Guy scores 19 points once, and he's a good pick over guys who are legit stars in the league? There's a term for this: rationalization.
That's not an argument that anyone here is making. No one is saying that taking him was better than taking the Greek Freak. Nor are people saying that just this one game is what makes him a good pick.
Pretty much every non-top 10 draft pick (and many in the top 10) has a better player selected after them. This shouldn't be a surprise: most later picks are either going for a safe bet (like Olynyk) or swinging for the fences (like the Greek Freak or Bruno Caboclo). With 47 picks after Olynyk for potential "swing for the fences" picks, some are going to be hits. That's just basic statistics. There's no guarantee on picks like Giannis. Sometimes they work out, but most of the time you end up with a bust. You can't compare a safe pick vs a risky one without considering the chance of them being a bust. Danny chose to play it safe instead of taking a risk, and got a good player out of it. It wasn't the best possible outcome, but that doesn't mean it wasn't a good outcome.
And nobody is saying that Kelly is good based on this one game. Last year, he shot 40.5% on 3.0 3PA/game, good for 14th in the NBA, and best among big men (unless you could Omri Casspi or Doug McDermott as big men, but they mostly play SF). Like him or not, his 3 point shot is a definite weapon, and when you combine it with his decent perimeter defense (which is rare for a stretch big, although his lack of interior defense is pretty typical), you have a player that, while not a star, is a reliable rotation piece that any team would love to bring off the bench, and that quite a few teams picking ahead of us (Cleveland, Sacramento, Utah, Philly if they hadn't traded MCW) would likely have preferred to their own picks. In a redraft, Kelly would have gone at the same spot or higher, which is the definition of a good pick
Great. But the timing of this thread was obviously triggered by a couple of solid games. Kelly has been an inconsistent, not to mention slightly fragile, player. Reliability is part of effectiveness.
Three foreign players -- who vary from better than Kelly, to MUCH better than Kelly -- were taken immediately after Olynyk. Considering Danny's pathetic record of drafting international players, it's not dumb luck that he missed on those players. Nor was it dumb luck that the teams that took those players, took them. Just because others may wan to believe that the Bucks, Hawks and Jazz 'took flyers' on those players doesn't mean that's how they actually looked at it.
So, i find it homer posturing when Cs fans rationalize Kelly's relative successes by comparison to draft fails of bad teams who picked before them.... over the fact that the Cs international scouting failed badly on GA, Schroder, and Gobert.
Calling Kelly a 'B' pick is fine. Trying to rationalize him as an 'A' pick is not objective. The Cs didn't really get close to the best player available when they picked. They got somewhere between the 4th and 6th best player, depending on how you look at it.
You still keep going after "Kelly wasn't the best pick available", but literally no one is saying that (in fact, I quite literally said "It wasn't the best possible outcome, but that doesn't mean it wasn't a good outcome."). The entire crux of your argument (other than the straw men you keep coming up with) is that if someone isn't the best possible pick, then it's a bad pick. This is ridiculous. Late picks that swing for the fences sometimes work out. That doesn't mean that other picks are bad picks, though. That's the kind of logic that says that Klay Thompson was a bad pick at #11 because Kawhi Leonard went #15. Yes, Leonard would have been a better pick, but getting Klay at #11 is still a good pick (in a redraft, he goes 3rd or 4th)
(obviously, Kelly and Giannis are not at Klay or Kawhi level, but this is about how someone better being available later doesn't make your pick bad, I'm not saying that Kelly is at Klay's level)I'm not sure what you're saying about foreign players: there were 4 (not 3) foreign players taken in a 5 pick stretch within 10 picks of Olynyk: Giannis (15), Lucas Nogueria (16), Schroeder (17), and Sergey Karasey (19). I'd hardly say that Nogueria or Karasey "vary from better than Kelly, to MUCH better than Kelly", and I think most people who watch the NBA would agree with me. I'd assume you're including Gobert (27) as one of those 3, but that was a whole 14 picks later, and he was in a group of 4 foreign players in 6 picks: Gobert (27), Liveo Jean-Charles (28), Nemanja Nedovic (30), and Alex Abrines (32). None of these foreign players were obvious picks - 8 foreign players were taken, with only 3 of them working out. None of those were sure picks, and we only know that some of those picks were good through hindsight. Giannis could just have easily have had Bruno Cabculo's career arc as his current one, and Sergey Karasey could have had an Evan Fournier career arc instead of his own. If that was the case, would we instead be saying that Karasey was an obvious pick and our scouting department failed?
You can argue that Kelly wasn't the best pick all you want, but that doesn't mean that Kelly wasn't a good pick. Any redraft would have Kelly at the same spot or earlier, which is what a good pick is -you get a player that is good or better than expected from their draft slot. The fact that Giannis was a great pick doesn't change the fact that Kelly was a good one.
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Topic: Is it safe to say that Kelly Olynyk was a good pick by Ainge now? (Read 29054 times)