The Ringer NBA Show - Ep. 6: NBA Draft Lottery

Episode Date: May 18, 2016

The Ringer's Danny Chau and Jonathan Tjarks on whether there's a 76ers conspiracy, who should be the no. 1 overall pick, and whom Boston should take at no. 3. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Hello and welcome to a special NBA draft edition of The Ringer NBA show. My name is Danny Chow. I'm an editor at The Ringer, and joining me is Jonathan Charks, one of our NBA writers here at The Ringer. Jonathan, how are you? I'm good, man. How you doing? Pretty good.

For some background, Charks and I are the Ringer's biggest NBA draft nerds, and we're on the line to talk about maybe the most uneventful NBA draft lottery in history. there was no movement at all. It was a bad time for drama, a good time for the Sixers, and a great time for crackpot conspiracy theorists. Charks, I got to ask you, Sixers. Is this a conspiracy? I mean, it's pretty obvious.

Like, for one, the Sixers, they were like, you got to fire Sam Hinky, he sucks. And they're like, if you fire Sam Hinky, we'll give me the top pick in the draft. Not only that, they're like, we have to keep the Lakers in the top three. So you don't get two picks, they'll give you the first one. On top of that, it's like Jerry Colangelo is very plugged into that world.

He's involved in what kinds of shady stuff. I could totally see Jerry Calangelo, like, calling Adam Silver Up being like, remember when I did X, Y, and Z for you to get you this job in the first place? I'm calling it my shit right now. Philly sucks. We need more players. Give us the top pick. It just makes, it almost makes too much sense for it not to happen, in my opinion.

Did you follow the DeKinbe Mutumbo thing at all? Oh, of course. I mean, think about it. Like, do you really think DeKalbe Matumbo was on the NBA draft lottery machine for hours being like, oh, the Sixers must pick this show? It's very exciting. No. He got text saying, hey, we're going to the lottery. He didn't realize that was a secret still.

And he tweeted out. Like, he's not dumb. He knows what the lottery is. He just assumed it already happened properly. I think the Lakers, too, is the other thing. The Lakers, the league is like. Get them Lakers that pick. That was when it became obvious to me. Look, man, I'm not coming down this bunker with you. It's not happening.

Okay, fair enough. So let's go to the question of the day. If you're the Sixers, who do you pick? Is it Brendan Ingram, 6'9 out of Duke with a 7-3 wingspan? He's skinny, but he plays tough. He's a good shooter. Or is it Ben Simmons, who came out of LSU. He's 610, 235, really athletic and an incredible passer. There's a case for either of these guys. But let's start with Ben Simmons. How would you sell Sixers fans on him? Okay, this is a tough one because I was thinking about it. Like, I'm not sure if this is a selling point or not a selling point.

But if this was a Sam Hinky draft, he takes Simmons number one for sure. Because Hinkie's like best available player, most value in the asset, who cares about fit? And with that in mind, Simmons is the highest ceiling. Like down the road, he has the biggest chance of being a franchise player. So let's just take them and figure it out from there. Of course, that was the same logic they used to take Jaliel and Embed, and who knows about that. And if they take Simmons, they'll have to trade a bunch of players. It'll be very complicated.

But I think to me, the selling point for Simmons is he has the highest upside. Your team sucks. Let's get the best player, figure it out later. Right. I think in an ideal world, they would be starting Dario Sarich, Ben Simmons, Joel Embeded, Nerland's Noel and Jule Oklefore together. in this kind of, you know, no one under 6-10 lineup where Sarch is strangely the only floor spacer. That's funny.

It's crazy because I think in that ideal fantasy land situation, Joelle and Bede, who none of us have watched play for three years, might be the second best shooter in that lineup. Wow. That's terrifying. That's terrifying. I think to me if you draft Simmons, you trade Jalil for sure, and probably Sarge has gone.

once he comes over. You keep Noel and Embed, you draft Simmons, you find some shooters, I think. If you keep Ingram, you can keep everybody. That's a tough question to me.

It's like, it's a causality factor. Like, how much do you value these guys already on your roster? How much do you value this pick? Right. It was interesting yesterday hearing Brett Brown

like bring up the names Dario Sarge and Joelle Embed as if they were kind of, you know, big cornerstones in the Sixers' next rebuilding stage. So I wonder if those guys are actually going to be, you know, kept with the roster. I was going to ask, is he coming over this year?

