excellent player, the only question was really how would he look defending nba quality athletes with bursty 1st steps. he came from whatever JUCO college ready to immediately be one of the best players in the Big East, by his 2nd(final) season playing D1 he was the best player in the conference hands down and a fearless clutch shotmaker of the highest order --- So with him specifically I'm unsurprised at his success, he's simply an excellent 3pt shooter, and just a gamer.

Duncan Robinson is another D3 JUCO x-fer guy... He was another guy I was a big believer in at Michigan, knew he was good enough to make the NBA didnt think he'd get such a contract though.

To me, Strus and Robinson both were guys at the very top of the list of anyone in the nation I'd trust to take a big 3 at the end of the game, so I guess I'd call that a common denominator too.

well opportunity is certainly the key word here. I think whatever misses in the past can easily be addressed in just one offseason if we get everything right so I'm not sweating them too much.

Also lets not forget Miami's starting PG, Gabe Vincent, after his 4 years at USCB he went undrafted and signed with the ------ Kings... Played for the Stockton Kings from 2018-2020 then the Heat got him and the rest is history ---- so it's not just a matter of getting the right players its also a matter of keeping them,.,
 
With Miami they also have a coach carving his way into being considered one of the best of all time. Mike Brown is COY, but Spo sets the pace right now for best period. Also Miami has been the team that's gone more full on in to modern ball than anyone. Both on offense and defense. They have the best pick and roll D up big since Tyson Chandler in Bam, and will junk it up whether it's to disappointment or victory. They haven't wavered since making the finals a few years ago.
 
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