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Ok
I think it’s the point of the other thread. It wouldn’t hurt as much if it were a SRP but a Lottery pick? And where Reynaud would be picked at #14 if he turned out to be a bust at that high where other prospects were available at #14 who would turn out better. There is a higher risk of being a “stupid pick” going against the consensus.
Ok
Last edited by mudyez; 05-25-2025 at 12:06 PM.
Watched some of Raynaud in those raw clips Dejounte posted a while back. I don't love the catapulty shot from 3, plus I was surprised at some of his bad misses and finishes. Came away underwhelmed.
Yeah actually I agree... I watched the same video and you summed it up pretty well. He also looked useless at times against players with a lot of size. His shot actually looks really bad; very little touch. Defense is not great at times. I don't think the Spurs would draft this guy; certainly not at 14 with multiple high upside wings available.
I haven't watched a second of him, but darn, from what you guys say, I don't think I need to. His percentage look OK, but from what you guys are saying, I guess you need to actually use the eye test too. "Catapulty" doesn't sound good at all. I expected that he had a fairly normal looking set shot. Do you have a link to the clip/s?
Last edited by Ice009; 05-27-2025 at 12:04 PM.
Agree
Shot mechanics look weird and he moves uncoordinated and a bit awkward, lacks quickness and explosiveness.
His size advantage can work at a lower level but not be as much of a factor in the NBA.
I don't see what people are seeing in this guy to consider drafting him at 14 or even in the first round.
Playlist with 2025 draft class vids: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?lis...bPOX7JQ9tzCFEo
To the people who are actually saying they’d be fine/happy taking him at 14: can you honestly say you’d be saying the same thing if he wasn’t a French guy who was friends with Wemby?
It’s hard for me to imagine there not being at least 3 guys available at #14 that are clearly better prospects than Raynaud. And it’s even harder for me to imagine that anyone in their right mind thinks drafting a worse player for the sake of appeasing your franchise player is a good idea. If we want to waste a late SRP on some French dude then go for it, but you don’t do it with a ing lottery pick
If you’re advocating trading down from 14 or up from 38 then that’s a different story and I’m a little more open to the idea.
I agree. And all this without mentioning the fact that he has one leg shorter than the other. Let's also not sweep the fact that his obsequious smile undoubtedly hides a sexual predator that we should be wary of. Ah, I forgot, he had leprosy as a child, coupled with a pubonic plague. I wish him the best in Leper Colony League.
Suddenly, Maxime Ray-no becomes good for the potter's field... Hey, he's just the king's fool, the queen's hidden lover.
We literally just rid ourselves of Zach Collins and now folks want to draft a slightly more mobile version of him…
Yep, someone mentioned Collins earlier and my PTSD kicked in... Combined with the clunky highlights it's become an easy no for me at 14. If he's there at 38, sure, we need a big body. Raynaud could be worthwhile but it's far too risky in the lottery.
To the people who are actually saying they’d be fine/happy taking him at 14: can you honestly say you’d be saying the same thing if he wasn’t a French guy who was friends with Wemby?
It’s hard for me to imagine there not being at least 3 guys available at #14 that are clearly better prospects than Raynaud. And it’s even harder for me to imagine that anyone in their right mind thinks drafting a worse player for the sake of appeasing your franchise player is a good idea. If we want to waste a late SRP on some French dude then go for it, but you don’t do it with a ing lottery pick
If you’re advocating trading down from 14 or up from 38 then that’s a different story and I’m a little more open to the idea.
I'm not sure if Raynaud is my top choice for the Spurs at 14, but honestly I don't think it's as much of a stretch as folks are making it out to be. Raynaud doesn't get enough credit for his athleticism and fluidity at 7 feet. For those of you who remember Luka Samanic, Raynaud reminds me a lot of him from a pure athleticism standpoint, and of all the reasons why Luka didn't work out, that was really not the problem. I would almost argue that Raynaud is the more fully realized version of what the Spurs were hoping that Luka could be when they drafted him. He's also a really good rebounder, his shot is not theoretical, the data are real and he's a better shooter than most of the guards in this draft. He's also a really smart player -- the guy went to Stanford for the education, and was a basketball team walk-on. He was also an elite swimmer growing up which means he is shredded with lean muscle and can be a really really physically strong player in the Spurs athletic training and nutrition program. It also shouldn't be lost on people that he played in the ACC last year.
On defense, I have real questions. From what I've read, it sounds like he was a very strong and loud communicator on that end during the Combine scrimmages, which is a good sign. He has the athletic potential to be a good defender from a quickness and vertical pop perspective, and measurements. Whether he will be truly a plus player on that end remains to be seen, but his rebounding is statistically likely to translate which solves a major problem for the Spurs.
Here's the thing -- none of the other guys I'd consider at that pick are fully slam dunks either. I really like Fleming for instance, but his free throw percentage is a little concerning, and while he shot a solid percentage from 3, I just never felt super confident about his touch when he was taking them. I don't know how to explain it other than it had a tendency to hit a lot of iron before going in and when he missed, Fleming missed pretty badly at times. I wouldn't say the defense is as much of a question mark with him, but I would really need to be in the interview room to get a good sense of his BBall IQ given the level of comp he faced.
