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00:00 Under the kind of the bad picks I have, Miles Bridges, and
00:04 we'll get on to why that was a bad pick in a little bit.
00:08 Vernon Carey Jr, JT Thor, Arnoldos Kalboka, Grant Rilla,
00:12 James Bucknight, Kai Jones.
00:15 Then moving on to okay, we have Nick Richards, Bryce McGowan,
00:20 Jayler McDaniels, PJ Washington, Devante Graham.
00:24 And then moving on to good, we have Brandon Miller,
00:26 Lamella Ball, Cody Martin, Mark Williams.
00:30 So in six years, Chase, and tell me if I've missed anyone, but
00:35 in six years, I make it that they had three starting level players and
00:41 maybe two all stars in Lamella Ball, Brandon Miller, Mark Williams.
00:47 For an organization that wants to be known for its drafting,
00:51 is that a good enough return?
00:54 >> I actually do think it is, considering where they were drafting.
00:58 And I also would loop a couple of the guys that you said were okay picks
01:03 into good picks.
01:04 I think PJ Washington counts as a good pick.
01:07 I think Nick Richards counts as a good pick for being in 44th overall selection.
01:12 And now being on his second contract, which is a very team friendly deal for
01:17 who is a backup center that would play for most teams in the league right now.
01:21 Jayle McDaniels also I think would count as a good pick,
01:24 a guy that also made it to his second contract.
01:26 And you were able to trade him and recoup more second round picks,
01:29 which is what you spent on him to develop him anyway.
01:32 So I feel like that turned out- >> You didn't have to send the second round
01:34 pick away though, remembering that deal.
01:36 It wasn't just a straight, you traded him for that other thing.
01:41 They sent one away, and then so
01:43 there wasn't like straight McDaniels for draft value there.
01:47 >> Yeah, that is fair, but still, I feel like given the draft position.
01:52 >> But is that good?
01:53 Like, whoo, you didn't bust out the league.
01:56 That's good.
01:56 We're saying that's good.
01:57 You didn't bust out the league.
01:59 That's where we're drawing the line of success.
02:01 >> Definitely, do you know how many teams draft guys that or
02:04 the Hornets included in years past that draft guys that just bust out of
02:08 the league entirely?
02:09 Like they picked James Booknight, like James Booknight, bad pick.
02:13 11th pick that you had to waive before his rookie contract even ended.
02:17 Kai Jones, bad pick.
02:18 You traded, especially because you traded picks to get him too.
02:21 But if you draft a guy 52nd and they play five, six, seven years in the NBA,
02:25 even if only four of them are for you and your team.
02:28 I feel like that is definitely a good pick to me.
02:31 And it shows that like what he said about investing resources and
02:35 development and that being like the main avenue for building the team.
02:39 Like he did act upon that and
02:41 he actually made that their main avenue for building the team.
02:44 Like how good the team ended up being is one thing, but
02:47 like he did what he set out to do.
02:50 And especially with like the big swings at the top of the draft,
02:53 he hit both of them.
02:54 And that's also I think the hardest thing any GM can do on the job
03:00 in the NBA right now is picking the top five to ten and
03:04 get the guy that fits your team with that pick and not have there be
03:09 players right before or right after that you really could use.
03:13 But you got, you know, Jan Vesely like the Washington Wizards or
03:17 something like that.
03:18 Like there's no pick that just busted out like they didn't get Killian Hayes and
03:22 have to wave him three years later.
03:24 They got Lamella Ball like they got Brandon Miller.
03:27 They don't have Scoot Henderson or
03:28 any of these other guys that aren't having as good of a rookie season as him.
03:32 So I think he accomplished the hardest thing that there is to do.
03:36 And he hit on the thing that he said he was trying to do.
03:39 How good that ended up being is one thing.
03:42 But you just said that the team didn't end up being any good.
03:46 So how's that an accomplishment that the players they've drafted haven't
03:50 translated into a good team when that's the foundation of your team building?
03:54 >> Well, I mean, I think they haven't been good for many reasons other than
03:58 the fact that they're drafting good role players with second round picks.
04:02 Like, I don't think Cody Martin or Jalen McDaniels or PJ Washington or
04:07 Nick Richards or anything are the reasons like why they're bad.
