Five Favorite 2020 Draft Prospects

[KG4Ever]

Five I especially like, relative to their projected draft range:

1. Killian Hayes (Two way player now, and impressive against grown men, I like his length at point guard with a 6"8 wingspan, his passing, his outside shooting, his defensive awareness).

2. Jalen Smith: I don't know why he isn't getting more love, I put him right there with Wiseman and Okongwu as favorite bigs. He is a two way player, plays hard, nice shooting range and blocks shot.

3. Tyrese Haliburton: Like Hayes, he is a two way player and his shot numbers are impressive across the board. Nice passer, nice size. The only reason I have him slightly behind Hayes is that his shooting form is a bit unorthodox and am less sure it translates.

4. Paul Reed: This guy reminds me a bit of Paul Millsap and like Millsap he might get overlooked in the draft.

5. Shooters: Nesmith and Quickley

[WildWolf2813]

1. Killian Hayes

2. Aaron Nesmith

3. Paul Reed

4. Obi Toppin

5. Tyrese Maxey

Honorable mention to Payton Pritchard

[FNG]

It's fun to go back and review how we thought about prior drafts after a year's experience. Kudos to kekgeek for being the only poster in this thread to even mention Anthony Edwards in their top 5 a year ago! I also had him as clearly the #1 pick in the draft last year, although I admit I had some of the same concerns most of you mentioned while adamantly saying Wiseman was clearly the better choice at #1: disinterested, ineffective defense, and inefficient scoring. And lo and behold, Ant finished the season with a very bad DRtg of 116 because of occasional disinterested and generally ineffective defense, and a poor ORtg of 102 and a subpar TS% because of occasional poor shot selection. In the immortal word of Denny Green..."he was what we thought he was!" I admit his offense improved in the second half of the season, but there was no improvement in his defense either statistically (his rating was a very bad in the second half of the season too) or in the eye test. Even though Ball won ROY, I still have no reason to doubt that Ant was clearly the best choice at #1 in a draft that I don't think was very good at the top. But I think the jury is still out as to whether he can overcome his poor defense and inefficient scoring. If I had to venture a guess, he will continue to improve his offense and become a reasonably efficient potent scorer, but will never have the defensive intensity or discipline to be a genuine 2-way player. But I'll be fine with that, and will likely still Rosas made the right choice at #1.