Grading The Cleveland Cavaliers Draft Picks Since 2018
kaver faithful welcome on into the Cleveland paulse YouTube channel I’m sure you’ve been on Twitter I’m sure you’ve been on YouTube and you’ve seen draft prospect videos I wanted to do something a little bit different because of where the Cavaliers are at with pick 20 there are a multitude of prospects that could be chosen down there for the needs of the Cavaliers so I didn’t want to put them all together I didn’t want to do Standalone videos I wanted to talk more about the philosophy of this front office what I will be calling the post LeBron front office this is their seventh draft together post LeBron 2018 all the way up until 2024 Alman at the helm with this front office making selections for the future of the organization so we have a sample size here and I know you guys are going to say another video of you just you know going at Kobe Alman the whole time no I’m not a huge fan of the guy that’s just my personal bias I’ll put that out there right up front I know other people have different opinions but what I wanted to do was look at every draft pick individually on a graded scale so 100% is an A+ draft pick spoiler alert I don’t think we have any might be a hot take might not be you guys are going to let me know in the comments on all your opinions on these things so 100% to 55% a complete F I’m going to talk about each individual selection what I gave them as a percentage as a grade why I gave them that grade and then what led to the aggregate score and that is how I will base this front office’s grade for the draft I want to put that into perspective because it gives you guys out there not only my opinion but you could go through the same thought process and say hey is this a credible front office just based on your opinions to be making a good selection at 20 I’m not saying they can’t I’m just saying maybe the numbers you know albeit opinionated tell a different story so like I said 100% to 55% A+ to an F let’s get started here 2018 Colin seon round one pick eight I gave him a 75% flat C didn’t contribute to winning basketball in the Cavaliers was part of a rebuilding process eventually traded for Donovan Mitchell he was a top 10 pick I gave him a 75% and I’ll make sure to keep track of all this and throw Graphics up on the screen and then we’ll talk about the total average aggregate score at the end moving on to the 2019 draft Darius Garland round one pick five so a top five pick to start off the 2019 draft I gave Darius Garland an 80% and I know a lot of people are low on him but a B minus I think is appropriate he’s been an Allstar he’s shown growth throughout his years it’s not simple it’s not easy to you know have hits in the lottery but if you’re also looking at this from a objective standpoint a lot of these draft picks are weighted in the favor of the front office we’ve had a lot of lottery picks we’ve had a lot of first round draft selections so there could be a whole another addition to this system waiting picks more than other picks second round picks versus first round picks versus lottery picks there’s a lot that could go into this this is just the Baseline structure so an 80% for Garland Dylan Windler round one pick 26 F bust 55% first round bust I’ll be at a late bust but 55% 2020 okoro round one pick five another selection in the top five back toback years in the lottery as we all know I gave okoro a 70% and I almost gave him a 65 by the way only went only did buy intervals of five wasn’t going to get into anything more detailed than that 55 up to 100 that’s it not 2.5S not 2.75 none of that so okoro at a 70% mark C minus I think that’s appropriate I think a lot of people would agree on that you expect to get a starter in the lottery I know we’ve tricked ourselves that oh that draft wasn’t very good that draft was not that bad in hindsight three or four years later so you expect to get a starter in the lottery in my opinion sorry if uh you disagree Moy 2021 I gave him a b round one pick three 85% we’ve had only success since we’ve drafted him obviously he’s been a part of the more complete team but young defensive Phenom we’ve seen some offensive flashes I think he’s clearly the best draft selection out of those four that might be a hot take he’s definitely a better pick than sexon okoro there’s probably a handful of people who would argue Garland was a better selection I personally disagree um just because it’s all-around sport to me Garland can score Garland can pass when he’s not turning the ball over and you know Mobley is I’d rather build around Moy than Garland if you if I had to make a decision that’s part of my reasoning there let’s keep it moving the 2022 draft which I still maintain is pretty egregious and just shows how the 2022 draft all gets overwritten this year and and and got overwritten 2023 and so on and so forth we’ll talk about it though oai abaji round one pick 14 another top 15 pick I’m not going to grade him I gave him a not available score na because he never played for the wi and gold part of the Donovan Mitchell trade and uh yeah I don’t think it’s appropriate to rank him as far as how good or bad the front office drafted him if that makes sense so I don’t have him in this aggregate there’s 10 draft picks including him since 2018 since the seon pick there’s been 10 draft selections in the post LeBron era of this Cleveland Cavalier franchise um it’s not like I’m going off two or three guys here and saying oh you know this front office sucks we’re in a double digit sample size onto you know the 2024 NBA draft another first round pick coming up so no score for iagi Khalifa Diop round two pick 39 65% I gave him isaah round two pick 49 I gave him a 70% because he actually has seen big big league minutes he has been in the G league and he did play for us a little bit on the main Squad this season so I have to give him a better grade than Diop and Travers I give him a 65% as well he was the 56th pick of that draft I believe in the second round I still maintained there was no reason to use all three of those picks second round picks are maneuverable