Summer 2021 Fantasy Draft: Draft Thread

[theswitch]

Sorry -- seeing some players (like Wall) were drafted in the last round but never made it to the draft board so I didn't include them in my math. I'm considering those picks basically undrafted

[Jvalin]

Biggest snub for me was Dinwiddie. I was considering him with my last pick, but opted for De'Anthony Melton who reminds me of prime Avery Bradley. He's an elite on-ball defender, plus he shot 41.2% from 3 last season. Figured he'd better suited in a limited role off the bench. Fwiw, ESPN ranked Dinwiddie at #68 and SI ranked him at #75. He didn't even crack the top 156 in our draft.

Agreed that SloMo was a reach on my part. I'm very high on his game, but I could have probably drafted him with one of my later picks. Retrospectively, I would have used my 7th pick on De'Andre Hunter or Bojan Bogdanovic.

Are we gonna run a poll? The regular season starts on October 19. We are about a month away. Now is the perfect time to talk about our fantasy teams.

[RPGenerate]

I thought it might be fun to look back at how our draft board compared to ESPN's top 100 NBARank. Obviously, fit isn't incorporated into the ESPN version, but in terms of raw talent how'd we do. The biggest takeaway is that this board really cares about fit and experience! Small, score-first, no-defense OR big, defense-first, no-shooting players were highly ranked by ESPN but didn't quite fit into our teams. On the other hand, we "reached" for glue guys who were perfect 5th-7th options on these teams but don't have high-end talent. I think in general that's validating so well done.

Biggest Reaches

This starts easy. ESPN did not give any love to the injured players -- Kawhi Leonard (and later Jamal Murray) did not get credit.

Players that were drafted in the top 100 but were not in the top 100 for ESPN:

• RJ Barrett - Drafted 53rd in our draft. I was surprised to not see him in the ESPN version -- I thought he'd be an easy choice for getting better compared to some of the players included like Gallo.
• Harrison Barnes - Drafted 56th in our draft. I guess glue guy veterans get overlooked in sexy top 100 projected rankings.
• Evan Fournier - Drafted 70th in our draft. Again, surprising not to see him especially after a big contract. For all the debate around him here, wild to see such a productive player excluded from the top 100.

And then real reaches:

• Other boring, consistent vets - Al Horford (61st), Kyle Anderson (74th), Brook Lopez (75th), PJ Washington (77th), Nicolas Batum (82nd), Jae Crowder (83rd), Danny Green (84th), Marcus Morris (91st). In our draft these were the 6th-7th rounds, where we were all looking for glue guys for our bench who can fit on any team. Apparently that's not valued by ESPN.
• Jonas Valanciunas - Drafted 54th, ranked 94th. I thought he was drafted a bit high in ours but added to his team.
• Gordon Hayward - Drafted 25th, ranked 58th. I thought 25 was way too high but 58th is crazy low to me.
• Malcolm Brogdon, Dejounte Murray, and OG Anunoby - Grouping them together as high-end glue guys. OG drafted 49th, ESPN ranked 72nd. Murray drafted 62nd, ranked 83th. Brogdon drafted 46th, ranked 65th. Clearly ESPN doesn't know what it's doing! Brogdon should be top 20 Duncan Robinson might be in this list too at 64th v. 92nd.
• High end reaches - Karl-Anthony Towns (13th v. 24th), Jaylen Brown (19th v. 27th), Zion Williamson (16th v. 23rd), Zach Lavine (21st v. 33rd), LaMelo Ball (33rd v. 47th), Kristaps Porzingis (37th v. 50th). For the most part up-and-coming players where these managers got excited about talent level but ESPN gave more benefit to some established veterans instead. Interesting that many of these players haven't "won" much yet.

Okay, let's stop beating ourselves up.

Best Value

• High volume scorers who are inefficient / hard team fits - D'Lo Russell (111th v. 63rd), Anthony Edwards (105th v. 52nd), Russell Westbrook (78th v. 29th), John Wall (undrafted v. 85th). Look at that love for Westbrook on ESPN! That's insane. Maybe in terms of raw talent, but interesting to see these players still ranked so high by ESPN with their star names versus how we thought about it with team construction.
• Other score-first guards - Same theme but with a different level of brand name. Devonte Graham (132nd v. 86th), Darius Garland (126th v. 84th), Jordan Clarkson (128th v. 90th), Collin Sexton (92nd v. 59th), Kevin Huerter (127th v. 95th). Mostly undersized, score-first guards who can't defend. Hard team fits, but put up the numbers for ESPN.
• Non-elite big men who can't shoot - Jusuf Nurkic (119th v. 74th), Aaron Gordon (104th v. 69th) -- not a big big man but same idea, Jarrett Allen (86th v. 61st). The opposite of the previous bullet with the same point -- again, harder fits so the talent level itself is likely above where they were drafted based on defense and interior scoring.
• Good fits who were just good picks! - Miles Bridges (109th v. 87th) is an easy team fit who could have been drafted higher based on his potential and performance. Lauri Markannen (117th v. 82nd) and might be a tough fit but was great value. Myles Turner (66th v. 44th) might be overrated by ESPN but underrated by our drafting. Same with Jaren Jackson as a similar player (88th v. 71st). I'll give myself some credit for Andrew Wiggins (99th v. 71st) and Derrick Rose (118th v. 91st).
• Young score-first talents - Brandon Ingram (43rd v. 26th), De'Aaron Fox (50th v. 34th), Trae Young (32nd v. 17th) all represent up and coming score-first players where the board is still skeptical.
• Great high-end value - DeMar DeRozan (72nd v. 45th), Chris Paul (23rd v. 13th), Jrue Holiday (30th v. 22nd), Khris Middleton (26th v. 19th), Bradley Beal (17th v. 11th).

