thecampster

Again, I posted the extended cut of Sarr film. Same highlights, but also tons of bad picks, fumbled passes, travels and missed open shots. People see a made open 3 and say, "man can he shoot", then look at his % of 28% and shoukd say, "oh, that's why he's being left open from 3. He is missing almost 3/4 of the 3's he takes and most of those are no hands in his face. Those possessions of 6'7" 235lb PFs bullying him on the post for an easy 2 were all I needed to see. Basically, guys like DeAndre Hunter's size were working him on post ups. WTF is he going to do when Stephen Adams and Joel Embiid start throwing him around?

For the 49 people who responded Sarr, maybe you should ask them the following, what evidence do they have that he'll play significant positive minutes this year and will be able to stay on the floor vs big centers. Whose minutes between Clint's, OO's, Jalen's will he take or what will his WAR be against those 3 players? And lastly ask them how we'll sign any impactful vet with only $3 million under the 2nd LT threshold.

Now rather than ask me why I'm the only one saying trade down, what you should be asking is who are the 7 people who said "Trade for a star vet". The Hawks with the value of this pick are pretty much guaranteed to cross the 2nd LT threshold. What that means is that in order to trade this pick for a star player (say one making $30 million+), we'd have to also package about $25 million in salary with it. This still leaves us pretty much right at the 2nd LT threshold while losing Clint + a bench player and needing to fill that role. There is nearly no plausible opportunity to flip that pick for a star player based on our cap situation. We'd either have to shed $50 million in salary first or package matching salary along with the pick and honestly that's way stupider than anything I said in my response. 7 people responded they'd do something almost impossible and significantly destructive to roster construction/the cap going forward. Best to aim those questions at them.

and to answer the question as intended, the player you'd target in my listed scenario can be had at 4/5/7-9 depending on how the draft goes. Why not trade down to 4/8 or 7/14, get that player and then get a second pick for a shot at Shepherd/Knecht/Holland or whomever else you fancy.

FYi, the question was asked in this forum as a reply to the poll. Feel free to move it to the Edey forum when ready. [Edit: thecampster's detailed response to sturt's question opining on Edey is now located on the edey thread:]

