Ranking Atlanta Hawks first round NBA Draft picks, Trae Young vs. Patrick Beverley, and more

Ranking Atlanta Hawks first round NBA Draft picks, Trae Young vs. Patrick Beverley, and more

On today’s show, Kobe Buffkin is out the door in Atlanta and we rank the entire Tony wrestler era when it comes to first round draft picks and how effective they were. Plus, a little bit on Trey Young versus Patrick Beverly and more. And it’s coming up right now. You are Locked On Hawks, your daily Atlanta Hawks podcast, part of the Locked On podcast network. Your team every day. Hello friends, welcome to episode 2058 of the Lock on Hawks podcast. I am your host Brad Roland coming to you on a Thursday evening here in midepptember and I want to encourage you at the top of the show to make Locked on Hawks your first listen each and every day. Check us out and subscribe to the podcast anywhere you get your podcast that includes Apple and Spotify. We are also on YouTube so please comment, like the show as you’re watching it and importantly tell your friends about the show. We are diving into our fourth show of the week and we are back to our regular inseason cadence with five shows per week on this podcast and plenty to discuss today. Most of the show will be diving into the draft pick player rankings basically for the entire Tony wrestler era. How good have the Hawks been at making their first round picks? Who’s been the best? Who’s been the worst? And we’ll get all that in a second. First though, a little bit of I’m not sure it’s news, but it’s something. I know there was a little bit of discussion and people were asking me. I think probably tongue and cheek if I was going to do an emergency podcast about the Trey Young Patrick Beverly beef that’s been unfolding. Uh I’ll say this at the at the top of this. This is not really the beat that I am on. Um mostly I would say the vast majority of things that we cover on this podcast have to do with the actual Encore product and things that impact the Encore product. This is neither of those things. So that is why I’m a little this probably be a short little segment on this, but still things to uh answer that people were asking about. So I know that kind of maybe began or something with a tweet where Trey told Beverly to relax about a conversation about Allstars. By the way, just Google this if you want more information. Patrick Beverly, former NBA player, has been saying some things about Trey and then Trey responded. But basically, Beverly kicked it into high gear with a bunch of comments about Troy on his podcast using the tired, I would say, outdated and inaccurate line of questioning about how people don’t want to play with Trey and all that stuff about his lack of winning, whatever, whatever. Honestly, kind of the usual nonsense that I ignore 99% of the time. Um, perhaps the most outrageous part of it to me anyway was the following quote. Quote, I don’t think he’s won enough to even speak to me. End quote. from Beverly towards Trey, which like come on. Uh Patrick Beverly had a nice career, but no one should talk like that, including anybody basically, but especially not a non-s superstar player regardless. Um it’s not the attitude that I would have have in my life. Um Trey though did a 12 minute video about this, which certainly is a lot. And he went after Beverly pretty good. Uh people keep asking me to wait in on this again. Uh, it might have been better for Trey to like let it ride a little bit and not respond, but I also understand it because Beverly went very hard in his comments and said some pretty ridiculous things. So, I definitely understand why Trey would want to answer some of that in a public form. I thought Pat Bev was like very ridiculous as on this one. I think a lot of former players say crazy things honestly and I usually ignore it. Ends up on like on like NBA Central or Legion Hoops or some of those aggregator websites. I tend to just kind of let it go buy on my timeline and not really comment or think about it. This one got to me because it’s a Hawks thing, of course, and I follow Trey on Twitter, so I saw the video firsthand from Trey. But long story short, does this actually matter? I don’t think so. I again cover the Encore stuff and the stuff that actually impacts basketball. This is not one of those things, but people are asking, so I just want to talk about it quickly at the top of this. And also earlier today on Thursday, the Hawks official Twitter account, which is ATL Hawks, put out a video highlight package with no like caption of Trey going after and cooking basically Pat Bev in various Hawks clips. So fans will enjoy watching that. Um, but no, I don’t have a grand take on this. Um, I I