Idk I’m a bit nervous he’s just another Jordan bell. Which is technically above average and exceeds expectations, but not good enough to really make a difference.
I’m higher on TJD’s defense and passing than I was for Bell. Also, TJD is slightly bigger than bell (height, wingspan, standing reach are all at least an inch taller/longer than bell). I think he can have a reasonable role as backup undersized center. I’m excited to see what he can do.
I would like some suggestions about how to study the idea “Bob Myers era GSW has messed up development of the rookies”. On the one hand, everyone hoped that Kuminga would have progressed more by now. On the other hand, I’ve observed people having unrealistic expectations of prospect development that no team could possibly live up to.
I have a couple of ideas along the lines of
(1) calculating which teams exceeded the expected 6 year Win Shares for their draft spots and looking at the outlier cases qualitatively,
(2) asking people for which teams have the best reputation for player development and then looking at the overall portfolio of picks and development cases player by player.
I could use some more ideas.
I don’t expect to change anyone’s mind because it is natural for fans to worry that the team is messing everything up, and some people will always find the most anxious interpretation of every situation.
But for my own understanding, I’d like to study it. (This is what drove me to make my epic Dynasty Drafting series. I went in wanting to document how much worse GSW did than other dynasties, and found they did better than all but one, and that people’s complaints were not based in fact.)
You could look at redrafts, and see how many positions a draft pick moved up/down. Then combine all the players drafted by each team to see if, with hindsight, teams are drafting better/worse than their positions.
And use some weighting system for position (e.g. #38 is worth 10 points, while #10 is worth 155, so that player drafted at #38 and redrafted at #10 was worth 145 draft skill points)
I just realized this system penalizes teams with early picks. If a #1 pick is redrafted at #1 the team is give zero credit. Conversely a #60 can easily move up 10 to 20 spots. I guess it would equal out over 10 years if all teams draft order equaled out. But moving from #10 to #5 should be given a lot more credit than moving from #30 to #25.
The problem with re-drafts is teams' selections are not in a vacuum but redrafts are. Teams in the draft ask "Which player is best for us right now?". So they may pick a player who they think can mesh with the personnel they have when if it was an expansion draft--they had no players at all--they might pick someone else. The redraft ignores those criteria and really is just a rank of the performance of the drafted players up to that point. So a player who falls in the redraft might still be just what the team needed and they would never have drafted the player assigned to them by the redraft. That team would say the "won" with the player they got and would have "lost" with the allegedly better player the redraft reassigned to them.
So, redrafts are fair as a ranking of player performance, but not as a ranking of team performance.
Jun 25, 2023·edited Jun 25, 2023Liked by Eric Apricot
1) everybody remembers the successful projects, but don’t remember how rare they are in the grand scheme of things.
2) better understanding development timelines. Whether it’s by years in league or minutes played (in the spirit of 10000 hours), maybe people start seeing how you can’t really rush development. Other ideas: by draft position, you can compare typical win share @3 years, and years to max win share as rough metrics of developmental rate.
3) grading by draft position is hard since we have so little data on the team, (eg only two top 10 picks since Curry), that it’s hard to say statistically whether we messed up or were unlucky. But just aggregate statistics would still be good context.
4) unfortunately, being above average is little solace to the typical fan. I think what fans really want is to be in the top quartile of performers, or to hit home runs on rotation pieces. That will always be the unreasonable expectations, but perhaps those expectations can be put into context.
5) might be hard to get numbers on this, but heuristically if you use win shares it could be helpful to contrxtualize them in terms of things like, “this is the centerpiece(s) of a team” vs this is starter material vs this is 6th-7th man vs this is a marginal 8th-9th person level of production. I feel like fans are looking for 6th-7th man material at the least, when in reality even 8th/9th man is above average.
This is a very complicated and - as you say below - "noisy" task. Your work on Dynasty Drafting is directly relevant, though - because like that project, your initial question ought to compare "Bob Myers era GSW" to other dynastic teams. What is common to past dynasties is that the presence of multiple dominating players on their roster is likely to reduce playing time for very young players (testable - can be evaluated). I think it is a reasonable hypothesis that young players must have playing time to develop. But how can they develop if their minutes are absorbed by dynastic stars?
If this is true, then it is pointless to compare the developmental success of dynastic teams and perennial losers or middle-of-the-packers. And probably also pointless to compare dynasties because of the small sample sizes and great variation.
Is there a way to assuage fan feelings that we are wasting Wiseman-Poole-Kuminga-Moody's primes? Not developing them? Or that they were the wrong picks to begin with?
Probably not. But the organization could do more. I don't think it is their interests, but possibly. Here's how:
re: Drafting: be completely transparent about the weaknesses the team is trying to fix, the upsides and flat-sides of the people it drafts, and the plan for physical development (Celebrini, etc.), skills development (which coaches) and getting up-to-speed with the challenges of the NBA. BTW, I'm guessing that there is always a somewhat persuasive rationale for the team making the drafting decision they did - we just may not know it.
re: Development: be very public about how players are progressing - what they are missing athletically, skill-wise and game-relevant.
While complete and total transparency might - might - mollify fans, it is unlikely to have a great effect on the players. Calling out specific errors as illustrative of a general failing, for example, could be valid, or could be due to confounding factors, or could be completely wrong and an example of the fallacy of generalization or else just an ordinary bias.
Thunder and Heat are probably the player dev models that would be most interesting.
I think folks are coming at it from the wrong angle: Teenagers have tanked franchises for decades. Would be the statement I’d be interested in seeing evaluated.
Did the Warriors fail to develop, or have they failed to draft players that were good enough at basketball to actually play for a competitive NBA team first? And then refused to play them for the years needed in the G-League to train them (like Miami reportedly does?)
The failure was likely primarily in the draft and they seem to have finally recognized that to some extent, and are trying to rectify it.
Interesting. How would you try to confirm this theory through data and case study? List all teenagers taken in the draft and then…?
At one point I started looking into all teenagers drafted by teams that had made the playoffs. This was going to be an assessment of whether Two Timelines has ever worked. But I’ve lost a little motivation to follow through now that 2T is being abandoned. It would just be piling on. Also, GSW won the championship so all the fears of the critics did not come to pass, so…
I’m more interested in how the heat and Thunder operate.
The following is pure brainstorming without much structure:
It might be worth trying to determine if drafting teens (does it help if they took their teams to titles at the prior level?) makes any sense.
But if I was going to dive into the folly, or not, of drafting 19 year olds, I would look at it in the context of what they did for the team that drafted them. If we want a more consistent line in the sand we could use the first four years to approximate a current rookie contract (in my mind a second contract is most dangerous for young rfa’s who haven’t quite gotten there but the team feels pressured to pay them like that anyway.)
How effective at helping the team win were top 5 or 10 or lottery (or 1st round if your not worried about wasting time for limited gains) teenage draft picks over the last 30 years since it got popular?
I think the data might change significantly depending on how deep in the draft you go. I would limit it to only the picks that have a reasonable hit rate any way since picks past a certain threshold don’t hit often enough to justify looking at. Top-10 looks like the tipping point.
