The Rookies of 2023-4

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Don't get me wrong, btw -- Connelly giving up 4 R1 picks a R1 pick swap plus Walker Kessler* & more... all for Gobert was jaw-dropping!

But, obviously, that doesn't have anything to do with whether Gobert is an outstanding NBA player, which pretty much everyone agrees he is.

* Walker Kessler -- another one of those players of the kind you don't seem to like....

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PIF, given how highly you think of Davis-Jackson would you have taken him over Bilal?

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PIF, given how highly you think of Davis-Jackson would you have taken him over Bilal?

Oooops, just saw this, Zards....

TJ-D over Bilal? No, of course not. Not last June & not even now. Neither I nor anyone else would use a high draft pick on a guy who would be available much lower in the draft.

OTOH, you might ask whether I would have traded down from our spot at 8 to pick up an extra pick for TJ-D. But, we already had 4 picks to use, so that wouldn't have been necessary.

More realistically, then, lets look back at R2, where we had the #35 pick (by way of Boston). Would I have taken TJ-D at that point?

Well... first thing is that I did want us to use that pick -- rather than trading it to Chicago as we did. In fairness, I don't remember what we got back in that transaction. In any case, I certainly *wanted* us to use the pick.

That said, even if we'd used the pick, I can't claim for certain that I would have taken Trayce Jackson-Davis at that spot. I'm not that smart. He certainly would have been on the list of guys I considered.

Rinse & repeat for #42, where we took Vukcevic. I wasn't particularly conscious of Vuk. But that doesn't mean I'd have nabbed TJ-D for sure. But... he would have been one of the guys I considered.

Then there's #57 -- that pick was ours & it was used on Trayce, though not by us. Would I have picked him rather than trading the pick for Patrick Baldwin, Jr.?

No. At least I really doubt I would have.
For two reasons:

1. Even if I wanted Trayce Jackson-Davis, I would have noticed that there were only two picks left in the draft -- #57 & #58. It would have seemed pretty likely that he was going to go undrafted & would still be available after those picks had been made. Certainly, despite how it turned out, it wouldn't have seemed like a big risk.

2. Meanwhile, the guy I was getting from GS for the pick had been a R1 pick a year earlier & had been injured. I would have been hard-pressed to turn down that offer!

In short, the point about Trayce Jackson-Davis isn't that I'm so smart -- I'm not. & it isn't that our FO is so stupid -- pretty much every team but one passed on the kid! Most teams in the league passed on him twice! Some passed on him three times.

Yet, Trayce Jackson-Davis has turned out to be -- at least so far -- one of the best players to come out of the 2023 draft. Good for him!