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Added some bonus traditional stat lines for the rookies at the end

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Dec 1, 2020Liked by punk basketball

I both love and hate this pick. Loved because I genuinely think we have a good crop of Centers coming back and prior to Klay going down, I thought that we could afford to sit Wiseman these next two years and allow him to grow organically into this role (since I safely assumed Wiseman was gonna be the pick but for a brief moment that LGW fooled us with a supposed Chicago trade)

Hate because the expectations being heaped on Wiseman THIS YEAR are absolutely nonsensical. It reminds me of Jacob Evans (but the flip side). We bypassed other potentially more impactful players because Evans was supposed to have contributed immediately. This is the opposite: many people expect Wiseman to contribute off the bat when the man played 69 total minutes and used much of the Pandemic time to transform his body (not necessarily his game). Not saying that's a bad thing but again impossible to duplicate even a semblance of experience with lack of college bball and lack of any type of competition over the last year

Im not as high on Wiseman but giving the pundits the benefit of the doubt, IF Wiseman ceiling is as high as many people believe, I'm afraid it won't be reached until the very tail end of the Curry/Klay Prime years (which may still translate to another championship).

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I don't want to sound rude here but I see absolutely zero parallels between Evans and Wiseman, in terms of where they were picked, their physical dimensions, their abilities, their play styles, or anything elseabout them save that they were both picked by the Warriors in the draft.

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I understand that you brought up Evans with the caveat of "this is the opposite" end of the spectrum in terms of expectations, I just don't see how the Evans experience (picking a low-ceiling 'safe' player at the end of the first round) is informative of the Wiseman experience (consensus top 3 pick, picked for upside and potential).

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They Don't but for the fact that Evans was picked in order to contribute immediately That's it. What he was supposed to have been from Day 1 was not going to be too far off from where he would be 2-3 years later thereby FO shunning other picks that were more talented but on paper were more intermediate projects.

Not so with Wiseman. I get the near consensus is that Wiseman is the one player with a high floor AND high ceiling I don't see it that way Not now very very raw. So taking my own personal views, unlike Evans, Wiseman was picked for his long trajectory contribution NOT to make an impact from Day One. Yes I agree not the perfect comp but that's the only comparison/contrast I have since the Dubs have Not picked in the Top 10 since 2012.

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I agree there's little to compare to since we haven't had a pick in the top 10 since Barnes. I just think that the Warriors internal expectations for Wiseman are to have him be immediately useful in a role with limited responsibility while he learns how to be a more complete player. I don't think it's unreasonable to expect him to have an impact, even if it's the impact of a role player with a specific skillset.

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And that's my point. They were expecting Evans to have a bigger role NOT be completely unplayable. Wiseman of course is NO Evans. At worst he's probably gonna have a 10 year career as a Top Ten center which isn't bad.

But to expect Wiseman to contribute any meaningful minutes this year IMO is too lofty of an expectation, AND trust me watching the fan base backpedal and move goal posts with Evans a couple of years back IS what I don't want to see any of it happening with Wiseman this season . If anything, I'm just hoping Wiseman is given very situation specific role (even more than what you're suggesting) to gain some confidence, showcase his skills and boost his trade value

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If Wiseman shows promise this season, then even if he's clearly not ready, then I think the Warriors will probably have the option of trading him for more than they could have gotten for the #2 pick. They aren't necessarily locked into Wiseman's timeline over Curry's.

Wiggins rehabilitating his value and Wiseman flashing big potential would leave the Warriors with a lot of options going forward, especially if they are like the 7th seed or so and keep their pick and the Minnesota pick ends up in a good spot.

A lot of ifs, but things have become a bit less definite since Klay's injury, they need a few more things to break their way now.