think it’s silly. I think Beverly kicked it up too many notches with what he said. Trey responded, “I get why he did.” And hopefully that’s the end of that and have to come up again at the end of this. Um, that’s really the only thing that’s like newsy right now. We will probably do a mailbag later on either this week or next week about some other, you know, nuts and bolts, roster stuff, answer some questions, etc. But I got a question that kind of informs the rest of this episode. And it’s kind of a deeper dive. It’s a mailbag, but it’s certainly it’s a one topic mailbag and a deeper look at something. So, this actually came a couple weeks ago from Jason who says, “How would you rank the first round draft picks by the Hawks in the Tony wrestler era?” So, great question here from Jason. A good offseason topic for sure. Um, first, let’s define the Tony wrestler era. He is, of course, the majority owner of the Hawks, or the governor of the Hawks, um, and has been since 2015. Technically, the sale of the team to wrestler was announced literally on the day of the 2015 NBA draft, but the Hawks infamously, in my opinion, traded their first round pick for Timar Jr. that year in a move that I absolutely hated at the time and went crazy about, but that was technically pre- wrestler. So, I won’t include that on this one. Plus, they didn’t actually pick anybody that year. They traded the pick. So, the really the wrestler era for draft picks in this question begins in 2016. So, the Hawks have made in that time over 11 drafts, sorry, 10 drafts. The Hawks have made 14 first round picks. So, that’s the universe that we are ranking on this question from Jason. And just to read them off quickly in order of chronological, uh, in 2016, they drafted Torian Prince at 12 overall and DeAndre Benry at number 21 overall. In 2017, they drafted John Collins at number 19 overall in that draft. In 2018, they made three picks. Trey Young at number five, Kevin Herurder at number 19, and Amari Spellelman at number 30 in that draft. In 2019, DeAndre Hunter at number four after the trade of course, and then Cam Reddish at number 10. Then in 2020, Nick Kongu at number six. 2021, Jaylen Johnson at number 20 overall in that draft. 2022, it was AJ Griffin at 16. 2023, Kobe Buffkin at 15. 2024, Zachary Rishet at, of course, number one overall in that draft. And then this past June, they drafted Asa Newell at number 23 overall after the trade with the Pelicans. So that’s a whole tea up, but the Hawks have made 14 picks. That’s actually a lot of picks to kind of go through and rank here. And as a note before we dive into actually trying to put these in order, I’m not going to try to include the trades as part of this because it’s actually just really tricky to kind of weigh like how you would do that. For some background, they’ve made three pretty big trades in the first round over this time period. Uh, one of them was the was the DeAndre Hunter trade. That’s one that I absolutely hated and and lamb based on the podcast. If you’re a listener for a long time, you will know that um when it happened, I didn’t like it. And by the way, it wasn’t because I didn’t like Hunter. I actually had Hunter as a top five guy in that class, but it was a vast overpay. It ended up being a vast overpay. It was a bad value deal. All that. Um, I also did not like the Trey Young Luka Dante trade at the time. Now, the pure value calculation on that deal was more reasonable and better for Atlanta. and that they got a top 10 pick out of it the next season, but that didn’t work out for them. Anyway, Trey is still an awesome player, all that stuff. But those are the two biggest ones. And then maybe this last one will be joining that those ranks when they uh the one in 2025. I absolutely loved and have praised all summer. If you missed it, I had Shamadua on the podcast about a week ago talking about the New Orleans side of things, some reporting there and kind of previewing the Pelican season. But long story short, uh that is has the potential to be an absolute grand slam trade. With that said, those three deals are put to the side. I’m going to include Trey where he was drafted. I’m going to include Hunter when he was draft where he was drafted and even Ace Newell where he was drafted. Just so everybody knows that. I will admit that. By the way, the list already changed. I did the prep on this last week and of course, if you have been under a rock, the Hawks traded Kobe Buffin only a few days ago and that impacts this ranking a little bit as well. We’ll get into how how I did that, why I did it. I’ll try to explain all the picks um because they’re not just like the best player finishes number one. There’s there’s it