Celticsstrong 2021 Historical Draft - VOTES ARE IN

[Somebody]

Knew it’d be Kawhi. Last of the two-way forces of that calibre remaining. Can shoot from 3 levels, plays elite defence, rebounds, is an improved passer and is clutch. Good pick

I rate his 2020 season very highly - his jump as a passer really impressed me, he definitely jumped into the upper echelon of MVP candidates with his improvements last season (think LeBron/Curry/Durant/Giannis/AD).

Yeah, me too. He also showed up in the playoffs, despite most of his team hanging him out to dry. Plus, he’s a fun guy

except the 4th quarter of the Denver series.  In that Kawhi failed miserably, which is why I would select his Toronto season and not his Clippers one. 

4th quarter stats against Nuggets
Game 7 - 0-5, -12
Game 6 - 3-7, -10
Game 5 - 3-7, -11
Game 4 - 2-4, +0
Game 3 - 1-7, +8
Game 2 - 0-3, +1
Game 1 - did not play

So in the 4th quarter of a series they lost in 7 after blowing massive 2nd half leads in the final 3 games, Kawhi was 9 of 33 or 27.3% and his team was -24 with him on the floor in those 4th quarters.

Kawhi may have been better in the regular season with the Clippers than he was with the Raptors, but he was a monster for the Raptors in the playoffs and he didn't show up at all in the most meaningful time for the Clippers in a series they lost.  I'd absolutely choose the Raptors season for him.  He was just better.

He definitely wasn't better in Toronto, this is winning bias at its finest. Cherrypicking a select quarter of a random series with stats that only capture one aspect of the game (won't even get into raw +/-, stuff like that in a 7 game sample size is utterly useless) doesn't even come close to being strong evidence for him "utterly failing when it mattered the most", for all we know he could've created a bunch of open looks for his teammates with his offensive gravity and still graded out as a massive positive for the Clippers offensively in the fourth quarter of the series.

I was specifically commenting on gouki's point that he showed up in the playoffs and his teammates left him out to dry.  That is not someone that showed up when it mattered.  He shot 27.3% on 5.5 shot attempts in the 4th quarter of a series they lost. 

For context against Dallas in the 4th quarter of the 6 games Lebron was 7 of 20 or 35% though took 2 less shots per game.  And that is considered one of the worst playoff melt downs ever (and many would call it the worst ever).  Kawhi was awful in the 4th quarter against the Nuggets.  There is no other way around it.  He just didn't show up throughout the 4th quarter that series.  It happens to great players, but it also isn't really all that arguable.  And for the record, Paul George had a better TS% than Kawhi did in that series, and George is getting crushed for being so bad and yet he was more efficient than Kawhi.

You are certainly free to choose whatever season you want, but there is no way I'd choose LA over Toronto.  In Toronto, Kawhi was a monster for basically 4 playoff rounds (the final 3 rounds against the Sixers, Bucks, and Warriors he was basically a 30/10/4 player).  He stepped up and defended Giannis better than anyone had, he brought it on both ends of the floor, and he wasn't fully healthy.  That just isn't what happened in LA.  Kawhi failed the Clippers last year.  It happens from time to time from great players and shouldn't diminish the other seasons or accolades, but I just can't get past how bad Kawhi played when his team needed him the most and if you choose that season it will be there lingering.  You choose the Finals MVP season when he was a monster, you eliminate much of that lingering questions and then really only have to defend him missing 25% of his teams games (which you'd have to do if you chose LA anyway).

That 30/10/4 is deceptive - his assist numbers didn't capture his mediocre passing ability that season while his 28/10/6 this season doesn't entirely capture his improvement in that department either, the improved quality of his passes made his assists this season more valuable than the ones he threw last season (a quick look at the tape would immediately show you the difference, Toronto Kawhi was struggling to make the reads that he was consistently nailing in LA).

And sure, Kawhi lost a few efficiency points on lower volume this season, but is this a true qualitative decline in his scoring or just poor shooting luck for a few games? His body of work in the RS would suggest that he's still pretty much the same scorer when his results in prior years suggest that his scoring is inelastic against strong playoff defences, so I simply wouldn't put much stock into a small decline and a cherry-picked sample suggesting that his scoring has somehow collapsed, it's not like he had an absolute stinker of a playoffs in 2020.