I am happy to do this but with some caveats. I couldn't give 2 smurfs of the opinions of anyone that disagrees with me on this. I'm 100% confident I'll be proven right in the end. If someone wants to criticize the take/explanation, dissect it to find 1 little string they can tug at to discount it, I'll pretty much ignore them for the rest of next season. I'm also not really interested in trying to be talked out of my position. Anyone that knows me in real life knows a few things about me. 1) I'm highly risk averse. 2) I'm very stat driven (because I'm risk averse) and 3) although I don't have to always be right, I really hate being wrong. No one will beat up on me harder than I'll beat up on myself for being wrong. So pretty much everyone/anyone else who comes to this explanation trying to win an argument, go sit on a bumpy curvy squash with no lube. I have no use for you. I'm not here to argue this but I'm happy to explain my thoughts if asked. Basketball as a whole Basketball at its core is a game of efficiency. Points per attempt is probably the single most important stat in basketball, from an offensive and defensive perspective. Limit your opponent to less than 1.2 points per attempt while scoring more than 1.4 points per attempt and rebounding, shot blocking, fluidity, athleticism, feel for the game are all BS. The game can be boiled down simply to which team is best at points per attempt vs limiting their opponents points per attempt. Last season, the average possessions per game was 99.1 and points per game was 115.6. That works out to 1.166 points per possession. So to be a better than average NBA scorer, you need to get better than 1.2 points per possession out of your shot attempts. That's better than average. Remember that. I will also ignore that he's worked on his 3 point game and face up game with good results thus far. He didn't do that in college, I won't count that here. That's in the category of potential/projection. The impact a single player has on points per attempt can be focused into a few categories. Defensively: stopping their man, deterring some aspect of a team's offense and help. Offensively, beating their man, exploiting some aspect of the other teams' defense and assistance/help. So the question is why Zach Edey. I'm not focused on projections, potential, possibilities or hype. I'm only focused on what has the player shown he can do. Offense: Beating their man: Zach Edey is a monster the likes of which we haven't seen in college basketball in over 20 years at "efficiently" beating his man. Edey in the post is a matchup nightmare. Only a handful of centers in the league are 7 feet, 250. Clingan is 7'3, 280 and Edey took him to school offensively in the national championship game scoring 37/10. Clingan is bigger than all but a small handful of centers in the NBA and Edey was physically too powerful for him to handle. A large number of centers (OO for instance) stand zero chance of stopping him. There will be no drop off in his efficiency in the post in the pros as compared to college. The floor is wider, the players better offensively. He'll have to endure less help defense, less dig downs and he'll be the recipient of more lobs. If anything, his efficiency will go up. But I'll focus on his college stats for this metric. Edey shot 62.3% from the field this season. That alone is 1.26 points per play. But he also shot 11.2 free throw attempts per game. I could not find stats on how many of those free throws were and-1 attempts so lets just assume 3 per game. That gives us 4 possessions where he drew a foul shooting 2 free throws and 3 possessions already tied to his attempts (13.8/game). That math = 17.8 true shooting possessions per game at 25.2 ppg or 1.417 points per play. Just his ability to beat his man and score, he is more than 20% better than the average (5th/6th/7th man) on an NBA roster. For a comparison, Capela on significantly lower volume scoring mostly put backs and lobs is 1.21. Stats usually say that as volume goes up, efficiency goes down. Edey has almost 2x as many offensive opportunities as Clint but is 20% more efficient right now and there is no reason to believe that would change in the NBA. It would probably go up due to spacing. Exploiting the other team's defense: 7'4, 300lbs with a solid low post game and the ability to score with either hand. This will command movement on the defense with almost every other center in the league. You toss the ball into Clint, the defense is okay with their center trying to play Clint 1v1 and will live with the results. Doing that with Edey, would be nightmarish. Remember, this guy shot 62.1% from the floor with 2-3 people hanging on him half the time. Solo coverage even from good NBA big men is a bad investment. Its more dangerous than guard penetration. He will draw double teams and that will lead to kick outs and cuts. He will exploit the defensive scheme by forcing doubles and rotations, leading to more catch and shoots, easier ball movement. IE, less double teams on Trae. Switching the big out on Trae (other team's current strategy if not doubling), will now lead to automatic buckets. An offensive post center will free Trae up to be Trae. It will extend the height on potential lobs by a foot making defending that almost impossible. The man is a walking cheat code to breaking down a defense. Assistance/Help: We do not struggle in the offensive rebounding category when Clint is healthy so I won't talk about that impact. What I will talk about is Edey's 2 assistance categories, screens and resets. Edey is one of the best screen setters to come out of college basketball in years. He's big, wide and very fluid in the screen game. He creates a ton of room and is fluid enough to roll quicker than the opposing big can recover. We get too many moving screens, too many bad/loose screens and too many alternate opportunities out of screens. Edey setting picks will draw coverage away from the corners freeing up more catch and shoot 3's, more cuts and better lanes for Trae/DJM. He's just good at this, really good. The set reset is something we rarely use Clint for but is awful for a defensive cover. The reset happens when you toss the ball into the post and they push it right back out. This gives