Welcoming into this show. We've got our guy, Ryan McDonough. We're gonna be asking him some of the inside baseball questions on the draft. I have not spoken ever to Ryan, so I'm happy to meet you. I'm super excited. Former GM the Phoenix Suns spent a decade working for the Boston Celtics, where he was everything from an international scout to assistant GM to my man Danny Trader, Danny Ainge.
Currently our Odyssey Basketball inside. That's where I'm from, Odyssey Basketball Insider cannot wait to ask him a ton of questions. How are you doing, sir.
Hey, Hey, Tristan, I'm doing well.
I want to because there's a lot of people doing mox. I'm not really too interested in debating who's gonna go where or who's the best fit wear. I'm really interested in the process of drafting and just kind of how it all works from someone who's been there and has been there with a bunch of different teams. First and foremost, there's this big debate about team needs versus best available. What is your stance on that and is that a
trend that sort of changes over time? And what are some examples of ways that door one works and doesn't work, and door two works and doesn't work.
Yeah, really good question.
I think the first thing you have to ask as a franchise is if player X in the draft is better, And he probably won't be better immediately, obviously these things take some time. But if he has a chance to be better than anybody on our roster, we should probably draft player X because we can move the other guys on the roster, you know, if he's that good, if he has a chance to be a special, transcendent player.
Now, now there are some arguments the other way.
I mean, one of the things that we get criticized for, and I certainly had some involvement with was deandret and with the number one pick in Phoenix. Thought process at the time organizationally right or wrong. And keep in mind I was fired the following preseason, so there may have been some disagreement.
But was it.
We had a young backcourt star and Devin Booker offensively gifted, you know, struggled a little bit defensively and rebounding. He certainly improved in those areas, but the thought process was devon in the backcourt eight and in the front court. Mckail Bridges, who we later acquired on the wing. You know, people can nitpick, and they certainly have about the Luca donsas versus eight and pick and I understand that and
I take responsibility for that. Obviously, the Suns were in the finals a year ago and won sixty four games.
So that's why so hard Tristan.
That's where I think people on the fan side or even some of the media side, don't realize as much you were picking for a team. You know, you're not just picking in a vacuum individually, and when people will go back and do redrafts and things like that, the context and the roster at the time is important because you know, the reality is once we get in October and training camp starts, you have to hand the coach the ball and say, figure out how to play these
guys and put together a functional team. So you know, generally speaking, it's most talented player you'd want that, but there is some context and nuanced to that as well.
I wasn't planning on asking you this, but I think one of the greatest steals in that draft was mckil bridges. Can you can you give me just a little bit of insight into how that all went down, if outside of what's already kind of been written about.
Yeah, it was a really unusual deal, tristed just because Philadelphia seventy six ers, who had the tenth pick, drafted Bridges with the intention of keeping him.
Yeah, I was there for that was at Barclays.
Okay, and you know mckhill's history and what it was like at Barclay's. His mother worked for the franchise. He won multiple national championships of Villanova. He's a Philadelphia kid, and it seems on paper, at least to me, like a very good fit between Ben Simmons and Joel Embiid. But Philly was big game hunting, I think, and we had a draft pick, a future first round pick that we got in twenty fifteen for Goran Dragics from Miami that was unprotected, and then we had the sixteenth pick
in the twenty eighteen draft as well. So it's a bit unusual because I called Philly's front office we were chasing picks up in that range. Because one of the things that I think people don't talk about enough Christa is there are tiers in gaps in the draft. And what I mean by that is you know, the value of each player to the next is not always even right. Sometimes it is close. Sometimes there's a gap between players. Sometimes there's a gap between tiers of players. So that's
what teams do. It's there's like most teams use a tiering system rather than let's just rank them one to six, year, one hundred or whatever. So with us, we felt the group of players in that late lottery, you know, say eight to fourteen range, we're going to be significantly better than who was available or we thought was going to be avaible to sixteen. So anyways, so long story, relatively short. Philly drafted Bridges. I was on the phone with them,
say is there anything we can do? They said no at the time, and said, okay, we're coming back at sixteen. We like Bridges a lot we'd give you some value. We'd give you sixteen plus and we can discuss what the plus is. But are there players you know, you guys are potentially interested in and they said yeah, one in particular. Obviously they didn't tell us who it was. So fast forward to fourteen fifteen, picking that range, we re engage with them and Zyer Smith, the Ford out
of Texas Tech was still on the board who they liked. Obviously, Zayer's had some injury issues and other health issues that have derailed his career, but that plus the future Miami pick, that was how that deal got done. And this is funny in hindsight, especially given how well mckel's done and how well the team has done Trista. But I wasn't really looking forward to calling the kid his mom who
were excited being in Philly. His mom works for the franchise, and saying, I know you thought you were going to stay at home, but what do you think about heading a couple thousand miles to the southwest and Phoenix.