matters where you were drafted. It matters how a lot of different things went. So, we’ll get into all of that. I promise you we’ll dive into the list in reverse order in just one moment. A lot of people can’t name their federal accounts or even what they are worth, whether it’s 401ks, properties, or investments. If you don’t have the actual full picture in your own life, you leave money on the table. You don’t want to do that. And that is why there is Monarch Money. It’s the all-in-one personal finance field that brings your financial life together in one clean, easy to use interface, either on your laptop or on your phone. And Monarch Money is built for people with busy lives like myself. If you’ve been putting off organizing your own finances, Monarch is definitely for you. They do the heavily for you at Monarch Money. You can click all of your accounts in minutes, see clear data visuals, get smart conversations of your spending, and finally feel in control of your money without ever touching a spreadsheet yourself. 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Now, I do understand and honestly would preach myself that the baseline number 30 overall is different than a lottery pick or even a pick in the 20s. I get that. that has to be mentioned, emphasized, and I actually understand why people might not have Spellman dead last. But this particular pick had everything, and that’s why it’s last. For one, I absolutely hated this pick in real time. And there is evidence of that in my written work, in my podcast work. It was baffling to me. I hated the pick from the moment it happened. I had Spellelman in the 50s on my board in that draft. It didn’t work out either, but even I was pretty angry about that one. It also worked out so badly for the Hawks that the Hawks traded him about 13 months after he was picked. He went to summer league after his rookie year and was like comically overweight and he was traded to Golden State and then out of the league completely what about one more year later. So after two years he was just gone and never to return to the NBA at least so far. And again, I always preach this. I’ll say it again later on the podcast about other players. Expectations matter with where a player is picked and keeping projections reasonable for rookies and then even for careers with where you’re picked is usually a good idea, but it was such an insane pick when it happened and it also went so badly after it was after it happened that I still have Spellelman at dead last even though it was the 30th pick. And obviously there’s less pressure and less expected value on that pick than there would be for other spots. Um, next I’m going to kind of join two together for the only time on this list and they are AJ Griffin and Kobe Buffkin at 12 and 13 respectively. Um, again, full disclosure, I had Kobe higher on this list a few days ago and then I was going to do the show before the trade happened, never did it. Something else I ended up having a guest on, etc., etc. But now we know I have the benefit of knowing that the Buffkin era is now over and what they did not even get for him. They got nothing for him other than cap cap tax relief at this point in time. So I could argue honestly for either one of these as even worse than Spellman. I’m not going to, but I could pretty easily because and the reason why would be the Hawks used higher picks like considerably higher picks on Griffin and Buffett. AJ comes down to how you feel about how much the team should have known that he just didn’t love basketball like that. Honestly, on talent, he was clearly worthy of the picky that he went with. Like, as a rookie, if he did a reddraft after his rookie season, he would have gone in the lottery. Like, pretty comfortable. He went 16th anyway, but he was a top 10 rookie that year despite the fact he wasn’t playing a lot. He played very well, and all that said, he was 19 years old. Like, there’s a lot to like, but basically that was it. He came back the next summer. He was not dialed in. Obviously, had some off-c court stuff. um left the team for a while, then the Hawks traded him that summer after year two when it seemed like it was basically just over for him in Atlanta and then AJ retired at 21 years old. So again, not gonna litigate the whole thing, but like how much should the Hawks have known? I don’t know. There’s a split on that. Whether they should have known more about his personality makeup and what what he like basketball, etc. But results-wise, which is what this is going to be, results-wise, it was obviously a disaster. They got one pretty good rookie year out of him and that was it. and they traded him for second round pick. So, I got something