the guard the opportunity to start their feet, with a fresh dribble on a man that is now not focused on him but split focused trying to determine if he needs to give help. Edey did a lot of this (as did Clingan) in college and its incredible useful to keep bad possessions alive. He is currently a better option at this than any big on our team except Jalen. Defense: Stopping their man: In the post, Edey is very good. There is a negative stat out there for the FG% in the paint against Edey but the vast majority of that was due to Purdue's piss poor guards/wings. Those shot attempts weren't the opposing big men. No opposing center "went off" vs Edey last year. They just can't. Just because he was at center, doesn't mean that was his man. As a comparison, I'll draw on my favorite whipping boy, Kel'el Ware. He's a legit big man prospect this draft. Ware defensive rating the last 2 seasons, 97 and 102.2. Edey 93.5 and 98. Aran Smith's draft profile for Ware includes this line, "Good defender and timing as a shot blocker." Ware is a defensive prospect, a shot blocker, yet Edey has a better defensive rating in both seasons by 4 points. But there is other evidence. Only 4 times all year did a team shoot over 50% vs Purdue, no team shot better than 57% and there's a reason for that. Teams shot a crazy number of 3's vs Purdue to try and beat them. They just didn't test the paint. Some examples: Alabama, 46 of 64 FG attempts were 3's (they made 19). Of their first 7 opponents last year, 6 shot at least 25 3 point attempts. Those 6 teams, roughly 42% of their FG attempts were 3's. Teams just didn't try to drive the paint on Purdue. If you look at the shot chart I posted for Purdue a few weeks ago (I think I posted it), their taken vs defended shot chart (red for hot, blue for cold) was like a flag. Theirs hot and in the paint, their opponents, blue and largely outside the paint. Edey defends a very large area all around the free throw area and not just because he's sitting in the paint, he challenged outside the paint on the regular. Pretty much anything in 2 point range was fair game for him to deter. Deterring some aspect of a team's offense: And that brings us to the deterrent part of his impact. Whichever side of the basket he is on, teams don't drive it. They'll cut the other side, they'll post the other side but if he's on the right side of the basket, that ends the driving, they don't even try it. This greatly changes the floor and angles for the other 4 players making defense easier. This is why teams hunt centers into switches. They're trying to pull them away from the basket. Some centers you can attack (say Alex Len) because they can't move their feet and adjust. Not a good center and a center like Edey who can move his feet, does play angles and positions at his length greatly reduces the efficiency of driving to the basket. Just think how much Brook Lopez drives Trae nuts. Edey moves better than Lopez and is bigger/longer. Edey's presence changes how other teams attack because he takes away a large portion of their offense (think how much Brunson drives) just by being imposing with good footwork/length. Edey will take away a large percentage or other team's drives. His presence will force teams to shoot more threes to try to win and free our guards/wings to play closer to their man without fear of being blown by. Help: This is the only area with any question marks. He's shown the ability as a help defender around the basket. The question is on the perimeter. This is valid, but the only reason this is talked about is because most bigs are terrible at this. Our best big in this aspect is OO and he's pretty good at switching, but the failure rate, even for a good big is still pretty high. This is why teams do this. Its why they hunt bigs in switches. Its highly effective against dang near everyone. I don't see this as terrible because big switches is a very small percentage of basketball plays. Most times, the big drops, allows the guard to recover. He only shows to stop the pick turning into a 3. Most bigs don't seriously challenge the guards to a foot race. That's more the area of PF/SF with great recovery/block percentages. I'm more concerned with drafting a guy 80lbs lighter because he can guard some guards on the perimeter. Of course he can, he's 80 lbs lighter. But he can't rebound or play in the post at that weight. So give me the guy with the same problem most other bigs have and I'm okay with that. Embiid doesn't guard on the perimeter. Jokic doesn't guard on the perimeter, Vuk doesn't. You can count on one hand how many NBA centers can guard a guard on the perimeter and pretty much none of them start, because they can't play the post. But what he offers in deterrence I'll take over lateral quicks at the 3 point line every day. Think of the impact Gobert makes while 4 inches shorter, 50 lbs lighter and 3 inch smaller wingspan. The impact is everything due to deterrence. Has Gobert won a title yet, no but he's come close a few times and that's better than we've been doing with Clint. Gobert's impact isn't just blocks, its the fear factor that he's there. The deterrence to drive the paint and how that changes how the other defenders can defend their man. Edey has that kind of deterrence. The shooting statistics of Purdue's opponents bear that out. Conclusion: No other player in the draft this year can have that kind of a positive impact, while continuing to have a solid defensive impact. Clingan offers much less offensively and if his free throw shooting doesn't improve, he'll invite hack a Clingan tactics. Sarr is too light to play the 5 right now and brings very little offensively at this level (currently - the jury is out on "potential"). Not Risacher or nearly any other prospect has that impact potential. I gave you Kel'el Ware's good defensive rating earlier vs Edey so let me leave you with this. Ware's Offrtg vs Edey's. Ware 120, Edey 135.9. Yes he makes that big of a difference. Ware, a top 20 prospect, same position, same conference so the fairest comparison. 4 points worse in Defrtg, 16 points worse in Offrtg and arguably with a better supporting cast than Edey had. That's why Zach Edey. No one else in this year's class makes that type of a total impact.

