The Ringer NBA Show - The Draft Mailbag, Vol. 2 | Draft Class (Ep. 243)

Episode Date: April 6, 2018

The Ringer’s Kevin O’Connor and Jonathan Tjarks answer listener-submitted questions about the 2018 NBA draft. Topics include: draft stock rising in the NCAA tournament, this year’s Donovan Mitchell, the safest pick in the draft, Deandre Ayton versus unicorns, and the Knicks’ rebuilding plan. Preorder new Ringer merch here: http://bit.ly/ringershop. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Today's episode of Draft Class is brought to you by the Google Assistant. With the Google Assistant, you can complete over a million actions on your phone in your car and around the house. One of my favorites is to get the latest sports info when I'm in the car and can't be messing around with my phone. With the Google Assistant, I can get the latest scores, team records, and schedules. Download the Google Assistant today. Draft Class is also brought to you by the Ringer.com. On the site today, you can find a piece by our own Danny Chow and the pros and cons of having Rudy Gaubert as the anchor of the Utah Jazz Defense. Next Wednesday, we also have an update to the Ringer NBA Draft Guide, so check that out at NBADraft.com.

Also, on the Ringer Podcast Network, One Shining Podcasts just put their first annual Duffy Award show. It's a really, really fun episode. Titus and Tate, as always, are hilarious. It encompasses everything that transpired throughout the entire college basketball season. And of course, it's Friday, which means there's a new episode of NBA Desktop with Jason Concepcion. I'm actually on this week's episode, so go watch it on the Ringer's YouTube channel or on any of our social media channels. Now, it's Draft Class. Welcome to The Ringer NBA show.

I'm Kevin O'Connor, Staff Rider at the Ringer.com. This is Draft Class. Joining me on the other line, as he does every Friday, his fellow Ringer staff writer, Jonathan Charks. Hey, what's up, man? I'm calling you from Vancouver because, even when I'm on vacation, podcasting never sleeps. Hell yes, man.

Speaking of that, where's our friend Danny Chow? Isaac, do you know? Where's Danny? Danny was supposed to be on this week, but he can't join us because, he told me, as the playoffs are approaching next week, he has gone into the mountains to clear his heart and soul of anything outside of basketball, and he will come back as a consecrated man, quote,

a man consisting of only ball, hoop, and court, unquote. Okay. It's like LeBron James before the playoffs. You know, he got to go zero dark 30. I appreciate it. Danny is a remarkable editor, a remarkable writer, and a remarkable podcaster. And maybe we'll have him back next Friday the day before the NBA playoffs start.

All right, I guess it's time for class. So this is a mailbag episode of Draft Class. We're going to do this on the first Friday of every month, which means we have two more of these, unless we do one in July as well for Summer League. So two or three more mailbag episodes coming up. So thank you, everybody, for submitting your questions using hashtag Ringer NBA on Twitter.

If you want to continue submitting those for next month this episode, feel free, but you're probably better off waiting until the end of the month. So let's get going on this. First question is from at Christian Swag 7, who asked, scouts actually put into single performances, such as Dante D. Vincenzo, scoring 31 points in the NCAA title game for Villanova.

I would say it's more like if it reinforces something they already believe. Like if Vincenzo hadn't been playing all season, if he was like Spike Albrecht, it wouldn't be a big deal. But the fact that he did put into work during season of the sixth man, it's kind of like a nice little window in what he could be in a bigger role next year, hopefully. So it's like, if it reinforced, they already believe, I think it makes a little more of an impact.