I hesitated to go with mapping to teams but I think everyone had some wins and some losses. In any case this was on my mind so wanted to lay it out for others Sorry if I missed anything in organizing the draft board.

Really interesting stuff. tp for gathering all this info

[nickagneta]

I don't take those ranking by SI or ESPN too seriously, though I guess it's at least something to compare to. And these are also very subjective.

For instance, Ja Morant is way too high, IMHO. Westbrook is high based on talent but his game is tough on team building if you aren't building around him. Trae is too high. Smart was at 60, that's also way too high. You can go up and down the rankings with stuff like that. I think Jaylen is better than Middleton, Morant and Mitchell and in team building I think he is better than Gobert. I also think Randle is too low as are many others.

Interesting though that my Spurs, picking 6th in the 1st had #3, #27, #28, #33 and #34. 5 of the top 34 players in a 12 team draft is pretty dang good.

[Jvalin]

High end reaches - Karl-Anthony Towns (13th v. 24th), Jaylen Brown (19th v. 27th), Zion Williamson (16th v. 23rd),

I'll focus on high-end reaches, cause the first rounds are way more important than the later ones.

Don't think Zion was a reach at #16. In a vacuum, I had him at #11. Zion is unguardable! Problem is, he ain't stretching the floor, plus he's a below average defender. These are major weaknesses, hence it's relatively difficult to build a fully functional/balanced team around him. For instance, he'd be at his best alongside a 3+D Center. Good luck trying to find a starting-caliber 3+D Center in our draft (=top ~12 Center in the real NBA). Had I selected him, I would have targeted Christian Wood and Myles Turner. RPG drafted JJJ who'd also be a great fit.

Don't think KAT at #13 was a reach either. If I remember correctly, I had him at #15 behind Zion > Tatum > George > Butler. He's hands down the best shooting Center in the draft (if not of all time). Shooting comes at a premium in the pace-and-space era.

Agreed that Brown was a reach at #19, but
a) the SG position was the weakest one in the draft
b) he's massively popular on this board cause we are all Celtics fans. You gotta pay a premium for Celtics' players.

In fact, I tried multiple times to trade for him. My original plan was to trade down from #2 for Tatum and George and then hopefully draft Bam and Brown at #23 and #26 (or trade up a few spots for them). Retrospectively, there's no way Brown would have lasted till #23, much less till #26.

Ja/Fox - Brown - George - Tatum - Bam

P.S. I was kinda disappointed that we only finalized 2(?) trades throughout the whole draft. It seems like everybody was unwilling to take risks (which is a valid strategy obviously). Any trades that were close to come to fruition?

[Who]

According to ESPN I have:

#93 - Mitchell Robinson
#82 - Lauri Markkanen
#73 - Tyrese Haliburton
#62 - Joe Ingles

#41 - Michael Porter Jr
#33 - Zach LaVine
#30 - CJ McCollum
#25 - Rudy Gobert

#4 - Luka Doncic


Unranked - Jonathon Isaac, Reggie Jackson, Pat Beverley, Reggie Bullock.


According to Sports Illustrated,

#97 - Tyrese Haliburton
#95 - Jonathon Isaac

#68 - Joe Ingles
#52 - Michael Porter Jr

#38 - CJ McCollum
#29 - Zach LaVine
#21 - Rudy Gobert

#6 - Luka Doncic


Unranked - Lauri Markkanen, Reggie Jackson, Mitchell Robinson, Pat Beverley, Reggie Bullock


Where I Actually Drafted Them

#4 - Luka Doncic
#21 - Zach Lavine
#28 - Rudy Gobert
#45 - CJ McCollum
#52 - Michael Porter Jr
#69 - Joe Ingles
#76 - Tyrese Haliburton
#93 - Jonathon Isaac
#100 - Mitchell Robinson
#117 - Lauri Markkanen
#124 - Reggie Jackson
#141 - Pat Beverley
#148 - Reggie Bullock