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I think that's the key. Sadly, I'm with jzalvarado in that I didn't love what Wiseman did put on tape. I hope I'm wrong, but he seemed to process the game very slowly, even relative to peers at his age group (e.g. in the McDonald's All American game) leading him to be reactive rather than attacking, which substantially diminishes the advantage his physical gifts give him. If I am wrong, maybe he flashes. If I'm not, Lacob might start bailing salary rather than tripling down on going deep into the tax as a long term plan (e.g. using Wiseman as a trade chip to offload Wiggins, not resigning Oubre, etc.). A lot riding on how these guys show this season.

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I was thinking about that. I was thinking about a scenario in which Wiseman shows flashes of greatness, both Wiggins and Oubre have career years, and Draymond does NOT have a repeat of 2019/2020. Granted if that happens then we are looking at a year in which we lose our own 1st round pick. But what if we don't make the playoffs and end up with our own pick let's say in the Top 12 plus Minnys pick. Would Minnys pick, Our pick, Wiseman, Draymond (third team involved) and Wiggins be enough to net us Giannis?

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Height matters. The possibility of a raw but athletic big man to come in and do something productive like dunk or block shots is much greater than a 6'5" guy. If he can manage to not be a turnstile on defense (IMHO the biggest challenge) he can easily fill the JaVale McGee run the floor and dunk role and provide a positive contribution off the bench. Hopefully by the time the playoffs roll around, and we hopefully have a good and healthy team around him, he can provide more meaningful minutes in the playoffs. That's a towards-the-ceiling hope, but I do not think an irrational one.

tl;dr - I think Wiseman has a better chance to contribute this year than Evans did last year, especially taken into account how lacking the rest of the team was once Steph went down.

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I agree in thinking Wiseman can be useful now and possibly dominant down the road.

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author

> even Kevin Garnett took three years before even one person would vote for him as DPOY

This is going to be interesting to watch develop here. As calm as we all want to be, there's going to be a lot of pressure to win, and if Wiseman's development arc conflicts with that, it could get real bumpy real quick. But like Eric says in the article, I think the Warriors culture is just about an ideal spot to land for this kid.

This is going to be such a fun season!

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Nov 30, 2020Liked by punk basketball

About the only thing we know about Wiseman is that he was rated the #1 prospect coming out of high school. The comp or info I would like to see is how accurate that rating has been historically? E.G., is that rating generally accurate or generally BS?

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Dec 1, 2020Liked by Eric Apricot

Looking at Wikipedia's list of Gatorade Player of the Year, it would seem like a pretty good indicator of success in the NBA. Going back to '95:

1995 Stephon Marbury

1996 Kobe Bryant

1997 Baron Davis

1998 Al Harrington

1999 LaVell Blanchard

2000 Jared Jeffries

2001 Kelvin Torbert

2002 LeBron James

2003 LeBron James

2004 Dwight Howard

2005 Greg Oden

2006 Greg Oden

2007 Kevin Love

2008 Jrue Holiday

2009 Brandon Knight

2010 Brandon Knight

2011 Bradley Beal

2012 Jabari Parker

2013 Andrew Wiggins

2014 Karl-Anthony Towns

2015 Ben Simmons

2016 Jayson Tatum

2017 Michael Porter Jr

2018 RJ Barrett

2019 James Wiseman

2020 Emoni Bates

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Thanks for posting this. Looking at this list and making the assumption that if a high school Player of the Year turned out good enough to be picked in, say, the top 5 of his draft, then this bodes pretty well for Wiseman. Prior to 2018 I count 14 of the 20 that meet this criteria. Top 2 (Wiseman's spot) maybe 8 of those names, some who are headed for the Hall Of Fame. I'll take that.

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The Warriors and 76ers each have multiple players on that list! Maybe they’ll meet in the finals, the lakers had two last year and they won. Although, The T-Wolves had two for years and made the playoffs once.

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Seems a lot more accurate for skilled players than bigs

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But overall pretty good since Odom.

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author

Oden was a stud but injuries did him in... It would be interesting digging up all these stories. Maybe this could be another article I do. Like I have no idea who Kelvin Torbert is.

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He went undrafted, according to his wikipedia. Weird.