That's the way I look at it, two, Charks. I think for DiVincenzo, his apparent scoring ability, his playmaking ability, his athleticism were all apparent, right, throughout the entire season for Villanova. But that was really just the big highlight moment for him in the biggest game. He scored 30 points earlier in the season against Butler. That was his other big performance. He's had 25-point performances before. But it really is hopefully a preview of what he does next season if he goes back. because he's probably a late first to mid-second right now,

but in a weaker draft class, if he comes back to Villanova, without Brunson there, without bridges there, and has a big season and more of these games, maybe we're talking about him as a mid-lottery pick next year. Would you agree with that? Oh, a mid-lottery is high,

but, I mean, he'll have a great season. All the tools are there for him to do it. I also appreciate that a guy named Christian Swag was answering this, because I would say swag is his best attribute. Like, Divenschenzo comes to play in big games. If you remember last year, when they lost to Wisconsin,

Dimenzhenso kind of took the game over as a freshman. He has a very high swag level. I think generally scouts don't put a lot into March Madness. People I've talked to over the years, they look at it as, yeah, they're on a bigger stage and perhaps how they perform and pressure situations matter. You don't want to see guys choke. You don't want to see them brick and two free throws.

You don't want to see them really just their games being minimized under the bright lights. but if guys are good in conference play in February, if they're good in January, one bad game isn't going to kill them in March. People were talking with DeAndre Aiton earlier this month with Arizona being one and done in the tournament. Oh, this changes stock or what does this mean for him? It doesn't really mean anything because scouts are looking at such a large sample.

It's not just the college game sample either. They're looking at his play in high school competitions. They're looking at his play at the high school level. They're thinking about how he is in workouts, how he is in interviews. There's so much more than just the one game in March Madness. It's just so happens that all the bright lights are on that game. That's when the most people are watching. But it doesn't necessarily mean it's the most importance.

I would say it's all about confirmation bias. It's a lot like Summer League. Like if I see something in SummerLink that I already believe is true, that I'm like, yeah, see it happened again. But if I don't believe that, it's like, oh, it's just one game anyways. Who cares? Like with Aiton, like I have been hitting on his defense all season. So, of course, when he has a bad defensive game, it's like, see, look, I told you all he's bad defense. But, you know, if I was like a pro-aiding guy, like, yeah, it's just one game.

So it's really all what you come into it a lot of times. Definitely. That's what oftentimes people need to be careful of is sometimes, you know, you can get locked into an evaluation based on something you might have seen in high school or something that happened earlier in the season. But in reality, it's a long trajectory for these guys. So it could be exactly as you said, Charks. It could be that, yeah, guess what? Aiton has serious issues in the defensive end of the floor and he might never fix him, but it could also be just really where he is now, where he's been all season. I don't think the tournament game really makes much of a change in the evaluation.

I think maybe one thing is like it changes how you think, like here's the next level. Like it changes how you think other people think. So like if you were a Zaire Smith guy at Texas Tech, you know, I like this guy's a sleeper all year, he has a big tournament and you're like, well, now I think it'll probably be a first round because when people are talking about him. But you've already thought that, but now it kind of forced you to evaluate where you have them on your board. Because now you're thinking, well, now his stock's going to be higher in general. So we've got to think about taking him higher otherwise would normally if he had lost in the first round. Next question from Miles Jamison at the Miles Files. Who is a low-floor high-ceiling player that you'd be willing to bet on early in the draft?

It's got to be the dude we were just talking about, right? Charg's Zaire Smith from Texas Tech. The terms of the ceiling could be really high. He's one of the most fun players to watch in this draft. but with Zaire Smith, so he's got this incredible athletic ability, skilled guy, has a good feel for the game, but can he shoot? Can he be a shot creator? No one really knows because he was in that weird Texas Tech motion offense. He didn't dribble that much. He didn't shoot that much. And so it feels like he's a lot like Hamadu Diallo last year, but even bigger case where maybe he's awesome, maybe he develops in this great player, but maybe like his just underlying skill set isn't that high. That's exactly why he's the guy that stands out to me because there's a chance. that you're looking at. I mean, you're like, oh, if we fix this jumper, he could be this. If we improve his playmaking, he could be this.

But in reality, that doesn't always happen. I made a mistake in the 2013 draft with KJ McDaniels. I observed a lot of the same things with Zaire Smith. Granted McDaniels was a lot older in college, and that's kind of the difference here. Zeyer Smith isn't 19 yet, whereas I believe McDaniels might have been almost 22 in his draft. He was a junior, I think, when he went out. Junior, yeah, and he was a little bit older, too, within his class, I think.

