Not even if he just picked up a ball for the 1st time in his life this year.
It's worse actually: he comes from one of France's most reputable programs, in Cholet. So you can't chalk up his lack of fundamentals to poor coaching.
Not even if he just picked up a ball for the 1st time in his life this year.
No skills. Poor fundamentals. Poor athlete. Sounds like a homeless Isiah Roby without the athleticism. , no.
its obviously not a great draft. its not like other years have a plethora of flawless prospects, but the flaws with the people in this class seem more dramatic than usual, and the things they excel at arent as good as you typically see at the top of other drafts
but there are good players to be had
i just really dont see Salaun as a lotto pick, even if this weaker draft. i'd rather the spurs take any of cody williams, donovan clingan, isaiah collier, or even devin carter than him. salaun to me right now is a big project and i'm not so sure his upside is anything more than role player anyway. i dont see the "star ceiling" people talk about with him. so in a draft full of role players, im not too keen on taking the one that seems to be the biggest gamble of whether he'll become an nba player or not
i see salaun as a decidedly worse prospect than Samanic was, and even samanic at 19 was a reach. caveat being that samanic's work ethic and passion was a question mark with him, and is one of the few things salaun has going for him
I'm not as down on the notion of selecting him at 8 as many, but that's mostly because I'm not high on any of the other candidates I believe they'll decide between anyway, which includes: Buzelis (unlikely to be available), Holland, Carter (both unlikely if as expected they select Castle at 4) and Williams.
Given the lack of a natural fit (save arguably Dillingham, an archetype they clearly don't want), this is why I've said ad nauseam they should be aggressively looking to make a trade involving at least one of these lottery picks.
The (new) Savior tbh.
Pretty much the perfect cir stance to draft a guy like Saluan: draft, two top 10 picks where they can take a win now guy at #4, close with Wemby...
If he's not hanging dong at media and therapy sessions, then he's a solid pick at #8 tbh.
the only thing worse than drafting this bust would be drafting Topic or Bustzelis 4 and this bust at 8. Please god NO. NO
Only way I do this is if Spurs trade pick 4 for 7 + 14 and now have a third pick to burn on someone like Salaun who will be stashed or whatever.
So...what is he good at at all?
You do this if Victor needs a French friend to play Legos with.
if we had a late lotto or mid teens pick, I could see it. But he's not worth 4 or 8.
Better yet, if spurs want to kick the can down the river again for 2025. We select him and Topic ...
I like him as a prospect but we already have one raw French prospect we’re developing in Sidy
My draft philosophy is obviously different than others
with a top pick, people argue it’s best to draft a sure thing even if said player’s ceiling is a role player
i disagree with this heavily. That’s such a waste of a pick. There’s a gem hidden in this draft no matter how much it’s perceived as weak
if it’s choosing between a player who’s a sure thing but will cap as a role player vs a guy the Spurs believe there’s a glimmer of s om… i choose the latter ten times out of ten
I’ve found myself agreeing with two posters I normally don’t agree with much today, and you’re one of them. This is especially true in a draft like this. Swing away, mother ers. You’re not going to miss on any obvious great players in this draft, because there aren’t any.
Tangent: it’s also why I’m against trading up. I’d rather have two swings, or pulls of the slot machine, or whatever way you want to put it.
The last draft to be considered this bad was 2013, when Anthony Bennett was selected #1 overall. But you know who else was in that draft? Giannis Antetokounmpo, who was a young, extremely raw prospect who wasn’t good at basketball, but had the positional size, athleticism, and frame that made scouts dream he could one day blossom into a superstar.
I heavily disagree with you both. Drafting a bust with a top 10 pick is a cardinal sin for a front office, especially the Spurs, since it's the best way to add talent anymore. Signing free agents used to be the best way since you don't give up anything but cap space to get them, but that's harder than it used to be and it's almost always been hard for this team. Maybe this can change with Vic on the team now, but I'm hesitant until it happens. Trading can be a way but you have to get lucky with your trading partner undervaluing their asset and overvaluing yours.
Man I laughed at that one for at least five minutes.
Nobody goes into a draft thinking they’re drafting a bust. It’s because they see something there. And if it turns out a year or two later, there’s nothing there… at least they tried.
A real bust to me is if we drafted someone who we try to cater the offense or defense to only to lessen their touches because they’re just another Bertans on offense. Or the other way around of them starting off as a Bertans on offense and not becoming much more than that after a few years. People say “oh but at least we gained a role player on a future contending team”— whoopty doo tbh.
anthony randolph
Typically teams don't waste a lottery pick on role players, let alone two, but in this draft we may not have much of a choice. I'd rather spend my draft capital on players that already have skills rather than on a player who might develop an important skill sometime in a few years - not the best strategy. Do it right and in 4 years, you'll be worrying about how much to pay them, rather than kicking yourself for drafting a bust with very few skills and still wondering why you even drafted them to begin with.
I am personally a little more conservative than you I think, and swinging for a home run is definitely more palatable when you don't have an established centerpiece in place. If you've got nobody in place, and you take a swing and realize after a year or 2 that you miss, the only people that you're probably pissing off are your long-suffering fans who you can feed a new message of hope every year in the lottery. But if your franchise centerpiece is already in place and you swing and miss after 2 years, you've burned 2 years of his window which will probably piss him off so that likely outcomes are also important.
That being said, the majority of a prospect's success comes from his upside tail, so I still do believe in drafting for upside. But personally, I try and draft for a prospect's ~75th percentile outcome, where you're getting either non-outlier development or outlier development in 1 facet, as opposed to trying to swing for a home run and envisioning what would happen with outlier development in multiple core skills.
After reading this, I’m just confused how he could rate 7th on the big board and have a sliver of hope to be a superstar. The only positives were his frame, hustle and character. He doesn’t shoot well, doesn’t play defense well, can’t handle the basketball, isn’t an explosive athlete.
What exactly is the appeal here? The write up made him sound like a player worth a two-way deal.
I understand swinging for upside but this draft obviously is confounding. So I'm curious about who the upside swings would be:
Cody, Castle, Topic, Collier, Holland? I think it would be good to put some names out there specifically to make this more grounded.
Last edited by The Truth #6; 06-05-2024 at 08:42 PM.
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