Mailbag 6/8/24
A start to a (hopefully) weekly mailbag!
Hey all, I hope to do a mailbag weekly. So if you are interested in seeing this continue, please share, or at least engage and give me questions to answer! You can either DM me questions on Twitter, or email me questions at asherlevymailbag@gmail.com. Without further ado, let’s answer a few questions that I got this week.
Who’s your favorite sleeper pick in this draft?
This question comes from DiegoTheMoth on Twitter, and is a question that I’ve been asking myself for a couple months now. Admittedly, this draft is a bit hard to have “sleeper” picks in. That’s because everyone’s boards look a little different. Outside of Alex Sarr being towards the top, most boards are looking fairly different from one another. The lack of consensus made me want to look through the consensus boards.
I used the Rookie Scale’s consensus board. My qualifiers for a sleeper pick is someone ranked outside of the top 20 consensus, that I would pick in or around the lottery. At least for this question, because I don’t really see projecting someone to go late second round instead of undrafted as being too much of a sleeper.
Now, luckily for me, both of the guys I were thinking about including are both outside of the top 20 on the consensus board. Those two being Bub Carrington (projected at 22) out of Pitt and DaRon Holmes II (projected at 30) out of Dayton. I think both of these players will rise to being top 20 on a lot of people’s boards, and they’re already top 10 on some people who I really respect’s boards (also if I were to make a board they would both likely be top 10).
When I try to rank players on a board, I try to think about how good they would be for the average team. Both of these players would be good for a multitude of teams. If they were drafted by a bad team (with a good development staff) I think they could reach their high end outcomes. Which I feel both of them have fringe All-Star upside. I don’t think it’s super likely for them to reach that ceiling, but they’ve shown enough flashes of on-ball creation, and doing other things at good levels for me to buy they could do it.
DaRon Holmes’ high end outcome could be something like a poor man’s Pascal Siakam. He has shown some on-ball chops at Dayton, while also being a good and switchable defender. He has some shooting indicators and shot 39% from beyond the arc on 2.5 attempts a game this past year. Not too much volume, but significantly higher and better than in previous years.
Bub Carrington is one of my favorite guard prospects in this year’s draft, and is one of the funnest prospects I’ve had the pleasure of watching in the last few years. He has a lot of pull up jumper juice, and has shown good playmaking chops in the games I’ve seen of him. Albeit, I’m early in my process of scouting Bub, but he has made pocket passes in the pick and roll, entry passes, normal passes, you know, the works. He’s also not a poor defender and with his size (if he fills out his frame) he could be a solid defender at the NBA level.
Is this year's draft a bad draft, even for teams digging for role players?
The next question comes from Grace on Twitter, and I think it’s an interesting thought exercise to try and quantify what is a good or bad draft. This class is known among draft twitter, mainstream coverage, and those in between as the worst draft class we’ve seen in a hot minute.
Now, I would say I’m somewhat inclined to agree. There are few players that have even fringe All-Star upside, let alone as their median outcomes. There is no clear top tier either. People generally agree on Alex Sarr being at the top, but outside of that it’s basically throwing darts. Every single player has a fairly big weakness even if they do have good upside.
I’ve heard people say that it’s like taking a normal draft and starting at number 10. I think that’s a decent way to look at it. Once you get past a number of players in this draft, they all sort of blur together. There are a bunch of players that might be good role players, but so many of them are flawed to the point that they probably max out at being an 8th man on a contender at best. So, yes, I would call it a poor class no matter who you are. However, knowing the draft and how it typically goes, there will be 5 All-Stars picked after pick 10, and at least 1 in the 2nd round.
What projected 2nd rounder has the highest potential in your eyes?
This one comes from Guin on Twitter, and I think the answer for me is pretty easily Nikola Djurisic. It is because of his handling, shooting, and finishing in the Euroleague and I have had my eye on him for a few years at this point. He finally popped off enough to get on the radar of being drafted, and will likely go in the second round. However, I have a top 20 grade on him - in large part because (say it with me class) THAT BOY NICE.
Yes he has flaws, yes he will likely be a sixth man of sorts in the league, but in this class a 6’8” scoring guard with good playmaking is just dandy. I think teams should start looking at him in the late lottery and beyond.
Who’s the player with the best chance at having a rotational role in the league that you don’t have top 30?
Next question comes from Stone Hanson (who is a fantastic draft creator and you should absolutely follow him at report_court on Twitter). I do not have a set big board as of yet, but I can kind of eye ball it. I guess I’d probably go with Ja’Kobe Walter. He’s commonly put in the lottery to late teens range, and I just don’t see it. He’s billed as a shooter, but he shot 34% from beyond the arc and 79% from the line. 79% isn’t bad, but 34% is pretty poor for someone who’s main selling point is his shot.
He also shot 38% from the field, and doesn’t really have a ton of size, though he isn’t small either. He stands 6’5”, weighs about 195 lbs, and has a 6’10” wingspan. He slots as probably a two guard at the NBA level, and while I see a pathway to him contributing as a 3 and D guard if he does prove to be a plus shooter, I also see a more likely pathway to him not being able to put it together and fizzling out. So, I don’t have him top 30, but I can see a rotational role for him.
If the Nuggets traded into the lottery who should they target?
Last basketball related question of this mailbag comes from CTFazio (you should know him if you’re a Denver fan). For this question I’m going to assume it’s a late lottery pick. I don’t think they have the assets to get into the top 10, so we’ll just say like pick 11. At that point the likes of Stephon Castle, Reed Sheppard, and Rob Dillingham will all likely be gone. I would take DaRon Holmes there if they wanted to draft a big, but no other bigs are worth a lottery pick to me in this draft (besides Clingan, but he would also be gone).
My pick though would be Jared McCain from Duke. For one, very good shooter, probably the best in the class. The bench unit for the Nuggets struggled a lot with shooting this year, so slotting in someone who could likely shoot high 30s from beyond the arc in their rookie season would be very good. He also has some good defensive flashes, and never seemed to be a liability in the games I’ve seen from him. Tack on that he can do some secondary creation stuff, and that he probably projects out to be a Seth Curry archetype, though a little better probably.
A good bench guard is something the Nuggets have desperately needed since Monte Morris left, and Jared McCain should be able to be a bench contributor from the jump. Also, who doesn’t love someone with a great fashion sense and great nails?
Would you rather have animals be able to understand you or be able to understand animals?
Last question is also from Guin, and you guys can ask non-basketball related questions. I would probably say have animals be able to understand me. Hiking would be much less stressful if I could tell the mountain lion tailing me that I mean no harm to it or its cubs. Same with bears and whatnot. Also, I’d like my dog to be able to understand exactly what I’m telling him.
Anyway, thanks for reading and do email your questions in please! Subscribe to the Substack if you’re so inclined and have a great rest of your day!