Every person involved in the drafting process over the last 3 years should be removed from duty and any decision making positions. This is the first move I want to see the new ownership to make. We just cannot afford to completely waste the few picks we have. Seriously, is there any team in the NBA who made worse drafting decision than the Lakers over that span of time?
i'd have to look, but i'm guessing probably yes. jhs was obviously a really bad pick, as i'm not even sure he's playing basketball professionally anymore. that is wild. to be fair, his play-alike johnny davis, who was drafted higher the year before, is only playing professional basketball due to the sunk cost effect. the guy everyone wanted over jhs (whitmore) really hasn't done anything, and then we overcorrected by taking knecht when he fell. this is definitely what i would have done, but clearly hasn't worked out. i wonder what happened over time to our scouting. we had a great run for a pretty extended period with late firsts/seconds/udfas--kuz, hart, nance, clarkson, reaves over what, a 4 year span? that's insane. now, one thing they all had in common was longer college careers. we broke that with jhs (i really think we wanted to trade that pick and couldn't find a good deal), and it seemed out of character to me. i didn't see him coming, but jacquez was exactly the kind of pick i feel like we would have made a few years ago--where i'm like...ok, i guess...and it turns out great. i remember reading about dasilva before the draft two years ago and thinking that was the kind of guy we drafted. i actually expected us to pick him until knecht fell to us. he's not lighting the world on fire, either, though. i liked george in that draft, but thought 17 was too high (wrong!). so did lots of others, apparently. the only guy we really missed on there was missi, imo. dunn's better than knecht (and another guy we would have taken back in the day) but again--not at 17. you trade down for that. anyway, knecht isn't that big of a fail yet, imo. jhs is the one i really can't wrap my mind around because i didn't like him coming out, and i had interest in all the guys who went right after him. admittedly, i wasn't on the jaquez train, but whitmore, podz, clowney, and whitehead were all guys that interested me. whitehead's done nothing (continued injury issues), and whitmore's been disappointing and injured, but podz and jaquez have been playoff-rotation caliber guys (albeit 7-8, but still, that's great!). and clowney is looking like he might be busting out as exactly the kind of player we'd need next to luka. so, yeah, that one just continues to hurt because i felt if i could see it, the scouts should be able to see it. i forgive them for knecht. i'd have made that pick 10 times out of 10.
but which guy did our disgruntled former scouts claim they wanted instead of knecht? honestly feels like they just go down the list and look for someone who overperformed then say they wanted that guy after the fact. like, when we picked jhs, the immediate word was folks wanted bufkin. but he was taken two picks ahead. and i trust that information. i don't trust people coming out two years later after results are known and claiming they wanted <insert draft success here>.
So, I honestly just think it was a mess. no particular source on that, its just the feel I get from the people throwing rocks at the team on their way out. To me, we should never know who favored who or that it was even a debate. Once you make the call to the league, that's it. JHS was our guy that we agreed on and unfortunately it didn't work out. The constant, well this was Rob's guy or this was Jesse's pick is part of the problem to me. Drafts will always be a crap shoot (its why I have no issues trading picks for established talent, especially if it isn't a top five pick). I agree that it feels like guys start playing well and suddenly it leaks that the scouts actually wanted Podz but were overruled or whatever. In a good organization, you discuss these things, make a call and live with the results.
this guy needs to be utilized differently. I think he can thrive somewhere else, but his trade value is through the floor at this point. Too bad, as I think he'll go somewhere else and probably prosper like others have done. Playing with ball hogs isn't easy if you are used to initiating or controlling the ball some as part of your game. you can't get your rhythm if that's true.
I can't believe we were about to get Williams for this scrub. He's not worth a ball rack, let alone a starting caliber C. Best Pelinka trade (Luka doesn't count), that he still managed to screw up. I'd rather bring Gump back from retirement, than play this d******.
