I went and looked at what it would look like if Stone hit on every pick in every draft since he's taken over. I also did my best to keep the free agent signings and traded players they would need with the different roster. What I came up with was the following: Evan Mobley (taken instead of Jalen Green)/ Steven Adams/ Neemias Queta (taken instead of Usman Garuba) Dillon Brooks / Tari Eason Jalen Johnson (taken instead of Sengun)/ Toumani Camara (taken instead of Cam Whitmore) Josh Christopher / Jalen Williams (taken instead of Jabari)/ Amen Thompson FVV/ Andrew Nembhard (taken instead of TyTy Washington)/ Reed Sheppard (considered taking Steph Castle but didn't figure he was needed with all the depth at SF/SG.) Do you think we would be significantly better off with this roster? Would you have done things differently? If so, how?
Pretty sure the Cavs would trade us Mobley for Sengun straight up right about now. If Sengun hasn't progressed....Mobley *really* hasn't progressed. I would take Franz Wagner or maybe Scottie Barnes over Evan Mobley if we re-drafted that spot.
It doesn't really work like that unfortunately. Houston's only offensive production once Harden left was unhappy and often injured Eric Gordon. Pushing Green and Sengun's shots to Evan Mobley and Jalen Johnson probably would have stunted both guy's development. Part of why Mobley could be DPOY is because a.) He had an experienced defensive big playing with him often meaning even if he made a mistake, his teammate could minimize the negative impacts, and b.) his team needed very minimal offensive production from him. Similarly, Johnson's offensive production today comes after being buried in Atlanta for a few years so honestly Houston is probably in an extended state of offensive chaos if these are the players we are drafting. We probably don't have the Ime turnaround in that scenario. These guys don't turn into the same players when thrown into entirely different contexts. The Jalen Williams one hurts a bit because we 100% could use that player on our roster now. That being said - props to OKC for making that pick because VERY few teams are going to be rewarded with an all star on a 3rd year college player who wasn't even his own mid major college team's best player for 2 of those 3 years. It begs the question of whether Jalen Williams is really that good or whether being drafted to a deep, stacked team with an elite scorer has hidden benefits if you have the right skill set. I legit wonder if J-Will would be an All NBA player and All Star if drafted on any other team but OKC.
Isn't Amen just a more athletic version of Scottie Barnes? I know people sell the 'Barnes as a franchise player' narrative but statistically Amen does just about everything Barnes does and is playing the best offensive player in a far tougher Western Conference on most nights. If Amen were in the East and had a team touting him as the player they are building around, he would have an AS game appearance too.
jalen green over mobley and wagner and barnes was the biggest miss. Stone's first draft outside of Sengun was really bad
If we had drafted evan mobley we wouldn't be losing a war to Iran right now, butterfly effect true fact
Redrafting 2021 Jalen Johnson / Trey Murphy / Quentin Grimes / Herb Jones 2022 Jalen Williams / Walker Kessler / Andrew Nembhard 2023 Amen Thompson / Toumani Camara 2024 Stephon Castle You get lots of long defensive wings around 2 all-stars, and most everyone can shoot. Flip out Trey Murphy for anyone else you prefer in 2021 draft (the other 3 guys can be picked with our later picks) Assuming free agents additions of FVV, Adams and Capela. Brooks for a year or 2 to teach the young guys toughness?
for Jalen Williams, it is not just the team, it is also coaches, development opportunities and player’s willingness to learn and improve. I had a career in academia and it is very similar. Less talented Students who go to the right departments, work with the right people for their ph.d. can easily be much better in their field compared to others who wasn’t that lucky.
Yeah - I work in corporate leadership and you can say the same about the "ceiling" of people there - honestly having access to the right 'champions' and the right context for demonstrating success is more valuable than how good you actually are something. Perception can be more valuable than actual ability - even in sports where you would think results are king.
It's also the development staff. For example if Jalen Williams came here instead of OKC, does he turn out as well. Nature v. Nurture. The nurture of OKC vs Silas first three years. Ex: Thunder hired Chip England as shooting coach after Spurs, whereas here, we never had an official specialist. A little John Lucas here, a little Scott Sullivan (Ime era) later there. Playing with a Oladipo and Christian Wood, instead of mentored by a Chris Paul...etc. Even Dort's 3pt shot had improvements. Rockets might be better with the re-draftees, but maybe not as better as those player's current realized self on those other teams. From personal experience, after transferring to a public school. After a few grades, if curriculum is dumbed down, all the kids more or less move at the pace of that class, barring outside help. Drafting is phase 1, development is phase 2, phase 2 is as important. The ecosystem/training staff was also on Stone.
Beat me to it, this is almost exactly what I was going to quote and post. This certainly holds true in corporations in the UK as well.
Fun exercise. How about the vaunted San Antonio and OKC front offices? Spurs redraft with hindsight since 2021: In - Jalen Johnson, Austin Reaves, Jalen Williams, Walker Kessler, Andrew Nembhard, Peyton Watson, Toumani Camara Out - Josh Primo, Joe Wieskamp, Jeremy Sochan, Malaki Branham, Blake Wesley, Kennedy Chandler, Sidy Cissoko OKC redraft with hindsight since 2020: In - Tyrese Maxey, Franz Wagner, Austin Reaves, Jalen Johnson, Kel'el Ware, Sam Merrill, Joan Beringer, Dylan Cardwell Out - Aleksej Pokuševski, Josh Giddey, Tre Mann, Nikola Topic, Thomas Sorber, Cassius Winston, Brooks Barnhizer Turns out "Why isn't the GM omniscient?" is a pretty hard standard by which to judge drafting.
It's not the misses, it's the hits. When you get franchise players like Wemby and SGA, the ceiling raises for everybody, including the reputations of the front office.
BTW, I'm a Stone fan. I think he's done an overall great job and I still understand why he picked Jalen. Jalen had a ridiculous ceiling and we needed a superstar. He just didn't hit. But as I look around at the league and feel like we're doomed to be worse than OKC, San Antonio and maybe even Dallas for the next however many years, it got me curious if I could even fix the mess with hindsight. I don't think I could. I think that team is still worse than OKC and San Antonio because there just wasn't a Shai or Wemby available to us.
If we didn't waste a pick on draft bust Jalen Green we wouldn't have been able to keep tanking for top picks.