I wouldn’t waste more time on it unless the Warriors are terrible next year and have a good shot at that top 4 pick. But I do wonder if Eddie Curry, Tyson Chandler, Kwame Brown, Jermaine O’neal, T-Mac and co have colored my ability to see the true worth of drafting raw teens.
Interestingly, I wrote a whole piece looking at the outcomes of Wiseman types (essentially straight from high school bigs). Overall, they did quite well.
The question isn’t did they do well for their career. It’s did they do well for the team that drafted them.
Garnett was the most generational of the geoup and did make the Timberwolves relevant for a while. But he was traded for a bag of chips and got a title elsewhere, while the T-Wolves have been a mess. Chandler was terrible for the Bulls but had a good career and won a title with Dallas. O’neal did nothing for the Blazers but had a good career. Eddie and Kwame were just all bad. So it seems if you want to be the minor leagues draft those guys. If you want to be a contender get them through trade after they become men (yay Pistons?)
In addition to draft position, I’d normalize somehow for strength of draft. So maybe some kind of relationship of expected WS relative to total win shares of the draft year based on position. Basically, JW pick shouldn’t be expected to outperform Mobley/Green or Scoot.
But also, it seems like selection and development shouldn’t be lumped together. Different competencies, different staff, etc.
That’s a good point about the draft strength context. The data side is complex enough and the samples small enough that I suspect we will never be able to conclude much, but it might illuminate case studies.
If you have any practical ideas for how to disentangle selection and development, I’m all ears. I can’t think of any way to begin to approach that.
Yeah it quickly becomes a giant rabbit hole if you try to factor everything in.
Leaving draft and development entangled, would it work to just compare each pick against all the players who were available in that draft at that moment and assign that pick a number grade? Like, if you’re perfect at drafting, you’d always pick the most impactful player out of the available players. You could do that for every pick for each (relevant) team for the past n years, average across each team’s picks, and then compare DPA.
It doesn’t account for how player x would have developed elsewhere but it at least seems like a fairly straightforward starting point.
And sorry if this is completely obvious, I’m not much of a data person :-)
Eric usually does this, compares only to other players available, and it throws out half the data for no reason. If a team picks before the dubs, and that pick over/under performs, that's a relevant data point to compare Dub drafting ability to that other team's drafting ability.
I like (1) at this point. The projected Win Shares (or equivalent value stat) should do a decent job at approximating the missed value on the Wiseman pick and has a chance of capturing the slow development/contributions of MM and JK. It also will reward the Dubs for JP's development.
The main issue with this methodology is how to capture the value of trades. Take JW: He was flipped for what eventually became GP2. Does he now deserve GP2's win shares for the rest of the 6 year period?
What about JP for CP trade? Does JP also get credit for CP's contributions? That makes no sense.
Well, if we focus just on drafting, then you can just continue to follow the prospects for the remaining years on their 6 year timeframe with their new team.
Development is slightly different, and trades would be the way to distinguish drafting from development, but that would probably require a bit more of a complicated projection system. The simplest way would be to just use the same WS projection by draft slot by year, but realistically, at the time of the trade, there should be a new projection given the players' actual career stats at the time of the trade.
The whole data-driven side of the project is honestly kind of doomed precision-wise because there is so much noise, but it’s fun to think about.
But I can already tell it will be fun to write about the legendary development teams. There were some real stinker draft picks / development that got memory holed because of the great picks.
I'm an eye test guy.... data drive analysis are interesting, but I agree they are doomed precision wise for something like evaluating contributions of draft choices because there are so many variables related to team composition and perceived needs, position, usage, draft position and strength, player personalities, etc.
I suspect you'll have enough precision to show that the JW pick was awful compared to historic expectations and that one outlier will pull the entire Dubs' draft legacy down to well below average.
True. Let's just take Draymond and Wiseman. Draymond was #35, and redrafts at #4. Behind Davis, Beal, and Lillard. That's a +31. Wiseman was #2, and redrafts at... 20? 40? So -18 or -38, who knows. It's possible that those two completely offset each other.
It’s not obvious to me that it would, I would want to see numbers. It would depend on how you combine the net effect of all the different picks. Also, don’t underestimate how many lottery draft picks fail and how much most teams miss.
Also, I don’t know what awful means here. As an outcome, Wiseman was a bust for GSW. As a pick… well it seems like that is an incomplete analysis if it punishes GSW too heavily for taking a consensus Top 3 pick.
What you want to find out is whether Dubs prospects develop better, not as well, or about the same as prospects on other teams, yes? If so, it doesn't matter what GP2 does when assessing JW. How could it? Or am I missing the point?
Actually, that's it. @EA: One way to deal with trades is to truncate the expected Win Shares at the time of the trade. You're not evaluating trades or quality of trades, so everything that happens after a trade is meaningless.
So, simply evaluate actual production above/below expected production during the years that the drafting team held rights to the player.
I would probably do a second pass and include the full 6 years of production, too.
Kind of? I would say it was the fault of the front office to draft raw, all-potential guys with the timeline the Dubs were working on; the point of the ambitious "two timelines" project was to be good enough in the *first* timeline to maintain dominance in the second timeline, and starting out by looking like a potato on the road prompted an overhaul there...
> Poole is an outlier for this past year because of the Punch. YOU ALMOST HAVE TO PUT AN ASTERISK WITH THE CONCLUSIONS IN HIS CASE.
That's a reasonable position, but let me make the opposite case. Two-timelines has multiple kinds of challenges. 1)You need to draft well. 2)You need to accept some losses to develop the new players (yet work to keep them from knocking you out of the playoffs. <==These are the two most people end up debating, like, was Kerr right to pull the plug after game 10 or no. But a third challenge is 3)You have to get the aging stars to willingly make room for the new players.
THIS is the task that, done well, means there would never have been a punch. And, in the aftermath of the punch, THIS is the task the coach and other leaders have to focus on. Instead, they focused on "We can't win a title without Dray" and ended up costing the team. SO, the case I want to make is if you are going to do two-timelines, you have to manage those three (and perhaps more) challenges. These challenges are inherent to the task of coaching the (capital T) team, and take the easy way out of coaching primarily the players you've grown close to). For these reasons I propose that it is fair to assess the coach on whether he did that well or not
"[Pompey] The Suns want the Sixers to facilitate a 3-team deal that would land Tobias Harris in Phoenix, according to a league source. The third team would take Suns center Deandre Ayton and send assets to Philly."
I mean, I guess Ayton's still available . . . Philly would definitely take Paul and Kuminga, the question is, what could we get back in addition to Ayton? Doesn't seem like it would work (maybe flip Ayton to the Pacers?)
Came here to say this. Would we really have to also send out kuminga to make this work salary wise? If we get ayton, feel like that’d be huge. Turn around his perception like we did with Wiggs
I imagined his moving truck driving towards DC, getting to west Texas, then heading towards the Bay Area, getting to western Nevada, then heading south back to Phoenix
Tim Duncan, David Robinson, Sean Elliott and Manu Ginobili had dinner with Victor Wembanyama last night after his arrival in San Antonio. Welcome, kid.