I haven't paid attention. Yeah, he is. Okay. Like, the thing with Ben Simmons for me is I've watched him for many years now. I've watched him since he was 15 playing with Team Australia at Adidas Nations that is hosted every year at Long Beach over the summer. And what has always struck me about him is his ability to kind of coast off of his just supreme physical gifts.

He's been, you know, 6-9, 6-10 since he was that age. And he's been able to kind of, you know, coast off of what is really, really incredible athleticism. But it's kind of a gift and a curse because you wonder if he can fully engage in an 82-game season when he's never really had to do that at any level, especially when he isn't in a situation that he particularly enjoys. Well, I mean, yeah. You say he's coasting, but he put up 1912, five assists and two steals and a block on 56% shooting as a 19-year-old freshman on a bad team. If that's coasting, he's doing something right. Like, why would he change what he's doing when he's been phenomenal successful doing it? Right.

Right. And that's the thing. Like, his physical gifts have always been there. And I guess it's not a fair comparison in terms of playing style. But you wonder if, you know, the stat inflation. kind of looks something like what Beasley put up in, you know, 2008. Like to me, when I look at Simmons, I think of Blake Griffin, that's your ceiling. He's got the not quite athletic, but the ball handling, the passing, the questionable shooting,

the T-Rex arms. To me, that's the guy I would think, okay, maybe he could be Blake Griffin if I'm grassed number one. I think it helps if he gets what he wants, which is, you know, going to the Lakers. But my question has always been, like, what happens if he doesn't get that? and I'm pretty sure his agents are really looking at the Sixers and being like, we're not going to be bringing you to him. And that kind of funnels into my case for Brandon Ingram.

It feels like the Sixers are trying to push into this new era, trying to find some sort of continuity with this roster that they have. And if that's the case, I don't really see a huge separation in talent and in potential when you compare Ingram and Simmons. Ingram fits from a talent perspective. he fits from an integration perspective. I feel like if this new Colangelo era is kind of the death of theoretical basketball that Hinky had brought forth, Ingram kind of gives them that top talent, and he fills like maybe two or three of their biggest needs.

Well, like, how are you going to start a new era of management and let clutch sports bully you around? Like, just from that alone, I don't care of clutch sports to say. I'm with the GM. Y'all can do what we need to do. What do you think the lesson he learned from taking Bargs over LMA in 06 was? And do you think that would make him more likely to take Ingram or Simmons knowing what are you members from 06? I think the Barney thing might be a little overblown. He's had decent draft picks in subsequent drafts.

Like, DeMar de Rosen is still, you know, a cornerstone of their franchise, you know, seven years later. I know we both don't necessarily have the warmest feelings on Demard de Rosen as the player, but he has done a lot for their franchise. No, I mean, he's a good drafter for sure, but I feel like Dallow's his last number one pick, and Dahl really inform his decision-making for this pick, what happened, 06. Yeah, my other question is, if they were shopping Jalil, what could they get for him at this point? I have no idea. Right?

That's a real unanswerable question. Because if you have Jalil, I feel you can't even draft Simmons. Because they're like freaking oil and water, those two guys. They can't bring the court together. And that's part of the reason why Ingram makes a lot of sense here. He's a guy who is clearly the better shooter out of the two. He's definitely like a quote-unquote modern NBA player. Right.

He can like maybe when he gets little, he's so young too. So he puts on weight. He can maybe guard three positions. So like he's a much easier piece to build around. But at the same time, I feel like Simmons is the piece. to build around, whereas England's might be a number two on an elite team possibly. That makes sense. Right.

And it kind of puts the Lakers in an interesting position, too. Like, the Lakers are not in charge of their own destiny here, but, you know, unlike if they had dropped to third, I don't think they mind either way with Ingram or Simmons, but say they do get Simmons, say Ingram does go number one. He's clearly their guy from a marketability standpoint. How do you think he fits with this Lakers roster? Well, I think if you draft Simmons, that means Randall's gone because they have very similar skill sets. They're both pure fours.

They can't protect their rim. They're not going to play three in the modern NBA. Neither guy can shoot. They're both really good rebounders. They both have a ball in their hands. I don't see them really making much sense together long term. So if you draft Simmons, that means giving up on Randall, which I guess is okay. Right.