for him. But still on Buffin, I’ll just say this. I I covered it a lot this week. So, if you missed that, I would recommend listening to the emergency episode that I did entirely about the Buffin trade and the Buffkin era basically. I am still relatively a believer, again, relatively a believer in Buffkin becoming at least like a rotation player in the NBA potentially. But the cruel reality is the Hawks salary dumped him after two seasons and he played 27 games in Atlanta. So, that was basically a dead pick. They got basically nothing from Kobe Buffkin. So both Griffin and Buffkin from a Hawk standpoint end up as total misses in terms of the value they received. The process I think was okay on both fronts honestly, but the results were so bad but they that they pretty much have to go as low as they are on this list. All right, next on the list is number 11 overall and I will go with Cam Reddish at number 11. Now I’ll raise my hand and say this. I liked the Cam Reddish pick when it happened. I wasn’t saying it was going to be a definite awesome pick, but I actually was totally fine with it. I liked the package that he could be in the NBA. Um, there was, ironically, I was actually higher on him from a supporting skill standpoint and lower on him from a star standpoint than a lot of people were. And there were some positive signs early on, but clearly didn’t go very well. As I record this, he’s probably going to be out of the league at age 26. Like, he’s going overseas, may never come back. We’ll see. Um, yeah, the offense did not come around on Cam. He never really embraced being a a defensive first role player, which is probably his best role. Honestly, it kind of flashed a little bit of that with the Lakers, but um with the Hawks in two and a half seasons, he had 50% true shooting. He shot 43% on twos, like was pretty rough there. Didn’t really have the finishing craft that you need. He was not a great athlete despite the fact that he looks great on film. He’s not a explosive athlete. He can’t really jump. Um all that stuff. I didn’t make a lot of threes to kind of counteract that, plus bad shot selection, etc., etc. Now, if you put on the highlight tape, this still happens now. There are people still now who believe Cam is like a star that’s buried. That’s not a thing, but it’s still out there. And I get why because he had that big game in the playoffs against Milwaukee in 2021. When the shots went in, the tough shots, it did look good. Like he looks like the prototypical NBA wing, like 68, smooth, athletic forward. I get it. But it just did. There was like just not much else. Ultimately, it’s a combination of his prospect hype being overblown as a high school player and then at Duke and then he just got honestly for me he just couldn’t buy into a smaller role fast enough particularly in Atlanta which is this podcast focus. Like he ended up asking out via trade because he wanted a bigger role. Like I think people still still blame the Hawks which I don’t really understand. Like it didn’t work in New York. It didn’t work in LA. It didn’t work in Portland. It wasn’t a Hawks problem. But putting that to the side you’re going to miss sometimes on the 10th pick. Like that is a misconception that I always try to correct is like you’re gonna miss like even the best teams miss on non like top three picks and even top three picks sometimes but like the 10th pick projection should not be superstar but they definitely missed. It didn’t work out for them. Um and it doesn’t help it with the perception that Cam Washington, sorry, Cam Johnson, PJ Washington and Tyler Herro were the next three picks all of whom are still good NBA players. Like that’s a that’s a it doesn’t really matter but that’s like bad perception as well. So, didn’t go very well and CM’s number 11 on the list. Uh, number 10 is DeAndre Benry, who again went in 2016, number 20, number 21 overall pick. Um, I know there are a lot of younger or newer Hawks fans or both who have no relationship to Bumbrey at all. Uh, I covered him his entire Hawks tenure. I will cop to always liking him. Also, it was the 21st pick and not the 10th pick, which is a tiebreaker between the two, between him and Cam. Um, but Beverly actually did play a real rotation role for three full seasons in Atlanta and he was here for his entire rookie contract all four years. His third year he played the entire season, all 82 games. Like he couldn’t shoot. That ended up being the problem with memory. The shooting just never came along and that definitely held him back at a high level, but it wasn’t a disaster of a pick. It wasn’t a great one either, but the fact that a guy stuck around with the team for his whole rookie contract