That's wild. Another thing I think that people are interested in is and I guess the context around it are players like Shaden Sharp players like Jaden Hardy. So two different paths, right. Both of those guys were consensus lottery picks. Shaden doesn't end up playing a minute for Kentucky. Jaden Hardy goes to the G League. Shayden Sharp's kind of like a while card in terms of his draft hasn't
hasn't fell. I mean, we are not really sure. Maybe he's top five, maybe he slips to mid maybe post lottery, but Jayden Harney seems to have fallen off a cliff in terms of consensus draft picks. Should players that are already deemed Patrick Baldwin Junior is another one deemed to be a lottery pick. Is there some sort of debate now in terms of whether they should actually play in college or go to the G League or go the Shade and Sharp path.
Well, I speak from a former executive's perspective. I think they should play somewhere. I think it's one thing to try to manipulate draft stock and you know, potentially hide, you know, things like that.
But at the end of the day, is you know Tristan.
In fact, in just a couple of weeks, they're going to be off on a court in Las Vegas with ESPN and NBA TV and all these groups there, and they're going to have to perform. So I think, especially as a teenager, taking a year off and not playing is not something I would advise.
Now.
I really like what the NBA has done with the JU League Ignite. That was one of my criticisms of the league or things I think the league could have done better earlier instead of letting And I'm going back aways here, but instead of letting Brandon Jennings go play in Italy and Emmanuel Moodier go play in China. Recently, LaMelo Ball go play in Australia. You know a lot of us executives in the league were saying, why don't
we keep these guys here? It's better from a fan and marketing perspective, it's better for the players developmentally, it's easier to recruit and evaluate them, and this is what the players want. Those guys that you know, eighteen nineteen years old didn't want to go live overseas by themselves and things like that. So I bring it up. I think the league's done a terrific job with the G League Ignite. Just look at last year's draft. I believe
they had two of the top seven books. Jalen Green, who I think is going to be a star among the scoring leaders in the NBA someday. And then Jonathan kaminga who you know, talented young developmental player for the Warriors, got some run in the playoffs on the NBA champion and this year Dyson Daniels will be another lottery pick. So I think it's you know, it's good to have options,
you know, shading sharp situation was unique. And the final I guess point I'll make on Shade and trist is that he is the kind of player as an executive that keeps you up at night. And what I mean by that is it scares you to take him because you don't have a body of work, and it also scares you to pass on him because of the talent.
You know he's talented enough.
His highlight film is incredible that that kid can end up being the best pick in the draft. But that's why it's scary and hard to be an executive at this point of be impossible to say either way where his career ends up.
Yeah, and Drey and I would imagine that as a GM job, security makes that decision making tree a little
bit more complex. I'm curious, why do some guys skyrocket after the tournament has has been over and we've gotten through the combine, we've gotten through team workouts, so it seems like nothing's really happened, right, and you got take a guy like Mathrin Matherin was like in the ten that's like eleven to fifteen range and then all of a sudden, now even though he looked awesome at Arizona, went to the tournament, looked good there too, to go
why do some guys fall significantly? And why does some guys skyrocket?
Really good question, and that's one of the things where as evaluators you have to remind yourself and keep going back to the film because see, you know, at the end of the day, the games are a little bit different college or international versus the NBA, but it's still five on five basketball. And after the guy season's over, he's not really playing five on five basketball, he's doing the individually. You know, they do a little five on
five there. But the recent trend, which is unfortunate as the top players don't play there in the five on five action, and then the workouts a lot of them, especially for the top prospects now are individual one on zero. So that's one of the things as an executive you
have to manage expectations. Frankly, it can be really dangerous, especially when the people who don't do this year round, like your coaches, your head coach in particular, if he has a strong voice, strong personality, and your owner, especially see a guy in an individual workout or you know, as you know, trust to anybody in one or workout can look great or look horrible. It's not really reflective of who they are. But they can just have a
great day or horrible day. That's just you know, human nature. So that's why you have to rely on your process. That's why you have to go back to the film and watch them playing games. And then also you know, bake in some of the offseason stuff with the combine with the individual workouts and hope you make the right decision. But to answer your question, that is why. And I always can't get a kick out of when somebody says a guy's stock is rising or falling or this or that. Well,
in reality, it hasn't gone anywhere. Nothing has happened till tomorrow night. It's just you know, you know, media articles and things like that seem to manipulate players up and down. The teams just set their boards probably today as far as who they're going to draft, so and anything that happened before today is I don't say irrelevant, but I think you know, it gets more traction on the media side than it does when you're working for a team.