They play the same position, as you've said. Putting them together on the floor seems like a disaster on defense. You don't really have any rim protection there. Yeah, I mean, they can't protect the rim at all, so it wouldn't work. Especially, like, if you got DeAngelo and Clarkson in front of you and Randall, if you're Simmons, you can't be the five. Are they going to give up like a thousand points a game? It's not a case where you can have Simmons playing on the perimeter and bringing in one of their guards to kind of play the inside-out game because they don't really have any guys who, you know, can play in the post either.

So, yeah, I guess if I'm Julius Randall, I'm praying for Simmons one number one, I guess. So the Celtics are the odd man out of this Simmons-Ingram race. So if you had the third pick, what would you do? I mean, I'd probably go with Bender. I think the guy's in that range projected. He has the most upside. And he's a pretty high floor.

He can shoot. He's very fast. He's fast enough for seven-foot, seven-foot lung guy. He can handle and pass a little bit. I think he could be a really good player and he will be a really solid player regardless. So to me, unless we're talking about Chris Dunn and Chris Dunn makes no sense in that roster whatsoever.

So if the guys being mocked in that like three to seven, eight, nine range, I feel like Bender is the easy call. But I always kind of thought it was a three-man draft. But from what I've heard, it's seen as a two-man draft. And the league isn't as sole of Bender as maybe we kind of thought. they were in like November, December. Right. And for those who haven't necessarily caught up with the international game,

Dragon Bender is a seven-footer from Croatia. He's the youngest player in the draft. He's lean in the, you know, Porzinger sense. Porzingis seems to be the common comparison. It's a very convenient comparison to make. He's a guy who is an incredible playmaker for his age, and he's a good and still improving shooter. I seem to recall he had a couple games, maybe more than a couple, where he actually attempted six threes in a game.

So it shows you that he actually has confidence in his shot. One of the things with the Celtics is that they have this glut of one-dimensional big men, and it really exposed them in the playoffs when they couldn't play a lot of their guys on the floor together against the Hawks who have two of the most versatile big men in the game in Al Horford and Paul Millsap. Bringing in a guy like Bender would really help from that standpoint. I think he's not quite the defender he can be in a few years, but he definitely has the tools to be a guy who can, you know, switch on plays. And, you know, he definitely has the height and the length to be a guy who can defend the rim off the ball.

Yeah, I would say, I wouldn't say Pras Ingus. I would say he's more like a taller version of Sarich or Maraudits. He's more that small ball four dribble shooter kind of guy versus like a post-up shot blocking five, like Porzangas who can shoot three. My question to you is, first off, I would say, like, the problem for the Celtics is if you draft Bender, it would be very unfair to be like, hey,

we need you to be a big prime role player on a championship-contending team right away. He's 18. He has to be a three, five-year window kind of guy. which is why I would think maybe they want to trade the pick, but I don't know who they didn't even get in a trade. My other question, Benners, can he play five full-time down the road? What do you think about that? I think he can.

I don't see anything about his frame that suggests that he won't be able to put on, you know, weight or at least a lot of core strength. I mean, a lot of guys in today's NBA don't necessarily have the bulk, but they do have the ability to kind of hold their ground in the post. and, you know, who knows in the next five years whether or not, you know, big men in the post is too much of a viable threat in the league. So I think pairing him with a guy who might be able to hold his ground a little bit more down the line would be beneficial for the Celtics if they do go along with this pick. But I don't necessarily see it as a huge problem. Yeah, that makes sense.

I guess maybe like Jared Solinger, maybe. Right. He's a big fat five and vendors are a fat. four, he shoots the floor for him. If he even likes someone that much to begin with, which I'm not a huge fan of. So they're in a tough spot because none of these guys, after one and two, I don't think any these guys can step in and help a team. Maybe Chris Dunn can, but they can't use him at all.