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author

sounds like the ankle injury that led to surgery in college changed everything. Interesting story:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kelvin_Torbert

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Nov 30, 2020Liked by Eric Apricot, punk basketball

Eric: so glad that we are back to basketball so you can get back to your fab analytic writing. Am looking forward to EOP almost as much as the games. Curious to see what you'll have for us.

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Nov 30, 2020Liked by punk basketball

Fantastic article. Definitely needs to be reiterated to Warrior fans that 19 year old rookies don't often play winning basketball even if they become winning players eventually. I agree with comparing him to high school guys, although I suppose he's already a year older. Less mileage on him though, I guess, so maybe it evens out?

"Given the GSW situation where Wiseman can concentrate on defense and rebounding while playing a limited JaVale McGee type role in the offense, I am hopeful that he will be an above-average defender if he can stay healthy."

One thing I wonder about with Wiseman though is whether he's interested in concentrating on defense and rebounding while playing a limited role in the offense. He's compared his game to guys like Giannis, Bosh, and Garnett. He's said he plays PF or C, which I interpret as him saying Cs aren't generally seen as primary ballhandlers/scoring options and he sees that in his future. He was the #1 recruit out of high school and the #2 pick in the draft and has never been "humbled" into accepting that there are certain things he wants to do that he shouldn't do like Chriss (who now says he was "naive" in Phoenix and that he realizes the skill set he has is better for center).

I hope he is as coachable as the Warriors think he is, because they need to convince him to master the center position first and perhaps may eventually need to convince him that his destiny in the league is to be a three point shooting DeAndre Jordan. Theoretically a very good player, but that's also because Jordan understood his role didn't include taking his defender off the dribble or shooting a turnaround fadeaway midrange with 20 seconds left on the shot clock.

Then again, maybe Wiseman really is good enough to be a primary ballhandler and scoring option in addition to handling all of the traditional center duties. If that's the case, he'll be a top 5 player in the league one day, and the Warriors will be sitting pretty for awhile.

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author

Yes, the mental aspect, the humility, will be an essential piece of Wiseman excelling in his role and growing as best he can.

I found this long film session with Wiseman and Mike Schmitz to be very interesting.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d8N5Nat7Aj4

Wiseman was quick to identify what he did wrong on each play and directions for himself to improve. He definitely came off as a student of the game, hungry to learn and not (emotionally) defensive

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Nov 30, 2020Liked by Eric Apricot

As long as we are doing Comps. Can we get a comp for the Warriors as a competitive team drafting high?

I have three:

80’s Boston: Len Bias dies after the draft ending the championship run as Bird’s back ages fast.

2000’s Pistons: Championship team gets second pick and takes Darko #2 over #3 Melo (and Wade.) Darko fights depression, rides the end of the bench, and the team fades leading to 20 years of mediocrity.

90’s Spurs a consistent 50 win team has an injury to their MVP gets the top pick and adds Duncan (rookie double/double machine) to their DPOY Robinson to make a dominant front court that wins a shortened season championship and leads to 20 years of playoff runs and championships.

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author

Yeah, a great idea. To be honest, I have about 8 articles in the can analyzing exactly this, every single dynasty’s drafting in gory detail. But at this point I’m saving it for the next big season pause, like next offseason or if the season gets delayed again...

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Nov 30, 2020Liked by Eric Apricot

Nice to have Something to look forward to!

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I suppose there's also recent vintage Boston too. Tatum was picked #3 after they made the ECF. Although it's a little too early to say how it will turn out, though they look like they're in a good place.

There's also the James Worthy Lakers who ended up dominating the 80s west.

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Excellent analysis (as usual) Apricot! The comparisons are so difficult because there are so many variables.

For example, when comparing him to high school players, does Wiseman get any advantage from at least participating in a college program, which perhaps builds a bit of maturity and more business-like approach to the game? What about all that time he had to work with specialists on his conditioning and agility?

