I’d never heard of Jones when he was drafted, but thought “A Center from Vanderbilt? Cool, another Festus!”. LOL me.
He serves as a lesson that keeps getting unlearned about all draft picks, but especially when picking late 1st rounders and beyond; expecting/hoping a player’s “motor” (intensity/fire/competitiveness/effort) to increase at the next level is fools gold. By the time a player has played a season of college ball, we can see who they are in that regard, no matter how much we we love the “potential”.
Looking back at some of Jones’ scouting reports, they all comment on things like being a half step slow to react, a lack of intensity and effort. Those are red flags.
Whether it’s Draymond, Paschall or Brogdon, it seems like the “steals” are always guys whose size/athleticism aren’t ideal, but have a motor and what I call a “twinkle in the eye” that shows you that they “get it”.
I’ll see those guys and raise you one Giannis. ;-)
Basically agreed on Jones — his rebounding and passivity were concerns even at the time — but teasing out who has the “twinkle” and who doesn’t in 18-20 year olds is easier said than done, and of course easiest with the benefit of 20:20 hindsight. What seems like it could be a lack of a twinkle could be the quiet, steeely resolve of a Tim Duncan. Or a guy with a seeming twinkle could be a low hoops IQ chucker like Dion Waiters. Etc.
If it were easy to discern the twinkle, teams would not miss in the draft as much as they do.
My issue isn't so much as to the misses in relationship to a player like Brogdon (whom every other team Denver Toronto included) missed in the 1st round. My issue is that this team has had less and less depth since 2015 run and more and more reliance on heavy minutes for starters plus Iguodala, Livingston. That all caught up this last go around. Both Igloo and Livingston looked old. Then injuries to Durant and Thompson (albeit latter on a freak injury).
The FO has not done a good job of identifying depth for the back end of the rotation. The year we drafted McCaw and Jones should have been the year we should have had at least one player provide depth for Livingston and possibly Iguodala.
Neither the starters nor Shaun and Andre played particularly heavy minutes. Since 2015 their minutes have gone down, not up. Shaun and Andre in particular went from 48 combined mpg in 2015-16 to just 38 in 2018-19.
Shaun looked old due to long-term chronic knee pain that eventually made him retire, and Andre looked old because he is.
When you are paying all those big name salaries, how much is left over for depth? The answer is not much. When they signed McCaw, I thought he looked frail but he was fast and looked like he could shoot. I don't really understand what happened to him on the Warriors. He might be a head case and landed on the wrong team. Never really liked his play and Jones was/is an underachiever who is a bit athletic but not a scorer. Warriors suck drafting big guys. Picking guys late in the draft is always going to be a crap shoot. So far, Myers has not excelled at this, just adequate, but great in FA and negotiations.
As much as I hate to say this, McCaw has as many rings as Steph, Klay, Dray, Andre, and Shaun. He's certainly managed to land on his feet (aside from the one gruesome injury).
Jones a pretty bad miss. He was a big man who didn't rebound in college, and he still doesn't rebound. The only thing that intrigued me coming out was he'd shown some ability to switch onto guards and really move on the perimeter. Neither that, nor even decent rim protection showed up on the D end.
McCaw was a good pick. The Raptors are arguably the best in the league when it comes to identifying late round guys, and developing them. They liked him and swooped on him, but he's really no better now than he was as a rookie. He just didn't have the right mindset to find his role and then grow from there.
Ruin the dynasty is a bit of a weird phrase. I don't think they ruined it by not taking Brogdon. But, Brogdon would be the perfect fit for the present roster and could have made a difference last year.
I suspect Jones would have turned out OK without the injuries but he lost a lot of development time. He still might turn out to have a decent career if he stays healthy as his per 36 numbers for the Hawks were acceptable. In the long run, he helped the Warriors get Wiggins to replace (to some extent) Durant.
I actually wanted Brogdon at that time. Contrary to a lot of scouts, I'm a big fan of drafting for proven college production when it comes to late in the draft. I can't take full credit though, I was mostly riding a wave within my basketball scouting community who were high on him. I caught on late and was just along for the ride.
I give the front office more credit for the McCaw pick than "C+". His holdout for a bigger role was one of the most baffling (and, realistically, futile) contract negotiations in the NBA over the past few years. Anyone who expected that, I would accuse of having a time machine.
