For now I have zero expectations.
He's still the prospective second-rounder we drafted in the first solely because he was willing to be stashed long term until proven otherwise.
You have no idea why he was drafted when he was, nor do I. Ainge has shown repeatedly that he values players differently than the consensus. That's far more likely the reason he was drafted where he was.
Yes, and furthermore we have proof that Ainge believed someone else might grab him in the middle of the first round, because we had another pick later in the first round and the first pick in the second round. If no one else wanted Yab until the second round, Ainge would have passed on him at #16 and #22 and taken him at #31.
Not necessarily true. Rookie-scale salary starts at ~1.5m for #16, and only ~1.2m for #22. Because we're in a situation where every penny matters, Ainge may simply have decided that he'd use #22 on someone we could stash for only one year, and #16 on someone we could stash for multiple years, thus leaving more cap space open for the all-important summer of 2017.
Obviously I don't think he would have used #16 on Yabusele if he thought he was completely hopeless, but in my mind it has to have been a combination of "eh, he's okay I guess" and "he will give us 2017 cap space" that went into the pick.
Similar reasoning for Nader, who almost nobody thought would even get drafted. Ainge rated him higher AND knew that he would agree to a domestic stash.
Topic: A Small Piece on Yabu from ESPN (Read 3862 times)