Most people shrink (lose a few inches) as they get older. (Remember that photo where Jimmy and Rosalyn Carter looked like kids next to Joe and Jill Biden? :-) ) I expect The Admiral is somewhat shorter than he was when he was playing. Still a striking photo, though.
Why? He got waived by the Magic, now the Pistons, not exactly a great recommendation. Meanwhile we just drafted a young shooter in Podz, we have GP2, and we want to give Moody more minutes at the wing.
GP2 and Moody are wings not guards, Neither can be a primary ball handler or create their own shot.
Podz is a 20 year old rookie and shouldn’t be counted on to play a role.
Poole led the team in minutes last year, and backed up both Steph and Klay. CP3 brings a lot but there’s still going to be lots of games where one, two or all three of those guys are sitting and we’ll want a backcourt shot creator. Getting a poor man’s version of Poole would be ideal.
Hampton was a late first combo guard guy who came into the league at 19. He’s been on mostly bad teams with lots of young players competing for minutes and he wasn’t a priority. Bad teams are usually the worst spot for players like this because they’ve already got some other young, inefficient guards that they’ve taken higher in the draft.
Despite that he has gotten better every year. You’re taking a shot that the 22 year old version will be better, especially with a very good roster around him that needs what he brings. Similar to how Malik Monk has blossomed into a very valuable guy with the Kings.
True. I haven't been impressed with Hampton but as you say, he wasn't in a great spot. You may have seen more of him than I have, too. The question then becomes whether he is better and has more upside than Ty Jerome, given what we've seen of Ty.
Ty was a great fit last year because the roster had Poole. That savvy PG type was more needed vs a combo guard.
I’m not opposed to keeping Ty either but a roster that has CP3 as the backup PG has much less of a need for someone like him. I’m a game where Steph and CP3 sit
I haven’t seen that much of Hampton. Just heading into the offseason I was thinking literally someone with that archetype would be a good fit and there’s only a couple ways you get them for a minimum. A young prospect who someone gave up on. Or an Alex Burks type/Barbosa type. Someone who had a bit of a history but got hurt or fell out of favor (Shake Milton?)
Or maybe it Lester on a two way, or being Mac back (he’d make more sense on this roster). I jus think that need is a little greater than just relying on a rookie and a g league guy.
I asked Brandon & Trayce if they’ve talked to any of their teammates yet: Both said no but saw that Steph Curry followed both of them and they got really excited 😂😂
That's the thing. So many superstars would be aloof, but you just know Steph is going to welcome these guys, swap college stories, teach them, believe in them, invite them over to meet the kids... who wouldn't be excited? They'll be asked about it a million times by the press. They should just say: "well, how would you feel?".
I only looked into Podz a little bit during our draft tournament, but I noted that he had stats which tend to translate to good pro basketball and can be signs of a player who works hard to build skills in general. Wish I could find the article, but someone over at, I think it was Sactown Royalty(?), did an analysis a while back looking at which stats tend to translate to NBA success and what the evidence says about development of "potential" vs. "skills" and so on. What I remember is:
- The two stats most rookies improve a lot at in their first couple years of the NBA are scoring efficiency, and foul rate.
- Players generally stay in the same range in terms of how many rebounds they get. Most make improvements, but not dramatic ones, and players who started out better at rebounding tend to improve about the same amount as players who were worse. (There are individual exceptions, of course.)
- There are some stats where players who start out lower tend to catch up more quickly; and there are some stats, where players who are already ahead tend to get more ahead both in that stat and in others. Think of it as, "Being ahead at this skill indicates that the player is better at building skills in general." The most predictive stat for this category is AST/TO ratio.
All of these things make me pretty optimistic for Podziemski's future with the Dubs. His interviews, his stats, and his college results all point towards a player who's competitive, high-BBIQ, and skilled. The more I look into things, the more optimistic I am that we may have lucked into a serious draft steal.
TJD I'm only a little less excited about, but I love his fit with the team, and I see a lot more strengths than weaknesses for a guy who went 57th in the draft. I love that he's another defensively focused big but in very different dimensions than Looney. It could be a lot easier to find lineups where he contributes than it has been with some of our other recent centers. (Lookin' at you, Cauley-Stein.)
Really hoping they both earn some minutes and success on the court for us.
Going back to Podziemski's interview after he worked out for the Warriors, he says that in his honest opinion, he's a top 5 basketball player in this draft. Extreme confidence (although I guess not quite extreme enough to say he's better than Wembanyama).
Also seems to have gotten into a fight with a bear judging by the red mark under his neck?
I think where I landed on the Podz pick that made me feel good about it. Partially what had brought me around to the PBJ pick last year. They’ve done particularly well with really skilled guys.
A step further is that they’ve done really well with really skilled guys who are tough and confident. Whatever is lacking in Podz game from a first step or foot quickness aspect, there’s still a bottom line that he can really shoot, pass and you have to be tough to get 9 rebounds a game as a guard.
TJD is really tough, skilled, and experienced. Which is where they’ve had their best draft wins.
Steve Kerr on Adding CP3 (+ Thoughts on the Rookies): "Biggest point is that we sensed we needed a shift. And it feels like we’ve made a pretty significant shift without giving up our identity and our sense of who we are as a team. I think, all in all, it’s a very positive shift" (via Tim Kawakami)
Can someone describe what this shift is. Is it just abandoning the two timelines or is it slowing down the second unit or what? Is it the changes in the coaching staff, reflecting their decreased emphasis on younger players? All of the above, none of the above?
So is TJD in limbo-land? Is he still officially a Wizard until the JP extension kicks in and the trade consummates? But since the Wiz obv don't want him, does he just stay home and chill until the trade finalizes and then he's able to come to the Dubs' practice and pressers and meet the staff/team?
Is it time to question the Dubs' drafting and development?
I was reading the comments re: Bell below, and it started to make me wonder. I know they overhauled their developmental staff last year, and it was supposed to pay dividends with the youth, but now 4/6ths of the 15-man roster youth they started the season with last year is gone (PBJ, RR, JW, JP), leaving only MM and JK.
The lone unarguable drafting success they've had since the first 'chip is Looney. Certainly, they've been hurt by really poor draft slots, but with the recent departure of the above youth, is it time to revisit the question? The Dubs seem to suffer a lot from young drafted guys who have a single good season, then flame out. Bell, McCaw, Paschall. You can now add JP to that mix - tho he played three seasons, only one was excellent. Then there are the draft picks that never developed into anything before leaving or getting traded: Jones, Evans, Smiley(lol), JW, Jessup, Nico, and now PBJ and RR.
Furthermore, if rumors are to be believed, they're on the cusp of trading JK, which would leave MM the lone remaining draft pick from 2016-2022 with a realistic chance of contributing this season.
I know we seem to go down this road every season, but last season, you could point to a lot of hope in the new developmental staff, the young kids and JP's epic 2nd year. Now? Not much of that left. Starts to make you wonder again.
i think they’ve had some missteps in terms of approach to the draft vs identifying talent. There’s a bunch of angles I didn’t like on the Wiseman pick. Drafting PBJ and RR was a curious decision.
