He was one of the people I wanted the Celtics to draft at 14, wIll be interesting. I hope he plays some decent minutesI will be interested to get a close look at Sekou Doumbouya tomorrow night.
He was one of the people I wanted the Celtics to draft at 14, wIll be interesting. I hope he plays some decent minutesI will be interested to get a close look at Sekou Doumbouya tomorrow night.
appears sowithout looking at his whole history, is Ainge's best 2nd round pick E'Twaun Moore? Does he still count?
Big Baby?without looking at his whole history, is Ainge's best 2nd round pick E'Twaun Moore? Does he still count?
I'd take Moore over him every day. He's probably 2nd best. Powe is probably 3rd?Big Baby?
Completely forgot about him. I'd still have Moore first. He's had the longest career, anyway.with first being Ryan Gomes?
*ducks*
I guess I shouldn't have said that. I didn't actually want him to score 24 points in helping the Pistons win.He was one of the people I wanted the Celtics to draft at 14, wIll be interesting. I hope he plays some decent minutes
In regards to Langford?Doumbouya doesn't turn 20 until next December.
To me, Doumbouya still profiles as a 3 and D guy. He's odd because that's what his projection was and he's already there at just 19. I don't think he has the ability to create for others and really hasn't created shots for himself in the early going. Granted, he did just turned 19 and is the youngest player in the NBA. Players don't always develop the way you expect.I am still optimistic with Romeo, but I did like Doumbouya on draft night and wanted the Celtics to take him because his ceiling seemed really high. Giannis is both an obvious and unfair comp, but some of his finishes around the rim were similar; they are dunks that just look different because of how crazy-long his arms are.
Detroit is the walking wounded at this point, they have a bunch of guys down including their three best shot creators in Blake, Reggie Jackson and Kennard. The time is ripe for a young guy to get a chance to put up some numbers.
If Doumbouya develops into Paul George and Langford develops into Donovan Mitchell, is it really a failure or mistake? At some point, blaming Ainge for not picking these guys is ridiculous. Even Detroit didn't realize what they had at the beginning of the season.It's too early to tell if you can put the failure to take Dounbouya on the list of Ainge's drafting mistakes, but it's starting to trend in that direction.
At the moment neither of these guys are looking like anything because the sample size on both of them is ridiculously small.Well, at the moment Doumbouya is looking alot more like Pacal Siakam than Langford is looking like Donovan Mitchell.
That's what I was asking you. Do you think it's a success? I do. I get it's not sexy but if every pick has to be best player available, pretty much everything is going to be a failure. If you want to consider a guy like KO a failure, that's fine. I'm talking about a starting quality player on basically every team in the NBA.Doumbouya becomes a star and Langford becomes a decent NBA rotation player who is better than some of the guys drafted ahead of him. Is that "success?"
We've seen this movie before. Yes, it's a miniscule sample size but the size of the sample will be increasing, so we'll see what happens.
I don't.That's what I was asking you. Do you think it's a success? I do.
It's way too early to judge which players are better after a handful of games.That's what I was asking you. Do you think it's a success? I do. I get it's not sexy but if every pick has to be best player available, pretty much everything is going to be a failure. If you want to consider a guy like KO a failure, that's fine. I'm talking about a starting quality player on basically every team in the NBA.
Do you think Jonathan Isaac and Lauri Markkanen were bad picks because of Bam and Mitchell? Were Fox, Zach Collins and Luke Kennard also bad picks?
Fultz, Ball, Jackson, Ntilikina, DSJ, Monk. sure.
Sure, lots of teams miss on lots of players. Some teams, like the Spurs, miss less. Ainge is middle-of-the-road as a drafter in my opinion, although he's made great trades.
I'll go on record to state that I don't like the Langford pick; I would have selected Doumbouya. Maybe three years from now Langford will be an all-star and Doumbouya will be playing Pro A in Strasbourg or Dijon, but I would still take that risk.
Hope you guys are right and I am wrong. But the NBA is full of 6-6 guys who are pretty good but not great. You can pick up guys like that for a song. Doumbouya is young and raw but he's 6-9 with a good wingspan and tremendous athleticism. He did quite well at age 17 in French Pro A, which is stronger competition than NCAA ball. Could he be a total bust? Sure. But at some point you have to find stars.
Of course Giannis was a lucky outlier. It's pretty much a factand Giannis was just a lucky outlier, they are entitled to their opinions.
Giannis would be an outlier if he was a #1 pickOf course Giannis was a lucky outlier. It's pretty much a fact
He wasn’t the only one.It's way too early to judge which players are better after a handful of games.
BUT in fairness, Big John was banging the Doumbouya drum pretty hard since last Spring, pre-draft, draft night, all summer, etc (dozens of posts on him).
So if he wants to complain about Danny not picking him and the guy blows up, he's entitled.