And with KJ McDaniels, all the elite athleticism was there. The defensive ability was there as well. Granted, there were some issues on that end. The offense was not. And with Zaire Smith, I think there's more to like from him than there was with K.J. McDaniels. I think he's better instincts. There's better feel for the game with Smith.

And that's why, to me, he does have a low floor, but the ceiling is also significantly high. And one other guy that comes to mind who we don't really know of Hill de Claire yet is DeAndre Hunter from Virginia. Oh. But see, I would say he's had a pretty high. high floor, though, just because of his size and shooting ability and defense. I suppose he does fit that bill, but I guess what I mean is because he's so young, because he's coming off the injury and there's a level of uncertainty with him that there is a greater element of risk

coming off the injury, whereas prior to that, it's like, yeah, he did have the high floor because of his defense. Well, I think, too, like, he was a sixth man. Anytime you're a sixth man in college, you're guessing. You remember like Marvin Williams, this is way back in the day now. But he was like, the freshman sixth man at championship team. And I was like, Marlon was going to be a superstar when he gets to be the guy at the next level. He never became that guy. He was a good player, but because he was a sixth man on a good team,

it was easy to kind of dream on him. And we never really got to see him in college be like the guy. So you're just kind of guessing. Guessing is the type of thing that sometimes you have to do. And this kind of leads us on to our next question from Ryan Rand. Which players currently ranked outside the top 10 do you think could be this year's Donovan Mitchell? In other words, which guy right now

kind of ranked in that 21 to 35 range like Mitchell was around the same time of year could just jump into the mid to late lottery. I would say first off, obviously, like, what Donovan Mitchell did is incredible, and that's probably not going to happen. So if you expect that I'd be Donovan Mitchell, you're probably disappointed. To me, the guy's very interesting in this range. He's probably ranked little higher as Lonnie Walker at Miami. Didn't have a great year as a freshman. He was kind of the third option on that team coming off a knee surgery. But you can see like the underlying skill set. He's a super athlete, got a pretty good shot, you know, positive to his turnover ratio. I mean, there are things to like about him and maybe in a few years of

polishing. He could be better than what he is now. I have two guys that come to mind. And one of them we just mentioned DeAndre Hunter. I could easily see him rising up the rankings if he did decide to declare the other one is Mitchell Robinson who didn't go to college last year. He's ranked everywhere. Talk to NBA people. Some will have them ranked lottery. Some have them not even in the first round. Some websites, same thing. Mid-first, late-first. He's everywhere all over the board. I'm not super high on him at all, but the talent is apparent with his athleticism and his two-way potential. He could be like a, we talked about this on a prior pod, John, where you mentioned up top, you'd rather pass on some of these bigs and take a value guy in the middle of the

first round. You mentioned Robert Williams, Daniel Gafford before he took his name out of the draft. Right now, Mitchell Robinson is in that same general range. But with good work, If he has great interviews, which is kind of a big question, his stock could certainly rise into the mid to late lottery as well, because his talent is ridiculous. I mean, he has that basic generic, like, rim runner, switchy screen, block shots, defensive ability. Like, you can see it. It takes like five minutes of watching a play.

It's like he'll be catching lobes for a long time in the NBA. So that's there already. For sure, he's a guy who could be going all over the board in this draft process as it goes along. And it's always interesting guys like him because if they allow high school. prospects to go straight from high school to the NBA, we're going to have a lot more conversations like this where there's more variance on where guys are drafted. So Mitchell Robinson is kind of a flashback prospect in the sense that we used to have high school players coming straight to the

league, but he's also kind of a possible preview of the future too because of the fact that I think at some point perhaps the league will make that change. So we're going to have more Mitchell Robinson's. I'm not sure they will. I think they don't like the variance. I think that's where they don't want to make the change. I'm less sure than I was for. for that's for sure. I just have a feeling that's eventually what's going to end up happening. Do you want it to happen? Yeah, see, I would go one or two ways. Either we're going to scrap the whole thing, go academies at like 13 or keep it how it is. But I think going halfway in the middle of going out of high school doesn't want help anybody. Next question is from Billy Habibi,

which 2018 prospect will win the Lowry Marketing Award for Player Most Crapped on by KOC when drafted, but ends up being an absolute stud as rookie year. Shouldn't this be the Jason Tatum Award for me. You know, actually, that could be the case, John. So let's use the Google Assistant to help us to sign the title of the award by flipping a coin. If it's heads, it'll be the Laurie Marketing Award. If it's Tails, it's the Jason Tatum Award. Hey, Google, flip a coin.