in the National Basketball Association Luke Travers will not be seeing the court for us in my opinion Khalifa di will not be seeing the court for for us in my opinion Isaiah Moy will be lucky to have a role ammani Bates who we’ll talk about next will be lucky to have a role if you’re going to keep this roster composition around um you can’t have everyone eat moral the story in uh in the in the NBA um you know it’s not a 50 53 man roster it’s not like the NFL and then wrapping it up here ammani Bates round two pick 49 I also gave him a 70% similar to Isaiah Moy because G League candidate this year played some minutes for the big league Squad not consequential minutes not minutes that made a difference but I have to give them a better score inherently than Travers and deop at the end of the day because they’ve contributed to the big league roster so average all that up take the nine scores that I gave because like I said you subtract a baji didn’t give him a grade never played for us in the in actual you know NBA basketball the aggregate score after you average all nine of those individual scores is a 70.5% which is a c minus so with all that being laid out in my opinion this front office has around a c minus grade for all these selections like I said plenty of first round picks multiple Lottery selections plenty of guys in the top 15 it’s not like they’ve had to manuver with 20th pick every year there’s been Lottery guys in here and honestly there’s been some good luck I know that you have to be a little bit lucky to draft well to build rosters in the NBA no one saying that that’s not the case but mobbly Fallen to us could could have not happened it really couldn’t have somebody could have you know somebody in front of us in that draft could have selected him we could have ended up with somebody else I think we’re extremely fortunate to get him in that draft I think he has the potential to be the best player out of those three from an overall standpoint when you’re talking about Kade Cunningham Jaylen green and then Evan Moy so lot to think about there I want to hear your guys’ scores down below go through and think about every single draft pick who did I miss who did I get wrong as far as do you think Garland should have been looked at an 85 or a 90 maybe you think that some potential has to do into it maybe you give a guy like amanii Bates a higher score because he could provide some sort of need and uh and fill some sort of position for this team I gave Travers and Diop 65s because yeah you know the potential is still there they’re going to be associated with the you know with the organization with the franchise I don’t see them ever playing especially with Bates especially with Craig Porter Jr especially with this 20th overall pick this year still hung up on that draft as you guys can tell that we used all three of those Selections in the second round but yeah seon obviously traded Windler no longer with us but still plenty of guys under control here which is you know at the end of the day what you want with your draft guys that are young that are controllable that you think you could build the future with so to wrap things up here C minus grade for this front office in eight years of drafting 10 selections with the 11th selection on the way at the end of this month let me know how you think I did and make sure you’re hit that like button subscribing throwing your comments down below we’ll see you guys for the next one peace
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4 Comments
I guess I get to be the first one to question your grading system. When you’re doing a draft look-back, you have the ability to compare the actual pick to the field and see if there was another player, or players we could have taken over who we did. For example, 2019 when we took Garland, is there any other player taken after him that if we could go back and time and take instead, we would, and they would have fit us better? What your video did was actually grade the player, not the pick. Like you gave an 80 to Garland, which as a player rating I think is more than fair, but I don’t see a single player taken after him who I would draft over him if we had a redraft, so to me the pick rating should be an A.
I used to be high on Mobley but seeing where he is right now in his development i would definitely build around garland over Mobley… Mobley shows zero leadership qualities minimal offensive skills rebounding is inconsistent and his strongest skillset is defense and i’ve seen other bigs have bigger impact on that side of the ball
What the question really should be is what would Mobley be, or Okoro be at this point, had they had a decent offensive coach? Neither have been consistently put into positions to succeed, not like DG was before Mitchell . Not like Sexton was year one before Garland took over. Leads me to the next issue with Cleveland Cavs org. The CLE front office is bad at developing because the picks never compliment eachother. It seems to elude them, that you don't max a smallish pg, unless you are giving him the keys to the castle. They just flat out maxed DG, then traded the farm for a more accomplished undersized sg, and handed him the keys. Not only that they did this, by trading away a loyal injured small sg , a 1st option 7'er on the wing, they didn't use right, and a load of picks and swaps. They even drafted a wing that was a better 3/d option then they had and traded him as well. But they wouldn't have developed him right either. Mitchell is now the king in CLE, and Mobley never will become what he should have become there. Just trade everyone you drafted Koby, they all underperform compared to the one's that developed somewhere else, somewhere good.
Draft regrades never seem to factor in the team and organizational impact, the more successful players, the Cavs should have drafted were drafted into. There are tons of people thinking SGA should have gone 1st overall. Who is to say he isn't even an allstar, had he still been a Hornet for more than a day or stayed a Clipper? Being in OKC gave him massive favoratism and opportunity to pad it up