04:11 They're bad because Lamellas played 14 games in the last two years and
04:15 Gordon Hayward missed both play and runs and all these other things.
04:19 Like, you know what I mean?
04:20 Like I feel like these moves in a vacuum are all positive.
04:25 Like for the most, I mean, obviously other than like Vernon Kerry and
04:29 stuff like that.
04:29 >> But the vacuum to me, the vacuum of Jalen McDaniels being like a back end
04:34 rotation player, the vacuum is worth $2.
04:38 The vacuum of Kai Jones and James Bucknight busting out the NBA before
04:42 the rookie contract is worth like $80.
04:45 And that's where it's like, you can be like, there's eight good ones and
04:49 five bad ones.
04:50 But the bad ones are hurt you so much more than the good ones helped you.
04:55 Like there's a scale like a sliding scale of value here.
04:59 And that's where I think like, you can look at this and
05:02 talk about some of the late round successes.
05:05 But they had so many second round picks.
05:07 They basically had their pick of anybody they wanted in the second round because
05:11 they've had so many over the last five, six years.
05:13 And none of them have really popped in the way that is going to be
05:19 franchise altering.
05:20 They're all just complimentary guys.
05:22 But when you're building your team on draft, and
05:25 that's the foundation of what you're building.
05:27 You have to get more than just complimentary guys to the draft.
05:31 And yes, he did that at the top when they got luckily, they moved up, okay?
05:35 Remember, luckily both the Lamela Ball, Brandon Miller,
05:38 they moved up in the lottery.
05:39 That was luck.
05:40 I didn't give Mitch Kupchak much credit for drafting Lamela Ball.
05:45 I just don't.
05:46 It was a three player draft.
05:47 They picked third.
05:49 They were gonna take Wiseman.
05:50 And we said this before, they're gonna take Wiseman, Edwin to Ball.
05:54 If they were second, they would have taken James Wiseman.
05:57 That was reported everywhere at the time.
06:01 And they didn't, he was taken by Golden State and
06:03 he ended up with Lamela Ball.
06:05 So I just don't give any credit whatsoever for that.
06:08 The Brandon Miller one is the one for me, which is like that you hang up and say,
06:13 everyone thought that we should have taken Scoop.
06:16 And this is looking, we're looking like the smartest people in the room right now.
06:20 That is the one, in my opinion, that I think you point out.
06:25 So I mean, overall, I have the draft down as a B.
06:34 And I'll say by the way, I got a TBC section like James Najee,
06:37 Nick Smith Jr., Scott Lewis, who got a horrible injury, Amari Bailey.
06:40 Just too early to tell with those guys.
06:42 Overall, I had Kupchak down as I think a B or a B minus.
06:47 Where did you fall on the draft side of things?
06:50 >> I had B plus.
06:51 So I mean, ultimately not that much different, a little bit more positive.
06:55 But yeah, I gave him a B plus.
06:58 And just because, and I'm sure- >> That sounds too positive now I say out
07:03 loud, I'm changing on the fly, I'm going C plus.
07:05 >> All right, so he went down from a potential B to a firm C plus in a matter
07:11 of like seven seconds.
07:13 >> Yeah, because I talked through it and I made a lot of sense to myself.
07:15 >> Yeah, no, I completely understand that.
07:18 Stick with your guns, I totally get it.
07:20 But his very first draft and trade is what brings it down for me.
07:28 And we'll talk a lot about that, I'm sure.
07:31 Because that will fold into more into the trade section as well.
07:34 But we'll talk about that one.
07:36 But that is honestly why I gave him a B plus rather than an A minus or
07:41 something, maybe even like an A.
07:43 Probably not an A, no matter what.
07:44 But that one deal specifically is what bumped it down to me.
07:49 >> So we need to talk about this.
07:50 It was 2018, I believe.
07:52 >> Yep, yes. >> Which was Kupchak's first draft.
07:55 And Mitch Kupchak traded the 11th of November,
08:00 the 11th pick, where he selected Shy Guild's Alexander for
08:05 the LA Clippers, I believe it was.
08:09 And he traded back to, I think it was 13, was it, four miles bridges or 12?
08:16 >> I think it was 12, yeah, they just, they flipped picks basically.