We watched him play, but there was no official workout. See the official workout list I posted.

and the insiders have not been saying Sarr.

They haven't even been able to bring him in for a workout. See here:

When people find out you have connections, they want to know and so they will make up they know things too to try to get close to you, get your insights. The BS is a lot to filter through. Sharing things that are BS in a forum like this would also tank your credibility score. I think from a credibility standpoint, I shared the tidbit about multiple teams being interested in Edey in the lottery and then to have the Quote from the ESPN analyst to back that up and the accuracy of the teams was nice. I try to keep the self back patting to a minimum but that can come out if I'm rubbed the wrong way. I think my track record thus far speaks for itself but I have pulled way back from sharing and there is good reason for that. The teams (our team in particular) are really cracking down on "unauthorized" leaking. They want to control the leaking so they can control narratives. The shadow game is really interesting when you focus on it.

ESPN’s Jonathan Givony on Zach Edey: “Edey, ranked No. 16 in ESPN's Top 100, is drawing interest from teams that are drafting in front and behind Miami, with every team in the back half of the lottery after San Antonio said to be in the market for a center. Utah, Portland and Sacramento were some of his latest stops on the workout circuit, and he might end up visiting the Los Angeles Lakers as well. Edey's combination of size, power and intensity has been difficult to contain in a workout setting, as there simply aren't many players in this draft equipped to slow him down.” Miami is at 15 Utah at 10 Portland at 7/14 Sacramento 13. So possible landing sports for Edey as of right now are 7/10/13/14/15/17.

NBA Central: The Atlanta Hawks have been unable to bring in Alex Starr for a workout, and Donovan Clingan is a real candidate to go No. 1, per @DraftExpress “The Hawks have been unable to bring Alex Sarr in for a workout to this point, but the door remains open for that to potentially pic.twitter.com/dtGhPCxYF7 5 hours ago – via Twitter TheNBACentral Alex Sarr, Donovan Clingan, Draft, Atlanta Hawks

To be fair, the deals mentioned are part of an already heavily filtered list. If I shared everything I've heard and especially what I've filtered out as BS, the board's head would explode. Examples of BS filtered to me, Bufkin and Gueye and #1 out for a big player back. The lunacy of this one gave me that old man shrunk up face. There was a $35 millionish salary mismatch + the ridiculousness of it all. There was a deal that involved all 3 of Clint, DJM and Hunter in a 4 team trade that was so ridiculous and violated so many rules I had to ask my dude (not a legitimate source) where in the hell he heard that. TBH, he forgot to take it off the list he shared with me. He too had dismissed it but forgot to remove it. Then there was a semi believable deal involving DJM until I realized they were adding our 2025 1st in with it (that we don't even own). The above you referenced was just me pulling off a list where I'd eliminated the impossible, found it plausible given the right circumstances and typed it up in extreme irritation. Good chance there is something implausible in there. I'm really tired of silly season and uninformed opinions. Your post, polite, well thought out. Never even touched on anything I disagreed with what you said because of how it was presented and how well thought out it was.

https://therookiewire.usatoday.com/lists/2024-nba-draft-workout-tracker/ Atlanta Hawks The known list of players to have worked out with the Hawks: Mark Armstrong, Villanova Jaden Bradley, Arizona Matas Buzelis, G League Ignite Nique Clifford, Colorado State Donovan Clingan, UConn Kevin Cross, Tulane Tristan Enaruna, Cleveland State Enrique Freeman, Akron Coleman Hawkins, Illinois Blake Hinson, Pitt Ron Holland, G League Ignite DJ Jeffries, Mississippi State Jonathan Mogbo, San Francisco Zaccharie Risacher, JL Bourg (France) Payton Sandfort, Iowa Babacar Sane, G League Ignite Reed Sheppard, Kentucky Cam Spencer, UConn Armel Traoré, ADA Blois Basket (France) Anton Watson, Gonzaga Cody Williams, Colorado Jahmir Young, Maryland

and for the record, once we make our pick, I'll root for the pick. I won't forget who we should have picked (nor do I expect anyone else to forget their stance). If the pick stinks on ice, I'll say so, even if its my guy.

He's like a liver, a small piece can die but cut it out and it'll regenerate on its own.

Adams was not always as bulky as he is now. He was 255 when he came out (25 lbs lighter than Clingan). Read this draft profile, compare it to Edey's and their bSPARQ. The narrative is broken. What those criticizing do not realize is he was scoring like this being fouled relentlessly and had to stay on the floor at all times for Purdue. His super low foul numbers are proof he was told not to challenge shots like a normal big his size. Most of his deterrence was his shear size. The at the.rim percentage is high, but the attempts were low. Teams tried to beat Purdue on the perimeter.

bSPARQ is an offshoot of SPARQ1, which stands for Speed Power Agility Reaction and Quickness, and it is a tool to measure the athleticism of NBA Draft prospects. NBA% is the percentile of athleticism a player’s bSPARQ scores at his position. Those position designations are automated based on how a player was listed at the combine.

