Poll: #4 overall pick for Jabari Parker

[Moranis]

Dino,

Cherry picking past drafts does not bolster your point.

Take this year's draft for what it is. You said you would rather have the fourth pick over Parker. So which player or players do you think has more potential than him?

Or do you not have any basketball sense and can't tell who might be good or not because it's starting to seem that way.

And

Since you hate Parker's game so much, it shouldn't be hard for you to find someone to pick fourth but for some reason it is. You are all talk.

It's not cherry picking the drafts. It's either 90% or 100% of the drafts in a 10-year span which all had 1 to 3 players available between #4 and #15 better than Parker. That's the opposite of cherry picking, which you do not seem to know the meaning of.

Sorry (not sorry) to frustrate your Felgerish hope of backing me into a corner so you can go to troll town on me. I am not going to do it. I don't need to do it. Doing it would serve no purpose. My point stands without it. Giving a specific choice would be completely missing the point.

But let's assume that the #4 through #15 picks are, say, Bender, Brown, Dunn, Hield, Murray, Poeltl, Ellenson, Labissiere, Jackson, Luwawu, Davis, Rabb, and Chriss. I can pretty much guarantee you that one, two, or three of those players will be better choices than Parker. That is the point. There are people who get paid a lot of money to try to figure out which one to pick. All that matters is whether they can make the right specific choice. Here's what doesn't matter: A message board troll's demand that a message board nobody give him pointless flame war fodder.

EDIT: Nevermind, hit Post before seeing the latest developments. Yay, I get to change my sig.

How do you know how good Parker is going to be though?  Here is a player that is coming off a major injury, that has been producing pretty darn well since the all star break on a team of players that essentially play his position, yet he is still finding looks and they are good looks.  And why do you act like a guy that was scoring over 21 points a game for his first 8 years in the league on fairly efficient shooting is a bad thing?  Last time I checked you have to score to win games. 

And for the record, Smart has shown a lot less on offense than Parker has on defense.  Not sure why you have such a love affair for a one sided player, but chide another for being one sided.  Seems like a silly position to take. 

[Dino Pitino]

Dino,

Cherry picking past drafts does not bolster your point.

Take this year's draft for what it is. You said you would rather have the fourth pick over Parker. So which player or players do you think has more potential than him?

Or do you not have any basketball sense and can't tell who might be good or not because it's starting to seem that way.

And

Since you hate Parker's game so much, it shouldn't be hard for you to find someone to pick fourth but for some reason it is. You are all talk.

It's not cherry picking the drafts. It's either 90% or 100% of the drafts in a 10-year span which all had 1 to 3 players available between #4 and #15 better than Parker. That's the opposite of cherry picking, which you do not seem to know the meaning of.

Sorry (not sorry) to frustrate your Felgerish hope of backing me into a corner so you can go to troll town on me. I am not going to do it. I don't need to do it. Doing it would serve no purpose. My point stands without it. Giving a specific choice would be completely missing the point.

But let's assume that the #4 through #15 picks are, say, Bender, Brown, Dunn, Hield, Murray, Poeltl, Ellenson, Labissiere, Jackson, Luwawu, Davis, Rabb, and Chriss. I can pretty much guarantee you that one, two, or three of those players will be better choices than Parker. That is the point. There are people who get paid a lot of money to try to figure out which one to pick. All that matters is whether they can make the right specific choice. Here's what doesn't matter: A message board troll's demand that a message board nobody give him pointless flame war fodder.

EDIT: Nevermind, hit Post before seeing the latest developments. Yay, I get to change my sig.

How do you know how good Parker is going to be though?  Here is a player that is coming off a major injury, that has been producing pretty darn well since the all star break on a team of players that essentially play his position, yet he is still finding looks and they are good looks.  And why do you act like a guy that was scoring over 21 points a game for his first 8 years in the league on fairly efficient shooting is a bad thing?  Last time I checked you have to score to win games. 

It's not a bad thing. It's just the only thing good about Parker. And it's not as good a thing as other things, like a player who scores less but does other things on offense well and plays good defense, or a player who is weak on offense but excellent on defense, because defense is additive whereas there's only one ball on offense. I do not think Parker is a bad player. I just think he's an average overall player. I can see him having an okay chance of becoming an above-average player by getting his scoring up into the low-to-mid 20's as a #1 option. Maybe. Glenn Robinson is still a projection for him, he still has a long way to go before he actually matches that comparison. But then he's always going to be a PF, because he can't guard SF, and therefore he's always going to be a subpar defender and weak rebounder as a PF. Again, the post-break production is pretty impressive as a statline, but it's less impressive in the context of doing it in the third most minutes per game in the NBA.