Wait, so the draft board gets created only the day before the draft.
Usually do it pretty late.
You know, probably the week of the draft, I'd be surprised if any teams did it well before this week because as you look at on the league, teams are still working out players as recently as you know, Monday or Tuesday. I don't think we have any you know, on Wednesdays, we sit here about forty eight hours see me, twenty four hours before the draft. And the NBA does want the players to come to New York earlier now to do the media circuit and be available prior to
Draft night. But yeah, when when I was in Boston, in particular, because the proximity to New York City, the draft is you know, either Madison Square Gardener now the Barclay Center in Brooklyn, we would try to get guys in Wednesday morning, I mean the day before the draft, and say, look, we know you're headed to the Northeast. You know we have to do some recruitment. We love your guy, get him in here. It will be the last workout. We'll take good care of them, we won't
keep them long. We just want to see him one more time and then we'll get them on the shuttle down to New York, you know, to be available for the draft. So that's why teams wait. And then also the medical piece of at the intel. You want to go over that with your trainers, doctors, people like that one more time, tristed, just to make sure, because that's the other thing that keeps you up at night, one of the things as an executive, you draft a guy
who's not medically sound, he breaks down. That's probably one of the quicker ways to get fired if you drafted somebody, especially if you should have known and you didn't do your job as far as knowing whether the guy was medically fit or not.
You mentioned ownership and a bunch of different voices in the room. Can you kind of highlight just what it's like on draft night in a war room, all of the different people that are sounding off and kind of what your experience is like for people who haven't really had insight to that.
Yeah, it's certainly different with different franchises. I did probably ten or eleven drafts in Boston and then five or six in Phoenix. You know, ideally, what you'd want is the top decision makers in the room you're peat of basketball, whether the president or GM his or her, you know, top lieutenants, and then same with the head coach. You know, the top men and women who work under the head coach and then your owner.
And really that's it.
I mean, you don't want a lot of you know, theatrics and things like that. A lot of teams have draft parties in both places, in Boston and Phoenix. Cre did a good job of keeping that separate because you know, you have to concentrate and be prepared to pivot for trades like the one we just discussed from Michel Bridges. You know, you have to be prepared obviously to really do anything. And what I mean by that is you want to move up in the draft? Do you want
to move down in the draft? Do you want to move out of the draft? Do you want to trade the pick for a player? Do you want to trade
the pick for a future pick. You know, all that happens in real time and is fluid, and then you also, even as the draft is going, sometimes have to be prepared in case there's a slider, so to think, you know, a guy you didn't think would be there all of a sudden, you know, gravity sets in, the guy starts coming down, the players nervous as agents calling you, and then you have to kind of go through your process to make sure you're prepared, you know, if he's on
the board when it comes up. So really the most important people generally are the head of basketball, the head coach, and the owner. And you know, the ownership involvement depends on the franchise and how involved they're uninvolved that guy wants to be.
How many or what percentage of NBA teams have extremely a vocal and hands on owners during draft night, I'd.
Say a growing percentage.
Honestly, I think as franchise values escalate and some new money comes into the league, you know a lot of tech and a younger group of owners. I guess I think some you know, talking to guys who have done the job longer.
Than I have.
You know, some of the old guard owners frankly wouldn't come around for draft night. They just you know, get get a call or you send them an email, maybe a fax back in the day. So here are the guys we're looking at. You know, you try to prep them for we might take this guy or that guy. Okay, it sounds good. That is getting you know, less and less standard, I guess, so they're more involved. So that's one of the challenges, you know, from a front office
perspective or a coaching perspective. I think from any job right managing out managing the boss and his expectations. But yeah, I don't think that's a trend that's going anywhere. Let me put it this way. When the average franchise is selling for one and a half to two plus billion dollars and guys right to check at that level, I think they're going to want to continue to be involved.
That's really interesting, especially considering I talk to somebody within the Golden State organization and I asked them and I said, why do you guys consistently draft so well and find value wherever you're at in the board. And they said, well, I think the main reason And they said a lot of people get it confused like that. There are certain teams that don't have great scouting departments or talent evaluation departments.
There's pretty high level of talent evaluation all over the league, but it really is a matter of whether an owner decides they want to allow those decision makers and evaluators to have agency to make those decisions. And they said, you know, Joe Lacob has really given us a lot of agency to make those decisions. What's it like when you know, maybe you see a decision one way and an owner disagrees.