And where exactly do his natural and developed talents lie in these comparisons. His size is pretty freakish; 15 pounds heavier than Robinson and substantially bigger than Bosh, Garnett and AD. Does his speed and length garner him some chase down blocks? Does it allow him to recover after getting beat to disrupt plays? What about the fact that he’s already joining a “good” team with Adams, Collins and Draymond helping him develop while the team can use him, but isn’t depending on him to be a starter right away?

It’s going to be fascinating.

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Yes, can we get a Duncan plus Robinson comp so we have something to measure Wiseman/Green against? That’s my good historical similarity (Darko’s my worst case.) Wouldn’t it be awesome if Wiseman/Green turned out to be the next Duncan/Robinson winning a shortened season and carrying on with decades of greatness?

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Don't look too closely, but seems like we've got a lot of young players with genuine potential moving forward. Wiseman/Chriss/Paschall/Wiggins/Poole (if he maintains his play from the end of last season) is nearly a starting five on its own. A terrible starting 5 to be clear, but one with definite potential.

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Yes, they're young. (Wiggins is approaching NBA average age.) But "potential" is also a polite way of saying they don't have it yet, and these guys definitely don't.

It would be a yahtzee if all these guys develop to their potential, so this won't ever be a "starting" 5 unless we're plagued with injuries again this season. But you could pick a worse set of dice to roll, I suppose.

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You had me at terrible :) Mostly because Poole made progress from being the worst player in the league to just dangerously bad. If the game keeps slowing down for him maybe there’s a chance he’ll be useful, but for now he’d tank that entire lineup. On the flipside, my hope is that Wiggins is the Worthy to Steph’s Magic this year.

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Agree on the potential. But I'd slow my roll on the adjective 'starting.' If all of these guys take a big step forward this year, I'll be there with you.

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Don’t forget Oubre. He’s young too!

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One thing struck me on Kerr’s comments about how they targeted Wiseman. Knowing Wiseman is your guy from a zoom call and a workout instead of from scouting//watching tape of his play against high level competition is a very scary statement for us folks who remember the way Dumars&Detroit talked about Darko when they were a good team with the #2 pick.

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I second what SpreeWebb said. This was a weird draft all the way around -- not just with the players available but with the cancellation of the college season, the limited ability of teams to work out the prospects, and so on. 2020 -- the gift that keeps on giving.

I know Wiseman is a riskier than average pick. He's basically a high schooler, and they have less information on him than one would prefer. But I like that the franchise took its shot. I'm hoping that we won't be at the top of the draft again, except for Minnesota's pick next year, which would be just fine at #4.

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There is barely any scouting/tape available for Wiseman, so they had to consider other aspects. The Wiseman pick is nowhere near Darko levels. There were no sure-fire all-NBA talents like Melo, Wade and Bosh available at #2. Let's give Wiseman a chance before we even start hinting that he might be one of the biggest draft busts in history.

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I’m going low comp Darko high comp Duncan. He could range from the guy they took over Melo who helped end a championship run to Duncan a guy who joined a former MVP and a defensive player of the year in the front court to win a championship in a shortened season and have one of the most historic dynastic playoff runs over the next two decades.

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Why do you compare him to Duncan -- a 4-year college guy and college player of the year who dominated from the low to the high post? Isn't Wiseman's skillset really different, and isn't he a lot more raw at 19?

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Sadly, Wiseman’s skillset is very different. I was more thinking along the lines of impact to the team as a rookie and beyond. If you look at the rookies in the article they all had very different skillsets from Robinson’s lowpost face up and block skills to Garnett’s inside/outside talents and Curry’s skill at being a large human.

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Different player, different era, different draft, no Euro non acceptance issues to overcome. Plenty of reasons for optimism. It’s the similarity of the process that’s eerie.

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author

great deep dive Apricot! I now fully expect Wiseman to lead the league in blocks and rebounds

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Nov 30, 2020Liked by Daniel Hardee

Hopefully he’s the next Duncan automatic double double winning titles in shortened seasons HoF player we all need right now!

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Nov 30, 2020Liked by Daniel Hardee

Thank you for another great dive into historical comps! These have been my favorite articles!

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