In terms of development I think they actually do a good job. Kuminga and Moody are in good spots. Really a lot better than is given credit for.
Poole was a huge win. Looney has gotten better and better. Wiseman had terrible luck.
McCaw and Bell not developing isn’t really much proof of anything except they’re not good.
Most good teams aren’t developing young talent. They clearly overdid it last year and have taken a very wise course correction. I think it’s going to be very good for the two best prospects they had: Kuminga and Moody.
McCaw and Bell played meaningful minutes for championship contenders as late draft picks. Even for one season, that’s a success for the positions they were picked at.
We can all agree it’s disappointing that JK hasn’t progressed faster.
To me the key is always to compare to other teams. For instance, I wrote a whole series (in the sidebar) about how the Warriors drafted and developed compared to other dynasties. I went into it expecting GSW to look bad. In fact, GSW pretty clearly did better than most other dynasties. My takeaway from this, and from seeing discussions, is that people have an inflated idea of the success rate of draft picks.
So it would be interesting to try to see how other teams have drafted/developed. Look at the teams that have done better and look at what they did. I’m not exactly sure what a good comparison group would be. Maybe all teams that drafted someone 19 yo or younger?
I know there have been some broader statistical studies of player productivity compared to draft position and I think GSW was in the middle.
I remember the series, and remember how surprising it was that GSW did decently. But given the last 12 months of JW gone. JP, PBJ, RR gone. Topped off with the lack of development from JK and MM, it seems ripe for a re-visit to the question. Especially given the unexpected riches of a #2 pick and #7 pick.
I think JK #7, MM #14 and JW #2 are fair for dispute.
JP #28, PBJ #28, RR #44 are all in the “wow they made the team?” late pick zone of expectations, and Poole’s contributions already blow past reasonable expectations for #28.
If you gather enough low late round picks, you should expect something to hit. Is JP's career sufficient to carry all the other low picks past the expected average? I suspect it is, but maybe not. Or maybe the limited contributions of Bell, McCaw, and Paschall are enough to buoy the entire late draft pick group in addition to JP.
But yah, maybe the whole argument will come down to JW sucked, and therefore the Dubs' drafting sucked.
Another rant from me - sorry cant help it as I am feeling very nervous about ajo and MM - If JK and MM are traded i will argue that Kerr and coaching staff do not have the patience and/or desire or ability to teach. In addition to sucking as a personnel manager last season and showing very questionable in game strategies in the playoffs why do we think that kerr and his bunch of old farts playing the same old boring Kerr ball are going to win the chip again. I will be really pissed if they end up trading JK and/or MM .
Agree that moves had to be made… but now I’m hoping that shipping off Poole and PBJ satisfied the front office’s young player bloodlust and we can spare JK… else will continue to look like Goodfellas after the Lufthansa heist.
I think it was past time to question Myers' drafting philosophy and results, but this is a new regime and Dunleavy can't be held accountable for what Myers did imo.
How much drafting guru/scouting turnover has there been with the two regimes? Especially in a case such as this, where the new GM was groomed to succeed and was assistant to the old GM, there may be very little turnover in personnel that evaluate the prospects and contribute to draft decisions. Also, we've heard of very little turnover in the development staff aside from Jama leaving.
Sure, there's a new sheriff in town, but the deputies, saloon, and laws are all the same.
You might want to give them more than a week and half to fix any organizational/personnel issues. I mean, Bob isn't even out the door yet, technically.
:)
If your argument is that they need to review the whole FO organization, I'm sure Lacob agrees with you. I'm also sure it will happen over the summer.
The latter. With the trades of RR, PBJ, and JP, to go along with the mid-season dump of JW, there's enough data to assess re: their draft and development process. And, yah, it stinks.
Yes, I think this recent trade of the draft choices Poole, PBJ, and RR for Chris Paul.... with TDJ added.... was much more about the salaries of Paul and Poole... and how that will help the Warriors with the cap and penalty taxes into the future.... than about the respective merits of the Ws' drafts.
TJD's leaping ability is ridiculous:
https://youtu.be/wlmGR2HWicw?t=1356
Tjd with 33 standing vert; 36 max vert.
Podz 31.5 standing; 39 max.
Idk I’m a bit nervous he’s just another Jordan bell. Which is technically above average and exceeds expectations, but not good enough to really make a difference.
I’m higher on TJD’s defense and passing than I was for Bell. Also, TJD is slightly bigger than bell (height, wingspan, standing reach are all at least an inch taller/longer than bell). I think he can have a reasonable role as backup undersized center. I’m excited to see what he can do.
Oh dang didn’t realize he’s listed as heavier than Bell too??? 245lb is solid… not sure if that wiki number is accurate
I would like some suggestions about how to study the idea “Bob Myers era GSW has messed up development of the rookies”. On the one hand, everyone hoped that Kuminga would have progressed more by now. On the other hand, I’ve observed people having unrealistic expectations of prospect development that no team could possibly live up to.
I have a couple of ideas along the lines of
(1) calculating which teams exceeded the expected 6 year Win Shares for their draft spots and looking at the outlier cases qualitatively,
(2) asking people for which teams have the best reputation for player development and then looking at the overall portfolio of picks and development cases player by player.
I could use some more ideas.
I don’t expect to change anyone’s mind because it is natural for fans to worry that the team is messing everything up, and some people will always find the most anxious interpretation of every situation.
But for my own understanding, I’d like to study it. (This is what drove me to make my epic Dynasty Drafting series. I went in wanting to document how much worse GSW did than other dynasties, and found they did better than all but one, and that people’s complaints were not based in fact.)
You could look at redrafts, and see how many positions a draft pick moved up/down. Then combine all the players drafted by each team to see if, with hindsight, teams are drafting better/worse than their positions.
And use some weighting system for position (e.g. #38 is worth 10 points, while #10 is worth 155, so that player drafted at #38 and redrafted at #10 was worth 145 draft skill points)
I just realized this system penalizes teams with early picks. If a #1 pick is redrafted at #1 the team is give zero credit. Conversely a #60 can easily move up 10 to 20 spots. I guess it would equal out over 10 years if all teams draft order equaled out. But moving from #10 to #5 should be given a lot more credit than moving from #30 to #25.
For instance if you draft at #2 and that player redrafts 10 years later at #5, that should probably be considered a win.
The problem with re-drafts is teams' selections are not in a vacuum but redrafts are. Teams in the draft ask "Which player is best for us right now?". So they may pick a player who they think can mesh with the personnel they have when if it was an expansion draft--they had no players at all--they might pick someone else. The redraft ignores those criteria and really is just a rank of the performance of the drafted players up to that point. So a player who falls in the redraft might still be just what the team needed and they would never have drafted the player assigned to them by the redraft. That team would say the "won" with the player they got and would have "lost" with the allegedly better player the redraft reassigned to them.
So, redrafts are fair as a ranking of player performance, but not as a ranking of team performance.
1) everybody remembers the successful projects, but don’t remember how rare they are in the grand scheme of things.
