A trio of guards — Georgia’s Anthony Edwards, LaMelo Ball and North Carolina’s Cole Anthony — top The Athletic’s Sam Vecenie’s latest draft board. Another guard, 18-year-old Killian Hayes, made the biggest move among the top 20 prospects. Hayes, who is playing in Europe, jumped from No. 16 to No. 7.
We have more from around the basketball world:
- The Nuggets’ Malik Beasley, the Spurs’ Lonnie Walker and the Celtics’ Robert Williams are among five buy-low trade targets for teams seeking to fortify their benches, according to ESPN’s Mike Schmitz.
- Dwight Powell‘s season-ending Achilles injury was not only a major setback for the Mavericks but also Team Canada, Michael Grange of SportsNet Canada notes. Powell was expected to be a foundation piece for Canada’s Olympic push and his size, smarts, and athleticism will be hard to replace, according to Grange.
- Veteran center Willie Reed has signed with the G League and returned to the Salt Lake City Stars, Hoops Rumors’ JD Shaw tweets. Reed, 29, was playing in Greece but parted ways with Olympiacos earlier this month.
What do those 3 guards have in common? None of them (with Edwards a slight exception) are leading their teams to victories. LaMelo can’t win in a minor pro league and UNC is having a major down year. Georgia has a decent record, but they aren’t doing much against good teams. This is not baseball or football, a great player, especially guards at the top of the draft, should be able to almost single-handedly win a lot of games. Good stats are important, but so is winning. Unless you plan on being near the top of the draft a few times.
In fairness Cole Anthony has only played in 9 games and UNC is 6-3 in those
Keep in mind that Cole Anthony has only played in 9 of those games due to injury, and when playing has a 6-3 record.
Yup! Weak draft
If ur a g-league caliber player, you can’t last with Olympiokos.
Why would the Celtics be willing to “sell low” on Robert Williams — if anything they’re anxiously awaiting his return from injury to re-insert him in their own rotation as soon as possible… Unless they were to acquire someone like Drummond and keep either Theis or Kanter while doing so — I don’t see a scenario in which Williams becomes a “sell low” candidate.
I cannot imagine either why the Spurs would trade Loonie Walker IV.
Well in order to improve your team for a playoff run then you have to give up legit assets. So who else would the spurs or celtics trade if they’re interested in an upgrade? So of course Walker an Williams are available for the right price.
The Spurs should be looking to trade DDR or LMA if and when they get any decent chance. A minor upgrade is clearly not going to make them go all the way, so why would they sell a young player with some potential and who is on a friendly rookie contract? This would only hurt them long-term. If you are pursuing an upgrade, just trade DeMarre Carroll (who must be getting bored), Belinelli or any other vet.
The NYKs don’t need another guy to develop who can’t shoot.
I don’t see why the Celtics would desire to trade Williams at all never mind a buy “low “ option if anything they would want to sell High on his potential which is all I coujd possibly see …..it’s different if he has no more minutes or increased numbers in a couple of years from now but I don’t see a buy low point as of yet
If they do trade for a center, then RW would become more expendable, perhaps moved to replace Hayward. True the odds of that are like .5% but the point was the list.
Being on “the list” is a good thing. Lonnie Walker was getting DNPs until December. His on/off rose from minus 25 to plus 7. Silly hairstyle though.