2026 NBA draft thread.

[patrickgpe]

I like what Horst did. He took the best player available at 10 and 13, that is a change in his SOP which normally is swing wildly for the fences. Both players are projects, but have potential. 

[jay87shot]

I love Burries, it kind of hints at a Herro trade to me. Rollins, Burries, Jac, and Green at 1/2 is good. Add in Herro and a couple of those guys wont play much.

After watching a little highlights the last 15 minutes or so, I feel better about Ament. He is aggressive getting to the rim and has a smooth looking shot. The draft guys said he could still grow a bit. All that is a little reminiscent of a young Giannis, aggressive, strong character (hopefully work ethic), and physical prowess. We have time to let him develop and Jenkins seems like a good guy to do that.

[patrickgpe]

Both players could have easily gone at 9. Dallas kind of reached (But May knows his guys so I am sure they feel like they didn't). I thought Ament or Burries could have went to Dallas.

[rwa12]

I agree, and the more I think about it, the 13th pick in any draft is far from a sure thing.  Ament may develop.  Time will tell.  They both should get minutes.

[BrewerFan]

46 minutes ago, rwa12 said:

Trade can’t be made official until July 6.  Happens every year.  Sucks that the kids get a picture in another hat.

 

i think Berries is solid.  Love the pick.  He’s a winner.  I fear Ament will be like our last Tennessee reach (Tobias).  He may figure it out, but likely somewhere else.  I’d have rather had Looez as a project.  Hope to eat crow.

Tobias Harris was a really nice pick and I'd be very happy if he turns into him. We just gave up on him... almost immediately. 

Though, I'd obviously prefer to see him become better and I think he's more athletic. 

 

Watching Burries just reminds me of another guy the Bucks technically drafted, Desmond Bane. Two way, physical player. Bane sucked because he's exactly the type of guy who was an ideal fit with Giannis, but... oh well. 

I'm still  totally clueless what this roster will look like. Bill Simmons saying he's heard the Bucks are getting calls on pretty much everyone they acquired from the Heat. 

[LouisEly]

1 hour ago, rwa12 said:

 I fear Ament will be like our last Tennessee reach (Tobias).

Huh?  Tobias Harris has played 15 years in the league and scored over 16,000 points (#23 among active players).  I'll take that at #13 all day long.

[LouisEly]

Assuming they keep both, I like it.  If you're drafting at 10 & 13, you take high upside college freshmen and hope you find the next SG-A.  Both showed something for being true freshmen.  They're far from finished products.

I'm not an advanced basketball metrics guy, but looking at Ament, while he didn't have a great shooting % he was 79% from FT, suggesting he has a decent stroke.  33% from 3 isn't awful for a true freshman big.

[Joseph Zarr]

 

[Joseph Zarr]

Ament had a fantastic 10-11 Game stretch in SEC play where he was really putting it together. Then, bam, he injured his right knee and ankle. He gutted it out and continued to play for his team and maintain a positive presence in the locker room. He was never healthy again in his Freshman season. BUT, in that 10-11 game stretch he shot around 45% from the Field and 40% from 3 and consistently punished defenses inside getting to the FT line where he built that 80% average. I give Him some grace knowing this and knowing he has a very good pedigree, a good head on his shoulders. At 13 I am fine rolling the dice. 

[patrickgpe]

9 hours ago, LouisEly said:

Huh?  Tobias Harris has played 15 years in the league and scored over 16,000 points (#23 among active players).  I'll take that at #13 all day long.

I (think) he is mixed up with Marcus Haslip @rwa12

[CheezWizHed]

9 hours ago, LouisEly said:

Huh?  Tobias Harris has played 15 years in the league and scored over 16,000 points (#23 among active players).  I'll take that at #13 all day long.

I think he was referring to how Harris looked like a bust for the Bucks, but figured it out after they traded him away. 

[TwinsBrewersWorldSeries]

2 hours ago, patrickgpe said:

I (think) he is mixed up with Marcus Haslip @rwa12

Ugh? haslip.  Was Justin Harrell (major packers bust) who was injured a ton in college also a Tennessee guy?

i pretty much dislike any athlete who has ever attended UT

[patrickgpe]

4 minutes ago, TwinsBrewersWorldSeries said:

Ugh? haslip.  Was Justin Harrell (major packers bust) who was injured a ton in college also a Tennessee guy?

i pretty much dislike any athlete who has ever attended UT

well Harrell was a reach by TT. You are probably forgetting that Andrew Fischer and Blake Burke attended Tennessee.