2) better understanding development timelines. Whether it’s by years in league or minutes played (in the spirit of 10000 hours), maybe people start seeing how you can’t really rush development. Other ideas: by draft position, you can compare typical win share @3 years, and years to max win share as rough metrics of developmental rate.
3) grading by draft position is hard since we have so little data on the team, (eg only two top 10 picks since Curry), that it’s hard to say statistically whether we messed up or were unlucky. But just aggregate statistics would still be good context.
4) unfortunately, being above average is little solace to the typical fan. I think what fans really want is to be in the top quartile of performers, or to hit home runs on rotation pieces. That will always be the unreasonable expectations, but perhaps those expectations can be put into context.
5) might be hard to get numbers on this, but heuristically if you use win shares it could be helpful to contrxtualize them in terms of things like, “this is the centerpiece(s) of a team” vs this is starter material vs this is 6th-7th man vs this is a marginal 8th-9th person level of production. I feel like fans are looking for 6th-7th man material at the least, when in reality even 8th/9th man is above average.
This is a very complicated and - as you say below - "noisy" task. Your work on Dynasty Drafting is directly relevant, though - because like that project, your initial question ought to compare "Bob Myers era GSW" to other dynastic teams. What is common to past dynasties is that the presence of multiple dominating players on their roster is likely to reduce playing time for very young players (testable - can be evaluated). I think it is a reasonable hypothesis that young players must have playing time to develop. But how can they develop if their minutes are absorbed by dynastic stars?
If this is true, then it is pointless to compare the developmental success of dynastic teams and perennial losers or middle-of-the-packers. And probably also pointless to compare dynasties because of the small sample sizes and great variation.
Is there a way to assuage fan feelings that we are wasting Wiseman-Poole-Kuminga-Moody's primes? Not developing them? Or that they were the wrong picks to begin with?
Probably not. But the organization could do more. I don't think it is their interests, but possibly. Here's how:
re: Drafting: be completely transparent about the weaknesses the team is trying to fix, the upsides and flat-sides of the people it drafts, and the plan for physical development (Celebrini, etc.), skills development (which coaches) and getting up-to-speed with the challenges of the NBA. BTW, I'm guessing that there is always a somewhat persuasive rationale for the team making the drafting decision they did - we just may not know it.
re: Development: be very public about how players are progressing - what they are missing athletically, skill-wise and game-relevant.
While complete and total transparency might - might - mollify fans, it is unlikely to have a great effect on the players. Calling out specific errors as illustrative of a general failing, for example, could be valid, or could be due to confounding factors, or could be completely wrong and an example of the fallacy of generalization or else just an ordinary bias.
These are two weighty and interesting questions though. I wish you luck, and I'd recommend Spencer and Spencer's "Competence at Work" - a now classic book on methodology to define success characteristics that can be applied both for selection and development (see: https://www.amazon.com/Competence-Work-Models-Superior-Performance/dp/047154809X/ref=sr_1_1?crid=DOIECJZDA2N0&keywords=competence+at+work&qid=1687671160&sprefix=competence+at+wor%2Caps%2C308&sr=8-1&ufe=app_do%3Aamzn1.fos.006c50ae-5d4c-4777-9bc0-4513d670b6bc).
Thunder and Heat are probably the player dev models that would be most interesting.
I think folks are coming at it from the wrong angle: Teenagers have tanked franchises for decades. Would be the statement I’d be interested in seeing evaluated.
Did the Warriors fail to develop, or have they failed to draft players that were good enough at basketball to actually play for a competitive NBA team first? And then refused to play them for the years needed in the G-League to train them (like Miami reportedly does?)
The failure was likely primarily in the draft and they seem to have finally recognized that to some extent, and are trying to rectify it.
Interesting. How would you try to confirm this theory through data and case study? List all teenagers taken in the draft and then…?
At one point I started looking into all teenagers drafted by teams that had made the playoffs. This was going to be an assessment of whether Two Timelines has ever worked. But I’ve lost a little motivation to follow through now that 2T is being abandoned. It would just be piling on. Also, GSW won the championship so all the fears of the critics did not come to pass, so…
I’m more interested in how the heat and Thunder operate.
The following is pure brainstorming without much structure:
It might be worth trying to determine if drafting teens (does it help if they took their teams to titles at the prior level?) makes any sense.
But if I was going to dive into the folly, or not, of drafting 19 year olds, I would look at it in the context of what they did for the team that drafted them. If we want a more consistent line in the sand we could use the first four years to approximate a current rookie contract (in my mind a second contract is most dangerous for young rfa’s who haven’t quite gotten there but the team feels pressured to pay them like that anyway.)
How effective at helping the team win were top 5 or 10 or lottery (or 1st round if your not worried about wasting time for limited gains) teenage draft picks over the last 30 years since it got popular?
I think the data might change significantly depending on how deep in the draft you go. I would limit it to only the picks that have a reasonable hit rate any way since picks past a certain threshold don’t hit often enough to justify looking at. Top-10 looks like the tipping point.
I wouldn’t waste more time on it unless the Warriors are terrible next year and have a good shot at that top 4 pick. But I do wonder if Eddie Curry, Tyson Chandler, Kwame Brown, Jermaine O’neal, T-Mac and co have colored my ability to see the true worth of drafting raw teens.
Interestingly, I wrote a whole piece looking at the outcomes of Wiseman types (essentially straight from high school bigs). Overall, they did quite well.
https://dubnationhq.com/p/beat-the-draft-james-wiseman-zone-0f7
Loved what you did with all those articles during covid! You brought some light to a dark time. Thank you for that!!!
The question isn’t did they do well for their career. It’s did they do well for the team that drafted them.
Garnett was the most generational of the geoup and did make the Timberwolves relevant for a while. But he was traded for a bag of chips and got a title elsewhere, while the T-Wolves have been a mess. Chandler was terrible for the Bulls but had a good career and won a title with Dallas. O’neal did nothing for the Blazers but had a good career. Eddie and Kwame were just all bad. So it seems if you want to be the minor leagues draft those guys. If you want to be a contender get them through trade after they become men (yay Pistons?)
True but Quinones is not yet an NBA player unless you count a four-game cup of coffee.
Yes, I think GSW has done an excellent job of developing and getting contributions from undrafted players and the G-League.
Fred VanVleet is currently the best undrafted player in the NBA, probably, if we're just naming guys.
In addition to draft position, I’d normalize somehow for strength of draft. So maybe some kind of relationship of expected WS relative to total win shares of the draft year based on position. Basically, JW pick shouldn’t be expected to outperform Mobley/Green or Scoot.
But also, it seems like selection and development shouldn’t be lumped together. Different competencies, different staff, etc.
That’s a good point about the draft strength context. The data side is complex enough and the samples small enough that I suspect we will never be able to conclude much, but it might illuminate case studies.
If you have any practical ideas for how to disentangle selection and development, I’m all ears. I can’t think of any way to begin to approach that.
Yeah it quickly becomes a giant rabbit hole if you try to factor everything in.