Well, it's a challenge for sure. And I'd reiterate that I've heard the same about Joe lacub. You know, he's an owner, is very involved in the process. Obviously, he's good at his team spin in the finals six of the last eight years and won four championships. And I give him a lot of credit, Triista, because as much as you know any majority on I can think of off the top of my head, he works. I mean, he goes around, he scouts games, he watches films, yet
he loves it. So where you get in trouble you probably see where I'm going with this, but is where you get in trouble is when a guy does not do all that and bases it off of you know, pre draft workouts or highlight tapes or things like that, and thinks he knows, well, ultimately he's the boss, so does he know you know?
And so it's hard.
I think, like anybody, when you disagree with you know somebody you're working for, you need to be persistent and make your points and be respectful, but also know when to relent right, because ultimately, you know, at the end of the day, unless you own a company or you're you're the CEO or whatever, you work for somebody, so you have to, you know, pick your spots. You hope that the relationship you built up and the process you
have is sound. Maybe if you have a track record of success doing something, you can fall back onto that. But yeah, I think anybody who's disagreed with the boss, you know, goes through the same calculation. When do I push, how hard do I push? And when I realize it's not going to go my way or not likely to go my way? I do I let go of the rope and relent, even if I don't agree with the ultimate decision.
I don't know if this happens at all, But when I disagree with someone for whatever decision, if I'm in a collaboration or I'm working for someone and I allow them to be the one and it does not work out or vice versa, it's pretty hard to not be like, well, you see, like Frank Kaminski really probably shouldn't have gone like whatever the what was he thirteen twelve?
Maybe I say no so quickly because I know who was the thirteenth pick in the twenty fifteen Oh yeah it was Devin.
Booker wasn't here, so I think he came. I think Frank Kaminsky ended up going right before Devin Booker, didn't he I.
Think Frank went ninth or tenth. Yeah, night change, maybe eleven. The direct pick before Devin was his college teammate Trey Lyles with the Utah Jazz.
And this is why it's so hard.
I mean, Dennis Lindsay and staff did a phenomenal job of building the Jazz when he was there. They drafted Donovan Mitchell in the late lottery and Gobert in the late first round. They had also drafted Rodney Hood, who played well at the time, you know, late teens, early twenties there, so they had a perimeter heavy team. They wanted a frontcourt guy. They went with Lyles over Booker
in a vacuum. That pick doesn't look great, but then you look at the totality of their draft, like, yeah, Utah, you know, they've been one of the best teams the league last few years.
So that's why the job is hard.
Tristan And obviously one of the frustrations, as you can imagine, and players get this too, But as an executive, as a head coach, you know, for certain members of fans of particular, certain members of the media, just picking a mistake, you know, picking a mistake rather than looking at the totality of it and.
Saying, Okay, it's a hard job.
And nobody, literally, whether you're Red Hourback or Jerry West, Everybody's going to make mistakes. You know, the guys who do it better make fewer mistakes and adjust to their mistakes quicker than everybody else.
So I heard this story yesterday, and I believe it was Mark Stein talking about the Dirk the Dirk draft pick, and he was talking to the Mavericks organization and asked him how Dirk did, and they basically said that that Dirk had a horrible workout and that this other I forget who it was really excelled. And you know, it was disappointing because they liked Dirk and all of this.
Obviously they end up loving Dirk. That was complete lie and Dallas the Mavericks organization said to Mark, don't listen to us at all before draft because it's all lies. Can you talk a little bit about the whole disinformation campaign that goes on pre draft from team to team in the media. How you know how front offices use media to sort of like take you off the scent and who's the best at it in the league right now?
Yeah, all really good questions. Trist to look at it this way. If you work for a team, why would you want anybody to know what you're doing? Right, You wouldn't want anybody to know what you're doing because there goes your competitive advantage.
And in this draft.
That's coming tomorrow night, I think the Orlando Magic have done a good job injecting some uncertainty into the process. I mean, most people think they're going to take Jabari Smith, the forward out of Auburn. I think that's who they take. I wouldn't be shocked if they take you at home Gren personally. Now, we've seen on the betting markets, and I know, obviously given your multiple gigs with Odyssey for all the betting markets closely, Pollo Bencerro is skyrocket and
he was a distant third on the betting markets. Now he's moved up just behind ched Holmgren and into that number three slot, close to number two. So I mean they're doing a good job of that now we'll see. Ultimately, all that matters to the franchise is whether they draft
the right guy and how he develops. But yeah, if you're Orlando, for example, you want people thinking you could take any of those three guys or maybe even Jade and Ivy, because if a team falls in love with a player, you don't want them to say, Okay, well we know Orlando's going to take Jabari Smith for example. Now let's just talk to Oklahoma City at two and try to trade for two because we know who wanted to. You know, you want all your options to be open.