All right. You got tails. Okay, it's the Jason Tatum Award. Congrats, John. You got your way. So who is it? I'll stick with the Duke guys, Bagley. Like, I've been worried about his defense and I've been worried about his shooting.

But at the same time, he's a stupid athlete. He's pretty skilled. He's going to put up stats right away. I'm most likely wherever he goes. Yeah, it's Bagley for me as well for all the same reasons. I mean, like we have Michael Beasley as a comp for him in the 2018 NBA draft guy, which I don't think is totally insulting in the sense that Beasley has had some good moments. If he's a more consistent Michael Beasley, that's not the worst thing in the world.

We're not saying it'll be Michael Beasley, Michael Beasley. But if there's elements of his game, it's not. so bad. The other guy is your dude sharks, and I haven't really crapped on his game much at all, but I'm a little bit lower on him than a lot of other people. Jaron Jackson Jr., he could make me pay if I end up having him ranked like

sixth or seventh, somewhere in that range. But I would say with him, it won't be his like immediate right away, because he's not like a ball dominant guy. I think like he'll carton the NBA and he'll have value, but it'll be more like subtle watching a lot of NBA value. It won't be like, oh, looking at the box scores. I could see badly being

like, you know, Bamada by or Julius Rand on a bad team and just putting up huge stats. Never been like, how do we pass on? Marvin Bagley is so great. I think the guy that generally could make everybody pay is probably Tray Young. He's gotten a lot of crap. It swung really far in him. That's true.

Yeah. Trey Young could make people pay as well because started high at the beginning of the season, super low now. There's some people that consider him like the 12th best prospect. I still think he's a mid-lottery guy, 6-7-8-ish range. but for folks who have him outside the lottery or in the 10-11-12 range, I think he certainly could make people look silly as well.

Don't be on Twitter tweeting about Trey Young as a rookie because he'll have some games he has like 35 points. It's like, this guy's amazing. And then he'll have a game when he'll go like one for 15 against Patrick Beverly. And I'd be like, how is he in the league? I think you like to see those flashes, though.

It's okay if you get that level of variance from a rookie, though, I think. Absolutely. Next question from Nick at Polite Lama. Good Twitter handled. I don't like angry. Lama's. I know, very polite. I like that, Nick.

You asked, out of the tanking teams, which ones are a lot to be back in the lottery next year, regardless of what happens, and which ones, if any, are a good pick away from thinking they can get 35 to 40 plus wins. I think the easy answer is Memphis, right? Because they got Conley, they got Casol.

As far as a team, it's going to be into lottery again, it's hard to bet again Sacramento. I know you're a big fan of their culture change, but I'll believe it when I see it at this point. And I think my Dallas Mavericks, we're looking at a long rebuild here. This is not going to get better anytime soon, in my opinion. Yeah, I think there's a handful of teams that apply to the first part. You know, teams that'll be back in the lottery.

I think Atlanta will be back, Dallas, back, Orlando, Sacramento. If you want to say there's six tanking teams, so Phoenix, Memphis, Atlanta, Dallas, Orlando, Sacramento, I think three of them arguably are going to be back at the bottom of the league with next year's drafts. But the thing is, the Sacramento doesn't have their. pick next year. It's going to either Philly if it's number one or Boston if it's two to 30. Okay, Kios, I have a question for you. So like, let's say

Memphis is probably the best team that bounce back. Are those other five teams? You had to pick one that's very unexpected breakthrough. Who is it? It's Phoenix. Yeah, how it makes sense. They have the best player of any of those teams in Devin Booker. Yeah, I guess that's a different. Who do you think stays? Do you think they keep Len Len long term? I wonder what happens is off. I think Len's gone.