Leaving draft and development entangled, would it work to just compare each pick against all the players who were available in that draft at that moment and assign that pick a number grade? Like, if you’re perfect at drafting, you’d always pick the most impactful player out of the available players. You could do that for every pick for each (relevant) team for the past n years, average across each team’s picks, and then compare DPA.
It doesn’t account for how player x would have developed elsewhere but it at least seems like a fairly straightforward starting point.
And sorry if this is completely obvious, I’m not much of a data person :-)
Eric usually does this, compares only to other players available, and it throws out half the data for no reason. If a team picks before the dubs, and that pick over/under performs, that's a relevant data point to compare Dub drafting ability to that other team's drafting ability.
I like (1) at this point. The projected Win Shares (or equivalent value stat) should do a decent job at approximating the missed value on the Wiseman pick and has a chance of capturing the slow development/contributions of MM and JK. It also will reward the Dubs for JP's development.
The main issue with this methodology is how to capture the value of trades. Take JW: He was flipped for what eventually became GP2. Does he now deserve GP2's win shares for the rest of the 6 year period?
What about JP for CP trade? Does JP also get credit for CP's contributions? That makes no sense.
Yes I agree, I don’t know what to do about trades. Just trying to ground the conversation in some kind of reality rather than freeform dissatisfaction
Well, if we focus just on drafting, then you can just continue to follow the prospects for the remaining years on their 6 year timeframe with their new team.
Development is slightly different, and trades would be the way to distinguish drafting from development, but that would probably require a bit more of a complicated projection system. The simplest way would be to just use the same WS projection by draft slot by year, but realistically, at the time of the trade, there should be a new projection given the players' actual career stats at the time of the trade.
The whole data-driven side of the project is honestly kind of doomed precision-wise because there is so much noise, but it’s fun to think about.
But I can already tell it will be fun to write about the legendary development teams. There were some real stinker draft picks / development that got memory holed because of the great picks.
I'm an eye test guy.... data drive analysis are interesting, but I agree they are doomed precision wise for something like evaluating contributions of draft choices because there are so many variables related to team composition and perceived needs, position, usage, draft position and strength, player personalities, etc.
Yes. However, the eye test is possibly even more doomed precision-wise… :D
I suspect you'll have enough precision to show that the JW pick was awful compared to historic expectations and that one outlier will pull the entire Dubs' draft legacy down to well below average.
True. Let's just take Draymond and Wiseman. Draymond was #35, and redrafts at #4. Behind Davis, Beal, and Lillard. That's a +31. Wiseman was #2, and redrafts at... 20? 40? So -18 or -38, who knows. It's possible that those two completely offset each other.
It’s not obvious to me that it would, I would want to see numbers. It would depend on how you combine the net effect of all the different picks. Also, don’t underestimate how many lottery draft picks fail and how much most teams miss.
Also, I don’t know what awful means here. As an outcome, Wiseman was a bust for GSW. As a pick… well it seems like that is an incomplete analysis if it punishes GSW too heavily for taking a consensus Top 3 pick.
The Darko spot has always been cursed and the Wiseman pick was probably just another brick in the wall.
If you're investigating how the Dubs compare in terms of prospect development, I don't see how trades are relevant.
Expand, please?
What you want to find out is whether Dubs prospects develop better, not as well, or about the same as prospects on other teams, yes? If so, it doesn't matter what GP2 does when assessing JW. How could it? Or am I missing the point?
Actually, that's it. @EA: One way to deal with trades is to truncate the expected Win Shares at the time of the trade. You're not evaluating trades or quality of trades, so everything that happens after a trade is meaningless.
So, simply evaluate actual production above/below expected production during the years that the drafting team held rights to the player.
I would probably do a second pass and include the full 6 years of production, too.
missing Poole & Smiley
That 2012 was one for the ages. Im hoping same happens for Magic Mike with these two picks
Kind of? I would say it was the fault of the front office to draft raw, all-potential guys with the timeline the Dubs were working on; the point of the ambitious "two timelines" project was to be good enough in the *first* timeline to maintain dominance in the second timeline, and starting out by looking like a potato on the road prompted an overhaul there...
Meaningful playing time by year 3 or 4 vs career success?
Poole's terrible-great-bad arc was weird by any measure, though.
Poole is an outlier for this past year because of the Punch. You almost have to put an asterisk with the conclusions in his case.
> Poole is an outlier for this past year because of the Punch. YOU ALMOST HAVE TO PUT AN ASTERISK WITH THE CONCLUSIONS IN HIS CASE.
That's a reasonable position, but let me make the opposite case. Two-timelines has multiple kinds of challenges. 1)You need to draft well. 2)You need to accept some losses to develop the new players (yet work to keep them from knocking you out of the playoffs. <==These are the two most people end up debating, like, was Kerr right to pull the plug after game 10 or no. But a third challenge is 3)You have to get the aging stars to willingly make room for the new players.
THIS is the task that, done well, means there would never have been a punch. And, in the aftermath of the punch, THIS is the task the coach and other leaders have to focus on. Instead, they focused on "We can't win a title without Dray" and ended up costing the team. SO, the case I want to make is if you are going to do two-timelines, you have to manage those three (and perhaps more) challenges. These challenges are inherent to the task of coaching the (capital T) team, and take the easy way out of coaching primarily the players you've grown close to). For these reasons I propose that it is fair to assess the coach on whether he did that well or not
"[Pompey] The Suns want the Sixers to facilitate a 3-team deal that would land Tobias Harris in Phoenix, according to a league source. The third team would take Suns center Deandre Ayton and send assets to Philly."
I mean, I guess Ayton's still available . . . Philly would definitely take Paul and Kuminga, the question is, what could we get back in addition to Ayton? Doesn't seem like it would work (maybe flip Ayton to the Pacers?)
Pass on Ayton imo
Came here to say this. Would we really have to also send out kuminga to make this work salary wise? If we get ayton, feel like that’d be huge. Turn around his perception like we did with Wiggs
If we’re acquiring Ayton, it’s because we’re losing Dray, imo…
Also the weirdest hot potato in CP13 I've heard of since I started really paying attention
I imagined his moving truck driving towards DC, getting to west Texas, then heading towards the Bay Area, getting to western Nevada, then heading south back to Phoenix
If the Warriors lose CP3, they lose a playmaker. Who will they get? I don't think Jerome's the answer.
Turner, McConnell, and a 1st? I dunno. Not really a great trade, we can probably do better for Kuminga + Paul.
Why would we acquire Ayton just to flip him? Why would we trade Paul and Kuminga to end up receiving "I dunno"? Are you trading just to trade?
Dub Nation has gone from not wanting CP3 to not wanting to lose him in how many days?? All of three!!! This fanbase. lol
SOME of > "Dub Nation has gone from not wanting CP3 to not wanting to lose him in how many days?? All of three!!!"
FTFY
We have always been at peace with Chris Paulandia
LOL. :)
Paul's contract is actually pretty valuable as an expiring, so we should be careful who we trade it for.
Tim Duncan, David Robinson, Sean Elliott and Manu Ginobili had dinner with Victor Wembanyama last night after his arrival in San Antonio. Welcome, kid.
https://twitter.com/ByTimReynolds/status/1672622779676479492
But not the Frenchman, Tony Parker.
