Sabonis Knee Update
- Thread starter Tetsujin
- Start date
Usually only about 3-6 players taken in the 2nd round are good enough to be roleplayers or better. Teams have somewhere between a 1 in 5 and 1 in 10 chance of hitting on a 2nd round pick.
The Kings have been exceptionally bad because they haven't had a playable 2nd round pick since IT in 2011. That's missing for 11 straight years. They have made a couple of 2nd round trades which turned out to be Gary Trent Jr and Xavier Tillman. Both solid players.....for other teams, of course.
Closing your eyes and pointing to a player in 2nd round mocks would more than likely have a higher hit rate than what the Kings GMs and scouting department have done in the last 11 years.
The Kings have been exceptionally bad because they haven't had a playable 2nd round pick since IT in 2011. That's missing for 11 straight years. They have made a couple of 2nd round trades which turned out to be Gary Trent Jr and Xavier Tillman. Both solid players.....for other teams, of course.
Closing your eyes and pointing to a player in 2nd round mocks would more than likely have a higher hit rate than what the Kings GMs and scouting department have done in the last 11 years.
One of the measurements that a good GM should be held accountable to is whether that GM can find ways to acquire talent. Farhan is great at it where the Giants essentially keep a few roster spots open during the year to churn through waiver wire pick ups, call ups, and trade acquisitions. They go through a ton of players, but end up finding gems like Yastremzki. McNair has failed at that. Miserably. The most obvious being the inability to pick productive 2nd rounders and the inability to pick productive G-Leaguers or International FAs. Churn through them, give them a chance, & you might discover some gems. Miami does it all the time.
We also have to give him the benefit of the doubt since he's only had two drafts so far. Ramsey and Woodard were both whiffs. Queta we don't know yet but the odds are that he won't pan out.
He traded what was essentially Tillman for Woodard and a 2nd round pick this year. There's no telling if he would have picked Tillman or not if the trade didn't go down. I'm guessing he would have picked Woodard regardless.
But honestly there aren't many players after Tillman to choose from. Saben Lee, Isaiah Joe, Kenyon Martin Jr, Skylar Mays. Other than KMart Jr, I don't see anything there to fuss about.
Packaging that 2nd round pick he got in the Woodard trade with the 2021 2nd rounder to move up to get Herb Jones or Dosunmu would have been the play to make. I wouldn't call either of those picks hindsight either. None of the players picked after Queta have stood out at all so far but it's obviously early.
He's had 3 picks and whiffed on all of them but he needs about 3 more before I'd call him out on poor 2nd round drafting.
He traded what was essentially Tillman for Woodard and a 2nd round pick this year. There's no telling if he would have picked Tillman or not if the trade didn't go down. I'm guessing he would have picked Woodard regardless.
But honestly there aren't many players after Tillman to choose from. Saben Lee, Isaiah Joe, Kenyon Martin Jr, Skylar Mays. Other than KMart Jr, I don't see anything there to fuss about.
Packaging that 2nd round pick he got in the Woodard trade with the 2021 2nd rounder to move up to get Herb Jones or Dosunmu would have been the play to make. I wouldn't call either of those picks hindsight either. None of the players picked after Queta have stood out at all so far but it's obviously early.
He's had 3 picks and whiffed on all of them but he needs about 3 more before I'd call him out on poor 2nd round drafting.
Maybe Im biased towards Queta, but i genuinely believe that he can become something decent in this league, hes got the physical tools to be a good player, and you see more growth from him just this year than youve probably seen from Woodard or Ramsey in 2 seasons, i know its just the Gleague but seems to have developed a nice midrange jumper and he looks much faster and stronger than at the start of the season. We will see what happens in this stretch of games, fingers crossed...
Last edited:
Well, hopefully we will get to see some Queta in these final few games. With both Holmes and Sabonis out, we only have Jones and Len. It would be insane of the Kings to not let Queta play.
Heck, the few times he has played I didn't think he looked terrible, not amazing, but he looked better than Jones or Len. He is quite nimble for a guy his size, has a smooth jumper, decent passer, plays defense, and blocks shots. He's raw, he's a rookie big so that's expected, but he has some nice tools in the shed.