08:19 >> And in return, they got a 2020 second round pick that became Vernon Kerry Jr.
08:24 And a 2021 second round pick that became Scottie Lewis.
08:29 You might have just traded a future MVP away for
08:33 Miles Bridges who not only is probably a starter on a good playoff team,
08:39 but has just missed over a year in 10 games because of his own personal issues.
08:45 This could go down, you know that draft night photo of Kobe Bryant in
08:51 the Charlotte Hornets hat that everyone posts every now and then and you go,
08:55 I can't believe the Charlotte Hornet traded Kobe Bryant.
08:58 This was, in my opinion, worse,
08:59 because I think that was even done for the draft, I want to say,
09:02 that Kobe Bryant trade.
09:04 This one, Shay Gildas was tied to the Charlotte Hornets.
09:07 Everyone knew Kemba Walker was going on to the last year of expiring deal.
09:11 They were saying, well, Shay has got the size, he can play with Kemba, or
09:15 he can take over with Kemba if he leaves.
09:17 It makes too much sense.
09:18 He was the most mocked guy to Charlotte.
09:20 And they take Shay and then swap to go for Miles Bridges,
09:27 which you imagine was probably the guy that they wanted all along.
09:30 And the only selected Gildas Alexander, but
09:32 that is a pretty monumental franchise changing mistake.
09:39 >> I completely agree.
09:42 That to me, and especially because of the reasoning of it being like, I mean,
09:48 I think the fans and media from their perspective were like,
09:51 Shay can play with Kemba Walker.
09:54 He can maybe be like the heir apparent to point guard position in Charlotte.
09:58 But if I remember correctly, the narrative coming from the Charlotte front office
10:03 was that they didn't want to saddle Kemba with some sort of backup that was just
10:08 waiting to take his job at the time.
10:11 That's just why I wanted to kind of phrase it as if I remember correctly,
10:14 because I wanted to ask you if you had the same perspective on it as well.
10:18 But that's kind of what I remember it being,
10:19 was that they didn't want to draft Kemba's backup while he was still there or
10:24 anything like that.
10:25 And just add another point guard when they already had him.
10:28 Because at the time, it wasn't a definite that they were gonna move on from him
10:31 that following offseason, which obviously they ended up doing that,
10:35 which makes it look even worse.
10:36 But at the time, I feel like it wasn't a definite, which made it kind of,
10:42 I mean, at least from their perspective and their reasoning,
10:45 a more of a question to draft Shay.
10:46 But clearly that was the wrong decision because he is now an extremely good
10:50 player.
10:51 And like you said, when he was a rookie with the Clippers,
10:54 I'm pretty sure they had Avery Bradley and Patrick Beverly and Williams.
11:00 No, because they traded him for Chris Paul to OKC, or
11:05 I believe anyway, was the- >> That was right.
11:09 >> Yeah, but no, it wasn't- >> I remember him being in a three guard
11:11 lineup with Chris Paul at some point.
11:14 That might have been in OKC, it might have been in LA.
11:16 I can't remember which.
11:17 >> Yeah, yeah, yeah, cuz they traded, yeah, he ended up in OKC for Paul George,
11:21 I think is what it was.
11:23 >> Yeah.
11:23 >> In that sign and trade, who knows?
11:25 But either way, when he was in Los Angeles as a rookie,
11:29 he was playing with a bunch of other guards anyway.
11:30 So he was essentially in the same situation he would have been here.
11:34 But the Hornets just traded Miles Bridges, who as a rookie,
11:38 was not an overly effective player.
11:42 I think he played most of the games that season, but
11:45 was not a good player at all.
11:48 It wasn't until the second season that he came on as a starting caliber player and
11:52 a full time rotation guy.
11:54 So and then obviously was convicted of a felony a couple years later and
12:00 has since come back and
12:01 looks like a much different, lesser player than he was when he left.
12:05 So that one to me is a huge negative.
12:10 >> Cuz even at the time, Shea looked like a better player, and
12:14 especially now, we know that to be true.
12:18 >> And it wasn't like, say, it wasn't like Campbell signed for four years, and
12:22 you go, well, why would you draft a back up point guard?
12:24 That was not the case at all.