It’s like the Second Coming in San Antonio
This picture is bananas
https://twitter.com/vicw_32/status/1672770721989251075?s=20
I didn't know Manu was still in the San Antonio area. I kind of assumed he went back to Argentina.
The height difference between Wemby and Robinson is astonishing.
I had to re google david robinson images. it's nuts
Most people shrink (lose a few inches) as they get older. (Remember that photo where Jimmy and Rosalyn Carter looked like kids next to Joe and Jill Biden? :-) ) I expect The Admiral is somewhat shorter than he was when he was playing. Still a striking photo, though.
The Detroit Pistons have waived guard RJ Hampton
https://twitter.com/shamscharania/status/1672712071576797184
That’s a perfect minimum guy to pick up.
Why? He got waived by the Magic, now the Pistons, not exactly a great recommendation. Meanwhile we just drafted a young shooter in Podz, we have GP2, and we want to give Moody more minutes at the wing.
GP2 and Moody are wings not guards, Neither can be a primary ball handler or create their own shot.
Podz is a 20 year old rookie and shouldn’t be counted on to play a role.
Poole led the team in minutes last year, and backed up both Steph and Klay. CP3 brings a lot but there’s still going to be lots of games where one, two or all three of those guys are sitting and we’ll want a backcourt shot creator. Getting a poor man’s version of Poole would be ideal.
Hampton was a late first combo guard guy who came into the league at 19. He’s been on mostly bad teams with lots of young players competing for minutes and he wasn’t a priority. Bad teams are usually the worst spot for players like this because they’ve already got some other young, inefficient guards that they’ve taken higher in the draft.
Despite that he has gotten better every year. You’re taking a shot that the 22 year old version will be better, especially with a very good roster around him that needs what he brings. Similar to how Malik Monk has blossomed into a very valuable guy with the Kings.
True. I haven't been impressed with Hampton but as you say, he wasn't in a great spot. You may have seen more of him than I have, too. The question then becomes whether he is better and has more upside than Ty Jerome, given what we've seen of Ty.
Ty was a great fit last year because the roster had Poole. That savvy PG type was more needed vs a combo guard.
I’m not opposed to keeping Ty either but a roster that has CP3 as the backup PG has much less of a need for someone like him. I’m a game where Steph and CP3 sit
I haven’t seen that much of Hampton. Just heading into the offseason I was thinking literally someone with that archetype would be a good fit and there’s only a couple ways you get them for a minimum. A young prospect who someone gave up on. Or an Alex Burks type/Barbosa type. Someone who had a bit of a history but got hurt or fell out of favor (Shake Milton?)
Or maybe it Lester on a two way, or being Mac back (he’d make more sense on this roster). I jus think that need is a little greater than just relying on a rookie and a g league guy.
Keep JK. Keep JK. Keep JK. Maybe if I chant it often enough...
You don't wanna be a chanta
You wanna be a singa
So belt it out if you
Wanna keep Kuminga
...Chef Curry wanna cook with cumin and ginga...
Bob Myers don't wanna lift a finga
Don’t want no rumors from Tha Ringa
I asked Brandon & Trayce if they’ve talked to any of their teammates yet: Both said no but saw that Steph Curry followed both of them and they got really excited 😂😂
https://twitter.com/JDumasReports/status/1672354387212275712
That's the thing. So many superstars would be aloof, but you just know Steph is going to welcome these guys, swap college stories, teach them, believe in them, invite them over to meet the kids... who wouldn't be excited? They'll be asked about it a million times by the press. They should just say: "well, how would you feel?".
I only looked into Podz a little bit during our draft tournament, but I noted that he had stats which tend to translate to good pro basketball and can be signs of a player who works hard to build skills in general. Wish I could find the article, but someone over at, I think it was Sactown Royalty(?), did an analysis a while back looking at which stats tend to translate to NBA success and what the evidence says about development of "potential" vs. "skills" and so on. What I remember is:
- The two stats most rookies improve a lot at in their first couple years of the NBA are scoring efficiency, and foul rate.
- Players generally stay in the same range in terms of how many rebounds they get. Most make improvements, but not dramatic ones, and players who started out better at rebounding tend to improve about the same amount as players who were worse. (There are individual exceptions, of course.)
- There are some stats where players who start out lower tend to catch up more quickly; and there are some stats, where players who are already ahead tend to get more ahead both in that stat and in others. Think of it as, "Being ahead at this skill indicates that the player is better at building skills in general." The most predictive stat for this category is AST/TO ratio.
All of these things make me pretty optimistic for Podziemski's future with the Dubs. His interviews, his stats, and his college results all point towards a player who's competitive, high-BBIQ, and skilled. The more I look into things, the more optimistic I am that we may have lucked into a serious draft steal.
TJD I'm only a little less excited about, but I love his fit with the team, and I see a lot more strengths than weaknesses for a guy who went 57th in the draft. I love that he's another defensively focused big but in very different dimensions than Looney. It could be a lot easier to find lineups where he contributes than it has been with some of our other recent centers. (Lookin' at you, Cauley-Stein.)
Really hoping they both earn some minutes and success on the court for us.
https://www.postingandtoasting.com/2022/5/24/23139296/which-statistics-translate-from-college-to-the-nba
This might be what you're looking for.
Not the one I was thinking of, actually, but that is another good resource!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s7caB48G8cQ
Going back to Podziemski's interview after he worked out for the Warriors, he says that in his honest opinion, he's a top 5 basketball player in this draft. Extreme confidence (although I guess not quite extreme enough to say he's better than Wembanyama).
Also seems to have gotten into a fight with a bear judging by the red mark under his neck?
I don't know why I didn't think of the Tyler herro comp for podz
Because cross-handed comparisons are forbidden. Manu or bust!
Chirality must be preserved, or else the universe implodes, or something.
How many unprotected future first rounders would a team have given the Dubs for their 2020 #2 draft pick?
Zero, pretty sure they tried
top of the 2020 draft was generally regarded as pretty weak, as I recall
Timpf on Podz:
https://youtu.be/n3txJCRaT4U?t=956
I think where I landed on the Podz pick that made me feel good about it. Partially what had brought me around to the PBJ pick last year. They’ve done particularly well with really skilled guys.
A step further is that they’ve done really well with really skilled guys who are tough and confident. Whatever is lacking in Podz game from a first step or foot quickness aspect, there’s still a bottom line that he can really shoot, pass and you have to be tough to get 9 rebounds a game as a guard.
TJD is really tough, skilled, and experienced. Which is where they’ve had their best draft wins.
Steve Kerr on Adding CP3 (+ Thoughts on the Rookies): "Biggest point is that we sensed we needed a shift. And it feels like we’ve made a pretty significant shift without giving up our identity and our sense of who we are as a team. I think, all in all, it’s a very positive shift" (via Tim Kawakami)
https://old.reddit.com/r/warriors/comments/14hva9s/steve_kerr_on_adding_cp3_thoughts_on_the_rookies/
Can someone describe what this shift is. Is it just abandoning the two timelines or is it slowing down the second unit or what? Is it the changes in the coaching staff, reflecting their decreased emphasis on younger players? All of the above, none of the above?