and played real minutes in three seasons at number 21 overall, like again, not a not a good pick, but not one that was like a really really bad one. So, he’s ahead of Cam for that reason. Like the value proposition was way better on memory than it was on Reddish. All right, number nine on the list is DeAndre Hunter number four overall in the 2019 draft. So, as I said before on the show, I absolutely loathed the trade and I still do now. I think the Hawks vastly overpaid. People forget this, too. Not only did they trade three of the top 35 picks in the draft, they also took on Solomon Hill, who I love, but he took on a very bad contract that actually should have gotten you some extra value to take it on, and the Hawks just took it on for no reason. Um, anyway, to be clear, the pick wasn’t too bad. Still, Hunter is a good player. He’s always been a good player. Injury stuff, I get it. But he’s still a good player. Now, I want to be also very clear about this. It’s not one It’s not one that you would probably do again as a pick, but if he had gone eighth where the Hawks had been drafting before, it would look even better. But it’s still fair to say to me, Hunter would go in the lottery of a reddraft of that draft. He wouldn’t go fourth anymore, but he would go in the lottery. Like, he’s still a real player. Ironically, his defense was his better side in college and that flipped in the NBA where his offense has been better than defense his entire career basically. Um, he’s never really approached being the defender that he was supposed to be coming out of college, but the offense is good. Um, he can’t rebound still, all that stuff. But he’s also shot 38% on threes the last four years. He’s a good player, averaged 15 points a game or so, four or five years in a row. 68 wing who could hope defensively. Like, he has real value in the league. He’s a good player. It was a terrible trade and a like not that great draft pick, but also wasn’t a total disaster on the pick alone. If you factor in the trade, the the grade gets pretty bad, but the pick only was uh only below average, I would say. Uh number eight on the list is Torian Prince at number 12 overall in the 2016 draft. He played for the Hawks for three seasons and then he got flipped in a trade and honestly got they got a first round pick value back for him, which does matter as far as the results are concerned. That’s a not small factor. So, all in all, things went like fairly well for Torian Prince. Now, it’s going to sound funny. It’s why I’m giving you all the criteria and the nuance and the context because DeAndre Hunter is a better basketball player than Torian Prince. I get that. I’m not saying otherwise, but Prince went eight picks later and that matters a lot. Particularly when the eight picks are from 4 to 12. That’s different than going from 22 to 30. Like 4 to 12 is a big gap in projection of what you expect. And while Hunter is a better player, Prince was the better value on the pick. Also, the next six picks in that draft, this matters too, were Georgio’s Papianis to the Kings, Denzel Valentine, Wah Hern Gomez, Gershon Yuselli, Wade Baldwin, and Henry Ellison. So, that makes the Hawks pick look better. Um, getting a rotation guy, which is what Port Prince has always been at 12 is a pretty decent outcome honestly. And again, they traded him for first round value after having him for three seasons. So, it went fine. I know there was a time, if you were in these Hawks streets back then, you will probably laugh about this. There was a time when certain Hawks fans thought that Prince was incredible. Like, in 2018 before Trey arrived, it was the Torian Prince Dennis Shooter show and Torian averaged a bunch of points. People thought he was like the next great thing. He wasn’t, but he’s been a rotation player in the league for a decade. And at 12 overall, like that could have gone much worse. It went totally fine. And uh I’ll leave it there for now. That’s but basically he’s he’s right in the middle of this list for a reason. That’s kind of the outcome that it was for Tori and Prince. All right, the second half of the list, the top seven is coming up in just one moment after a word from our partners. If you’re running a business, you know that every mis call is money left on the table. Think about the last time you had an urgent need in your own life, perhaps for a plumber or a service provider of some kind. And the first person that you called didn’t answer, did you wait? You probably didn’t. You probably moved on to something else. And that’s why you need open phone. Open phone is the number one business phone system and it’s built to streamline. It’s got your customer and communications all from an app on your phone or on your computer. Open phone lets you manage your business calls text from a single app and they have the shared inbox feature that’s a game changer. 