Absolutely, especially for three million dollars - which is chump change in today's NBA. A team can never have enough draft picks, in particular ones in the first round. This year's draft looks both talented and deep, but I worry that we will either:
- Get a very talented player that Doc refuses to play.
- Or, waste our draft picks on "role players" instead of a future star.
All in all though, it still comes back to Danny - who in my view, has been either hit or miss in the draft. For example, after last year's draft, I think he said that he would have selected George Hill or Courtney Lee, but they were gone before our turn. Here's my problem with this - if Ainge felt so strongly about Hill or Lee, why didn't he find a way to trade up and draft one of them?; and the year before that, he took JR Giddens with the 30th pick, when Bill Walker, Chris Douglas-Roberts, Deandre Jordan, and Mario Chalmers were still available. Now I know that the aforementioned players haven't turned into great players or anything of much substance (at least, not yet), but at least they're still in the league. In 2008, I remember pleading in front of the TV when it was our turn for Ainge to draft Bill Walker, and when he drafted Giddens, I went "Who?". It only got worse after that - he was already 23 years old. I don't believe many 23 and older players coming out of college have turned into anything special.
As of right now, we own the 19th and 52 picks, and I want to know - who would you draft with each pick? I've been looking at the prospects online for quite some time and still can't make up my mind. Then again, I don't have the information that Danny has - I'm just going from scouting reports and YouTube clips. Does anyone think that Willie Warren, Lance Stephenson, Paul George, Avery Bradley, or Ed Davis will be there for us (although, admittingly, each seems to be high risk high reward)? Of those listed, Stephenson is the most probable, and he has character/maturity issues (of course, so did Tyreke Evans, and Danny was high on him, and apparently for good reason). What does everyone think about Dominique Jones? As for the 52 pick, would anyone object to Omar Samhan or Kenneth Faried (although they might not be there either)? My head hurts.