>> All of the above, none of the above?
Yes.
Good stuff.
Yep, a lot of good quotes in the Athletic article this is sourced from.
link to article:
https://theathletic.com/4634490/2023/06/24/steve-kerr-warriors-chris-paul/
I think it's interesting that he sees Paul, Steph and Klay all playing together, which presumably means the motion offense.
I thought the idea that Paul couldn't adapt was ridiculous. He's one of the smartest basketball players of this era.
I think that was Kawakami saying that part, not Kerr.
You are correct. My bad.
He's smart enough. I think the question is whether he can get his body to do what he wants it to do. Cf. Andre Iguodala.
So is TJD in limbo-land? Is he still officially a Wizard until the JP extension kicks in and the trade consummates? But since the Wiz obv don't want him, does he just stay home and chill until the trade finalizes and then he's able to come to the Dubs' practice and pressers and meet the staff/team?
He was traded for PBJ separate from the Poole trade
This isn’t quite right, I think. The pick was traded for cash with the understanding that PBJ would be include in the Poole trade later.
This makes me wonder why not just include PBJ in a straight up trade for the pick?
Is there a possibility that the agreement is that TJD for an upgrade of RR --> PBJ, and not TJD for PBJ straight up?
I thought teams over the apron weren't allowed to buy picks anymore? I thought you need to attach an asset to perform the trade...
Ah, okay. Thanks for the correction Sab!
Ahh, thx. That makes sense.
Already saw a picture of him getting his jersey somewhere
You can see his intro presser with Dunleavy and podz on YouTube.
Is it time to question the Dubs' drafting and development?
I was reading the comments re: Bell below, and it started to make me wonder. I know they overhauled their developmental staff last year, and it was supposed to pay dividends with the youth, but now 4/6ths of the 15-man roster youth they started the season with last year is gone (PBJ, RR, JW, JP), leaving only MM and JK.
The lone unarguable drafting success they've had since the first 'chip is Looney. Certainly, they've been hurt by really poor draft slots, but with the recent departure of the above youth, is it time to revisit the question? The Dubs seem to suffer a lot from young drafted guys who have a single good season, then flame out. Bell, McCaw, Paschall. You can now add JP to that mix - tho he played three seasons, only one was excellent. Then there are the draft picks that never developed into anything before leaving or getting traded: Jones, Evans, Smiley(lol), JW, Jessup, Nico, and now PBJ and RR.
Furthermore, if rumors are to be believed, they're on the cusp of trading JK, which would leave MM the lone remaining draft pick from 2016-2022 with a realistic chance of contributing this season.
I know we seem to go down this road every season, but last season, you could point to a lot of hope in the new developmental staff, the young kids and JP's epic 2nd year. Now? Not much of that left. Starts to make you wonder again.
i think they’ve had some missteps in terms of approach to the draft vs identifying talent. There’s a bunch of angles I didn’t like on the Wiseman pick. Drafting PBJ and RR was a curious decision.
In terms of development I think they actually do a good job. Kuminga and Moody are in good spots. Really a lot better than is given credit for.
Poole was a huge win. Looney has gotten better and better. Wiseman had terrible luck.
McCaw and Bell not developing isn’t really much proof of anything except they’re not good.
Most good teams aren’t developing young talent. They clearly overdid it last year and have taken a very wise course correction. I think it’s going to be very good for the two best prospects they had: Kuminga and Moody.
McCaw and Bell played meaningful minutes for championship contenders as late draft picks. Even for one season, that’s a success for the positions they were picked at.
We can all agree it’s disappointing that JK hasn’t progressed faster.
To me the key is always to compare to other teams. For instance, I wrote a whole series (in the sidebar) about how the Warriors drafted and developed compared to other dynasties. I went into it expecting GSW to look bad. In fact, GSW pretty clearly did better than most other dynasties. My takeaway from this, and from seeing discussions, is that people have an inflated idea of the success rate of draft picks.
So it would be interesting to try to see how other teams have drafted/developed. Look at the teams that have done better and look at what they did. I’m not exactly sure what a good comparison group would be. Maybe all teams that drafted someone 19 yo or younger?
I know there have been some broader statistical studies of player productivity compared to draft position and I think GSW was in the middle.
I remember the series, and remember how surprising it was that GSW did decently. But given the last 12 months of JW gone. JP, PBJ, RR gone. Topped off with the lack of development from JK and MM, it seems ripe for a re-visit to the question. Especially given the unexpected riches of a #2 pick and #7 pick.
I think JK #7, MM #14 and JW #2 are fair for dispute.
JP #28, PBJ #28, RR #44 are all in the “wow they made the team?” late pick zone of expectations, and Poole’s contributions already blow past reasonable expectations for #28.
If you gather enough low late round picks, you should expect something to hit. Is JP's career sufficient to carry all the other low picks past the expected average? I suspect it is, but maybe not. Or maybe the limited contributions of Bell, McCaw, and Paschall are enough to buoy the entire late draft pick group in addition to JP.
But yah, maybe the whole argument will come down to JW sucked, and therefore the Dubs' drafting sucked.
Another rant from me - sorry cant help it as I am feeling very nervous about ajo and MM - If JK and MM are traded i will argue that Kerr and coaching staff do not have the patience and/or desire or ability to teach. In addition to sucking as a personnel manager last season and showing very questionable in game strategies in the playoffs why do we think that kerr and his bunch of old farts playing the same old boring Kerr ball are going to win the chip again. I will be really pissed if they end up trading JK and/or MM .
Agree that moves had to be made… but now I’m hoping that shipping off Poole and PBJ satisfied the front office’s young player bloodlust and we can spare JK… else will continue to look like Goodfellas after the Lufthansa heist.
I think it was past time to question Myers' drafting philosophy and results, but this is a new regime and Dunleavy can't be held accountable for what Myers did imo.
How much drafting guru/scouting turnover has there been with the two regimes? Especially in a case such as this, where the new GM was groomed to succeed and was assistant to the old GM, there may be very little turnover in personnel that evaluate the prospects and contribute to draft decisions. Also, we've heard of very little turnover in the development staff aside from Jama leaving.
Sure, there's a new sheriff in town, but the deputies, saloon, and laws are all the same.
You might want to give them more than a week and half to fix any organizational/personnel issues. I mean, Bob isn't even out the door yet, technically.
:)
If your argument is that they need to review the whole FO organization, I'm sure Lacob agrees with you. I'm also sure it will happen over the summer.
The latter. With the trades of RR, PBJ, and JP, to go along with the mid-season dump of JW, there's enough data to assess re: their draft and development process. And, yah, it stinks.
I would blame it more on development than drafting. But, agreed, an assessment is in order.
Yes, I think this recent trade of the draft choices Poole, PBJ, and RR for Chris Paul.... with TDJ added.... was much more about the salaries of Paul and Poole... and how that will help the Warriors with the cap and penalty taxes into the future.... than about the respective merits of the Ws' drafts.