[Darth_Yoda]

With the 10th pick in the draft the Spurs select:





Clyde "the Glide" Drexler

[RPGenerate]

With the 10th pick in the draft the Spurs select:





Clyde "the Glide" Drexler

Definitely the right choice at this point. Drexler would have been nice to have next to Moses. Foolish of me to this think he'd drop a bit further.

[Moranis]

Knew it’d be Kawhi. Last of the two-way forces of that calibre remaining. Can shoot from 3 levels, plays elite defence, rebounds, is an improved passer and is clutch. Good pick

I rate his 2020 season very highly - his jump as a passer really impressed me, he definitely jumped into the upper echelon of MVP candidates with his improvements last season (think LeBron/Curry/Durant/Giannis/AD).

Yeah, me too. He also showed up in the playoffs, despite most of his team hanging him out to dry. Plus, he’s a fun guy

except the 4th quarter of the Denver series.  In that Kawhi failed miserably, which is why I would select his Toronto season and not his Clippers one. 

4th quarter stats against Nuggets
Game 7 - 0-5, -12
Game 6 - 3-7, -10
Game 5 - 3-7, -11
Game 4 - 2-4, +0
Game 3 - 1-7, +8
Game 2 - 0-3, +1
Game 1 - did not play

So in the 4th quarter of a series they lost in 7 after blowing massive 2nd half leads in the final 3 games, Kawhi was 9 of 33 or 27.3% and his team was -24 with him on the floor in those 4th quarters.

Kawhi may have been better in the regular season with the Clippers than he was with the Raptors, but he was a monster for the Raptors in the playoffs and he didn't show up at all in the most meaningful time for the Clippers in a series they lost.  I'd absolutely choose the Raptors season for him.  He was just better.

He definitely wasn't better in Toronto, this is winning bias at its finest. Cherrypicking a select quarter of a random series with stats that only capture one aspect of the game (won't even get into raw +/-, stuff like that in a 7 game sample size is utterly useless) doesn't even come close to being strong evidence for him "utterly failing when it mattered the most", for all we know he could've created a bunch of open looks for his teammates with his offensive gravity and still graded out as a massive positive for the Clippers offensively in the fourth quarter of the series.

I was specifically commenting on gouki's point that he showed up in the playoffs and his teammates left him out to dry.  That is not someone that showed up when it mattered.  He shot 27.3% on 5.5 shot attempts in the 4th quarter of a series they lost. 

For context against Dallas in the 4th quarter of the 6 games Lebron was 7 of 20 or 35% though took 2 less shots per game.  And that is considered one of the worst playoff melt downs ever (and many would call it the worst ever).  Kawhi was awful in the 4th quarter against the Nuggets.  There is no other way around it.  He just didn't show up throughout the 4th quarter that series.  It happens to great players, but it also isn't really all that arguable.  And for the record, Paul George had a better TS% than Kawhi did in that series, and George is getting crushed for being so bad and yet he was more efficient than Kawhi.

You are certainly free to choose whatever season you want, but there is no way I'd choose LA over Toronto.  In Toronto, Kawhi was a monster for basically 4 playoff rounds (the final 3 rounds against the Sixers, Bucks, and Warriors he was basically a 30/10/4 player).  He stepped up and defended Giannis better than anyone had, he brought it on both ends of the floor, and he wasn't fully healthy.  That just isn't what happened in LA.  Kawhi failed the Clippers last year.  It happens from time to time from great players and shouldn't diminish the other seasons or accolades, but I just can't get past how bad Kawhi played when his team needed him the most and if you choose that season it will be there lingering.  You choose the Finals MVP season when he was a monster, you eliminate much of that lingering questions and then really only have to defend him missing 25% of his teams games (which you'd have to do if you chose LA anyway).

That 30/10/4 is deceptive - his assist numbers didn't capture his mediocre passing ability that season while his 28/10/6 this season doesn't entirely capture his improvement in that department either, the improved quality of his passes made his assists this season more valuable than the ones he threw last season (a quick look at the tape would immediately show you the difference, Toronto Kawhi was struggling to make the reads that he was consistently nailing in LA).

And sure, Kawhi lost a few efficiency points on lower volume this season, but is this a true qualitative decline in his scoring or just poor shooting luck for a few games? His body of work in the RS would suggest that he's still pretty much the same scorer when his results in prior years suggest that his scoring is inelastic against strong playoff defences, so I simply wouldn't put much stock into a small decline and a cherry-picked sample suggesting that his scoring has somehow collapsed, it's not like he had an absolute stinker of a playoffs in 2020.

