The Jonas V thread

[SteelSmack]

Jesus Christ.

Clearly Grant should have taken Vesely and Thomas Robinson instead.

 

[Jack Brickman]

The reasoning seems poor though. You pass on legit 7 footer because you didn't want to wait a year? We wanted to lose anyway and were planning to for about 3 years: seems strange to me at least

That wasn't really the reasoning though. The reasoning was that Jonas' agent was totally unwilling to give the Cavs any commitment that he would come over to play at all. You either cross your fingers and hope you're calling a bluff or you move on to the next guy on your list. Neither is an ideal option, so the Cavs went with the next guy who would join up with Kyrie immediately.

In retrospect it was probably a mistake, but at the same time it's hard to fault the Cavs for not picking a guy who may not have wanted to play here and could have simply stayed overseas.

They took a similar gamble with Karasev (who many thought might have been using being drafted as leverage for a bigger payday overseas), but the risk of taking a guy like that with the 19th pick is significantly less than the risk of doing it with the fourth pick.

 

[Jstock12]

That wasn't really the reasoning though. The reasoning was that Jonas' agent was totally unwilling to give the Cavs any commitment that he would come over to play at all. You either cross your fingers and hope you're calling a bluff or you move on to the next guy on your list. Neither is an ideal option, so the Cavs went with the next guy who would join up with Kyrie immediately.

In retrospect it was probably a mistake, but at the same time it's hard to fault the Cavs for not picking a guy who may not have wanted to play here and could have simply stayed overseas.

They took a similar gamble with Karasev (who many thought might have been using being drafted as leverage for a bigger payday overseas), but the risk of taking a guy like that with the 19th pick is significantly less than the risk of doing it with the fourth pick.

It must've been all set up by his agent independently. I followed JV from his teenage years and in every Lithuanian interview he gave he was always raving how playing in NBA is his dream and he wants to accomplish it. Really hard to imagine him turning his dream down just because it's the Cavs.

 

[Jack Brickman]

It must've been all set up by his agent independently. I followed JV from his teenage years and in every Lithuanian interview he gave he was always raving how playing in NBA is his dream and he wants to accomplish it. Really hard to imagine him turning his dream down just because it's the Cavs.

Based on what Chad Ford said, it was definitely his agent.

And his agent probably would have had the leverage to tell Jonas to play in Europe for another couple of years before going to the NBA. That was the issue.

And for the record, I think it was less "not wanting to play for the Cavs" and more "his agent wanting him to play in Toronto."

 

[Pioneer10]

That wasn't really the reasoning though. The reasoning was that Jonas' agent was totally unwilling to give the Cavs any commitment that he would come over to play at all. You either cross your fingers and hope you're calling a bluff or you move on to the next guy on your list. Neither is an ideal option, so the Cavs went with the next guy who would join up with Kyrie immediately.

In retrospect it was probably a mistake, but at the same time it's hard to fault the Cavs for not picking a guy who may not have wanted to play here and could have simply stayed overseas.

They took a similar gamble with Karasev (who many thought might have been using being drafted as leverage for a bigger payday overseas), but the risk of taking a guy like that with the 19th pick is significantly less than the risk of doing it with the fourth pick.

Still weak IMO: sure Orlando got burned with their pick a couple of years ago but in every interview with JV he clearly stated he wanted to play in the NBA unequivocally. The Cavs would have all the leverage in the world plus a long history of treating a Lithuinian centers with respect and willing to pay monetarily handsomely. Plus, really other then the Orlando guy every other highly touted Euro has come over to at least once to give the NBA a shot.

 

[czvo]

The reasoning seems poor though. You pass on legit 7 footer because you didn't want to wait a year? We wanted to lose anyway and were planning to for about 3 years: seems strange to me at least

As much as we as fans hate to admit it plays a role, and as much as it shouldn't play a role, the backlash from the public if the Cavs took a player in the draft who didn't come over LESS THAN A YEAR after their best player (and hometown kid) publicly kicked the franchise in the balls would be enormous.

In a perfectly rational world, public perception shouldn't play a role in these decisions, but we don't live in a perfectly rational world.

