Minnesota Sports Forum

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

1. Killian Hayes

2. Aaron Nesmith

3. Paul Reed

4. Obi Toppin

5. Tyrese Maxey

Honorable mention to Payton Pritchard

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.