And for the record, Smart has shown a lot less on offense than Parker has on defense.  Not sure why you have such a love affair for a one sided player, but chide another for being one sided.  Seems like a silly position to take.

Parker is not just one-dimensional because he's all-offense and no-defense, because even his offense is one-dimensional, too. It's all scoring, nothing else. Smart is not quite all-defense and no-offense, because he contributes on offense in non-scoring ways. He's all-defense and some-offense but no-shooting. There's more of a history of weak-shooting great defenders becoming decent shooters than good-scoring weak defenders/rebounders becoming decent defenders/rebounders.

[Rondo9]

Scoring matters, but defense is just as important and Parker is a very bad defender.

[PhoSita]

Scoring matters, but defense is just as important and Parker is a very bad defender.

Defense isn't as important as scoring when we're talking about individual players, and there's no reason to believe Parker will always be a bad defender, though he may never be a great one.

[Rondo9]

Scoring matters, but defense is just as important and Parker is a very bad defender.

Defense isn't as important as scoring when we're talking about individual players, and there's no reason to believe Parker will always be a bad defender, though he may never be a great one.

And there's no reason that Smart will always be a bad shooter though may never be a great one and you have to take defense just as scoring into account when it comes to individual players.l

[PhoSita]

Scoring matters, but defense is just as important and Parker is a very bad defender.

Defense isn't as important as scoring when we're talking about individual players, and there's no reason to believe Parker will always be a bad defender, though he may never be a great one.

And there's no reason that Smart will always be a bad shooter though may never be a great one and you have to take defense just as scoring into account when it comes to individual players.l

Eh, I think Smart has to come a lot further with his shooting than Jabari does with his defense, so that comparison is not especially persuasive to me. 

I agree you have to take defense into account, but I'd always prefer to have an elite offensive player with adequate defense rather than the converse.  You can scheme around great scorers with questionable defense.  Much harder to scheme around great defenders who bring nothing on the offensive end.

[Csfan1984]

Bucks should try to buy from C's by offering the 10th pick (after selection) and their pick next year for IT.

IT, Middleton, GA, Parker, Monroe.

Of course draft and FA results should determine if C's even consider such a deal.

[Rondo9]

Scoring matters, but defense is just as important and Parker is a very bad defender.

Defense isn't as important as scoring when we're talking about individual players, and there's no reason to believe Parker will always be a bad defender, though he may never be a great one.

And there's no reason that Smart will always be a bad shooter though may never be a great one and you have to take defense just as scoring into account when it comes to individual players.l

Eh, I think Smart has to come a lot further with his shooting than Jabari does with his defense, so that comparison is not especially persuasive to me. 

I agree you have to take defense into account, but I'd always prefer to have an elite offensive player with adequate defense rather than the converse.  You can scheme around great scorers with questionable defense.  Much harder to scheme around great defenders who bring nothing on the offensive end.

I really don't trust Jabari on defense, I mean I think it's just as bad as Smart's shooting. Jabari needs to prove himself on that end otherwise I'm not sure you can go far with him as your best player.

[jambr380]

Bucks should try to buy from C's by offering the 10th pick (after selection) and their pick next year for IT.

IT, Middleton, GA, Parker, Monroe.

Of course draft and FA results should determine if C's even consider such a deal.

They may want IT, but no way does Danny take that deal. We already have a million picks and their pick next year would likely be around #20.

If there is a team out there this offseason that would trade their mid-20s all-star on an amazing contract for a late lottery pick and a ~20 pick, then you have to believe Danny will be the buyer not the seller. Heck, we even get to keep the BKN pick in this scenario.

[PhoSita]

I really don't trust Jabari on defense, I mean I think it's just as bad as Smart's shooting. Jabari needs to prove himself on that end otherwise I'm not sure you can go far with him as your best player.

I suppose I haven't watched enough of Jabari to say for sure, but I never got the sense he was THAT bad.  I mean, you make him sound like Enes Kanter.

