With 58.3% of the vote, Jalen Suggs got the 4th spot on the Kings Herald Draft Board. He joins Jalen Green, Evan Mobley and Cade Cunningham.
When a choice comes up, pick who you’d want the Kings to pick given all the players remaining. Note: THIS IS NOT A MOCK DRAFT. This is a draft board, a ranked list of prospects you’d like to see the Kings pick. In other words, if we were the Kings front office, when our pick came up, we’d take the top name left on our board. So pick your choice, not who you think Monte McNair or anyone else would choose in a slot.
Explain your choice in the comments, and lobby for who should be added to the next pick’s choices.
This poll ends at 5 AM tomorrow. The next one will begin on Monday. We will go roughly 20 picks deep.
Barnes this time. Not a huge fan of his offense, but I think his defense on the wing will be invaluable. Bouknight was close because of his scoring potential.
Next up, Moses Moody or Alperen Sengun
I think Barnes is the BPA b/c of his defense & playmaking. I’d like to see Wagner added to the choices.
Have you ever closely watched Barnes? His playmaking is trash. His defensive awareness is poor. I cited many examples in ACC championship game, one of his teams biggest games and his best statistical game in which his glaring fundamental flaws cost FSU the win.
This forum gave unprofessional slacker Nmenja Bjelica a pass, while choosing to pick on minimum salaried Whiteside for some reason, who actually had some game and a few shining moments. I bring this up in the context of the pending draft. Lets take a stroll down memory lane, shall well?
Bjelica did not try for the last 6-12 months of his tenure. He hoisted 30 foot shots because he was incapable of getting clean looks at the arc; he played matador defense, apathetic and disinterested, going through the motions. When he was getting DNPs, he did not make use of this downtime to hit the gym, because he became flabbier and doughier than ever.
I called him out for his awfulness while others contended he was a quality rotational player, if only he could get with a team that appreciated what he could do. There were reports he did not even want to play because he was demoted behind Bagley. For 8 million dollars he could not be bothered to show up for work?!
Then when he was traded the assessment around here was “Bjelica was freed”, now he could go somewhere where his talents could be appreciated. And he’d be able to play an integral cog to a playoff team, a real team, not a Kangz team. That was the general opinion here no matter how fans want to equivocate.
In fairness fans did want Bjelica to move on at the deadline, but this desire was expressed w/o pointing out his unprofessionalism and lack of effort and preciptously declining skills. He got a pass because of sentimentality and the one time he hit a game winner, to which I say, “who cares, what have you done for me lately?”
And when he got to Miami you could see him running hard and trying more, for those paying attention, validating my long standing observation he was not giving full effort.
But despite renewed interest in his job and trace of pride, long dormant as the paychecks rolled in, his skills had eroded beyond salvagable. He could not secure his place in the rotation. He lost time to another washed up bum who had been out of the league, Dwayne Dedmon! If you cannot beat out Dedmon for backup center, there is something seriously wrong. This is the player held in fair to high esteem, or given an undeserved pass for his putrid play and attitude.
The Heat could have used Bjelica in the playoffs, with Butler hosting bricks and Oladipo out. They needed spacing on the front line to create driving lanes but Bjelica was a big fat fail. He could not move off the ball to get to spots, take his man off the bounce, or keep his man in front of him. All these factors were obvious during his final months with us, but it was Whiteside who was the punching bag?
So forgive me if I don’t buy the collective consesus Barnes is a defensive force and pending star. All it is anyway is a regurgitation of the prevalent mock drafts, i.e. meaningless.
We will not have to wait to next season to affirm or disprove my assessment. Expect Barnes to struggle in Vegas with his weak ass game on ful display. His size will be neutralized. His lack of fundamentals will be exposed. Barnes is a combo foward who can’t shoot, can’t pass, can’t dribble and has slow reaction time. What he has going for him is size and heart, and excess enthusiasm, but that will only take you so far, which is not very far. The team that takes Barnes is getting a lemon. There are not of certainties in this draft but this is one, certain as Bjelica has played his last NBA game.
Add Wagner, please
And Moody
Moody and Wagner, two more lemons.
Barnes easy.
After this pick, any chance we could get an “other – fill in the blank” field? I feel like it is going to get very different here in just a couple picks. (sorry, I don’t know how much more difficult that would make it)
My answer for No. 5, Moses Moody, is not available – so I’ll take Scottie Barnes.
Seems like everyone is sleeping on Moody. If we get him at 9, I consider it a steal.
Just for the sake of diversity of opinion, I went Bouknight here. Barnes is likely a generational defensive talent, but just based off how much more offensive production is valued in the league I went with the guy I expect to be a 20+ ppg scorer. Regardless, I have both Barnes and Bouknight over Kuminga just for the clearly developed skillsets they’ve already demonstrated whereas Kuminga is just extremely raw. Low-key, I think Kuminga is the most likely candidate of the top tier of players to slip to the Kings on draft night. His stock has only seemed to be cooling since the college and G-League seasons have concluded. I expect Bouknight, Mitchell, Moody, Ziaire, Keon Johnson, and Jalen Johnson all being in the running to leapfrog him.
Moody, Wagner, Sengun or Ziaire should all be up next.
Barnes is the last of my for sure top 5. Everyone from here on out is more of a crap shoot for me.
Easy, Barnes. Supreme defensive skills and playmaker. If his offense develops, he’s a star.
I go with Scottie again. Great motor, plays hard on defense, and rebounds rather well. Until he can fix his shooting mechanics, the team has enough scorers for him to do cleanup on offense without having an Andre Roberson-type problem.
Things definitely get muddy beginning at five. I take him over Kuminga, who has similar shooting issues, strictly for his defense.
Barnes again. You can always find scoring, defensive maestros are rare.
Had to go Kuminga in keeping with the BPA philosophy. I also just think a year of pro ball even if it’s g league is so much more telling than a year of college. I also think it gives them an advantage coming in over college guys.
Barnes was beaten out only by a eye lash and will be taken next.
It will be VERY interesting to see how Kuminga and Green play. As the first to really go this route with the G-League, I don’t know what to expect but could definitely change the way top prospects look at college. (then again, now that they can get paid for their likeness in college as well, who knows what to expect!)
I’m curious to see this too. Almost all of the euro guys coming over now are seemingly off to a better start than their similar ranked draft contemporaries. Also they don’t seem to hit the wall like the college guys do.
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