I’d never heard of Jones when he was drafted, but thought “A Center from Vanderbilt? Cool, another Festus!”. LOL me.
He serves as a lesson that keeps getting unlearned about all draft picks, but especially when picking late 1st rounders and beyond; expecting/hoping a player’s “motor” (intensity/fire/competitiveness/effort) to increase at the next level is fools gold. By the time a player has played a season of college ball, we can see who they are in that regard, no matter how much we we love the “potential”.
Looking back at some of Jones’ scouting reports, they all comment on things like being a half step slow to react, a lack of intensity and effort. Those are red flags.
Whether it’s Draymond, Paschall or Brogdon, it seems like the “steals” are always guys whose size/athleticism aren’t ideal, but have a motor and what I call a “twinkle in the eye” that shows you that they “get it”.
I’ll see those guys and raise you one Giannis. ;-)
Basically agreed on Jones — his rebounding and passivity were concerns even at the time — but teasing out who has the “twinkle” and who doesn’t in 18-20 year olds is easier said than done, and of course easiest with the benefit of 20:20 hindsight. What seems like it could be a lack of a twinkle could be the quiet, steeely resolve of a Tim Duncan. Or a guy with a seeming twinkle could be a low hoops IQ chucker like Dion Waiters. Etc.
If it were easy to discern the twinkle, teams would not miss in the draft as much as they do.
My issue isn't so much as to the misses in relationship to a player like Brogdon (whom every other team Denver Toronto included) missed in the 1st round. My issue is that this team has had less and less depth since 2015 run and more and more reliance on heavy minutes for starters plus Iguodala, Livingston. That all caught up this last go around. Both Igloo and Livingston looked old. Then injuries to Durant and Thompson (albeit latter on a freak injury).
The FO has not done a good job of identifying depth for the back end of the rotation. The year we drafted McCaw and Jones should have been the year we should have had at least one player provide depth for Livingston and possibly Iguodala.
Neither the starters nor Shaun and Andre played particularly heavy minutes. Since 2015 their minutes have gone down, not up. Shaun and Andre in particular went from 48 combined mpg in 2015-16 to just 38 in 2018-19.
Shaun looked old due to long-term chronic knee pain that eventually made him retire, and Andre looked old because he is.
When you are paying all those big name salaries, how much is left over for depth? The answer is not much. When they signed McCaw, I thought he looked frail but he was fast and looked like he could shoot. I don't really understand what happened to him on the Warriors. He might be a head case and landed on the wrong team. Never really liked his play and Jones was/is an underachiever who is a bit athletic but not a scorer. Warriors suck drafting big guys. Picking guys late in the draft is always going to be a crap shoot. So far, Myers has not excelled at this, just adequate, but great in FA and negotiations.
As much as I hate to say this, McCaw has as many rings as Steph, Klay, Dray, Andre, and Shaun. He's certainly managed to land on his feet (aside from the one gruesome injury).
Jones a pretty bad miss. He was a big man who didn't rebound in college, and he still doesn't rebound. The only thing that intrigued me coming out was he'd shown some ability to switch onto guards and really move on the perimeter. Neither that, nor even decent rim protection showed up on the D end.
McCaw was a good pick. The Raptors are arguably the best in the league when it comes to identifying late round guys, and developing them. They liked him and swooped on him, but he's really no better now than he was as a rookie. He just didn't have the right mindset to find his role and then grow from there.
Ruin the dynasty is a bit of a weird phrase. I don't think they ruined it by not taking Brogdon. But, Brogdon would be the perfect fit for the present roster and could have made a difference last year.
I suspect Jones would have turned out OK without the injuries but he lost a lot of development time. He still might turn out to have a decent career if he stays healthy as his per 36 numbers for the Hawks were acceptable. In the long run, he helped the Warriors get Wiggins to replace (to some extent) Durant.
I think the guy I'd have taken over Jones was Chinanu Onuaku. So I wouldn't have been any better :)
I actually wanted Brogdon at that time. Contrary to a lot of scouts, I'm a big fan of drafting for proven college production when it comes to late in the draft. I can't take full credit though, I was mostly riding a wave within my basketball scouting community who were high on him. I caught on late and was just along for the ride.
I give the front office more credit for the McCaw pick than "C+". His holdout for a bigger role was one of the most baffling (and, realistically, futile) contract negotiations in the NBA over the past few years. Anyone who expected that, I would accuse of having a time machine.