What about Peyton? I would let him go as well unless it's super, super, super cheap. It might be. Yeah, it certainly could be. I think that was why it made sense to get him for the value that they did because they already had enough draft equity this year with all the picks that they had and that they could get a 24-year-old point guard who's shown some flashes over time just like he has with Phoenix. He also has his issues. But for a backup point guard, I think he'd be an interesting guy on a cheap contract. Is Tyson done with them? Does he have one more year left or is this it? He has one year left, 13 million-ish. Man, that contract aged poorly. Yeah, it did. That's a rough one for them. But I like Phoenix a lot. I love their youth. Dragon Bender still needs to get a lot more aggressive, a lot better, but they have Devin Booker, man. That's a guy you want to build around. With Lennon Chandler, I want to see Bender at the 5. That's why I want to see them kind of unclog this.

You love small ball. I love your love for small ball sharks. Stay unbranded. You guys are also forgetting Josh Jackson. Yeah. Oh, yeah, he's been good. He was the fourth overall pick last year. Yeah, he's had a good little run last year much.

Yeah, Josh Jackson's been really, really good. They have a lot of talent on the team. T. TJ Warren's a really nice spark plug at forward to have off your bench. You know, if they hit. this summer with their pick if they hit either with a trade or with all their cap space, that could be pretty good next year. Next question from The Real MVP at Big Unit 35. Who is the safest pick in the draft?

The guy with zero percent bust potential. I want to say Michael Bridges. Oh, my God. It's Mikhail Bridges. I'm sorry. It's Michael Bridges. I'm sorry. It's not Michael Bridges.

You should just start calling him Mike Bridges. I mean, he's got to be the safest, right? Like, McHale is a great shooter, great defender, smart player. Like, he's a plug and play guy anywhere. It's hard to see him not being at least decent. I think Luca Donchage safe. McHale Bridges, safe. Even Jaron Jackson, safe as well.

How about a guy outside of the lottery? I know there's no such thing as zero percent bus potential, but is there a guy that you view as for sure going to be an NBA player? I feel super strong about saying that. Off the top of my head, how about Shake Milton and SMU? I always liked Shake's game. In fact, he's a little underrated right now, but he's 6-6, 7-foot wingspan, really smart player, really good shooter. Rand Point in college can play off the ball in the NBA.

And SMU is just really going to get a job developing wings lately. They do a good job coaching these guys up, developing their skills. Like, he'll be a guy that's probably a lay first-round pick, but I'm pretty confident shake-bilton sticks in the league. I thought you were going to go with the guy you slacked about this morning, Jonte Porter, Michael Porter's brother. I love Jante. Jontay's nice, man. Yeah, he's an intriguing guy. Next question from Slevin Keller.

I butcher your name. I'm sorry, your Twitter handle is at Caspage. How do you think DeAndre Aten will match up against Chris Staps, Porzingis, Jewel Embed, Carl Towns, and Anthony Davis in about five years? That's a good question. Is he bigger than all those guys in terms of just pure size? Maybe Embed's bigger. But he's after that, he's probably the biggest of those four, isn't he?

He's comparable. At least comparable, yeah. He's definitely like wider shoulder than Davis and Porzingis. Like, he'll be a tough one-on-one cover in the post regardless. I don't know if he's going to guard those guys very well, though. It could certainly end up looking like the Spider-Man meme when him and Carl Towns go against each other. We're just pointing and they're like, you know, they're identical.

Do you get the reference charts? Oh, yeah, I'm not that out of touch. I know about the Spider-Man meme. Come on. What am I 50 years old? I'm just making sure. Because, as you said, DeAndre Aiton is weak on defense. And right now, that's the truth.

So Carl Towns, he all. also is very, very inconsistent and very underwhelming in the defensive end of the floor, but he's also an insane talent on offense, just like Aiton could be. I think they can end up very comparable players where the questions about them remain, like, will he get better on defense?