So they're in a real tough spot that's how they want to do. I'm not sure what they're going to do. Yeah, and this is exactly why it feels like a very important pick that they're making. One of the guys that we both are very high on that may not make a lot of sense at at number three, but maybe they might want to trade down for him, is Marquis Chris, who is a 69 freak athlete out of Washington. We are both in the extreme minority here, but I think we both see Chris as a top five prospect. Consensus seems to peg him somewhere around 9 to 14. Well, I would say, I was after talking to NBA guy yesterday, and he told me in five years he could

easily see Chris being the best player from this draft, which is like, I like, I like, wow, that's interesting. Because he said for sure Chris is the best athlete in the draft. And he kind of, I guess he is. I mean, his upside is very, very high. And my thing is like, after one, two and I guess, Bender at three, like, four to 15, it's a very amorphous blob of players where, like, even though all these mocks have like Jamal, Buddy, Jalen Brown going four, five, six, the gap between those guys in like 12, 13,

14 is not very high if it was at all. So it's like if I was a team, if I was Boston and like I want to, people always say like, you should take risks in the draft. Well, take a risk in the draft, draft Marquis, Chris. He's 18. He doesn't turn 19 until July. And so I think that explains so much of his career trajectory. I guess for those who don't really follow, Chris was a freshman at Washington.

He wasn't even a top 50 recruit. This guy, let me get his numbers. I think he's like 6-9-20. 2.30, super fast. He can shoot threes and switch screens. He's got a ton of upside. And like the big knocks on him were one. He wasn't elite recruit.

But yeah, because the guy is a year behind his age. I mean, there are guys in this next class who are way older to Marcus Chris. Like Justin Jackson, I think is 19 already. Right. So if Chris is playing his age group, he's a much higher recruit. And not on Chris is he's not very physical. He doesn't go out of rebounds. Once again, talking about a very young big man playing way above his age range.

so of course it's going to be a physicality gap. So that it's like you look at it from this perspective. You got a super talented young big man with a ton of potential. He's only 18. He's supposed to go like 8 to 15. And you got this draft for like after 1-2, there's a big bunch of question marks. There's a lot of guys with low ceilings.

And you got a Boston team that doesn't have a lot of immediate needs is probably not going to get much next year from this pick regardless of who they take. So it's like, like if you're Boston, you need a star, you got a chance to grab a star, and like the downside draft of not getting a star is really low, maybe swing high for the fences right away, because then you've got picks later in the draft where you can draft like a Denzel Valentine or someone like that who you're pretty confident and be a safe rotation player, and that gives you

the freedom to like swing for the fences at three. Because realistically, after Simmons, Ingram, some bender. I mean, Chris, maybe Chris Dunn. By five, you're saying easily Chris is the most upside left in this draft. We need to be clear about this. Chris's combination of youth and raw natural talent are just breathtaking.

There are times when I watch his film and I'm like, this is what young Amari looked like. Why not take a leap of faith on a guy like that? Yeah, and a lot of it too is he's playing in Washington. I feel like so much because they're playing the Pack 12, it's a bad team. They're never on TV. But people who think that Scal has more upside than Chris, Scalobusier, this is the Kentucky guy.

He was supposed to be the top pick in the draft coming into this season. He had a very down bad year. And like, he's supposed to see the top 10 pick based on upside. But to me, there's no way he had more upside than Chris. There's just no way. Yeah, I mean, and for all we know, the Celtics might be packaging all of these picks for, you know, a true star. But even if they don't, I don't think they should feel pressure to draft a guy with a high floor. I think they should absolutely be swinging for the fences for a guy like Chris

who has all the makings of, you know, a star who just needs the kind of polishing that a franchise like the Celtics could definitely incubate. That kind of leads me to two guys who are guys who have high floors that are being projected as possible picks for the Celtics. One being, being Buddy Heald, who was college's complete darling, and for some, the national player of the year, and the other being Jamal Murray, a six-four guard out of Kentucky, who, you know, in recent weeks and months, has really risen quite a bit on big boards. For me, I personally don't get it at all. It feels like an overcorrection on where Devin Booker was drafted last year. Devin Booker was drafted in the late lottery last year.

He was an extremely young prospect out of Kentucky, and he thrived upon reaching the NBA. But Booker was hidden on his squad with Willie Colley Stein and Carl Anthony Towns, and Murray was the team's best score this year. Like all of his strengths and weaknesses were put on full display. When Booker got to the league and then Bledsoe got hurt, and I guess the night was hurt too, I forget now. he's tired running point and he was like wow this guy's a peer shooter

but he can handle the ball run pick and roll distribute the ball get the offense going and make plays for others he's like wow this guy is really an interesting prospect and when he's like

what you were saying at Kentucky couldn't do that whereas Murray was getting the ball Kentucky constantly and he kind of showed he was much more of a pure scorer than Booker so he's a peer scorer

and like I would say he's even a worse athlete than Booker I think with Murray just watched the Indiana game. He's going against M-Bay athletes. Let me see the numbers on that. But particularly, what the only stands out in my mind is there's a few times he was switched on O.G.