Heck, the few times he has played I didn't think he looked terrible, not amazing, but he looked better than Jones or Len. He is quite nimble for a guy his size, has a smooth jumper, decent passer, plays defense, and blocks shots. He's raw, he's a rookie big so that's expected, but he has some nice tools in the shed.
I'm rooting for him but he's just very raw and has a lot of work to do in order to be an NBA player. He's far too weak on the boards to get by in the NBA. He just plays way too soft for a player with his physical profile. He's shown the ability to be crafty in the paint and defend as well but outside of those highlights, he can look really bad at the same time. I'm curious to see what happens if he gets 15mpg to end the season for the Kings. It couldn't hurt anything to give him some run against backups.
I'll never agree with the trade in any sense. He traded a positive value player with low usage for a negative value player who is well past his prime and never had much of a prime to begin with. Then he had to trot out the likes of Harkless, Ramsey, Mudiay, Robinson, Murkey, King etc to cover for the missed games by our guards.
If winning basketball games this year was part of his plan, then he failed miserably with that move. In hindsight it's not that big of a deal because we don't need an extra win or two but it just wasn't a very good move if he was doing it to win games.
I'll never agree with the trade in any sense. He traded a positive value player with low usage for a negative value player who is well past his prime and never had much of a prime to begin with. Then he had to trot out the likes of Harkless, Ramsey, Mudiay, Robinson, Murkey, King etc to cover for the missed games by our guards.
If winning basketball games this year was part of his plan, then he failed miserably with that move. In hindsight it's not that big of a deal because we don't need an extra win or two but it just wasn't a very good move if he was doing it to win games.
I've been very on board with most of what McNair has done, but like you, I never understood this Delon trade. I get positional balance, but TT very clearly was not good with the Celtics, why Delon has maintained being a quality rotation player(despite struggling with injuries this year). And even still, why go sign Len and triple up on Centers?
Signing Len or trading for TT make sense by themselves. Doing both was just really strange and created a bad log-jam at C. Especially considering the fact, one of his best "savy moves" has ended up being finding Damian Jones for free, who has been better than both.
Signing Len or trading for TT make sense by themselves. Doing both was just really strange and created a bad log-jam at C. Especially considering the fact, one of his best "savy moves" has ended up being finding Damian Jones for free, who has been better than both.
I think the only reason Monte traded Delon for Tristan, in retrospect, was to keep another expiring contract to use in trades at the deadline (which is how he was used) while adding depth at a position where we didn't have a lot of veteran experience. It was a lateral move in terms of salary and we also know that Bagley was being shopped in the off-season so Monte was planning on moving him mid-season. I have no defense for the Len contract, but he was at least productive when he did play. I wish we didn't have him signed for next season though.
I HATE the Delon move (still do) but I see @hrdboild's point. I just don't really get it since the team did not show an interest in taking the season off and rebuilding they went with a lesser player.
I think the 2nd round picks were decent enough picks, they never got time to develop, we had a lot of them, and we were not willing to actually play them on the main team as we should have for a team as bad as we were. I think that's a Vivek and coaching call less Monte. All he can do is bring them up. I still have hopes for Queta. But overall, it's one reason I just don't value 2nd round picks as much as many around here do. You're just as likely to get a winner out of the undrafted pool and some players even prefer that if they don't go first round. 2nd round is a total crap shoot and with no contract incentive to play them they just get buried most of the time.
I think the 2nd round picks were decent enough picks, they never got time to develop, we had a lot of them, and we were not willing to actually play them on the main team as we should have for a team as bad as we were. I think that's a Vivek and coaching call less Monte. All he can do is bring them up. I still have hopes for Queta. But overall, it's one reason I just don't value 2nd round picks as much as many around here do. You're just as likely to get a winner out of the undrafted pool and some players even prefer that if they don't go first round. 2nd round is a total crap shoot and with no contract incentive to play them they just get buried most of the time.
A small market team like the Kings should be in the business of maximizing ways to acquire talent. Giving away draft capital runs completely counter to this. Good small market NBA teams with great management do this all the time--Miami, San Antonio, and, yes, OKC. McNair, for an analytics guy, operates like he's stuck in the 1950s. Middle manager, Monte.