So that's why it happens. And yeah, the disinformation, it's easy on the team side the spot a lot of times because when you see stuff about your own team, you say, well that's not true. You know, you know obviously when you're living it, when you're doing it. And so what I would say, just from a general perspective and free fans is consider the sources, right, I mean, some of the NBA's top newsbreakers. You and I know a lot of them. But Vadrimorrzanowski, Chamserrani, as some of
these guys say, it's probably pretty legitimate. If it's some guy with an egg with six followers on Twitter, you probably don't want to listen to that person if it is a person and not a bot.
So that's the challenge.
You know.
Teams will use it to throw, you know, throw out smoke screens. Agents will use it to try to as you talked about players rising or falling, especially, try to spike their guys value right before draft time and prevent a free fall on the other side of it. So as far as teams, honestly, I think just about every team does it. And then, you know, one of the
new trends is interesting. I guess this is more related to free agency, but I was thinking of today is one of the things we're seeing now trista is teams using the media to set the expectations for free agency.
Right.
So it's for example, a recent example in the last twenty four hours, PJ. Tucker opts out in Miami with the Heat. We see that the Philadelphia seventy six ers will offer PJ. Tucker a three year, thirty million dollars deal and that the Miami Heat better be prepared to you know, pay that amount.
So that's kind of.
The wide Yes, that's got to be coming from the agent side, right, I think it's both.
Honestly, I think a lot of it probably is the agent side. You know, he's doing what's best rist player, that's his job, But a lot of it's the team side too, where if you're a PJ. Tucker, so I didn't know that team was interested and at that level, let me start, I was thinking about maybe re signing in Miami. You know, comfortable here, we just went to the Eastern Conference Finals, almost played in the NBA Finals at South Beach, no state income tax, all those kinds
of things. But Philly is interested whether they have James Harden and Joel Embiid and you know, so that's kind of the way the game is played now, as Draymond calls it the new media, and I don't think that's a trend that's going to change, not only with players, you know, doing media like Draymond and CJ McCollum, but with teams and agents and even players leaking stuff to try to manipulate situations the way they wanted to go.
What percentage of what we've seen rumor wise, specifically this year, considering it's a very wide open draft, would you consider to be.
False more than half you know, you know, I think you know a lot more than half because you know, honestly, one of the things that is funny with NBA teams is they'll spend just about all their time talking about what every single other team's going to do.
And then you know, and you ask somebody, what are you guys going to do, it's.
Well, you know, I'm not sure, you know, because because there's no reason to tell another team what you're going to do, you know, So so I think that perpetuates it. You know, where kids like the game telephone where you tell the person next to you and then they tell the next person and by the time it got to the end of the line, the message was kind of similar,
but like pretty different. That's kind of like the NBA where you know, you hear this team is interested in this guy or may do this, and and then it gets you know, parroted and maybe changed and tweaked a little bit, and by the time sometimes it hits the media or it gets back to you say, wait a minute, that's not what It's kind of like what I heard, but different. So there is a lot of that in NBA front offices, and that's why I think in some ways. Honestly, it's a little bit of a waste of time to
do all that. If you're an NBA executive or with a team, just you know, focus on what you're doing, the draft, the film, the trades. Don't worry about it, you know, and just rely on your direct conversation with other teams rather than what you read on Twitter some of these NBA gossip sites.
If we're betting on the NBA draft, if you're in a state where you can bet, does it make sense to look at kind of the past decision making lens of an organization in terms of how they like to draft, how they like to construct a roster, in terms of
how they may actually select. A good example that I guess I could use is like there's a lot of chatter around Toronto last year taking Jalen Sugs, but when you look at Massi Usieri and what he likes to do, he likes to get these six six to six ten guys that can switch everything, that can also handle the ball with exception obviously to Fred van Fleet, which makes the Scottie Barnes pick make more sense.
Yeah, really good question, And so I don't want to say disregard what I said up until this point, but if there is a time, especially if you're betting it to rely on NBA insiders, you know, you know, the elite NBA insiders news breakers, it is in the next twenty four hours from now up until the draft. Because that was one of the things that that I got,
you know, for Odyssey. I think it was in twenty twenty the draft that they were going to take the Chicago Bulls were going to take Patrick Williams with the fourth pick.
I had a number of.