Again, I was commenting on the point that he showed up and his teammate let him down.  That just isn't true.  I wasn't making a broader point that he deteriorated overall or anything.  I fully expect him to play very well again next year.  He is a great player, but sometimes great players just don't have very good series.  I'm surprised anyone would really argue that Kawhi was great against the Nuggets.  He wasn't.  He played very poorly down the stretch of the games in that series.  I think some of that is what he wasn't used to playing big minutes and every game (this is also a knock for Giannis).  His conditioning just wasn't very good (and that seemed to be a team problem, not just him).  I think we are going to see this more and more as more and more guys load manage, not just by taking games off, but also cutting minutes down.  It is hard to all of a sudden ramp up for 20 playoff games and do something you hadn't done all season long.  That is one of the reason I prefer the older players in these sort of drafts.  They played 80+ games and 36+ minutes pretty consistently.  That is a real benefit when you are putting together teams like this.

[Darth_Yoda]

With the 10th pick in the draft the Spurs select:





Clyde "the Glide" Drexler

Definitely the right choice at this point. Drexler would have been nice to have next to Moses. Foolish of me to this think he'd drop a bit further.

I had big plans for a Nash led team. So I had to completely re-adjust my thinking.

[Darth_Yoda]

Can we keep going into the second round?

[Moranis]

Clyde is a great pick for 10.  I would have strongly considered after the top 6 guys. 

[Darth_Yoda]

Clyde is a great pick for 10.  I would have strongly considered after the top 6 guys.

I think he is an absolute top 10 guy in this draft, so I am ok with him at 10. I didnt think he would make it to me at 10 honestly.

[nickagneta]

9 of the 10 guys selected were in my top 10. Jokic was not. The one guy I had in my top 10 that was not selected is an all-time offensive great. He'll probably go early 2nd.

[Somebody]

Knew it’d be Kawhi. Last of the two-way forces of that calibre remaining. Can shoot from 3 levels, plays elite defence, rebounds, is an improved passer and is clutch. Good pick

I rate his 2020 season very highly - his jump as a passer really impressed me, he definitely jumped into the upper echelon of MVP candidates with his improvements last season (think LeBron/Curry/Durant/Giannis/AD).

Yeah, me too. He also showed up in the playoffs, despite most of his team hanging him out to dry. Plus, he’s a fun guy

except the 4th quarter of the Denver series.  In that Kawhi failed miserably, which is why I would select his Toronto season and not his Clippers one. 

4th quarter stats against Nuggets
Game 7 - 0-5, -12
Game 6 - 3-7, -10
Game 5 - 3-7, -11
Game 4 - 2-4, +0
Game 3 - 1-7, +8
Game 2 - 0-3, +1
Game 1 - did not play

So in the 4th quarter of a series they lost in 7 after blowing massive 2nd half leads in the final 3 games, Kawhi was 9 of 33 or 27.3% and his team was -24 with him on the floor in those 4th quarters.

Kawhi may have been better in the regular season with the Clippers than he was with the Raptors, but he was a monster for the Raptors in the playoffs and he didn't show up at all in the most meaningful time for the Clippers in a series they lost.  I'd absolutely choose the Raptors season for him.  He was just better.

He definitely wasn't better in Toronto, this is winning bias at its finest. Cherrypicking a select quarter of a random series with stats that only capture one aspect of the game (won't even get into raw +/-, stuff like that in a 7 game sample size is utterly useless) doesn't even come close to being strong evidence for him "utterly failing when it mattered the most", for all we know he could've created a bunch of open looks for his teammates with his offensive gravity and still graded out as a massive positive for the Clippers offensively in the fourth quarter of the series.

I was specifically commenting on gouki's point that he showed up in the playoffs and his teammates left him out to dry.  That is not someone that showed up when it mattered.  He shot 27.3% on 5.5 shot attempts in the 4th quarter of a series they lost. 