Thomas Sorber fits a lot of theoretical boxes for me. I like his size, strength, wingspan, and Stocks rate in the Big East. He gets rave reviews from analysts about his IQ, and I have no reason to doubt that, but I do have a lot of concerns about his lack of vertical pop (which was evident in film, and we do not have combine testing to say otherwise), his tendency to struggle against bigger and stronger players, and potential issues with his lateral quickness. He also is coming off a foot injury, and who knows how serious that is. All that said -- I am not convinced the defense will truly translate at the next level which is the primary reason I would draft Sorber.
Bryant I like a lot. I have been high on him for months and think he would be a really good player in the Spurs system. If he's available, I would have trouble picking between him and Raynaud because I like them both a lot and they both have the potential to check different boxes the Spurs really need (shooting, size) so I guess its a question of who is more ready to contribute right away and what do we need more of (perimeter defense or rebounding?)
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All this is to say I think people are a little too low on Raynaud. Truth be told, I think teams would be smart to avoid drafting freshman bigs based on the last 20+ years of data we have on the draft. Bigs really need a lot of time to develop and grow as players because they have so much responsibility on the defensive end of the court. I think one of the reasons why we don't have the same level of talented big men as we once saw in the 70s, 80s, and 90s is that the trend of drafting younger, less experienced players and developing them during their most formative years in the NBA without much playing time has meant that the bust rate has just been really high. Most of the best bigs in NBA history actually spent 3 or 4 years in college and came to the league as more or less finished products.
Did he pick that up from Primo?
Raynaud is a career 34.7% 3P shooter (which is exactly the same he shot last season) and 73.2% from FT, that is far from a guaranteed shooter from the NBA 3pt line. I don't have the breakdown on his shots inside, but 46.7% overall and 53% from 2 doesn't impress me a great deal for a 7'+ center at the college level. Again, it's not like I've watched much of him (no games, mostly highlights and recently that raw clip I posted) but those stats are not the kind of "real data" that trumps all else.
Bigs (and players in general) are more talented than ever and will continue to incrementally become so going forward.
Is that why his shorts all fall down?
I really don't think there's a single non-Victor Big in the league that I would put on the same tier as David Robinson, Hakeem, Ewing, Duncan, Garnett, Shaq, or Kareem today. It's true those guys didn't shoot threes, but that doesn't mean those guys wouldn't totally dominate today. Giannis is hardly a 3 point shooter and half this board wants us to trade half our roster for him. That said, I don't really want to spend a lot of time arguing the point. I understand why someone would watch a guy like KAT and think he was more skilled than Robinson or Duncan, but I honestly think he would be a bench guy during an era when they actually played defense and called travels.
I'm not making the decision here, so all I know is what I can see and read, but a 7 footer who can play defense out to the perimeter and do windmill dunks in transition is pretty enticing. He's a guy I would want to really get to know and workout before drafting because it's a big upside risk, but I think he's going to be a 10 year pro as a back-up center as his floor. That's not an ideal outcome for the 14th pick, but if they see something they really like I could understand the appeal with upside like that.To the people who are actually saying they’d be fine/happy taking him at 14: can you honestly say you’d be saying the same thing if he wasn’t a French guy who was friends with Wemby?
It’s hard for me to imagine there not being at least 3 guys available at #14 that are clearly better prospects than Raynaud. And it’s even harder for me to imagine that anyone in their right mind thinks drafting a worse player for the sake of appeasing your franchise player is a good idea. If we want to waste a late SRP on some French dude then go for it, but you don’t do it with a ing lottery pick
If you’re advocating trading down from 14 or up from 38 then that’s a different story and I’m a little more open to the idea.
I'm not saying I think he's going to be Dirk. But unlike the other Bigs in this draft outside of Fleming -- who is far from a star shooter himself -- Raynauld has actually hit 3s at a pretty good clip in college. Sorber, Maluach (who I really like), Newell and Queen are all theoretical 3 point shooters -- decent FT shooters who seem to have some touch closer to the basket who you hope can get to a league average % from 3. That's all I mean.
I wonder sometimes how well Jokic would do in the 90s or 00s. The athleticism he would have faced inside back then would have been much, much better than what he goes up against now. 50-50 on that.
EDIT: Giannis would almost certainly have been good in the 90s or 00s. He wouldnt have been able to get the same amount of fast break points and would have had to really bang down low for his points, but he would have probably have been an all star level player back then.
Last edited by RobinsontoDuncan; 05-27-2025 at 07:25 PM.
If we've never heard of him and you watched Jokic shooting a 3, how would you describe it?
If Bryant is gone and both Sober and Coward come up with medical red flags I would not having a problem drafting him and I still would try to get Adams to mentor him and Wemby.
All I can say is that none of the 90s bigs would get locked up by Alex Caruso...
The issue with the bigs today isn’t the bigs but eh way the rules are called. The league saw the explosion in popularity with Jordan, where a high flying athletic perimeter player do almost super human things on the court, but was stifled by the “dirty” pistons, so they changed the rules for him and made him king. He retired for the first time, the league ranked mightily because no one can score even with a number of ridiculously skilled bigs in hakeem, Shaq, robinson and Ewing with others such as mourning, smits, Daugherty and mutombo being main players on their very good teams. The leagues popularity tanked.
Then Jordan came back and all is good again. But then he retired again and the league realized that they can just loose the rules for these very athletic perimeter players to help push things alone. Kobe, iverson, tmac, Carter, stackhouse, all benefitted but player such as Shaq, duncan, and Weber still led the best teams. Then players like Garnett and Dirk, bigs who have perimeter skills are very popular and slowly try to encourage bigs to play like perimeter players too, and it worked. The easiest way to do it is to make it easier to score outside than it is inside, and here we are.
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