(1) I really just don't see the point of trading down a slot to pick up another first that we won't be able to use or trade for anything meaningful
Not meaningful? Huh? First of all, letting PHO move from 4 to 3 would likely mean a swap of 23 for 13. And having 16 and 13 then allows Danny to trade up to #10 or so. That's a pretty blasted meaningful draft pick.
Yeah, it'll be pretty blasted meaningful when the guy we draft is sitting on the bench next to the other 6 rookies on the team.
Oh but we could trade it, right? Yes, we learned last year that teams are just lining up to give us value for all of our extra first rounders.
(2) To me Hield's best case scenario is something along the lines of a J.R. Smith / Wes Matthews type shooting guard. That's pretty nice, and the Celts could use a guy like that, but not the sort of player who will take the Celts to another level.
Talent evaluation is not your strong suit.
Oh burn! Well, it's not my day job or anything. Is it yours, per chance? I tend to defer to the opinions of people who seem more versed in this than me.
Those people seem to uniformly think Hield is high level role player material, and unlikely to be more.
Matthews we can compare easily since both he and Hield came out of college at roughly the same age and are roughly the same size. Hield is clearly a better physical prospect but let's look at their college production their senior year. In his last year of college Matthews averaged 18ppg, shooting 51.7% from 2, 37% from 3 and a TS of 60%. Hield averaged 25ppg, 55% from 2, 45% from 3 and a TS of 66%. In a nutshell Hield is a far, far better player at this stage of his career than Matthews was. There is no evidence whatsoever that getting to Matthews level would be Hield's "best case. In fact the opposite is true. Matthews is Hield's floor, not ceiling.
As for comparing him with JR Smith, that's a bit odd. Beyond being roughly the same size there's nothing to compare. JR Smith came out of High School and wasn't known as a shooter but as a raw athlete. And while Smith has become quite a decent shooter in his career, none of his stats come anywhere close to Hield's. Smith is also known as a knucklehead with an exceptionally low basketball IQ while Hield is known as a good character guy who is a leader and a gym rat.
Someone will impress in the pre-draft workouts but right now I'm with the OP - Hield is my binkie for the #3 pick. The guy has gotten better every year and can do the one thing that the Cs really need - putting the ball in the basket consistently. He also seems to be a good character guy. I also don't buy this "22 year olds can't develop into superstars" line of rhetoric. It's all a matter of their development at their age and it's impossible to deny that Hield produced at an exceptionally high - almost impossibly high - level last year for a major college program.
Eh, I think you overstate the differences in Matthew's production. There are such huge differences in college between different teams and different conferences. The bottom line for me is that they were both four year guys who were very productive in their final year.
Generally, if you want to look up guys who dominated as scorers in their fourth year of college, you'l see a long list of guys who never became more than role players in the NBA. Lots of guys who tore up the D-League and overseas.
I bring up J.R. because I see in Hield a similar willingness to let fly from deep and go on insane scoring tears. But like J.R., Hield doesn't have a lot of game getting to the basket or creating for others.
But Hield seems to have a much better head on his shoulders so I'd expect him to have an easier time finding success in a team context, which is where I bring up Wes Matthews again.
Anyway, don't just take my word for it, by any means. Matthews is a comparison I heard made by Danny Chau, I believe. The prevailing opinion on Hield by people who have more experience and expertise analyzing draft prospects that I've seen is that Hield is likely to provide shooting at the next level, but he has a lot of work to do still on most of the other parts of his game. But Hield does reportedly have an excellent work ethic, so betting on him to continue doing whatever he can to maximize his abilities doesn't seem outrageous.
I like Hield just fine. I just think the Celts need to aim higher with this pick.
Topic: I'm calling it...our #3 draft pick for 2016. Buddy Hield. Boom. (Read 47768 times)