While a lot of us were wrong about Bradley and Danny proved himself completely right about that I would point out Danny isn't exactly infallible in drafting. He has definitely shown us to wait a year so Fab and Sully need a year (and perfectly timed injuries perhaps?) before we can say anything, but I would point out last year.
JJJ
Here's some guys we could have had instead
Marshon Brooks...but hey....We get a 2014 second rounder!
Kyle SIngler
Chandler Parsons
Jeremy Tyler
Isaiah Thomas
and not a draft pick but he also lost out on this great point guard guy from Harvard. So yes I'll wait, but I'm not giving him an A plus just yet just cause he made some picks
marshon brooks is a ball chucker and starts for the nets. kyle singler isnt even in the NBA anymore and plays for real madrid.
whats your point?
Singler played very well in Europe this year and probably wouldn't have gone if he had been a first rounder. Three of these guys were 2nd team all-nba rookies and might have actually helped the team this year. That's my point. Now we have Sullinger anyway. We could have had great rotational swing men or a great backup point. Instead we got a guy who didn't play last year and wasn't ready to help much.
Granted it's hard to know when Doc doesn't play young guys until he has to
Those guys all played for teams that were in development mode, while the Boston Celtics were in championship contention mode. There's a big difference. I bet you JaJuan would have gotten minutes on the 2006-2007 Celtics if he were a rookie on that squad.
I'm not buying that there were zero rookies in the draft that could have helped us or that JJJ was the best prospect when we picked. We desperately needed help this year and he didn't give it to us. So the worst you can say is these other guys would have done the same thing. Basically these guys showed something over a long period of time and he didn't. I think he might be good but there is no reason to think he's better or will be better than these guys. The Heat just won the championship and Norris Cole played. The Spurs are pretty good and Kwahi Leonard made first team rookie I think.
That's the other thing. We might have tried trading up 3 whole spots to get Kenneth Faired, but that didn't happen either
I do have reason to believe that JaJuan Johnson will be a very good NBA player. They are the same reasons that made him the guy that I was hoping Danny would take on draft night. He is an exceptional athlete for a guy his size, and he has some good skills in the post and as a jump shooter.
He didn't get a chance to show a lot of those skills last year. He unquestionably needs to get stronger, but if he does, hopefully, he'll get more of a chance this year.
Sure, Norris Cole made a few contributions for the Heat, but so did Greg Stiemsma for the Celtics. So, if you are down on Danny for drafting JaJuan, you've at least got to be high on him for inviting the undrafted rookie to camp, and to Doc and Danny for being smart enough to keep him.