Why does he bite at all these pump fakes? Can his perimeter defense be better? Why doesn't he do this consistently? Here's a good question, Kevin. Where would you rank Aiden of those five coming into the draft? I feel like I'd have him at fifth. Okay, so out of those five, I'd have Davis one.

He was a sure thing. Yeah, he was a sure thing. I'm going to go with Joel Embedde before the back injury. So eliminating that story that came shortly before the draft. Embed would have been second. Third would have been towns.

It's tough between Aiton and Porzengis for me. I think I'd go Aiton slightly ahead of Porzangus only because of devaluation at the time. I'm trying not to let what he's become taint my opinion because I loved Porzingas. I had him ranked 10th or 11th in the year before he declared when he pulled his name out in June.

And then I had him like fourth, I think, or fifth in the year of his draft. I loved Porzingis as a prospect, but nobody could have expected him to be as good as he was, as quickly as he was. Yeah, he was so skinny. That was the big thing back then. Remember, that was the old Mark Madsen thing

when the Lakers worked him out against Mark Madsen. Everybody thought Porzingis was going to be a very, very slow project to develop. Yeah, people thought it was going to be Benderish in terms of his tradition to the NBA a little bit. Exactly. I think that's a perfect comp in the sense that Bender's development is just so frustrating.

because it's happening so slowly, but you also have to keep in mind that he's only 20 years old, and he was somebody that everybody expected to be slow to develop, which was part of the risk in drafting him, knowing that he would take a while, whereas Perzingus, it was kind of the same exact thing, but he just exploded immediately. Charks were about to go into our lightning round, but first, do you know who our sponsor is today? Yeah, draft class is brought to you by the ringer merch. Yes, we have exciting news for all you ringer heads out there. The Ringer has new merchandise

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Thank you again for everybody submitting your questions. We're going to blow through a couple of these. This first question is from Frank LaSalle. Very simple question, sharks. Is Grace and Allen a first round pick? No. He's just not worth the trouble in my mind. All the stuff off the court. He might be a good NBA player, but their guys like him with all the questions about his kind of makeup. Here's my thing. What stuff off the court? We're tripping people. Oh, yeah, that's stuff on the court.

Okay, that's true. That's fair. That is on the court. That's my thing. It's like all the dirty stuff he does is on the court. He's not a problem in the locker room. He's a hard worker. Everything I've heard about him. He's not a bad dude. He's just does some really dirty stuff on the court. court, like trying to trip guys sometimes. He just runs too many bits for a fringe guy, like too many bits with him. That's why, for me, I am super attracted to a prospect like him because that dude plays so hard, man. And if you erase some of that stuff, those bits, as you mentioned, there's some talent there. I think give him NBA spacing with his shooting ability and his athleticism.

There's potential for him to be a Eric Gordon type of player. Oh, Eric Gordon is nice, man. That's a big comp. Shoot spot-up threes, attacks closeouts with a lot of spacing on the floor. There's a little bit of that with him. And, you know, if there is a little bit of that dirtiness, so what? I think maybe he ends up like a Danny Aange type of guy, throwback comp. Aange was throwing balls at people, getting into fights and scuffles.

It's not a bad thing, I think, to have an energizer. Question from Chris Wolfe. At PNWNBA fan. Who in this class would you most want to? play with for a day of pickup basketball. It's got to be Luca, right? Just the way he plays, man. That's pure pick. I just the feel, the passing, the shooting. It's easy.

I don't know. I'd want to play with like a big dude. Just throwing oops all day? Yeah, just throwing oops I think that would be fun. Granted, you could also throw some oops to Luca Dantrich as well. I'd like to play with Bamba. 7 foot 9 wingspan, 7 feet tall. Can shoot threes a little bit?

Nobody could stop Bamba and pick up basketball. Have you brought him in the court? Like, hey, I got my friend Mohair. Well, no one's stop any of these guys if you're going to get technical with it. That's a good point. But Bamo would be striking and impressive. I would love to bring him. Jay Johnson at J. Johns 14 asked, would any high school players go in the top 10 of this year's draft?