People tell me that I think you would have gotten good value there on the betting markets because he was not a projected top four pick. So I say, you know, pay attention to some of that, like now you know, the other three hundred and sixty three or four days it's less relevant. But generally the mock drafts, especially Jonathan Givoni runs one for ESPN, are pretty accurate close to
the draft, so I would pay attention to those. And then yet to your point, the team history, I'll give you another example that's you know, probably to me, the most interesting thing in the draft tomorrow night is the Sacramento Kings at four. They they have the Aaron Fox and the roster max player. They drafted Davion Mitchell a year ago, which was controversial because at that time they had Tyres Haliburton on the roster. They traded Haliburton obviously for Sabonis with Indiana.
Will they do it again? Will they draft Jay and Ivy again?
He's the best player on the board in my opinion, maybe the best player to come out of this draft. I wouldn't be surprised, but I think there's maybe some value in a if you can get those kind of odds. I don't know if you can't trust it, but like Jade and Ivy with the fourth pick, not necessarily jayd
and I two second. You know, with the fourth pick, I think there's probably some good value there because I think he probably does go number four, whether that's Sacramento or another team swooping in by a trade.
You are an international scout. I just watched The Hustle with Adam Sandler, so I have a new found appreciation for all the miles that you've logged in your life, and all of the room service and places you've woken up and you don't even know where you are. I am curious, based on your international experience, how places and regions and styles of play go in and out of style. You talk about a bunch of NBL guys or guys from Australia in general, like Gidey that have ripped things
up early, you know, made an immediate impact. How does that that impact other like decision makings and how other players from that area and how teams evaluate them.
Yeah, it's a great question, and I think if you go back thirty years, what the Dream Team started is really powerful and impactful. And you see that as an international scout. In fact, you know, look at the recent award winners in the NBA, you know, two time MVP now Nikola Jokic from Serbia. Before that, Yannis you know, born in Nigeria, raised in Greece, maybe the best young player in the league, Luka Donsich from Slovenia. Pascal Siakam.
I believe he recently won Most Improved Player from Cameroon. So it really is a worldwide game, you know, globally. We've talked about Dirk on this show. We could talk about you know, Yao Ming and other international players over the last couple of decades as well. So I think that's a good thing for the League. And I think, you know, one of the ways honestly that you see the rest of the world catching up to the USA and why it's so important to scout internationally is just watch Team USA play.
This is not you know.
Bird and Jordan and Magic and those guys beating Angola by one hundred points in the nineteen ninety two. Know, these these international countries, A lot of the top ones are pretty good. You know, you watch Spain or you know some of the top international teams. They really pushed the American guys. So I think, you know, that'll continue. I think the next region, honestly that that the NBA is invested in it is Africa. You know where they
have the Basketball Africa League. You know a lot of times that most of the time historically the top African players like Serge Ibaka for example, of left they played in Europe and then they come over to the US. So the NBA is really trying to develop the African continent. But yeah, if you're in that role, you're in the Adam Sandler international scouting role, you better have your passport ready with the extra pages in that book to get
you know, more stamps. You better get a lot of frequent flyer miles, because it's not like you're just scouting the US or just going to Europe like you could in the past. You're probably going to you know, Oceania they call it New Zealand, Australia, Asia, and then probably sometime in the future you going to Africa as well.
My lord, I want to talk a little bit about and I know you got to get out of here, but I got like three more about teams that are looking to like trade their picks and they need immediate impact guys, a current role player. I'm thinking about Portland specifically, have promised Dame that they're going to retool. A lot of chatter about them trading that pick to get og and Nnobi or John Collins, and the disinformation campaign now is alive and well that they're going to keep that
seven pick. Help me understand why a team would go one direction, We're going to trade the pick and get a current role player that's you know, we need to win now, and then they do an about face and they keep that pick.
I think because Trista, ultimately, as an executive, your job for the franchise is to do what's best given what's available. Right you can want to do whatever. I mean, every executive the league would love to put together, you know, a super team of all stars at every position.
That's obviously not realistic.
But you know, a lot of times, like in life, you only make the decisions are in front of you. You can't force something that's not there. So I think Portland probably does want to trade the number seven pick. It seems like they have told Damian Lillard to your point that you know, this is not.
Going to be a long drawn out rebuild.
He's in his thirties now, he's made a ton of money, he's an All NBA player, He's going to the Hall of Fame someday. He doesn't have the patience for that, nor to be prudent for the Trailblazers to keep Lillard in a Blazer's uniforms. They're going to do that, you know, makes sense to get young players and draft picks and things like that. So that's but the challenge is, you know, you don't want to trade the seventh pick for just whatever, you know, you know, for anybody, if he's not going
to impact winning. You know, the other school of thought is, okay, you know, we'd prefer to trade the pick. I imagine the Blazers have a list of players they would trade to pick four. But if you can't get one of those players, you know, then let's try to draft the best available guy we can. Maybe he shows out in summer League and builds value there and we could trade him, you know, later this summer, even into the season next year.
