buddha

i dont think i would do this.

dont jinx it! sheesh!

just dfa him already.

please let it be houston. heck, please let it be portland!

givony and the athletic's latest mocks have us taking whitmore. givony also has miller above scoot in his rankings.

the list is contingent on who gave up the information. u$c is a private school.

and none of the buildings in st louis are built to withstand an earthquake. its a disaster waiting to happen.

neither will orlando. but florida doesnt have the largest fault line in the country running right through the middle of it like st louis does...

those two teams in LA that dont sell out make more money than the st louis rams did. now that vegas has a team, i dont know how many more cities could support an nfl team. austin, san antonio, orlando, st louis, portland. chicago could probably support a second team.

st louis is a dying city in a dying part of the country. they'd put another team in texas or florida before st louis. they'd put a team in london or mexico city before that.

that sounds a lot more credible than mcs's usual overreaction sports radio take. 😉

scoot. zion is an incredible talent, but he's fat and hurt. the porn star thing is more funny than anything else, but the real issue is the image of him doing 360 dunks in pre game but not being willing to play during a play in game. how many bad looks can one guy have in a career? and he's only been in the league for a few years! but that talent...

a lot of the tigers hitters are also on a bat delay.

grant was the ultimate ball stopper when he was here. however, iirc, as cade grew in confidence, grant began to take on a more secondary role, which is what he is best at.

the difference between whitmore and stanley is that whitmore is an elite nba athlete right now and stanley was never an elite nba athlete. whitmore's an elite finisher now and stanley was not. the iq thing is probably an issue, but he's very young still. if anyone reminds me of stanley its walker. a tweener who is strong and doesnt have great shooting fundamentals. a guy who could be too slow to guard 3s and too small to guard 4s in a way that stanley was too slow to guard 2s and too unathletic to guard 3s.

just to make it more fun, they trade back into round 1 by getting pittsburgh's #14 pick in exchange for taking on mikael granlund's contract and #31. they then take sammy honzek. that would be just about a perfect draft scenario.

i would make that trade.

pronman's latest mock has us trading 9 and 17 to montreal for 5 and 31 and then has us taking michkov.

where did you hear this?

cause weaver wanted ollie. that's what all the reporting hints at.

hendricks: MMARY I love Hendricks going to a team that is well-situated in terms of shot creation and thus could allow him to come along more slowly in that respect. He’s a ways off from being able to impact the game as a ballhandler or creator, but Hendricks possesses the kind of 3-and-D game that could be a real difference-maker to teams that need those skills. And almost every team with an established hierarchy of stars needs those skills. Hendricks is 6-foot-9 in shoes, he’s long and switchable, and he defends the rim well from the weak side. He has potential to be an awesome pick-and-roll defender due to his versatility, and his length will take up a larger portion of the court than the normal run-of-the-mill wing prospect. The number of players 6-foot-9 or taller who enter the league as plus defenders and plus shooters is extremely minimal. It’s Jabari Smith Jr., Franz Wagner, Trey Murphy III and Jaren Jackson Jr. since 2018. That’s why Hendricks is going to hear his name called in the lottery. It’s hard to see how this skill set fails, even with his faults. He does the three most important things a role player in the NBA can do: He shoots it well off the catch, he defends well in space and he plays well within help defensive concepts. Throw in that he’s still a teenager with real upside, and you shouldn’t be surprised if he hears his name called in the top 10.

vecinie on walker: Walker is a fascinating player. It’s easy to imagine his role as a havoc-inducing defensive four who blocks shots on the weak side and plays switchable defense. That especially all comes together in an interesting package of skills if Walker becomes a consistent shooter, given his playmaking ability as a passer. But if the shooting isn’t there, it does become a bit trickier to make him work as a four given that he’s also not all that impactful as a half-court driver and finisher right now. He might end up being more of a small-ball, switchy big man, which is relatively OK, but it probably does limit his upside a touch given that he’s not elite at finishing possessions as a rebounder, and he isn’t quite as elite as a primary rim protector. There are a few more tweener risks with Walker than what I think has been displayed. Still, if it works, and Walker becomes capable as a switchable four who can hit shots, his upside as a winning player is enormous due to how he processes the game so quickly as a passer. I don’t see Walker as an All-Star, but he might be someone who helps a winning team in a big way, just as he did with Houston.

vecinie on whitmore: whitmore is a pure upside play. If you buy into the flashes he showed at Villanova and think he has potential to be a 25-point- per-game scorer, you should take him in the top five, passing and decision-making be damned. His athletic upside is elite even by NBA standards. I think he’s going to put even the best athletes in the world behind the eight ball when it comes to his explosiveness and power combination. He’ll excel in transition, and the opened-up driving lanes of the NBA court should favor him even more when he has better shooters and floor spacers around him. Look at the way the Pacers’ Bennedict Mathurin thrived in that regard this past season. Ultimately, I do tend to fall into this camp when it comes to Whitmore. If I’m drafting in the top five, I am doing so to find the player who can make a real difference for me moving up the standings. If Whitmore hits, he can be that. But the way he plays currently is a real flaw, and you’ll need to do some real work to fix that over the course of the next couple of seasons. I’m a buyer on the talent because of the way he can collapse defenses. But it’s all on Whitmore to decide that he wants to be a part of winning basketball teams that move the ball and play unselfishly.

i would do that in a heartbeat.

the lions are the vegas favorites to trade for chase young? hmmm....