Dean On Draft on new Warriors Podziemski, Jackson-Davis and Chr*s Paul on Light Years Podcast

Spoiler: he’s very positive about all the moves

Dean On Draft is an eccentric, interesting draft analyst that you may have noticed me quoting in the Draft Tourney scouting reports. He has a particular and unusual perspective that I find a nice counterpoint to many other analysts. His most notable hit was being one of the biggest pre-draft believers in Nikola Jokic.

Dean volunteered to be interrogated by Sam and Andy on the Light Years Podcast and they all had a great discussion about Brandin Podziemski, Trayce Jackson-Davis and even Chris Paul, Jordan Poole and Franz Wagner. Check out the whole pod and subscribe to their YouTube channel and Patreon if you’re so moved.

I transcribed a few key passages below.

Brandin Podziemski

He's a different type of pick because the Warriors have been going for the Kumingas, the Wisemans, you know, the rangy jumpy guys who have a work in progress as basketball players.

But Podz is kind of the opposite, where he's not that tall, he's not that athletic. He has short arms. He's kind of slow, but he just has ridiculous basketball IQ and feel for the game. And he's also a very good shooter. …

He's a ridiculous rebounder for a guard. I can't even think of another guard prospect who rebounds like he does. He plays super hard. He's super active, even though he is not big, he's strong. He boxes out. He has good fundamentals. He loves diving on the floor. He makes good decisions with the ball. He makes fast decisions with the ball.

Tyrese Halliburton I think is kind of one of the more optimistic comps. I don't know if he's quite as fast as Haliburton where he can kind of get to his spots off the dribble. I don't know if he can be quite as good of a shooter, although he is a very good shooter and he has a chance of being that good. More realistic comps. You could compare him to a Desmond Bane or an Austin Reeves. Just a guy who's just a super solid role player, makes shots, moves the ball, isn't a black hole by any stretch, and maybe he's slow defensively and he's easy to beat, but he’s smart and he tries hard. So he could be surprisingly good on that end.

Sam: … Do you worry about the fact that he essentially only played one year [at Santa Clara]?

Yeah, I mean, you gotta worry a little bit. He was on Illinois's team last year and he barely played. They had a lot of five year seniors and he just wasn't one of Brad Underwood's guys, so he couldn't get minutes there.

So you gotta wonder, was his defense behind the curve? Was he not making shots in practice? What was the problem? But at the same time, his year was so good, it was ridiculously good. If you compare him to somebody like Bane or Reeves, like his sophomore year was … arguably even better than their senior years. So even if he kind of comes back, stagnates, doesn't really improve, he's still a legitimate prospect.

So it's a reason to be a little bit concerned. But at 19 overall, you know, you're happy to get somebody who could do that stuff. …

Sam: The hardest thing to figure out is like, which mid-major guys actually have a chance of translating.

Well, there's a few things. First of all, even though [Podz] did transfer to mid-major, he was originally a four star recruit. He was a top hundred four star guy. So he's not like a random guy that the top teams overlooked. He was in that recruiting mix and he just couldn't get time as a freshman with like all the fifth year seniors and stuff. The other thing is his team performed well. Like they had Jalen Williams last year and they lost Jalen Williams and two other good players.

And they didn't miss a beat. They were pretty much the same thing. It's a question mark cause you don't know exactly how well he's gonna create in the NBA. He has a little bit of shake. He has a little bit of post-game. He has a nice floater, but he doesn't have kind of go-to scoring thing. So it's something you need to worry about. But at the end of the day, he obviously has a very high basketball IQ and the one kind of consistent thing that I've noticed from just looking at a lot of drafts is basketball IQ just finds a way to surprise you. It just finds a way to succeed.

Warriors Drafting Process & Trayce Jackson-Davis

Andy: Where are you at with the Warriors drafting process that they've done through the years? Because it seems like they've said, yeah, we're just gonna forget about drafting the quote unquote freakish athletes and we're just gonna worry about the guys that can play basketball.

It's definitely a positive trend. Because these are not the typical like runny, jumpy guys. I mean, Trayce Jackson-Davis is a good athlete, but he's still is kind of undersized for his center. People are worried is he fast enough to defend the perimeter. He's an older player, but he was in the conversation for Best College Basketball Player in the country this past year. So, I'm not sure, maybe Dunleavy’s an analytics guy. Maybe he's at least open to analytics or maybe he just really believes in just watching guys and just believing that this guy has good fundamentals, he has good feel for the game, he makes good decisions.

And yeah, [TJD] is a little bit physically deficient, but he has enough to work with. So, I think it's definitely a promising sign, because these guys were like two of the best value picks by my ratings in the entire draft. And he got both of them.

Sam: It felt like a very Memphis Grizzlies / OKC type of draft. … These are all guys who produced at every level. We're gonna bank on the fact that they'll at least produce to some level.

So, yeah, exactly. The thing is, when you take those guys, you never know when one of those guys randomly just produces a lot more than what you expect because everybody associates upside with the Kuminga who's just running and jumping. But in that draft, I was high on Franz Wagner. I didn't see him having a high upside. I just thought, all right, this guy's just gonna be a solid NBA player. And then he just randomly comes in and is like a high efficiency 25 usage guy as a sophomore. So sometimes the good news about those players is just one thing goes right and then they're all of a sudden, you know, a borderline all star.

I mean, Tyrese Haliburton is another guy. Like nobody really talked about him as a high upside guy, but now he's an Allstar and he is only what, 22, 23 years old. Who knows how high his ceiling goes?

Jonathan Kuminga

He can be a guy. I was never really that high on him. He just seems like he's too inconsistent. He's not skilled enough, but, you know, he's still young. Andrew Wiggins took forever and then finally he was just randomly after what, six, seven years. He just was a very solid Finals player. So Kuminga can still be something, but maybe it takes time. I'm not that high on him, but you can't rule him out there.

Jordan Poole and Chr*s Paul

Andy: You tweeted that you liked the CP3 and Poole trade. A little bit different from Warriors fans.

Sam: He maybe doesn't have the Warrior fan built-in bad blood.

I've always been a big CP3 fan. I know most people don't like him for, you know, just the way that he is.

He's such a high IQ player and even at his old age, he's still like a very productive player. Like statistically, he was a solidly better player than Jordan Poole last year. The biggest issue at his age is he just can't play 30 minutes a game on the regular season and be healthy in the playoffs. But now put him on Golden State, play him like 20, 22 minutes a game or whatever behind Steph on the bench. He can handle that role. Play more minutes when Steph gets injured for a few games, he's the perfect backup point guard.

And you know, Jordan Poole wasn't really a good contract, didn't mix that well with the first unit, even in the championship run when Jordan Poole was playing well, he was making all those shots. Still for the last three games of the Finals, when the Warriors really took over that series, he was getting lower minutes off the bench because he's a lot better at running the bench than playing with Steph and Klay. So I just feel like Jordan Poole wasn't the best fit as more than just a bench guy.

And if you're gonna just play somebody 20 minutes a game, I'd rather have it be Chris Paul, even at this old age than Jordan Poole. And you don't have that long-term commitment. You clean up the books, you could take other risks with that extra money, and you didn't give up that many draft picks. Like a top 20 protected first rounder, not a big deal. Patrick Baldwin Jr. Not a big deal. Ryan Rollins. Rollins still could be okay, but not a big deal.