Jordan Clarkson Discussion: Sky's the limit!

It's amazing how quickly a team's fortunes can change if they steal some players in the draft or steal one off the waiver wire. (Clarkson/Black)

When the season started it looked like our pick was going to Phoenix (now Philly) and we had to rely on massive moves in free agency to put a team around Randle. Now we have 3 building blocks and the percentages are in our favor that we will land another cornerstone in this draft.

 

All that's true... of Kelly at SF. I'd love to see the splits where he plays PF compared to SF. When he catches the ball from outside I still am reasonably confident he'll make that shot. If he tries to do anything inside the three point line besides dunking or laying the ball up, I agree he's a poor decision maker.

But isn't that the job of the stretch four? To make outside shots? He also is an underrated shot blocker actually when he's playing the four. Playing him out of position all season had me doubting him as well. For a while it looked like his confidence might have been broken, but last night was a clear uptick in his value. If he can do what he did last night for the rest of the season, he's back on my list as a player able to contribute for us as a backup PF.

Let's move that discussion to the Kelly thread though.

 

Rookie Ladder at NBA.com. We have 2 of the 10.

http://www.nba.com/2015/news/featur...3/25/2014-15-rookie-ladder-week-21/index.html

 

And if Randle were around he'd be in there over freaking Bogdanovic. Three of the top 10 players from the draft. Jabari Brown looks like an NBAer. Damn.

Clarkson should be above Nurkic too. I think he's right there with Payton honestly.

 

Clarkson should be #3 or #4, maybe #5 after Mirotic. If he had been starting for maybe a month more, he probably would be. Black at 10 is honestly a little high to me. He's solid, but not a big enough sample size to jump up to 10, imo. Then again, not sure who you can justify putting above him. Galloway from NY?

Not sold on Brown at all. Waaaayyyy to early to tell. But it would be amazing if we walked away from the draft with 3 of the top 15 players in this draft and 2 of the top 6-7.

 

I agree Clarkson would be higher if he'd been playing sooner. You have to take into account Black's performance in Houston too. He started 12 games for them with Coward out and he did well in that time. I can't think of anyone to put over him honestly, so #10 works for me.

I'm not sold on Brown, but he looks good so far. He looks like an NBA player to me, at worst a 3rd string type of guy. He's shown the potential to be a rotation player good for 10-20 solid minutes off the bench. There's time to prove me wrong still, but so far so good.

I think we can honestly leave the 2014 season with a handful of NBA prospects that are under 24 years old. Incredible job by Jim, Mitch, and the rest of the scouting department.

 

I totally agree. Randle/Clarkson/Black...We keep our pick and nail the Houston pick...It'd be crazy to think that the mighty, Free agent destination that is the Lakers ends up building a dynasty through the draft.

 

It's really crazy. People were rightly scared of whether or not we even could build through the draft. Yet here we are doing it and doing it damn well. The last step is getting that Top 5 pick and we've pretty much achieved a rebuild through the draft.

 

One HUGE reason why the ESPN 28th ranking for our FO is pure BSPN. Don't tell me that they can't evaluate talent. Nonsense. The NBA straight out stopped us from getting Chris Paul which hurt us when we did land Dwight Howard. Plus it's a blessing in disguise that Howard the big baby left because he's a knucklehead. They created a CBA that was built to penalize us and openly admitted it. And still even with the bust that was Nash - it turns out that treating him in a classy way as we did has worked in our favor as he is tutoring Clarkson right now and who knows, we might even end up adding him as a coach, never know. That's not bottom of the league FO stuff, period. We have persevered and got two great picks and Clarkson and Randle and a solid pick up previously in Kelly. Plus picking up guys like Sir Duke, Ed Davis, and Black. And getting another first rounder out of Houston for picking up Lin. And grabbing Boozer off the wire. We've done about as well as I could hope to expect given all of the circumstances.

But a LOT rides on this draft pick. We need it to happen. I am still concerned about falling out of the draft if we end up at the 4 spot. It's a whole lot better than the five spot, but I would only sleep easy about it if we were at the 2 or 3 which isn't so likely.

Love Clarkson's development, though. It's been the best thing about this season.

 

He's definitely got a nose for the ball. His activity level is great.

At the start of the season he was out of control a lot. He looked like a chicken missing a noggin. Now though he's calmer, he picks his spots, he channels that energy into positive plays. I really dig this kid.