Or how about the top five? I mean, to me, it's those two guys at Duke, R.J. Barrett and Cameron Reddish. I mean, if Barrett's shooting, which I don't know if he does shoot really, but if he's shooting three, he could be like the number one player in this draft if he was like a good shooter. R.J. Barrett would certainly be in the top five, I would think. Cameron Reisch, maybe not top five, but I would say top ten. Beyond that, it's tough to say. Zion Williams, and I know a lot of people would bring him up as well.

Romeo Langford, maybe top ten, but look, this year's top ten is pretty strong, right? Yeah, it is. It's a strong top ten. So we talked earlier with Mitchell Robinson and with the variants of high school prospects. Within this year's draft class, teams would be less hesitant to, I think, take a swing on one of those more risky. high school prospects. I mean, the one guy for sure is ball, ball. Like, he's a guy you could fall in love with and swing really high for her.

And that's the thing. Like, this is why these questions are so tough. It's literally all it takes is one team to be like, this is the guy. You know, we have this guy second on our board and we have the sixth pick. We're taking it. Like, that's all it takes. I remember Thon Maker two years ago? Like, nobody had him top 10.

Nobody. Nobody. But Milwaukee obviously loved him, took him 10th. That was shocking. When Milwaukee took Thon Maker, like, what was your reaction? Charks. I couldn't believe it. I was like, what?

I was just totally shocked when it happened. I was at a draft party, and my friend Jay King, Celtics Ryder, who actually just got hired by the athletic. He was in the room, and I, like, literally screamed out loud, and he could back to cell. That's true. I was like, what? And, yeah, it was just the most shocking thing.

I thought he was going to go 20-ish. There was, like, some rumblings that he'd be Lotto, but 10? That shocked me. I'm still surprised by it. I wonder if Milwaukee regrets the pick, but probably not, because you look at the guy so went after him. Yeah, that draft was pretty weak, so.

Yeah, there was some good guys. Sabonis went 11, Turin Prince went 12, Juan Hernan Gomez, who I still like a lot, even though he's kind of buried in Denver, went 15th, but can't knock the pick.

They took a swing, right? Thonmaker's a high upside guy just hasn't panned out yet, but the flashes have been there. Simon MCD. 11 asked, if you were the Knicks and you had the choice of McHale Bridges,

Colin Sexton, or Trey Young, who would you? you pick? Oh, that's a good question. I think it would come down to how much I believed in Frank, right? Like, if you think Frank's going to be your point guard eventually, you go with bridges. But if you think Frank's really a two, you might have to take one of these point guards. Or could you go one of the point guards anyway?

Because you want a multi-ball handler offense. Could it also be system-based how you want to build your team? To me, I view Frank is more of a just a guard. I mean, he guards multiple positions. He doesn't just guard point guards. He can cover up a weaker defender. And he can play off ball. little bit, but he can also play on ball. So I wouldn't hesitate, honestly, at all, to take a guy

like Trey Young, especially. Yeah, I guess it's all about the team you want to build because, like, makes Frank so interesting as you can go like an all-defense team. Imagine Frank and Mikhail Bridges to one and two. You can switch everything as two seven-foot wingspans, incredible defense. Bridges would be my guy too, simply because I haven't ranked ahead of those other guys. And plus, it's harder to find those guys as well that are three-and-d-d wing super versatile guys. Next question from Real SQ at Squidwa. Should the Clippers draft two prospects with their projected lottery picks or try to deal them both to move up for one stud prospect?

We got to ask Isaac, right? As our Clippers guy. The floor is yours. Yeah, sure. So right now, the Clippers would have the Detroit pick, which should have the 12th best odds for the lottery. Then their own 13th. Yeah, then their own 13th pick.

You know what? I actually would trade up. Not because I believe in the top 10 guys, but mostly because I don't believe in our player development. Interesting. Like the Clippers player development has never been good. Doc has never developed good players from the draft. That's true.

We just need one surefire guy. Maybe that's McHale Bridges. Maybe that's Trey Young or one guy with like star potential. Again, that would be Trey Young or even Michael Porter. But I don't know who would trade down though. Who's going to trade down from the tanking teams? I don't see the appeal for really any team. And like you're not going to get a top five, six, seven, eight.