Keep in mind, the trade deadlines not till February, so those are decisions that take place, and you know, on draft, that's where the best executive, the best teams are flexible. I think one of the best recent examples of that is Golden State and the maneuvering they did with D'Angelo Russell first and then with Andrew Wiggins in the pick.
You know, I don't think that was something that they necessarily could have predicted in advance, but they gave themselves that optionality and flexibility, and it culminated in Wigans being maybe the second best player on the team that just won the championship.
Yeah, that was a wild turn of events man for him to turn into mapele Jordan after being somewhat disappointing in Minnesota. It goes to show you that, you know, Steve Kerr said that you know any that the majority of NBA players could be impact players if they were in the right situation. Do you think that's true.
It's not something that we discuss enough situation, role fit. And what I would say Trista is they're only a handful of guys in the NBA that, in my opinion, are that one a alpha guy that you know, you hang on the marquee, you sell tickets, they you know, people come visiting, fans come to see that guy play. There aren't many of those guys. There certainly aren't thirty of them. And so if you're Andrew Wiggins, who is you know is backstory son of Mitchell Wiggins, former NBA player,
one of the anointed ones. From a young teenager, this kid was the number one player and potential NBA star. It's hard to live up to that pressure in those expectations, especially when you are drafted number one by Cleveland and then traded, you know, for Kevin Love to Minnesota and the Timberwolves and their fans expect that. So I just think of it from Wiggins perspective, going from the guy who's expected to be the guy in lead Minnesota championships
and obviously the Timberwolves are well short of that. He gets traded, you know, as a quote unquote disappointment in the eyes of a lot of people to Golden State. In fact, and if you know, I'm not saying that's pick on Wiggins, but keep in mind that Minnesota threw in a pick that ended up being Jonathan Comenda, the seventh pick in the draft along with Wiggins. Gives you an idea of his value at the time. To now, he's the fourth guy in Goldens He's not the guy anymore.
That's we know of that is that's Steph Curry, the best shooter in the history of the game. But they also have Draymond Green and Clay Thompson who are also head of the Hall of Fame some day. So now Wiggins can just be himself. He can just play his role. He's not the focal point. He's not the guy that everybody in the media and the fans wants to hear from.
He's not the center of the defense of game plan.
In effect, is probably not even the second or maybe it's probably the third guy in the game plan when you're playing against Golden State and he strived, you know, so I think.
That's what Kurr is referring to in his situation.
It is opportunity and the teams that usually win have that, you know, one a alpha guy at the top, and then everybody falls in line beyond behind him.
I think one of the most complicated evaluation decisions I guess of this draft seems to be Chet. Right, Chet Holmgrin from Gonzaga seven footer, elite shooter, elite shot creator, elite passer, defender, really good shot blocker, probably one of the most unique Unicorn type players that we've seen. So they say right, but he's one hundred and ninety five pounds,
has all the tools. My guess. My question to you is do you think that Chet's frame can functionally work at the NBA level with this full toolbox of skills if he does not put on another pound, No.
He needs to add weigh and this is why one of the reasons why the job is so hard. I think, at least in my opinion, clearly chet Holmgan has the most upside of any player in this draft with his size, his length, is shooting potential, his shot blocking. I think he blocked three and a half shots a game bag in twenty six minutes. You know, he can be a unicorn, but is he going to be healthy? Is he is he going to make it? So to speak?
And we've seen guys with unusual bodies.
You know, I don't want to scare anybody's fishing Orlando Magic fans, but Greg Odin wrote down, you know, recently, there's some questions, I think valid questions about Chris steps Sporzingis and his long term health. You know, it's just checking to be one of those guys, or is he going to have a successful ten or fifteen year career. And honestly, Trista, that's part of the reason the job is so hard that as an executive, you really have to rely on your medical staff, your doctors and trainers
or scientists. I imagine the Magic in particular probably Okay, see as well has put Home Run through a battery of tests and gotten his medical information and dissected it. And really it's like anything else, it's a projection. Is this guy going to hold up? Is there anything chronically wrong with him? And then it's you know, it's like building a house with his frame. How much can you add to it before it potentially crumbles or falls apart? Yeah,
so I think those are legitimate questions. Let me put it this way, I think if chet Holmgren's body were solid like, he'd be the number one pick for sure. But I think that is a legitimate question and a reason why you may see Tubori Smith go off the board if Orlando doesn't want to take that risk.