[LouisEly]

13 hours ago, BrewerFan said:

Tobias Harris was a really nice pick and I'd be very happy if he turns into him. We just gave up on him... almost immediately. 

They didn't give up on him.  He started half of the games he played for MIL his second season.  They were bringing him along slowly, giving him some experience/minutes against other team's starters without giving him too much time on the court where his weaknesses were a major impact on the games.  If they gave up on him, he would have only gotten garbage time minutes.

They traded him for Reddick because Scott Skiles was the head coach and ran a guard-oriented offense (because he was a guard as a player) and they thought that they needed another shooting guard to get them over the hump, and they had to give up something to get Reddick.  (They were kind of right - their backup guards were Beno Udrih and Doron Lamb, so they needed a guard off the bench.)

He didn't look like a bust, they didn't give up on him, it was just another one of many bad Bucks trades.

[rwa12]

I was referring to his time with the Bucks.  I had forgotten about Haslip.  Ugh

[BrewerFan]

15 minutes ago, LouisEly said:

They didn't give up on him.  He started half of the games he played for MIL his second season.  They were bringing him along slowly, giving him some experience/minutes against other team's starters without giving him too much time on the court where his weaknesses were a major impact on the games.  If they gave up on him, he would have only gotten garbage time minutes.

They traded him for Reddick because Scott Skiles was the head coach and ran a guard-oriented offense (because he was a guard as a player) and they thought that they needed another shooting guard to get them over the hump, and they had to give up something to get Reddick.  (They were kind of right - their backup guards were Beno Udrih and Doron Lamb, so they needed a guard off the bench.)

He didn't look like a bust, they didn't give up on him, it was just another one of many bad Bucks trades.

He started half the games? He started 14 of 28 games that he played in.
He was also inactive or a Coaches DNP for another 25 games that year.
He averaged 11.6 MPG in those games he played... and then they traded him for a guy who was an upcoming free agent while they were under .500 for a 20-year-old lottery pick in his second year.

And it wasn't on Skiles. Skiles was not the head coach at the time they traded Harris. He was fired about 2 months earlier, he went on to coach Harris and he also said he didn't want Harris traded during his time in Milwaukee. So I think this is some revisionist history putting it on Skiles guard heavy offense.

They gave up on a 20-year-old lottery pick for a free agent to be in order to be a slightly better #7 or #8 seed and Skiles had absolutely no role in it. 

This was the year after the Bucks traded for Ellis instead of Steph incidentally, but that's off topic. 

[LouisEly]

2 minutes ago, BrewerFan said:

He started half the games? He started 14 of 28 games that he played in.

That is exactly half of the games he played in, which is exactly what I said.

And I doubt that Boylan implemented a new system halfway through the season.  Once Boylan was HC coincided with when Harris basically stopped playing, signaling that all Boylan cared about was playing veterans thinking that was the best way to win so that he could put himself in the best position to get hired for the job after the season.  

 

3 minutes ago, BrewerFan said:

They gave up on a 20-year-old lottery pick for a free agent to be in order to be a slightly better #7 or #8 seed

And that was exactly their MO at the time.  If not the coach, certainly the owner.

 

[rwa12]

I'm at my keyboard now, rather than my phone...so I'll give expanded thoughts.

In the lottery, i think you need to draft guys with one distinguished skill, at least.  Burries is a good defender and scorer, I can see his game translating to the NBA.  Ament is the right size.  He's not a finisher, he's not overly athletic, he didn't shoot well.  I know he has pedigree, but I don't see that one loud skill.  Heck, I'd have rather had Reed from UCONN, he can rebound.  Too many of those guys wash out.  No one can predict what he'll be at this point, but his need to improve his body and learn basketball in a short period of time concerns me.