For context against Dallas in the 4th quarter of the 6 games Lebron was 7 of 20 or 35% though took 2 less shots per game.  And that is considered one of the worst playoff melt downs ever (and many would call it the worst ever).  Kawhi was awful in the 4th quarter against the Nuggets.  There is no other way around it.  He just didn't show up throughout the 4th quarter that series.  It happens to great players, but it also isn't really all that arguable.  And for the record, Paul George had a better TS% than Kawhi did in that series, and George is getting crushed for being so bad and yet he was more efficient than Kawhi.

You are certainly free to choose whatever season you want, but there is no way I'd choose LA over Toronto.  In Toronto, Kawhi was a monster for basically 4 playoff rounds (the final 3 rounds against the Sixers, Bucks, and Warriors he was basically a 30/10/4 player).  He stepped up and defended Giannis better than anyone had, he brought it on both ends of the floor, and he wasn't fully healthy.  That just isn't what happened in LA.  Kawhi failed the Clippers last year.  It happens from time to time from great players and shouldn't diminish the other seasons or accolades, but I just can't get past how bad Kawhi played when his team needed him the most and if you choose that season it will be there lingering.  You choose the Finals MVP season when he was a monster, you eliminate much of that lingering questions and then really only have to defend him missing 25% of his teams games (which you'd have to do if you chose LA anyway).

That 30/10/4 is deceptive - his assist numbers didn't capture his mediocre passing ability that season while his 28/10/6 this season doesn't entirely capture his improvement in that department either, the improved quality of his passes made his assists this season more valuable than the ones he threw last season (a quick look at the tape would immediately show you the difference, Toronto Kawhi was struggling to make the reads that he was consistently nailing in LA).

And sure, Kawhi lost a few efficiency points on lower volume this season, but is this a true qualitative decline in his scoring or just poor shooting luck for a few games? His body of work in the RS would suggest that he's still pretty much the same scorer when his results in prior years suggest that his scoring is inelastic against strong playoff defences, so I simply wouldn't put much stock into a small decline and a cherry-picked sample suggesting that his scoring has somehow collapsed, it's not like he had an absolute stinker of a playoffs in 2020.

Again, I was commenting on the point that he showed up and his teammate let him down.  That just isn't true.  I wasn't making a broader point that he deteriorated overall or anything.  I fully expect him to play very well again next year.  He is a great player, but sometimes great players just don't have very good series.  I'm surprised anyone would really argue that Kawhi was great against the Nuggets.  He wasn't.  He played very poorly down the stretch of the games in that series.  I think some of that is what he wasn't used to playing big minutes and every game (this is also a knock for Giannis).  His conditioning just wasn't very good (and that seemed to be a team problem, not just him).  I think we are going to see this more and more as more and more guys load manage, not just by taking games off, but also cutting minutes down.  It is hard to all of a sudden ramp up for 20 playoff games and do something you hadn't done all season long.  That is one of the reason I prefer the older players in these sort of drafts.  They played 80+ games and 36+ minutes pretty consistently.  That is a real benefit when you are putting together teams like this.

Ah that I can agree with, his team certainly didn't collapse imo. I do think that he was still very good against the Nuggets though - his scoring efficiency was down and his volume suffered a bit because of it, but he still created a ton of shots due to his improved passing and commanded a ton of defensive attention that freed up PG to do his thing. Not his best series, but when you consider how good he was against a strong Mavericks squad (that team doesn't look great except for Luka and KP, but they performed very well this season in all team metrics and had a good wing defender in DFS who was glued on Kawhi throughout the series) I don't think he really had much of a dip in the playoffs overall.

His conditioning didn't look all that great in the bubble, but the lockdown played a part imo - he looked great in Toronto with load management and I expect him to do well in this draft as there should be no pandemic affecting the games "played"

[Jvalin]

Seems a bit early for Jokic.  Certainly could end up in the pantheon one day, but seems a bit early for me for a guy that isn't an elite scorer nor a very good defender.  Certainly an excellent all around offensive player and the best passing big man available, I just think it was a touch early for him.

Not many multiple MVP's available, though I do worry about Nash's defense.  Pair him with some strong wing defenders and I think he could be all right, they just have to fit with him offensively which is far more difficult in this given the dearth of excellent 2-way players. 

But these last two picks are why I think this draft will be like no other.  Even the 1st round picks have real flaws, which makes this so exciting and interesting.

