Danny Messed up the Giddens pick

[Roy Hobbs]

  Frankly, I'm absolutely shocked that people can find better picks than who was chosen at #30 6-8 months after the draft. I doubt that such a thing has happened in the history of the league.

In fairness, many people were calling for Chalmers, Jordan, or CDR *before* the draft, and were disappointed in the Giddens pick.  It's not necessarily accurate to suggest that people are only using hindsight now.

[winsomme]

...in short, no...

POB was Ainge's project big - one with FAR, FAR superior offensive abilities and with two years in the league to boot...Jordan free-fell for a reason, he is raw in the extreme and is not capable of contributing on both ends of the floor - Ainge paid end-of-round money for POB, who is essentially the same thing as Jordan in terms of commodity...

Furthermore, i do believe that 4 spots is a lot to relinquish on a roster, but you cannot change the order of operations to fit the argument - Giddens and Walker represented not only upside potential but REAL roster depth at a time where all the bench wings were in flux - Giddens had experience and was projected to be able to pick up minutes and would have if TA and House had bolted - JR Would have split time with Pruitt until one or both carved out a niche...

Finally, the "lost in TC" stuff is over-stated - we have no substantial info beyond some very vague statements - this is not enough to build a foundation argument on...What did Giddens have trouble with? How far away was he from learning it? What did he do well?

Taking general 3rd party statements and extrapolating is spurious at best. Giddens could have very well played his way into a rhythm and become a valuable contributor to this team - we know he has the skills and he certainly has taken advantage of his minutes in the D-League....I will always argue against establishing an argument against a player and not allowing for development/progress - player evaluation is a constant process for at least the first 5 years of a career.

Even players that go to Europe come back NBA rotation players at times - development is a tricky thing to quantify...

...and Ainge didn't draft Giddens to be a trade commodity, he drafted him because of his upside potential and to secure a low-cost roster spot at an area of need...Chalmers and Jordan aren't good enough to justify taking them just for their talent - especially not when the team had better depth at their positions...

I agree with you that DA targeted the best talent for the pick (and I would even argue that he succeeded in that respect), but i disagree that it is hindsight to think that that pick should be looked at as potential chip in that season given that we are defending  a Title.

I also disagree that POB and DeAndre Jordan are equal commodities...

The irony is that maybe the biggest mistake DA made in the draft was not taking Walker at #30. Then we would have Walker (who at the point seems to be the more favored prospect) and we would have the roster spot (to either have picked someone else up at the time or left open like we did last year.....

[winsomme]

  Frankly, I'm absolutely shocked that people can find better picks than who was chosen at #30 6-8 months after the draft. I doubt that such a thing has happened in the history of the league.

In fairness, many people were calling for Chalmers, Jordan, or CDR *before* the draft, and were disappointed in the Giddens pick.  It's not necessarily accurate to suggest that people are only using hindsight now.

I also don't think that that is the thrust of the debate at this point...

if we are debating who is the better pick at this very early point, certainly there is no way to tell conclusively..

but if we are asking who was the higher commodity (with respect to the reports that Danny was trying to move JR) then we can look at two things:

1. JR was generally looked at as a surprise pick at the time.

2. Danny is having trouble moving him for a future pick.

Overall, I actually like the pick, but my focus right now is strengthening the bench for the playoffs. and since was trying to move JR to do that, I think it is a fair question to ask...

[Roy Hobbs]

  Frankly, I'm absolutely shocked that people can find better picks than who was chosen at #30 6-8 months after the draft. I doubt that such a thing has happened in the history of the league.

In fairness, many people were calling for Chalmers, Jordan, or CDR *before* the draft, and were disappointed in the Giddens pick.  It's not necessarily accurate to suggest that people are only using hindsight now.

I also don't think that that is the thrust of the debate at this point...

if we are debating who is the better pick at this very early point, certainly there is no way to tell conclusively..

but if we are asking who was the higher commodity (with respect to the reports that Danny was trying to move JR) then we can look at two things:

1. JR was generally looked at as a surprise pick at the time.

2. Danny is having trouble moving him for a future pick.

True.  There's no doubt in my mind that Chalmers has higher trade value / perceived value around the league right now than does Giddens.  Time will tell if that talent assessment is accurate, but Chalmers is simply looked at as better right now.

[winsomme]

  Frankly, I'm absolutely shocked that people can find better picks than who was chosen at #30 6-8 months after the draft. I doubt that such a thing has happened in the history of the league.

