Siakam and Murray were last 1st round picks that draft. They'd seemingly be a bigger miss.
But imagine basically a perfect draft
Brown at 3
LeVert at 16 (he was far more reasonable than Murray that high so I went with him even though Murray is better)
Siakam at 23
Zubac at 31
Brogdon at 35
Murray was a projected end of lottery pick, so 16 would have been reasonable. We probably don’t double dip and draft two PGs, though.
Even if we’d still made the second rounders trade, Brown / Murray / Siakim would have been epic.
all the more reason to curse Danny for p--- poor asset managing going into that draft where he was basically forced to use 2 firsts on draft and stash players rather than on players that were BPA at those picks.
except he wasn't because we kept 2nd round Demetrius Jackson on the actual roster.
extending it further, you know since Boston also had 3 later 2nd round picks
Boston could have also had
45 - Georges Niang
51 - Fred VanVleet
58 - Dorian Finney-Smith
Also available as undrafted players - Alex Caruso, Damion Lee, Gary Payton, Yogi Ferrell
I don't really fault him for missing on the second rounders, since those are a dice roll.
But, I do agree: Danny was too hyper-focused on roster spots. We overreached for "stashes" while keeping Jackson, Mickey and James Young on the roster. I didn't like the Yabu pick at the time. I was okay with Zizic, but obviously that was a miss too.
Oh that wasn't a shot at Danny on the late 2nd rounders, I had just played out the best draft for the first 5 picks, so figured I'd add the next 3 as well, but the knock on Danny for that draft was going into it with 8 picks. That is where he mismanaged the draft and it created all these weird things.
I also don't see why he took 2 draft and stash players in the 1st round, the first of which was a huge reach, only to keep a mid-2nd round pick on the roster. If it wasn't a roster issue, why the heck did he take both Yabu and Zizic.
One of the greatest what if's from that draft, was could Danny have taken the Sixers trade offer for 3 that was rumored to be Noel, Covington, 24 and 26, and then packaged 16, 23, and 24 and moved up to 8 to potentially still land Brown (the Sixers wanted Dunn so there is a real chance Brown would have slipped to 8 ).
that would have been an utter disaster. no way Brown slips to 8 and we'd have 2 mediocre players in Noel and Covington instead. Of the players rumored to be in the 3-8 slots, were Brown, Dunn, Hield, Bender, Murray, Chriss. would you honestly want to rely on the other teams not thinking Brown was the best of that bunch and hope all of them were taken before him? I certainly wouldn't.
as the saying goes, sometimes the best deals are the ones you don't make
There was a pretty long debate on where Brown would have gone had Boston not taken him at 3, the general consensus was either 7 to Denver or 8 where Chriss went. I think that seems right just given the needs of the teams drafting at the time.
and drafting consensus didn't have us taking Brown at 3 but that's what happened. I don't put a lot of stock in those forecasts -- especially when predicting how a draft would progress had a good player fallen past where they were selected.
I meant consensus on this board and frankly I do think it is certainly possible (and maybe even likely) that Brown would have still been there at 8
3 - Dunn to Philly (which is the starting point)
4 - Bender still to Phoenix
5 - Murray to Minnesota (they took Dunn, Murray makes most sense)
6 - Hield to New Orleans (his shooting still made most sense in a team building around AD)
7 - Chriss or Brown to Denver - this is the interesting thing. They took Murray, who is now off the board. I can see arguments either way for Brown or Chriss in that spot, but I think they go with Chriss given their roster at the time.
8 - Brown still on board if Denver takes Chriss. And I can also see something strange like Sabonis or Poeltl or even Sacto keeping the pick and taking the guy they wanted i.e. Papagiannis. This pick was clearly available though as Sacramento traded it to Phoenix for 13, 28, rights to Bogdan Bogdanovic, and a 2020 2nd (ended up 35 - Xavier Tillman).
So the question is would 16, 23, 24, and one of the 2nd's trumped the Phoenix offer. I think Sacramento still could have landed Papagiannis at 16, so they probably still get their main draft target. Does it require 27 also. Maybe, but I think Ainge still might have done that given the roster crunch issues. It was definitely an interesting hypothetical at the time. Obviously in hind sight having the surety of drafting Brown was clearly the best move, but still ending up with Brown but also having Covington and Noel, would have been interesting.
Topic: Danny's biggest regret, not drafting Brogdon (Read 8654 times)