Where's the appeal in trading down to 12, I think there's a probably a, I don't want to say a clear drop off, but there's certainly a decline in talent unless a guy were to slip. I think you would need to give up more than 12 and 13 to trade up to 7 or even 6 or in that general range. Maybe trade up the 9, but is it worth giving up 12 and 13 to get to 9? Like, would you do that, Isaac? Probably not, because that would be what, like, Miles Bridges, Wendell Carter, Zaire Smith.

Well, that's the thing, is like maybe you do if you consider. consider that guy the fourth best player in the draft. This would be like a Justice Winslow thing? Or no, the Charlotte Hornets. What was it? Like Frank Kaminsky? Yeah, exactly. They were offered four or five draft picks.

Oh, my God. Because the Celtics wanted to trade up to get Justice Winslow, but they decided to keep the pick because they wanted the great Frank the tank, Frank Kaminski. You know what's funny, though? Remember when Sacramento traded down from 8 to 13? It was from Chris to Papayanas, and they got bogged out of it. It shows how much you all really know about. at the draft because looking back on it now, maybe Boggham's the best player in that trade.

For sure. I still like that trade for both teams. I think Marquis Chris for Phoenix was worth a swing. Just hasn't worked out. Chris was, again, one of those low floor, high ceiling type of guys and it just hasn't worked. But I think they had to afford to take a risk, whereas they had a ton of picks anyway. Giving up Bogdanovich is tough, though. But that's why, you know, 8, 9, 10 range might be worth trading down. But I don't know if you're going to get much higher than that if you're the clippers. Yeah. And by the way, the Kings, they waived Papayanas. Just a couple months ago. Insane.

And then Papayana signed with Portland. Tough path for him. Interesting pick. Probably one of the bigger busts than that year's draft. Well, I'm ready for grades. How about you, Charks? I'm never ready for grades if I suppose it can't be held. Isaac, we're ready for him.

Sure. I feel like in the last few weeks, all I've harped on is pronunciation. And I am going to continue to harp on you guys for your pronunciation of these prospects. I corrected myself in that thing. Exactly. So, Charks, starting with you, your repentance for your McHale Bridges pronunciation was very commendable. It truly melted my heart. Charks, you get an A for today.

Oh, what up? Amazing. But Kevin O'Connor, what up? You brought up a certain prospect who was taken by the Milwaukee Bucks at number 10. His name is Thon McCur. Really? It's pronounced McCur. Oh, my gosh.

I didn't even know that. That's terrible. Who pronounces it McCur? Him. The guy whose name is Thon McCur. But who? I'm fighting this. So it's pronounced McCur, but nobody pronounces it McCur.

Yeah. Now we're going to start. But Jonas Yerebko is Yonis Orebco, but everybody calls it Jonas Derebko. So when I get knocked for saying, you know, for saying Jonas. 1,000 percent. 100 percent. Are you for real? Yeah.

It's Yorepco. I like it. Stickler. But to be fair to you, you did have a lot of great answers for our listeners. So I'm just going to give you a B minus. Oh, thank you. I'm cool with that. Yeah.

And also, So my third and final grade is for our listeners who submitted some great questions for us to answer. Thank you for all your questions. Thank you for using hashtag ringer MBA. Keep submitting them throughout the month of April. We're going to be back the first week of May as well. So A plus plus plus to our listeners. Yes.

Yes. Seriously. Thank you to everybody. Always. Everybody. Seriously. Which we had more time for more questions. But we will be back next month, as Isaac said.

And we'll answer more of them then. Well, that was fun. Thank you for listening to Draft Class. We'll be back next Friday the day before the NBA playoffs. and hopefully we'll have Danny Chow on next week as well. Please check it all over in big cunts on the ringer.com and the ringer podcast network. If you like the show, give us a rating and review on Apple Podcasts or wherever you listen to your podcast. Special thanks to Oso Oso for providing our intro and outro music.

And thank you to Isaac Lee for producing the show. And thank you to Elon Musk for listening. We'll talk to you next week. Have fun this weekend. Peace out.