In fairness, many people were calling for Chalmers, Jordan, or CDR *before* the draft, and were disappointed in the Giddens pick.  It's not necessarily accurate to suggest that people are only using hindsight now.

I also don't think that that is the thrust of the debate at this point...

if we are debating who is the better pick at this very early point, certainly there is no way to tell conclusively..

but if we are asking who was the higher commodity (with respect to the reports that Danny was trying to move JR) then we can look at two things:

1. JR was generally looked at as a surprise pick at the time.

2. Danny is having trouble moving him for a future pick.

True.  There's no doubt in my mind that Chalmers has higher trade value / perceived value around the league right now than does Giddens.  Time will tell if that talent assessment is accurate, but Chalmers is simply looked at as better right now.

I would say Jordan, Walker and Chalmers are really the only guys. It wasn't that long ago that Jordan and Walker were viewed as lottery picks...

The only thing i would say about Chalmers is would he have the same value if he had been drafted by the Cs and wasn't getting starter minutes like he is getting in Miami...

I actually think he could move Walker if he wanted to, but it sounds like they really like him for the future...

[Greg]

I don't even understand why Danny took Giddens over Billy.  The perception everywhere since draft night is that Bill Walker was the better player, and the results so far have backed that up.

I for one was really p---ed when the Celtics passed on Walker and chose Giddens.

[jdpapa3]

Giddens over Walker probably was 100% to do with the knee issue.

[winsomme]

I don't even understand why Danny took Giddens over Billy.  The perception everywhere since draft night is that Bill Walker was the better player, and the results so far have backed that up.

I for one was really ****ed when the Celtics passed on Walker and chose Giddens.

yeah, not too sure about that either because the reports were that Danny really liked Walker....

maybe it was as simple as not wanting to give the guaranteed contract not knowing how the knees would hold up.

[Rida]

  Frankly, I'm absolutely shocked that people can find better picks than who was chosen at #30 6-8 months after the draft. I doubt that such a thing has happened in the history of the league.

In fairness, many people were calling for Chalmers, Jordan, or CDR *before* the draft, and were disappointed in the Giddens pick.  It's not necessarily accurate to suggest that people are only using hindsight now.

Thanks Hobbs, once again you are the voice of reason.

People on this board were saying that and i remember the "who the hell is Giddens?" posts that came up.

Make no mistake, there are plenty of players picked after Giddens that would result in teams giving up future first round picks for.

Thats not to say that Ainge is a bad GM, far from it, he simply made a bad decision which honestly is out of character for him. Especially in the draft.

Why are people up in arms that someone would suggest he made a bad decision?

[winsomme]

  Frankly, I'm absolutely shocked that people can find better picks than who was chosen at #30 6-8 months after the draft. I doubt that such a thing has happened in the history of the league.

In fairness, many people were calling for Chalmers, Jordan, or CDR *before* the draft, and were disappointed in the Giddens pick.  It's not necessarily accurate to suggest that people are only using hindsight now.

Thanks Hobbs, once again you are the voice of reason.

People on this board were saying that and i remember the "who the hell is Giddens?" posts that came up.

Make no mistake, there are plenty of players picked after Giddens that would result in teams giving up future first round picks for.

Thats not to say that Ainge is a bad GM, far from it, he simply made a bad decision which honestly is out of character for him. Especially in the draft.

Why are people up in arms that someone would suggest he made a bad decision?

i guess i am right in the middle on this because i also have a hard time calling picking JR a bad decision when JR very well could turn out to be a terrific player.

[BballTim]

  Frankly, I'm absolutely shocked that people can find better picks than who was chosen at #30 6-8 months after the draft. I doubt that such a thing has happened in the history of the league.

In fairness, many people were calling for Chalmers, Jordan, or CDR *before* the draft, and were disappointed in the Giddens pick.  It's not necessarily accurate to suggest that people are only using hindsight now.

  People were calling for a ton of players. The closest to a consensus (IMO) was CDR, who isn't necessarily better. It's also a little early to judge JR as a mistake. Even if he does turn out to be a bad choice and Walker does decently that would still be better than average for #30 and #47.

[wdleehi]

No matter who was picked there, they wouldn't be playing. 

[goCeltics]

i liked chalmers, anyways, take the good with the bad, alot of good in being 44-11 and defending champs.

[Scalablob990]

I just find it funny JR makes more then Leon Powe does.

[winsomme]

No matter who was picked there, they wouldn't be playing. 

but would they movable....which is really the question at this point...