Last last question about Jade and Ivy. For him, I
guess on what I've read to what I've seen. What I've read is that he has a ton of skills physically right and very explosive athlete, but the one question mark is his decision making ability, and a bet on him is really truly a bet on whether you can develop him into being this really good decision maker, a playmaker, and five the ability to drive and kick well right, He's made some pretty bad shots in the tournament, kind of taking bad twos and threes when he can make
the open look. So I guess the question is how do teams evaluate on the front end whether a player you can do that with them, and whether they're they're capable of getting better on the IQ and decision making side.
Yeah, a lot of.
It's the in person scouting and the film work, you know, you really want to get technical and break it down, especially the pick and rolls is you know, that's such an important part of today's NBA game. And then there's decision making. And one of the things we did when I was jam with the Suns is when we met with players, we would pull film clips of their games and then have them talk us through what they saw, what they were thinking. You know, obviously there's some good
plays mixed into some bad plays. You want to see how a player thinks the game and how he talks through it. And then you also, frankly have to evaluate the whole roster and the coaching staff and things like that as well, because if a player was used a certain way before gating the NBA, but you're not going to use them that way. Keep in mind you, as you know trist especially compared to Big Ten basketball at Purdue with Ivy, the NBA game can be faster, it
can be more open. It's actually less physical. I think that's more intuitive to some people, but there's less contact on the ball handler. So that's part of the reason I'm a fan of Jade and Ivy. I really like the kids potential. I think with the NBA now with hand checking basically disallowed, where as a defender you can't really put your hands on a guy. I think it's going to be really hard for people to stay in front of that kid. And that's why, you know, I
see shades of John Morant. You're right, the decision making has to improve. I see flashes of a young John Wall. He just moves at a different speed with the ball. And given his background too, keep in mind his mother and Yale was an excellent player coach with the Grizzlies, now the head coach in Notre Dame. This kid's you know, comes from an athletic family and a basketball family, and watching him play and seeing him interview, he seems like a pretty sharp guy. So for me, just from Afar,
I think he'll be able to figure it out. I think he has a lot of things you can't teach, and he seems certainly smart enough and willing to learn the things you can't teach.
As an NBA team follow Is.
That what you saw with Devin Devin Booker some similarities? Yeah?
Yeah, obviously, you know Devin didn't have the freaky athleticism, he had the beautiful shot. I think we stood out to us more than anything, Christa was a competitiveness. I mean, we saw the shooting at Kentucky, but then when we brought him into our gym for a free draft workout, the hyper competitiveness. He didn't want to lose a drill.
Nobody could stop him. And then when we did some two on two or three on three in particular, you saw some of the ball handling and playmaking that if you go back and watch the high school film, it was there, but that was not his role at Kentucky. So that's part of the reason the job is hard. Right, If you just watched him with the wild kiats, you said, well, he's an excellent catch and shoot player. What else can he do? Well, it was first team All NBA guy.
He can do a lot, but that wasn't obvious at the time. Really, that pre draft process helped to solidify that he was the guy, and luckily he was there at thirteen in the twenty fifteen draft.
Yeah, it's interesting how situations sometimes can throw teams off the scent. I think Duke is really good at hiding players to what they can be. I think Powell could be a start, just was kind of used in a different way then maybe he'll be used in the NBA, but awesome stuff. Thank you so much for joining us. I appreciate you giving me a plethora a swath of your very valuable time. I hope we can do it again.
Soon anytime, Tristan. Always great to be on with you.
Thanks so much. Appreciate that that was Ryan McDonough, former GM of the Phoenix Suns, assistant GM of the Celtics, former international scout, current Odyssey, NBA and Basketball Insider. Awesome stuff like I'm going to go back and listen to that and listen some more. So I'm really happy that he gave us his time. I actually am out of time. I got to run as well. I'll give you guys some more post draft insight, quick wildcards, things that I
think might or may not happen. I still have some things I want to say about Pat Baldwin and Shaden Sharp and Jeremy Soshan and some others. But thank you to our guest, Ryan McDonough. He was very generous with his time. I'll find us on the podcast. You want to listen to that back worrire Iver, you get them. That's the heat check. That is all the time that we have for heat Check moving back Friday with a
live episode recapping all the draft news. Follow us from heat Check as the season comes to an end in free agency begins. You do not forget to download subscribe. Tell your friends, every single one of them. Please follow us on social at at this heat Check and at Trista Crick on Tiptop