Okay Im going to need this to be his new nickname, no more Joker, only The Big Quesarito

Nikolaspora

No, I facepalmed when Joe Dumars took Darko.  No hindsight needed.

drafting is partially a crapshoot but a huge part of it is putting dudes in a position to succeed and grow. there’s a reason that the teams like the spurs and heat consistently nail their draft picks outside the top ten and produce good players

Look, I don’t really have a dog in the fight because LeBron came to us anyway, but you’re also ignoring that other teams also missed on those picks, including basically five of the six teams drafting that year before the Heat (https://www.reddit.com/r/nba/s/l9qtk6pqI2). It’s possible but you’re choosing only the successful cases. It is not some tremendous failure that a 24th pick would fall quickly out of the league.

Being best at exclusively the moments where your team would want to sub you out for someone else is some Greek tragedy shit.

Ain’t no use in rising to the occasion if most of the ones you get to play are in garbage time.

Brunson is a true competitor. The real deal. Really happy for him achieving collegiate & pro success.

The NBA is the absolute highest level of competition for the sport of basketball, meaning the players are more skilled than 99% of the world. In that same league, Jalen Brunson is probably the most skilled player overall. To develop a post game so deep that he has endless counters, understanding the angles to get off these shots despite his size, is fucking ridiculous. Very underrated off-ball too, thats what changed a lot from Thibs to Brown.

He’s built like a linebacker whereas Shabazz was not.

He’s strong, has a great kid range game, knows how to exploit a mismatch, and is just good enough from the other 2 levels as a scorer to keep defenses honest. Couple in good court vision and it’s tough to double him. Plus he’s an ok defender. His best trait though is making the play when you need him too. He’s like a clutch 95 plus guy. Just knows how to be great in big moments.

God forbid a man have a hobby…

Jesus Christ Marie, they’re minerals!

OJ Mayo was an okay NBA player. I think he’s the first player who really solidified how big a deal age was in the talent evaluation process. You just generally cannot expect guys who pop for being a couple years older than their competition to hold up long term as that level in the NBA.

Great player if he’d been drafted in the back half of the lottery. As a top 3 pick in a loaded draft, terrible choice.

Ya but if you’re good he’ll give you customers and measuring pots

I still have hope in Scoot.

Likely subconsciously because of his name.

I was hoping I’d see this.

I’ll always appreciate the Trail Blazers for enabling Napier’s PG grandpa AJ Price to have a pro career.

He told them to draft him.

thats literally what that word means, bro

They walked so Jalen could also walk. And don’t forget Khalid El-Amin, pioneering stocky PG

Where would Raymond Felton rank on the oddly shaped point guard list

Big head, thick shoulders.

Almost built like a football player rather than a basketball player

I mean he’s a pretty big outlier

Larry Bird too

What about Danny Ange?

Remember the part where he said “rarely”

No one said you will be horrible. Being good at basketball is just not a very relevant set of skills to evaluating talent or giving out contracts

Lots of ex players are coaches, not many of them were star players though. In theory, it makes sense that someone who couldn’t just rely on raw talent and a team catering around them would understand the ins and outs and how to best create an effective team.

Jerry was also a terrible head coach before becoming the GM.

He said he couldn’t figure out why other players couldn’t just see the game how he could and make the plays he use to make. He had trouble explaining the things that were just instinct to him.

You have one example to the contrary lmao ya of course there will be outliers dude

When Jerry West became the GM of the Lakers they already had Kareem, Magic, and Worthy and had won championships. West deserves a lot of credit for building the Shaq and Kobe 3peat, but the Lakers were already built in the 80s before he became the GM.

He was also a coach and worked with the team for years before calling the shots.

For every Jerry West you wanna count how many other great players who were horrible GMs?

I don’t know why people answer this. 250+ upvotes, really?

“Being X doesn’t mean you’ll be Y”

“BuT <person> wAs BoTH X aNd Y. YoU caN’t saY beInG X mEanS yoU cAN’t Be Y.”

Yeah you can’t say that. That’s convenient because that’s not what they fucking said.

Lebron has literally done nothing good in his career /s

Thats literally the entire point of why he left the Cavs. They were never willing to actually get him a costar his entire tenure

BofA deez nuts lmao

It was like financial reasons due to that trade, no?