I would argue he's a better defender than Moses. He ain't quick enough to defend the perimeter, but he's a massively underrated PnR defender.

https://fadeawayworld.net/2020/02/27/nba-expert-nikola-jokic-is-the-best-pick-and-roll-defender-in-the-league/

He's also a big presence in the paint thanks to his length/strength. He allowed 0.71 PPP when posted up last season, which ranks in the 83.9th percentile. Moses had short hands, which held him back on the defensive side of the ball.

[Jvalin]

With the 10th pick in the draft the Spurs select:





Clyde "the Glide" Drexler

Great pick! Was hoping he'd slide to #13. Imo, he's underrated cause he was playing in the shadow of Jordan.

[Somebody]

Seems a bit early for Jokic.  Certainly could end up in the pantheon one day, but seems a bit early for me for a guy that isn't an elite scorer nor a very good defender.  Certainly an excellent all around offensive player and the best passing big man available, I just think it was a touch early for him.

Not many multiple MVP's available, though I do worry about Nash's defense.  Pair him with some strong wing defenders and I think he could be all right, they just have to fit with him offensively which is far more difficult in this given the dearth of excellent 2-way players. 

But these last two picks are why I think this draft will be like no other.  Even the 1st round picks have real flaws, which makes this so exciting and interesting.

I would argue he's a better defender than Moses. He ain't quick enough to defend the perimeter, but he's a massively underrated PnR defender.

https://fadeawayworld.net/2020/02/27/nba-expert-nikola-jokic-is-the-best-pick-and-roll-defender-in-the-league/

He's also a big presence in the paint thanks to his length/strength. He allowed 0.71 PPP when posted up last season, which ranks in the 83.9th percentile. Moses had short hands, which held him back on the defensive side of the ball.

While the sample size is pretty good, I think it doesn't quite capture Jokic's defensive weaknesses. Jokic's anticipation and hands make him pretty good at defending the PnR as long as the ballhandler isn't great at shooting off the dribble to force him to step outside. Most teams in the NBA don't have ballhandlers who can Steph Curry Denver to death, so Jokic gets some really good PnR numbers as result. But I think we'll have a good amount of teams who'll select guards who can do that and Jokic will likely struggle guarding such offensive dynamos. Jokic is also weak at defending the PnP: his lack of quickness makes it difficult for him to close out on popping bigs effectively in such actions.

[Darth_Yoda]

Seems a bit early for Jokic.  Certainly could end up in the pantheon one day, but seems a bit early for me for a guy that isn't an elite scorer nor a very good defender.  Certainly an excellent all around offensive player and the best passing big man available, I just think it was a touch early for him.

Not many multiple MVP's available, though I do worry about Nash's defense.  Pair him with some strong wing defenders and I think he could be all right, they just have to fit with him offensively which is far more difficult in this given the dearth of excellent 2-way players. 

But these last two picks are why I think this draft will be like no other.  Even the 1st round picks have real flaws, which makes this so exciting and interesting.

I would argue he's a better defender than Moses. He ain't quick enough to defend the perimeter, but he's a massively underrated PnR defender.

https://fadeawayworld.net/2020/02/27/nba-expert-nikola-jokic-is-the-best-pick-and-roll-defender-in-the-league/

He's also a big presence in the paint thanks to his length/strength. He allowed 0.71 PPP when posted up last season, which ranks in the 83.9th percentile. Moses had short hands, which held him back on the defensive side of the ball.

While the sample size is pretty good, I think it doesn't quite capture Jokic's defensive weaknesses. Jokic's anticipation and hands make him pretty good at defending the PnR as long as the ballhandler isn't great at shooting off the dribble to force him to step outside. Most teams in the NBA don't have ballhandlers who can Steph Curry Denver to death, so Jokic gets some really good PnR numbers as result. But I think we'll have a good amount of teams who'll select guards who can do that and Jokic will likely struggle guarding such offensive dynamos. Jokic is also weak at defending the PnP: his lack of quickness makes it difficult for him to close out on popping bigs effectively in such actions.

drafting Jokic, to me, means you are looking to build a defensive dynamo of a team.
If that is all you are concerned about then you can build a really strong offensive team with this draft.
However, I think scoring on a team with Jokic in the middle will be easy with some of the foolishly speedy and savy wings available to draft.

[nickagneta]

I didn't have Jokic this high and thought he would be a perfect 5 alongside Giannis as a possible drop down the draft type player. Like maybe high 3rd round but I most likely would have taken him late in the 2nd round as I wouldn't have trusted Who not to grab him.