Who the Hawks take is dependent on who they can trade. Of their top 8 players right now, no one is safe. not even DJM, Trae or Jalen (though it would take something ridiculous for him to go). But scenarios DJM or Trae is traded, Reed Shepherd is on the table. Hunter is traded, first a haul comes back and either of Holland or Risacher is on the table, depending on where we land pick wise (1 vs 2, etc). Clint is traded or OO is traded (yes that's possible right now), multiple bigs are on the table, especially if picks come back to allow for it. Lets play that one out. OO is traded, you're either getting a high player or a top 10 pick back. You're minus 1 big. Edey, Clingan are now on the table. Clint/OO stays, you might take Sarr and let him develop at College Park. But you trade OO/Clint and expect the new center to produce, it won't be Sarr. He isn't ready. What I'm listing above are the if/then statements of contingency boards. We have a bunch of Contingency boards right now dealing with possible trade backs (there are many on the table right now, discussed, being negotiated and playing teams off each other...you've seen media leaks). There is not 1 player in this year's draft who would replace one of our starters in the starting lineup without a trade (except maybe Zach Edey). That's it...no trade...Sarr nor Clingan is not playing over Clint/OO....no trade and Risacher isn't playing over Hunter/Jalen. No trade and Reed Shepherd isn't starting over Trae or DJM or Kobe or Garrison Matthews or Bogi for that matter. Without trades, there is almost zero 1st year value from anyone we'd draft with the top pick. The above is a sliver of why you aren't hearing anything in the news. Teams with the top pick have holes. They got the top pick because they suck. We don't suck. We managed to win 36 games despite most of our player games missed being to our top 8 and having a huge amount of player games missed. We don't suck, none of our starters suck, so in a weak draft, nobody comes in and takes a starting job. Teams with the top pick usually aren't in the luxury tax. Without trades, we are. We are playing out 2 things right now. Who we draft and who we trade. Both are going to happen but we're keeping 2 secrets at once. If we had holes to fill in the starting lineup, who we draft wouldn't be a mystery. There would be no reason to keep that secret. But because we have players to move and that 1st pick is our golden chip in the game, we can't let anyone know "why" we're soliciting them for trades (picks or players). Its nice to say, "take this guy, he has the most upside" but this is a 3d chess scenario, not hungry hungry hippos. Instead of just responding to everything I say with he can't guard on the perimeter, start thinking about the myriad of scenarios that need to play out this offseason. Don't be so tied to your argument, you lose sight of the big picture. This isn't your normal #1 pick season.

You want some insider news? Here you go. Multiple teams have inquired about moving up to take Edey at 14/16 with Portland considering holding the pick to draft him. Golden State being the most prominent with the biggest need. Utah has interest in him at 10. There has been other talk based on how the rumors run heading up to draft night of him moving in to the top 8. There are no less than 8 teams expressing interest in him with their pick and/or moving up to get him. You know so little about this its laughable. Edey has worked out for 7 NBA teams so far (publicly). At least 2 of which have run him through switch coverage drills and he was better than expected. Right now teams are downplaying him hoping he'll fall to them. The biggest culprit of this right now is the Laker market. If he's there at 17, he's theirs. They and their surrogates in the media/social media have been pushing the narratives on Edey hoping he'll fall to them. He has turned down workouts with multiple teams at this point as he knows he's writing his own ticket right now and would prefer to go to a win now culture. Most of his visits haven't been announced until the workout was done to keep the media circus down. Teams' main concern with him was "if I take him top 5 and he's what people are criticizing him for, I'll get fired". The window for him right now is outside the top 5, he looks like a much smaller PR risk if he doesn't pan out. If he's needle starts to rise, there are GMs that will trade into the top 10 to get him (right now). The Hawks have leveraged all 3 of the current top 3 right now to try and get trade out of the top pick leverage. All the bluster you've heard on the top 3 right now is just that, bluster. They've been trying to drive value into the pick. They could take any of a number of people but the names mentioned have been mentioned specifically because certain other teams want those players (see Risacher and the Spurs) and we've been trying to drive up interest. The front office has been hush hush on who they're taking. I said this weeks ago and people didn't believe it, thought Sarr was a lock at 1. I'm not married to Edey and it isn't going to hit hard for me if he isn't the pick. But every time he goes for 20/10 his rookie year, everyone who didn't take him is going to kick themselves. Its the biggest draft no-brainer outside of Wemby in years.

Wondering if you just have your Edey responses copied ready to paste? You realize only a few people here are sharing this opinion now. The tape, testing, workouts, just don't add up to your narrative and that's what it is at this point...just a narrative.

But Camp, he won't be able to do that against NBA centers. My dudes....that's a guy that's projected to go top 20 as a center and is a 7 footer.

Edey vs Kel'el Ware (top 20 pick prospect) - Police called, child abuse

Every team, #1 included that pass on him are going to regret it!!! This dude should be the #1 pick and it isn't close.

What do the experts really know?