Here are the pros for Bender:
1.) When he plays in U18 games, he is dominant. For example:
http://www.fiba.com/news/World-is-Bender-s-oyster-for-dominant-Croatia-at-U18-Euros (and there are other examples!). So he was one of the best players in the world in the 18 and under age group, but
2 years ago when he was 16. He has gotten better since then. *A note that might go against him, but might also just be him looking after his family: he refused to play in the 2015 U18 tourney because he is personally under contract with Adidas and the Croatian team is under contract with Nike. They would have made him wear Nike and potentially hurt his endorsement deal, so he dropped out.
2.) He had a flurry of minutes in March and April where he looked like a rotation player in professional games. Note that this is after much of the negative information being posted about him.
3.) His rebounding in U18 and in that flurry of minutes was very good. This was a weakness last year that he worked on and then was able to improve in even professional games. His rebounding isn't really a weakness anymore and it shows he can improve his skills.
4.) He can legitimately shoot 3s
5.) He is a legitimate 7'1" at 18 years old and may even grow taller. He also has elite length which is a very good predictor of future success. Even with that, he seems to be growing into his body pretty well, although he is a little slow laterally.
6.) Super hard worker & has good character
7.) His defense has some holes in it, but he has good help defense already. He has 7'2" length and nobody can shoot over him.
8.) He has a pretty good handle
Anyways, I feel that our team is not going to be an ECF/Title Threat for about 3 or 4 years at least. At that point, our Brooklyn pick players are going to hopefully be the focal point of the team (although probably not Young). So Murray is probably the best pick for us, because he is the most likely to be the best player in about 3 years out of the guys we might draft (also including Bender, Hield and Brown).
I do feel though that the player with the highest ceiling is Bender. He could be a 5 out center raining 3s on people that nobody could shoot over if he put some weight on. He could be a very interesting SF if he can get his lateral defense down. If he got a face up game and a mid range shot, I mean....
I don't think that the IT/Bradley/Crowder core is going to do much more than we did this year. Maybe we can win a 1st round series, but we're going to need some real talent to compete, even in the East. This would be a swing for the fences type move, but it could actually work.