I don?t understand, Julius Randle is one of the best players in this draft and Celtics pass?. I think him and Vonleh are best pf in this draft. Randle to Lakers (to the enemy).
For me a missed opportunity for Boston, Smart a great player but Randle seems to me better player with more conditions.
Indeed. The pick is interesting, as it seems to reflect a belief on the part of ownership that the fans are going to be OK with a 5- to 10-year period of bad basketball, aka "rebuilding."
Let alone the barrage of rationalizations this board provides to cover ownership's tracks, as this thread evidences, that will buy them time while fans wax happily about bad seasons and dust off space in Springfield for the Orien Greenes and Gabe Pruitts who are on the way.
Randle would have helped immediately, for sure. The most NBA-ready player left on the board, plus he frees you to move Sullinger.
Instead, Ainge and Wyc opt for a project. Smart is a "me" player from a wildly-underachieving, badly coached "me" program whose coach barely survived the post-season ax. The thought of Smart and Rondo on the floor together must bring a smile - and a variety of zone packages - to the minds of every other coach in the league. An entire backcourt with no jump shot?
In fact, I'd assert that Young is more NBA ready today than Smart is. Brad Stevens has a tremendous job on his hands to rid Smart of the immaturity, the juvenile histrionics on the floor and teach him how to score the basketball from the perimeter - coach him, because Travis Ford certainly didn't. Let alone the anger management stuff.
It's sad, really. The rebuild should have begun in 2010, by drafting astutely and acquiring astutely the players who would be the foundation of the franchise when Garnett and Pierce were gone. Master Po has been absolutely on point regarding Celtics management, and he gets a hat tip as I favored myself the "win immediatelY" mentality.
Now, it's clear that was wrong. Garnett and Pierce should have been surrounded by the future of the franchise, drafted and acquired carefully instead of the wild, wasted first round picks that are Ainge's hallmark. Anyone seriously think San Antonio won't put a good team on the floor when Tim Duncan retires? Of course they will.
Instead, it appears to me that the Pitino Era is at the door, trying to get in. Tragic, because those who hold the Celtics franchise have a sacred trust to respect its traditions. It should NEVER get this bad.
From deondraft:
"His easiest out is simply that his defense is an overstated issue. But all signs point in the direction of it not being so. His steal and block rates are exceptionally weak for a lottery PF prospect. Also his team was not great defensively considering the size and athleticism they boasted, and they were not better with Randle on the floor (or so I have heard and instantly believed. Anybody know where to find UK on/off splits?). And, you can watch for yourself as Randle makes a gigantic pile of mistakes in a single game. He often has no clue what is going on and stands there confused as his assignment waltzes right past him. That lack of mental acuity doesn?t strike me as something that is likely to go away, nor will it be mitigated with marginal improvement. On some plays he was so slow to react that it seems Tennessee could have scored twice before he figured out what was going on. While not every game is as rife with mistakes as this one, similar errors did persist throughout the season and tournament. When the eye test, individual stats, and team level performance all strongly suggest that he is bad at defense, the most Bayesian conclusion is that he is almost certainly bad at defense.
So now that we all agree he is bad defensively, how likely is he to elevate his instincts to a more competent level? His main concern is that he is too slow to discern the offensive play unfolding before his eyes and sometimes fails to react until the ball is going through the net. I believe this deficiency heavily prices into his low steal rate, as players often generate steals by anticipating what will happen in advance. Layne Vashro made an excellent post about evaluating potential, and his statistical analysis on the growth of steal, block, and rebound rates is grim:
If we roll with the narrative that steals correlate with defensive awareness and instincts, Randle will almost certainly always have bad instincts. After all, it doesn?t make sense that a player may drastically improve his anticipation and awareness without seeing a bump in steal rate. If increases in steal rate are outlier events, it logically follows that big increases in anticipation and instincts should be as well. This would doom Randle defensively? if defensive instincts are barely more improvable than height or athleticism, then he is a stone cold lock to be a liability as an NBA player.
But to leave some margin for error: let?s be open minded and say that defensive instincts are as easily improved as the most readily improved skill: shooting (at least I assume this is the case, if there is evidence to the contrary I would appreciate hearing about it). Everybody makes a big deal about Marcus Smart?s shooting ability being a damper on his draft stock, but he isn?t even the worst shooter among guards in the draft. He made 30% of his 3′s and 75% of his FT?s in college. Imagine instead that he made 25% of 3′s and 50% of FT?s? would anybody still want to draft him in the lottery? It would likely be perceived as an insurmountable wart that distracts from every good aspect Smart brings to the table. While it is impossible to equate Randle?s defensive badness to shooting percentages, he is the worst defensive player among big man prospects in the draft. Even in the most impossibly optimistic scenario that defensive instincts can improve as much as shooting, Randle?s defense should still be perceived as an exceptionally costly wart. This perception only fails to be widespread because of visibility bias. When casual fans watch a game, they notice every missed or made shot and normally none of the defensive lapses. Further, this enables season by season tracking of shooting percentages that are not available for defensive acumen.
Consider:
1) Julius Randle?s defense is worse relative to his peers than Marcus Smart?s shooting
2) Shooting is likely more readily improvable than defense, and possibly by a large margin
3) In the instance that neither player drastically improves their wart, Smart has a much rosier upside comparison among a player who shares the wart with similar strengths (Dwyane Wade) than Randle (Luis Scola, David Lee)."
Source:
http://deanondraft.com/2014/04/25/visibility-bias-and-julius-randles-defense/
Topic: Ainge terrible mistake of not choosing to Randle in the pick 6, incomprehensible (Read 11409 times)