As far as the ceiling/floor argument.  I think most solid teams are built by finding high floor guys.  Super stars are unicorns...Giannis was a lucky find where he was picked.  Typically you find your superstars in the first 5 picks of the draft.  The key is then not wasting picks on chasing unicorns.  It's finding rotation players who can be useful, or be useful trade pieces.  NBA develops at a rate faster than MLB, you don't get years to find yourself.  While there are exceptions to the rule, late bloomers are fairly rare.  In MLB draft I'm much more about high ceiling, you can afford to miss.  It's just too painful to completely miss in the lottery with the NBA.  

Overseas teams are full of tantalizing draft picks.  

I loved the AJJ pick a few years ago, I'm very surprised his game hasn't really translated.  He's the type of guy I'm looking for all the time.

 

[BrewerFan]

1 hour ago, LouisEly said:

That is exactly half of the games he played in, which is exactly what I said.

And I doubt that Boylan implemented a new system halfway through the season.  Once Boylan was HC coincided with when Harris basically stopped playing, signaling that all Boylan cared about was playing veterans thinking that was the best way to win so that he could put himself in the best position to get hired for the job after the season.  

 

And that was exactly their MO at the time.  If not the coach, certainly the owner.

 

Ok, you're one of the more informed posters on here and on a litany of issues, but, I just don't understand this argument. 

You're basically giving me reasons. You said it was because of Skiles. It wasn't. You're giving me the percentage of games that he appeared in that he started, but he only started those 14 games(all to start the season) because of an injury. 

Skiles was pretty clear about his thoughts on Harris, he was talented, he was mature... but he was raw. Which we all knew. 

Also, Boylan becoming HC did NOT coincide with his lack of playing time, Luk Mbah a Moute missed the first 14 games, he started those games, he was up and down.

In December that year he was a healthy scratch in 10 of the 15 games WITH Skiles.
In the games he did play, he got about 5 minutes a game(those few games). So after Mbah a Moute came back, he got nothing but garbage time with Skiles... because he was young and a raw player.


So it wasn't Skiles, and the percentage of games started seems... just totally irrelevant.

 

20-years-old and a lottery pick a season and a half earlier and;

-He didn't play meaningful minutes save for injury.
-He was traded for a vet on sub .500 team for a player on an expiring deal who voiced how he didn't want to be here.
-The coach you blamed wasn't coaching.
-Jim Boylan was NEVER going to be the long term coach, so his style shouldn't have impacted what John Hammond did.

-He played 804 sporadic minutes before being traded(with a big chunk coming due to injury and even then he rarely got 20 MPG).

That's pretty much the definition of "giving up on" a young player.

 

1 hour ago, LouisEly said:

And that was exactly their MO at the time.  If not the coach, certainly the owner.

Ok. I'm still not seeing how that argues they DIDN'T give up on Harris.

You could also point out that in that same year they made a series of moves that were antithetical to that and focused on the future and that led to the Bucks Championship(trading their best player for Middleton and Knight, drafting a player in the B league in Greece who most thought would be stashed).... but either way, I don't see any argument that they didn't just give up on Harris.

Again, you're mostly telling me WHY you think they gave up on him, but they definitely gave up on him. 
https://www.cbssports.com/nba/news/scott-skiles-i-would-not-have-been-for-moving-tobias-harris-from-the-bucks/
 

[Underachiever]

6 hours ago, TwinsBrewersWorldSeries said:

i pretty much dislike any athlete who has ever attended UT

What did Ernie Grunfeld ever do to you?

[patrickgpe]

I thought was a chance the bucks would try to buy a pick in this round, about 1/3 of the way through and nothing. Not even sure what players they would target anyway. I would like a low ceiling senior who can help this year like Kolek did for the Knicks or Brogdon way back in the day. 

[patrickgpe]

Bucks did buy pick #60 from Orlando

[rwa12]

Gotta say, never heard of the 60th pick.  International 3 and D guy.  Maybe a draft and stash

[patrickgpe]

ESPN had him ranked 66 so not really a reach. 6’9 3 and D guy. I never heard of him either but he could be someone to stash and that could be something. Grades that I am seeing are B’s. 

[liveforoctober]

I would love to know what the cost is to buy a pick - whether earlier or later in a rd like this. What do we think MKE buying #60 from Orlando cost us?