 

[Pioneer10]

As much as we as fans hate to admit it plays a role, and as much as it shouldn't play a role, the backlash from the public if the Cavs took a player in the draft who didn't come over LESS THAN A YEAR after their best player (and hometown kid) publicly kicked the franchise in the balls would be enormous.

In a perfectly rational world, public perception shouldn't play a role in these decisions, but we don't live in a perfectly rational world.

This still looks like grasping at straws trying to rationalize a decision. We had Kyrie Irving coming in who was easily the consensus number #1 pick. Fans had something to look forward to right there. The casual fans don't know anything about Tristan Thompson and die hards all expected the JV pick. The only thing that make sense is that they though TT was going to be a better player. I'd argue if they actually felt that public perception was this important that is pretty damn bad indictment on Grant/Gilbert (i.e. fans would get upset waiting like they've done numerous times in NBA hx: Robinson, Sabonis, Ginobili, etc?)

 

[Spencer Hawes]

Some of the excuses for not drafting JV seems far-fetched. The plausible explanation would be that CG had TT rated higher or at the same level and he didn't have to wait a year for TT. That would just mean in fucked up. Any other reasoning would suggest that JV was the better prospect and if his agent's shenanigans are what prevented CG from drafting JV....he's a dumbass.

So much excuses are being made for this guy. TT, Dion, AB...he's a walking fuckup of high draft picks. The excuses make him out to be some kind of genius and someone who can do no wrong and was just a victim of circumstances smfdh.

 

[SteelSmack]

So much excuses are being made for this guy. TT, Dion, AB...he's a walking fuckup of high draft picks. The excuses make him out to be some kind of genius and someone who can do no wrong and was just a victim of circumstances smfdh.

Yup, he totally should have drafted Vesely, Thomas Robinson and Otto Porter.

 

[czvo]

I'm not trying to provide excuses. If you want a black and white answer, then Grant messed up.

Just looking at all the factors surrounding the pick.


(I was on the Jonas train during the draft, and I still believe he should have been the pick.... I just think there may have been more to this decision than we know.)

 

[Cavatt]

There was a rumor Gilbert loved Tristan. I dunno if that had anything to do with it or not.

 

[wuck]

That wasn't really the reasoning though. The reasoning was that Jonas' agent was totally unwilling to give the Cavs any commitment that he would come over to play at all. You either cross your fingers and hope you're calling a bluff or you move on to the next guy on your list. Neither is an ideal option, so the Cavs went with the next guy who would join up with Kyrie immediately.

To follow up on Ford, there was similar speculation the night of the draft related to Jonas's agent/management. Some were saying that the Cavs could not get a commitment to have Jonas V come over in 2 years, and then, like magic, the Raptors announced the next day that he was coming over in one year. That was pretty disappointing to have things just work out with the Raptors as if it was fine all along.

Cavs fans would have been impatient to have to wait 1 year but the Cavs could have sold that. To have to wait 2 years (or an indefinite number of years) is asking a whole lot from a fanbase, especially when you want your draft picks to learn together.

I wanted them to draft Jonas then but I didn't think it was a mistake to go in a different direction considering what was whispered about then and confirmed by Ford more recently.

 

[Jack Brickman]

So much excuses are being made for this guy. TT, Dion, AB...he's a walking fuckup of high draft picks. The excuses make him out to be some kind of genius and someone who can do no wrong and was just a victim of circumstances smfdh.

Dion and Tristan are both good players. To say he fucked up by picking either is moronic. Fucking up implies the guys he picked are not good NBA players. Thompson is averaging damn near a double-double and has started to develop a mid-range game, and the Cavs always look better when Dion is on the floor (and this is backed by statistics). Dion is also the guy other teams are supposedly always calling about, so he clearly has value around the league.

Bennett you can absolutely argue right now, although given how terrible the 2013 draft class has been it's hard to say we really missed on anyone we would have actually drafted. And even then it's entirely too early to say the guy is a bust. He might be, but then again, he might not be. We just don't know yet.

 

[Futuredome]

TT is better than JV. Haters can't accept that.

 

[th1]

I think that Cavs maybe didn't want to pay for the club that had rights to JV. That club at the time had very bad problems with money and they wanted to milk as much money out of JV as they could.