2014 NBA draft/off-season thread

Fantastic insight into the draft process from the Sacramento Kings here:

http://grantland.com/features/sacramento-kings-draft-nik-stauskas/

Enjoyable seeing old school guys, Mullin, Richmond, listen to analytics presentation.

 

When did Gordon Heyward become a max player? He shot 41% from the field and averaged 16 points for a crap team.

 

Rumored sign and trade: Isaiah Thomas (Kings PG) for Rajon Rondo.

 

Agreed. What I noticed was how they seemed to ignore what the two analytic nerds had said at the time of the actual pick. These two give a presentation explaining that Payton is the better pick than Stauskas because of his defense and he "would be a much better fit." At the end the room applauds with Bratz announcing that they were "right on" with everyone else agreeing.

And then the time of the pick comes, with the choice between Payton and Stauskas, and the they pick .....Stauskas? Umm, what? And it appears with the call being made by the owner almost on a last second whim.

 

I believe the reading of the video is not accurate; the analytics guys were "crowd-sourced" to provide input but they were not the decision-makers; that was D'Alessandro, Mullin, Bratz, Richmond and my sense was D'Alessandro wanted Stauskus if he couldn't get Embiid. The analytics guy said Payton fit better but he was not an employee just an import.

Ranadive did not make the choice, he just agreed. Look that guy is smart and he's the primary owner, of course he's going to have input; that's the modern ownership thinking.

 

Gordon Hayward offered a max deal? I thought you needed at least one All-Star game appearance to earn one of those. Unless it's just Jordan trying to jam Utah one more time for kicks.

 

What the hell did the Cavs trade?

 

According to Frank Isola, Carmelo Anthony will return to New York to play for Knicks.

 

But did he sound sarcastic?

 

I don't doubt that Melo's camp gave every indication that he was coming back to NY. Isola is pretty damn reliable and he did qualify it with "barring a last minute change of heart" and now it appears that the Bulls are still in the mix.

These guys are complete flakes and while I hate to agree with Brian Windhorst on anything, I agree that reporting that anything is 100 percent with any of these guys is ridiculously risky.

 

The Spurs and San Antonio media are just sitting back laughing at this circus
that they do not participate in