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I wish KAT a long and comfortable recovery from COVID-19, off the court. ;)

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Jan 24, 2021Liked by Eric Apricot

Thanks for crunching the numbers on this! It’s an interesting way of framing it.

My instinct here has been that if I would gladly guarantee that the MIN pick is 7th if that meant we could guarantee not losing it. That’s not possible, but it seems like MIN finishing with the 6-8th seed is most in line with that thinking.

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Jan 24, 2021Liked by Eric Apricot

Great writeup Eric!

Let me give it a try.

MN is about 500 when KAT is playing. I'm going to say they he comes back after 8 games and plays 49 more games and they play at 500. I'd say that puts MN at 31 wins. Good for the #10 pick. James Bouknight, Moses Moody or Corey Kispert according to Tankathon. All pretty good looking prospects.

Also let's compare drafts. I didn't do too much research, but let's assume 2020 is represented by Williamson and Morant. Their Win Shares are about 3.4, or 16 wins by the end. This year, Ball and Haliburton seem to lead the class at around .8, 4 wins by the end of the season. So let's say the difference between the drafts is about 12 wins.

What's next? Well, there's your top of the draft thing, so perhaps I should consider Hachimura/Reddish/Johnson instead. They were worth about 2 wins.

Let's say we draft #10 in 2021. I like Moody. He displaces Mulder and Poole, adds two wins.

Let's say Towns is healthy in 2021. He and Russell sync better. Edwards gets better. 40 wins nets them the 21st pick. Basically we've pick Hachimura/Reddish/Johnson level player in 2021 instead of Achiuwa/Maxey/Nnaji in 2022. Arguably an upgrade but not overwhelming. I like Achiuwa.

Overall, close to a wash (especially above 5 where we'd be) when you're comparing the Culverts and Okongwus of the world (I like Onyeka).

The extra year of Big Three Window makes the 2020 pick better for me. Thanks to Covid, KAT's absence will probably result in a net gain for us (they probably shouldn't be playing at all).

Did I make any miscalcs?

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Jan 24, 2021Liked by Eric Apricot

This is both simple and very confusing.

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Jan 24, 2021Liked by Eric Apricot

I'm not sure this is the right question, it seems to me it would be "Are you willing to trade Minnesota's 15-30 2022 pick for this years #15-30 pick?" because they did, after all, get the #1 pick this year, at some point KAT will be healthy, and with the #3 pick in this years draft, the T-Wolves could well be good in 2022, and Curry's current deal ends after next season. Presumably he would sign a new contract if the team is good, Personally, I'm hoping the T-Wolves come out of the lottery as the 4th seed, and I would definitely trade the 2022 15-30 pick for this years 4-10 pick, so I guess I am rooting for the 6th seed pre-lottery.

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Jan 24, 2021Liked by Eric Apricot

Very interesting but also a heavy mental lift for Sunday morning! Thanks Mr. Apricot.

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