Ananoi, who's like Indiana's Uber Elite, small forward stopper. And I pick and roll. And Annobe blocked him twice because Murray had no chance sitting around him. It just wasn't happening. So to me, like, he just does not have a very high ceiling because he's not a very good athlete. And when I think Jamal Murray, I think of like Kevin Martin.

That's something that's the ceiling is a pure offensive guy, pure score shooter, who doesn't distribute the ball very much and plays zero defense. And that's nice, I guess. But man, even in this draft, I wouldn't want to get that top five, top six. Like Kevin Martin's had quite the career, but I don't know. Give me two-way players, please. Right. And another guy who fits a similar mold is Buddy Heald, the 6-4-Chi.

senior out of Oklahoma, who, you know, for many, was the national player of the year. He checks off a lot of the same boxes as Jamal Murray. I feel like this might be a case where people are putting too much stock into points per game on the college level. Yeah. Well, I looked at the stats from Murray's Kentucky game, Phoenix, Indiana. Yeah. That was the game they lost in the tournament.

He was 18, four-stress, three turnovers. And that's kind of a Jamal Murray line. like if you give him enough shots, he'll score eventually, but why would you give him like 18 shots a game? I just can't see that happening in the NBA level, even if he's drafted very high. And I guess with Heal, the difference is he's a much better athlete than Murray. Like I wouldn't say Heel's an elite athlete,

but he's like an all right athlete. And so, in his role at Oklahoma, he didn't play much defense. But maybe in the league, what I've heard is that Heal is a very, very hard worker, high character guy. So I think if you draft him, he's wrapped him the idea that you turn him into a role-playing 3-and-D guy who can guard and shoot.

So like Reddick or West Matthews. But right now he's far away from that because he did not play much defense in college. And he's not a good enough athlete to where he can just like cut corners and be a decent defender. You look at with Reddick, it took him what, like three or four years to become a good defensive player? And he is pretty much a freak exception

because that was a guy who totally maxed out his defensive ability. which doesn't happen all that often. So to me, Heels a higher ceiling, higher floor. He's a better process than Murray, I think. But I'm still a little dubious. I feel like to me, this draft with the wings, one through like seven, how much there's a huge gap between any of them?

So like Malachi Richardson or Malik Beasley or Timothy Luwahu, none of those guys are as good peer scorers as Heald or Murray. But if they're all going to be role-playing two guards, I wouldn't be surprised if those guys can more easily fit a role on an NBA team than Heald and Murray Camp. I mean, that's one way of looking at it. You can see him as this limited 3-and-D role player, or you can buy into him as the next Steph Curry. Or you can wonder if, you know, Kobe's co-sign means anything. Well, first off, it doesn't.

Second off, like, Steph Curry's an amazing passer. If Steph Curry couldn't pass the ball, he'd be Seth Curry. But, like, Buddy Heald is not a good passer at all. He's just not a distributor. Like, look at his career. At OU, they had two point guards. Like, that's the other thing, too. Like, I feel like if you can't pass the ball, you're an elite ball handler,

don't even give him the Steph Curry comp. It's just not fair to them. Right. I feel like this pick can go in so many different directions. I think there might be a pressure for the Celtics to draft a guy who is ready right now, who has that kind of high floor who can contribute to a. a playoff team, but they're also in a very unique position where they can get an high upside guy and foster him along with, you know, these very, very young cornerstones that they have.

But see, Dan, it's my question. Like, how many of these guys could make their rotation right now today after Ingram and Simmons? Like, how many of them are playing missed in the playoffs next year? Right. And we don't know. But I'm more talking about the perception of guys being NBA. ready. All right, I think we covered some ground. It'll be an interesting next few weeks for the draft coverage. If you'd like to read either of our works, please subscribe to the Ringer newsletter.

You could read both of us on Facebook this week. We're both covering the NBA playoffs, and you could find that at Facebook.com slash Ringer. Yeah, if you want to hear more conspiracy talk, follow me on Twitter, man. Stay woke people. I know the real story here. Don't let me say on this podcast. We all know what's going on. Thanks for listening.