As far as Smart being the sixth pick, there's only two or three guys who went behind him that you can even argue are better than Smart and there's definitely at least one guy who went before him, Dante Exum, who is clearly worse.
Mike
That's the main point if anyone is going to argue about us missing on a #6 pick. Who was taken afterwards that is clearly better? Nobody imo. Randle has his limitations but puts up numbers on a bad team. Vonleh, Stauskas, McDermott and Exum look like busts, Gordon and Lavine are ok but not anywhere near a star. We were not in position to get Embiid sadly, and we missed out on Nurkic who was taken right before Young, but there is nobody taken after Smart that you can strongly argue we missed on.
We should have traded up a spot or two to get Nurkic instead of James Young though, but what can you do, hindsight is 20/20.
Yes. I think this is an unappreciated point. TPs.
who cares?
Evaluate the player, not the draft position. Unless we are talking about Ainge's drafting abilities, which does not appear to be the crux of this debate.
Um. Those guys were talking about draft position as a side conversation and I commented on it. Sometimes threads have minor digressions. It's a thing that happens.
I understand that side conversations happen.
Point remains the same. Often when discussing a guy like Marcus Smart, the fact that he was a #6 draft pick often colors peoples opinions. Some look at it and assume that he must have some hidden star potential locked in there somewhere and others look at it and fail to see most of the good in Marcus because the expectations were so high.
The discussion of Smarts draft position is fine and I didnt mean to dismiss it, but its entirely irrelevant when discussing Marcus Smarts skills, potential and future with the team.
I commented on a string of posts which were in response to Eja writing that Smart was a dissapointment as the #6 pick. My post should have been directly in response to Eja, but I attached it to this thread instead.
