Celticsstrong 2021 Historical Draft - VOTES ARE IN

[Jvalin]

With the 8th pick of the 8th round, the Milwaukee Bucks select Nikola Vučević.



According to the advanced stats, he's the 3rd best Center in the draft.

Value Over Replacement Player (career high in a single season)
1. Jokic 7.0
2. Moses 5.5
2. Vucevic 5.5

Box Plus/Minus (career high in a single season)
1. Jokic +9.1
2. Arvydas Sabonis +6.7
3. Vucevic +6.6

I'm not arguing he's a top 3 Center in the draft, but he's definitely in the top 10 in my book. Top 3 shooting Center as well alongside Jokic and Arvydas Sabonis.

I don't have a rim protector, but that's fine. Vucevic ain't strong enough to defend tradition bigs in the paint. Traditional bigs aren't mobile enough to defend Vucevic on the perimeter. Fwiw, he shot 36.4% from 3 on 2.9 attempts per game in 2018/19 (this is the season I plan to select).

Huh. I actually view him as a bruiser who can shoot threes and pass - I'm not impressed with Vooch's mobility on the perimeter, but I liked his physicality and power inside from the Magic games I've watched.

He's strong, but he ain't as strong as guys like Gilmore, Marc Gasol, Gobert, much less Ben Wallace. He's a decent post up defender. Not good PnR defender + perimeter defender. The latter ain't a problem, cause there aren't many mobile big men in the draft.

[Who]

Chicago Bulls select Jim Paxson and Gilbert Arenas.

[Moranis]

Arenas is a guy that I was thinking about for my last pick.  Unbelievable scorer.

[Darth_Yoda]

Chicago Bulls select Jim Paxson and Gilbert Arenas.

I had Arenas on a short list for my next pick.

Dude could score, nice weapon off the bench.

[Who]

Paxson was actually one of my 3 options for starting SG in the 4th round along with Drazen Petrovic who I picked and Devin Booker who was selected the following round.

I was surprised Paxson lasted so long. He was one of the premier shooters and perimeter scorers in the league at the time. Brilliant off ball movement. Good size. Some ball-handling and passing ability.

[Who]

I figured Arenas would be a good alternative to Mark Price if Price gets in trouble due to his lack of size. Say against Jokic (high post facilitator) and Dennis Johnson (biggest starting PG) finding ways to exploit him in the paint off cuts or post ups.

Arenas is a big guard. Good size for a PG. And still maintains that explosive scoring and shooting that I want from my backcourt.

[Somebody]

With their 8th round pick, the Toronto Raptors are going old school and selecting George Mikan.

Any time you can get a player that was the unquestioned best player in the world on the best team in the world for a 6 year period (it was actually longer but he wasn't in the NBA his first couple of seasons), you have to sign up for it.  I know it is hard to judge players from that long ago, but Mikan was 6'10" and 245 pounds, so he had modern size.  He was an 80ish percent foul shooter (he shot them underhand) and led the league in both scoring and rebounding several seasons.  And he won 5 titles in that 6 year period in the NBA (he also won the 2 preceding NBL titles before joining the BAA/NBA).  He predates the MVP award, though actually won the NBL MVP in 1948 before the Lakers joined the BAA/NBA.

So the Raptors are happy to welcome some size to their bench.

Is Mikan Available?

He was the number 1 pick in the PBL dispersal Draft, but was just signed by his team in the PBL.

I have no idea.  I know I specifically asked a vague question before we started drafting about the NBL players. Not sure it was answered.  I can pick someone else if required, but Milan was not drafted so I thought he was available

I believe it was stated that Territorial picks we not allowed, but Mikan falls into another spot.

Makes no difference to me at all personally, I would not have drafted him.

He isn't a territorial pick either.  Why I thought he was available to be drafted.  If a determination is made he isn't, I will draft someone else, but I want to know before another pick is made so I can get my back-up plan.

I would say that he's eligible for this draft. Really good player btw, I actually scouted him a lot before shying away from him due to era concerns (he did dominate Dolph Schayes though).

It is so hard to judge players from then, but he wasn't that far removed from the Russell/Cousy era either, and as I said, when you can draft the guy that is unquestioned the best player in the world on the best team in the world for 6 years (8 really if you count his pre-NBA days), it is hard to pass that up in the 8th round, even if he played so long ago.

The biggest question about his game is that he didn't play against a lot of players who would go on to be really good players in the Russell/Pettit era save Schayes and a couple of others. It doesn't help that there is little to no footage of him to make a qualitative analysis of his game either (there's a scouting video on him on YouTube, but there's nothing that beats full games against good competition).

I like his game enough that I can see him being a star in this format though, probably something like Vlade who sacrifices shooting and passing for better post scoring on offence, and mobility for rim protection on defence.

Schayes, Foust, and a few others that could technically be drafted, but yeah not many. They did handle the Knicks in 53 in the Finals and the Knicks did beat the Cousy Celtics in the semis (the beat Schayes' Nationals in 54 who also beat the Cousy Celtics).  Again, that is what is so hard about Mikan and why a guy that was clearly the best player in the league for so many seasons, lasted so long (and may have lasted longer).  For me, I just couldn't pass him up as my 4th big.  Just thought the value was too great to pass up.

Yeah the value was amazing. I do feel that Mikan's dominance over Schayes and those other greats is a bit overstated due to how young those players were (Schayes definitely improved considerably as the 50s wore on before he became a top 5 player in the late 50s/early 60s). But even a conservative estimate of Mikan is more than serviceable as a backup big.

[nickagneta]

With the 2nd pick in Round 9 of the 2021 Historical Draft the Phoenix Suns select:



CARLOS BOOZER

[Somebody]

Chicago Bulls select Jim Paxson and Gilbert Arenas.

Ahhhhhh I wanted Hibachi

[RPGenerate]

With the 3rd pick of the 9th round, the Sacramento Kings select another all-nba defender to the bench. His name is...



Jrue Holiday!!!

[RPGenerate]

Eh... did Gouki forget he drafts again today? 

[nickagneta]

Gouki missed his pick. Moranis is up

[Moranis]

I'm here

[nickagneta]

Technically Somebody can make a selection now

[Moranis]

The Toronto Raptors will select defensive specialist Michael Cooper.

Edit: Keeping with our theme, we have selected a back-up SG in the mold of our starter.  Michael Cooper essentially came off the bench for 5 title winning teams, played his defensive role perfectly, and even secured the 87 DPOY when he averaged 10.5 ppg, 3.1 rpg, 4.5 apg playing 27 mpg and coming off the bench for 80 of the 82 games (shot 38.5% from 3).  So he is well suited to the bench role he will playing here.  He had 5 1st Team All Defense and 3 2nd Team All Defense, making a killing on the defensive end, though later in his career, found solid 3 point shooting touch (3 times over 38%) so in the modern ball would have likely been the near prototypical 3 and D player.