2022 NBA Draft Safari

[MirORich]

 

[adam81king]

I may be the only one excited about what the 2022 Draft may hold. This far out, it looks like there's gonna be more than a few wings with size of all different talents and skills; which I think is the Cavaliers' biggest need still.

I'd love a traditional big wing (6'8+") that can create his own shot, or finish plays created by others. A guy with a profile *like* Paul George would be nice. Thankfully, there currently are several guys like that mocked into the late 1st round. Hopefully the Cavaliers can get the right one for this team.

Anyone folks are keeping tabs on specifically?

 

[I'mWithDan]

Anyone folks are keeping tabs on specifically?

Guys I have heard good things about:

Caleb Houstan
Jabari Smith
Dyson Daniels

Probably most excited to see Daniels initially, since he will make the jump to G-League.

 

[adam81king]

Guys I have heard good things about:

Caleb Houstan
Jabari Smith
Dyson Daniels

Probably most excited to see Daniels initially, since he will make the jump to G-League.

Are those guys you want for the Cavaliers, or just in general?

 

[I'mWithDan]

Are those guys you want for the Cavaliers, or just in general?

To me, they are all potential guys for the Cavs.....but there may be some general disagreement on Daniels.

I love his profile, a multi dimensional guard with size......but if we continue to drive the small guard bandwagon.......he may just not be a guy who is even on our draft board.

Houstan is probably the guy I like most, today, from a skill and roster fit standpoint. True 3. Great size. Elite shooting markers. Quality defender.

Smith is interesting......because I think he is a SF/PF tweener that can develop in to an NBA 3.

 

[sailfish]

Guys I have heard good things about:

Caleb Houstan
Jabari Smith
Dyson Daniels

Probably most excited to see Daniels initially, since he will make the jump to G-League.

Fortunately for the Cavs, there are lots of interesting wings that should be available to them in the 2022 draft. Here are some of the guys I will be keeping a close eye on this year:

Chet Holmgren, 7'0" Gonzaga (Fr.)- uber thin a& uber talented; can he play SF in the NBA?
Jaden Hardy, 6'4" G-League
Jaden Ivey, 6'4" Purdue (So.)
Patrick Baldwin, Jr., 6'9" UW-Milwaukee (Fr.)- decided to play for his father at UWM.
Caleb Houstan, 6'8" Michigan (Fr.)
Jabari Smith, 6'9" Auburn (Fr.)
AJ Griffin, 6'6" Duke (Fr.)- son of Adrian Griffin, the long-time NBA coach.
Ousmane Dieng, 6'9" New Zealand
Peyton Watson, 6'9" UCLA (Fr.)
Dyson Daniels, 6'6" G-League
Bennedict Mathurin, 6'7" Arizona (So.)
Kendall Brown, 6'7" Baylor (Fr.)
Nikola Jovic, 6'10" PF Cibona
Jabari Walker, 6'*" Colorado (So.)

Of the bunch, Harvey, Ivey, & Daniels may be considered more SG's than SF's while Holmgren, Jabari Smith, Jovic, & Walker may be considered more PF's.

 

[pinoycavsfan]

Hope cavs draft holmgren and play him at SG. 4 7footers in the lineup.

 

[Lee]

Hope cavs draft holmgren and play him at SG. 4 7footers in the lineup.

I think Homgren will be 1 or 2 and i doubt we draft that high.

Ivey plays for my Boilermakers. He is super athletic and a legit 6'4 sg with some pg skills. I like his pro prospect, he is another coach's son as his mom is the head coach of ND. But I rather take the best 6'8ish sf we can find.

 

[Sir'Dom Pointer]

@I'mWithDan

You don't like Hardy?

 

[I'mWithDan]

@I'mWithDan

You don't like Hardy?

I feel like I have an aversion for scoring combo guards at this point.

Maybe he will prove me wrong but he seems like more of that archetype and I feel like that isn't a great mix for Mobley. His tape reminds me a lot of Edwards. I watched probably 15 minutes of film on him and I think the only assist I saw was one where he was double teamed and a guy was wide open for a layup.

So it is more of a Cavs-centric view / lens. He is super talented as a scorer.....I would just value shooting and primary / secondary play making more, when looking at the type of players to mix around Evan.

If he proves to have more playmaking skill in the G-League, I might warm up to him more as it pertains to the Cavs.......but he looks like a high end ISO scorer to me, so he would be further down my list currently.

 

[MirORich]

Really eager to see how AJ Griffin looks at Duke. One of the younger guys in the class, very physical, Jimmy Butler style body, and I think he’s grown into SF length over the last 1-2 years. Need to know that he’s a true 6’6” and that his wingspans measurements are accurate but really like him as a player and competitor

 

[NMCav]

If Patrick Baldwin Jr is as good of a shooter as advertised he would catapult near the top of my list. Wish he went to a legit school though. He's going to be playing some scrubs this season.

 

[adam81king]

If Patrick Baldwin Jr is as good of a shooter as advertised he would catapult near the top of my list. Wish he went to a legit school though. He's going to be playing some scrubs this season.

PBJ is my early crush. I think hes the closest to MPJ with his size, shooting and ability to put up big scoring numbers. He's not very athletic, but can score from every level. That type of profile fits well, I think, with Mobley and Allen, and should go well with Garland (who I'm higher on than many in here, it would seem).

 

[Muffinalt]

I'm most intrigued by Griffin, PBJ and Ousmane Dieng coz of the roster need.

But I can't wait to see Banchero either. If everything translates he could be really special.

 

[I'mWithDan]

Finally had the chance to pull some BPM data for the entire draft data base.

Some pretty interesting stuff relative to per 100 possession based production and NBA success. Hoping to get RAPM and a few other single measure stats......but I think BPM is a good single metric to try to litmus test this stuff.

Correlation coefficients between BPM and these various per 100 stats / calculations for the possession era data base of draft prospects.

Honestly, some super interesting results to me. So PDIFF is in that .5-.7 moderately positive correlation range. Not bad at all, since it is a view of all prospects, regardless of draft pick range. Just blindly looking at data and not considering qualitative measures like consensus rank, this does a pretty good job here. Position based measures (PDIFF) fair a touch better than simply a non position based metric like (GS/NET).

(GS/ADJ)....value less scoring, is maybe something I start ignoring relative to the others. Better than most single stat categories but well, well behind the other single metric stats my model spits out.

I think I was most surprised at how there seems to be relatively no correlation between AST/TO, AST and something like BPM production in the NBA.

Also pretty surprised that all the hustle calculations are so good relative to the others. Simply (Hustle) is the easiest one to track (OREB+STL+BLK per 100). The best scoring measure seems to be PPFGA (Point Per FGA), as it incorporates the efficiency with which someone scores.

Just some food for thought but definitely has me thinking about how positional comparison can be tightened here. The next thing I'll probably try to put together would be something like positional metrics based on the more promising ones........ so maybe something like PHUSTLE (Positional Hustle), to see if that pushes that really simple to calculate metric even higher.

Definitely interesting to look at.