Minnesota Sports Forum

Agree, Lip. My biggest fear is that both Hield and Dunn are off the board at #5. Thibs could have drafted either one of those two and been confident he had a guy that was ready to compete for a spot in the rotation. But it would be foolish to think any of the other guys -- Bender, Brown or Murray -- are ready to compete for a spot in the rotation, so now you have added another hole that has to be fill in free agency or trade.

But I will be tickled pink if Hield and/or Dunn are available at #5.

I just don't see Hield going to Celtics or Suns. He is my pick if we have a choice.

Hield/Dunn feels like AB/Thad part 2 :-)

Still 3 weeks out but we may have some new intrigue based on the latest DX mock

http://www.draftexpress.com/nba-mock-draft/2016/

60WinTim wrote:Agree, Lip. My biggest fear is that both Hield and Dunn are off the board at #5. Thibs could have drafted either one of those two and been confident he had a guy that was ready to compete for a spot in the rotation. But it would be foolish to think any of the other guys -- Bender, Brown or Murray -- are ready to compete for a spot in the rotation, so now you have added another hole that has to be fill in free agency or trade.

But I will be tickled pink if Hield and/or Dunn are available at #5.

True, but may be it's OK if the guy we pick ends up being the best player in the long-run. I'm hopeful that Minnesota and Thibs becomes an attractive enough destination for FAs that, while we may not get the superstars here, we can at least add some solid veteran role players to the mix.

I view #5 as almost a luxury at this point, with tons of options available to Thibs and Layden. If we were in pure re-building mode, we'd take the best player available and pray to God that we made the right pick. But under our current circumstances, we have that option as well as trading the pick for an established player or players. Things don't hang in the balance with this pick, but yeah, it would be great if we got the most out of it.

60Win, please educate me on why you think it'd be foolish to think Murray would be a rotation player next year. I'm gonna need a little more than the typical "He's 19-years old" or "He only has one year of college experience" explanation. Murray didn't produce a typical freshman season for Kentucky nor did he look like a project player, such as LaVine when he was a freshman at UCLA, so there must be something legitimate that gives you the idea that he wouldn't be one of the 8-9 best players on this team next year.

If you're going to view Hield and Dunn as NBA-ready players, I think it's wise to do the same with Murray based on production at the NCAA level. Rarely do we see this happen, but I think you're putting too much stock in the upperclassmen label.

Here is my ranking of top 10 today.

1. Simmons
2. Ingram
3. Bender
4. Hield
5. Murray - (not in my last top 10)
6. Chriss (draftexpress has him going 3rd today to Celtics)
7. Sabonis
8. Poeltl
9. Brown
10. Dunn

Here is my most recent top 30:

1. Ingram
2. Simmons
3. Hield
4. Bender
5. Dunn
6. Luwawu
7. Valentine
8. Marquese Chriss
9. Baldwin
10 Jaylen Brown
11. Patrick McCaw
12. Taurean Prince
13. Jakob Poeltl
14. Sabonis
15. Jamal Murray
16. Furkan Kormaz
17. Deyonta Davis
18. Thon Maker
19. Skal Labissiere
20. Ellenson
21 Bentil
22. Ante Zizic
23. Gary Payton II
24. Guerschon Yabusele
25. Petr Cornelie
26. Brice Johnson
27. Cordinier
28. Qi
29. Caris Levert
30. Robert Carter

monsterpile wrote:Still 3 weeks out but we may have some new intrigue based on the latest DX mock

http://www.draftexpress.com/nba-mock-draft/2016/

I really hope Dunn falls to us, not just because I think he's a solid prospect that could fit on our team. I also think he could be a great trade asset since he is the #1 PG prospect out there and he could fetch us something fairly significant in a trade.

Buddy Hield is the Stephen Curry to Kris Dunn's Ricky Rubio. This has the 2009.draft written all over it. Somewhere David Kahn is nodding in approval.