Also, I don't think the question here is really whether you can go far with Jabari as your best player.  It's just a question of whether Jabari represents a good return for the #4 pick in the draft.

I'd say Dino's right that in most drafts, it seems like there are at least one or two really good players still left on the board at #4.  Thing is, it's really hard to clear the board with 56 picks remaining, so that's not so much a surprise.

In this draft, we're talking about Jabari versus guys like Jamal Murray, Jakob Poeltl, Buddy Hield, Kris Dunn, maybe Dragan Bender or Henry Ellenson.

I wouldn't be surprised at all if one of those guys turns out to be better than Jabari, but I have no confidence in picking one particular guy to do it, which is what the counter-factual here would involve.

[wayupnorth]

Scoring matters, but defense is just as important and Parker is a very bad defender.

Defense isn't as important as scoring when we're talking about individual players, and there's no reason to believe Parker will always be a bad defender, though he may never be a great one.

Uhhh. What?

[PhoSita]

Scoring matters, but defense is just as important and Parker is a very bad defender.

Defense isn't as important as scoring when we're talking about individual players, and there's no reason to believe Parker will always be a bad defender, though he may never be a great one.

Uhhh. What?

Let me put it to you the way it was explained on the Lowe Post podcast recently, which I thought was really effective.

Would you rather

(a) be stuck with a really bad offensive player, e.g Omer Asik or Kendrick Perkins, taking the shot every time down the floor,

or instead

(b) have a weak defensive player, e.g. Doug McDermott or Zach Lavine, defending the guy taking the shot every time down the floor?


The team stuck in situation (b) has a much better chance of winning the game. 

Asik or Perkins might shoot 20% for the game, and that's optimistic. 

The guy trying to score on McDermott or Lavine every time, even if he's on fire, is gonna shoot something like 55-60% probably, and you can always use help defenders or double team, because defense can be a team effort in a way offense can't.


To put it broadly, it's a lot easier to design a team defensive scheme and coach up a group of flawed guys to play good defense than it is to take a group of good individual defenders with poor scoring abilities and turn them into a decent NBA offense.

Consider the Sixers of last season, for example.  They were a borderline top 10 defense despite having very little NBA talent on the roster, but the offense was historically terrible.

[kozlodoev]

(a) be stuck with a really bad offensive player, e.g Omer Asik or Kendrick Perkins, taking the shot every time down the floor,

or instead

(b) have a weak defensive player, e.g. Doug McDermott or Zach Lavine, defending the guy taking the shot every time down the floor?

While this is a fantastic concept in theory, in practice you have more control over (a) than over (b). This is to say, roughly, that you can decide who takes the shot on your team, but not who takes the shot on the opposing team.

That's why the conventional wisdom in the NBA is the exact opposite of what you're suggesting here.

[PhoSita]

(a) be stuck with a really bad offensive player, e.g Omer Asik or Kendrick Perkins, taking the shot every time down the floor,

or instead

(b) have a weak defensive player, e.g. Doug McDermott or Zach Lavine, defending the guy taking the shot every time down the floor?

While this is a fantastic concept in theory, in practice you have more control over (a) than over (b). This is to say, roughly, that you can decide who takes the shot on your team, but not who takes the shot on the opposing team.

That's why the conventional wisdom in the NBA is the exact opposite of what you're suggesting here.

If the conventional wisdom in the NBA is the exact opposite, why do we give the MVP to the most valuable offensive player in the league every year?  Shouldn't Draymond win MVP this year, or Kawhi?




Great offense beats great defense in this league, and it's harder to find guys who can hit tough shots and punish a defense for making mistakes than it is to find players who can fit in a defensive system.

You're right that the example they gave on the podcast (I think it was Kevin Pelton who proposed it) is fantastical.  I think the replacement value point is a stronger argument.  Finding really good scorers is hard.  Finding guys who can hit an open shot and play adequate defense on the other end isn't as hard.  Though I'd agree with you if you said that it seems the league is starting to value the latter type of player more.

[Smart457]

The ability to score is the most important skill in basketball and Parker is pretty good at that.

I would never trade Smart but all of his different skills wouldn't mean much if he wasn't surrounded by other players who could score. It would be pretty sick to have both Smart and Parker. Would the Bucks trade Parker for the fourth pick is the question.