This is a criminally underrated point, I think because it's so hard to imagine stars not becoming stars, and vice versa. But the line is really, insanely thin.Yeah - I know Olynyk has become the quintissential "low ceiling" guy by dint of being drafted before Giannis, and while there's some truth to that, I think it's also a bit overblown. Just as Giannis represents a top 2% outcome for that pick, the top 2% outcomes for Kelly Olynyk are likewise phenomenal as a floor spacing scorer and passer with excellent defensive positioning in a league where help defense is more and more important. Upside Olynyk isn't an MVP unlike Giannis, so there's some truth to the upside point, but he's...Nikola Jokic (better shooting, worse passing, but same concept - apologies for white/white player comparison), which isn't especially low upside either.
To be fair, Langford was a pretty high-ceiling, high-variance pick. I was fine-ish with the Celtics approach in the draft this year, and now you see if you can get the actual players themselves to perform.Picking where the Celtics have been picking lately, I think you have basically two strategies:
1) Pick guys that have a decent chance of being cheap, role players who can play 10-18 minutes a game. The high floor, low ceiling types. The challenge, I would think, is that it seems like it takes those guys 2-3 years to develop into that role. If it works, a few years from now you have the Jays in their prime, and you have people like Carsen and Grant filling out the bench.
2) Pick guys that have a small chance of being impact players, but also have a very high likelihood of never setting foot on an NBA court. The low floor, high ceiling types.
I can see the value in #1, but I'd think that it isn't that difficult to find veterans who can do that job. Maybe I'm wrong. With a number of bites at the apple this Spring in the draft, I think I'd like the Celtics to see if they can find magic in a bottle and draft a couple guys with strategy #2.
Fair point. The thing that really bothered me about that pick is that I feel like the Celtics are pretty well set at wing with Tatum and Brown for the foreseeable future. I wanted them to take a gamble at a big, because there isn't anyone you can realistically expect to pencil in there (I liked TL this season, but I just don't think he can stay on the court).To be fair, Langford was a pretty high-ceiling, high-variance pick. I was fine-ish with the Celtics approach in the draft this year, and now you see if you can get the actual players themselves to perform.
Given that you can play wings at 2-4 (and sometimes at the 1) in the modern NBA (especially Tatum and Brown, who are strong), this really isn't an issue.Fair point. The thing that really bothered me about that pick is that I feel like the Celtics are pretty well set at wing with Tatum and Brown for the foreseeable future. I wanted them to take a gamble at a big, because there isn't anyone you can realistically expect to pencil in there (I liked TL this season, but I just don't think he can stay on the court).
Yes, that's right, and you could say exactly the same thing about Doubouya. And the fact is that Doumbouya is performing and Langford isn't.To be fair, Langford was a pretty high-ceiling, high-variance pick. I was fine-ish with the Celtics approach in the draft this year, and now you see if you can get the actual players themselves to perform.
Teams would do better at drafting if they could wait until January of the season and then go back and re-do the picks. Also, water is wet.Yes, that's right, and you could say exactly the same thing about Doubouya. And the fact is that Doumbouya is performing and Langford isn't.
Yes, this statement has a very high ratio of truth to actionable value.Teams would do better at drafting if they could foresee in June who would look better in January (and beyond).
Particularly in a league that has maybe 2-3 guys who really require a true big to defend them in the post.No team has enough wings. I didn't like the Langford pick since I don't like the player, but wings are like starting pitchers. Just keep drafting them.
It's not that Langford isn't performing, it's that he isn't getting any opportunity. Which we all knew going into this season. If RL's and Doumbouya's draft positions were switched, we'd be having the same discussion about why Romeo is performing but Doumbouya is not.Yes, that's right, and you could say exactly the same thing about Doubouya. And the fact is that Doumbouya is performing and Langford isn't.
Doumbouya's last 9 games: 24.1 minutes, .266/.207/.769, 5.6 points, 3.9 rebounds, 0.4 assists, 0.4 steals, 0.3 blocks, 1.7 TO, 1.7 PF.Well, at the moment Doumbouya is looking alot more like Pacal Siakam than Langford is looking like Donovan Mitchell.
I would hope that when selecting 3rd you’d pick up star players but the Tatum moved was Auerbachian. Having TL and Romeo in the mix furthers my anger of passing on so many upside guys in favor of frontcourt plodders like Olynyk, Sullinger and Grant.Either way, getting your 2 star wing players and an emerging top 10 center in back to back to back drafts is a great feat regardless of where you are picking. With as long as Ainge has been around, one would think he'd eventually get really lucky with a later pick. It's possibly he finally lucked into one at the perfect time.
To be fair, every single good player who goes later than 25th "fell into the lap" of the drafting team, since pretty much everyone else had a shot at the guy.The emergence of TL has really taken the air out of the "Ainge can't draft" argument. He basically got 3 franchise cornerstones in 3 consecutive drafts. He navigated the Fultz stuff perfectly. Jaylen wasn't close to an easy slam dunk pick either. Could have easily ended up with Hield or Dunn there. And TL kind of fell into our lap but he still pulled the trigger. Romeo frustrates the living hell out of me but the talent and athleticism is there. Jury is still out but he's not a bust yet. Grant was a meh pick for me but the alternatives weren't that enticing either. Nesmith is more iffy but the shooting should eventually play and he's making incremental improvements on defense. Pritchard is looking like a solid bench piece as well.