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He and Prince were basically the choice to be seven or eight on this list. So, there you go. If Newell does not pop and becomes just like a guy who’s like a throwin, whatever, he will fall on the list. If he does pop and become like a top seven guy on a good team, he will be higher than this, I think, honestly. But, we don’t know yet. And I won’t like act like I do. So, we’ll move on from there, but Isa New right in the middle as an incomplete at this point in time from this year’s draft. All right, number six on the list is Kevin Herder. Kevin Herder, number 19 overall in the draft that brought the Hawks Trey Young and Amar Spellelman. Uh Herder, long story short, is a proven either low-level starter or high-end backup in the league. At number 19 overall, that’s a very good outcome. If you look at any expected value chart of the NBA and draft picks, getting a real like top seven rate guy on a good team at number 19 overall is a positive outcome. I don’t have a lot more to add. Like it wasn’t a home run pick. It wasn’t a grand slam, whatever, but it was clearly a positive one. And also adding to this again, they traded him for positive value after four seasons. So he gave him four good years. He was traded for positive value, good outcome to very good outcome at number 19 overall. And there you go. Number five on the list, Anyaka Akongu. Number six overall pick in 2020. I think people will be lower on this than me and that’s fine. I will acknowledge that. I also like to pick more than people did when it happened. But for me, we have seen Akongu is a starting caliber player. At number six overall, if you get a starter, you’ve done well. Now, this is one of my bits that I always do on the podcast and people disagree with me all the time, but again, I’ve done the research. I’ve dug into this. If you get a starter at six, you’ve done well. I know people always want a star. Anytime you get into the top quoteunquote half of the lottery, people like, “Oh, he’s not a star player.” Great. The Hawks didn’t project him to be a star when they drafted him. Like, would that have been a nice outcome? Sure. But he’s good already. And adding some more context to why I have him a little bit higher than some might, there was only one guy who is clearly better than a Kong Woo in that draft who they could have reasonably picked at six. And I was I covered that draft exhaustively for months and months and months. It was the co draft. The only guy who was better than the Congo who was in the mix at six overall is Tyresese Hallebertton. So if you look at the at the board that jumps out to you, I promise. But if you’re new to the Hawks or whatever, Hallebertton’s agent expressly told the Hawks not to draft him. Also beyond that, yeah, they could have taken him still. I get it. But I don’t think Hallebertton becomes Hallebertton in capital letters if he’s playing with Trey Young. No, he still would he might have been good, but you can’t just extrapolate what he became in Indiana to what he would have been in Atlanta. Keep that in mind, too. So, the context matters here. Obviously, there are guys like way down the board like Desmond Bane or Tyrese Maxi that are better than Aong Woo. I understand that. But adding even more context, Akongu is better than three of the five guys drafted ahead of him in that draft. And he’s also better than the seventh pick and the eighth pick and the 10th pick for sure. So, of the guys who went in the top 10, he is better than at least six of them in that draft and he went sixth. So, like certainly more of a single or a double of a pick, I understand that. If you wanted to have him below Herder, I would get it. If you wanted to have him even below Prince, I would at least understand that. But I am making it a little bit of my future facing on a Kong Woo. I still think that he’s a good player. It helped the Hawks as well that he actually has on a good contract. The overall value for that pick isn’t a grand slam, but it’s totally been fine. even if the perception may not always point to that. All right, number four overall on this list is Zachary Rishet. Another one that’s still an incomplete. It’s more complete than Newell obviously, but not enough to be definitive yet. I will discuss this more another time, but Rishcha for me would still go number one in a reddraft right now. Not by a ton, but if you said, “All right, close your eyes. Pick one player.” I think I’d probably take Zach. So, I’m putting that faith into this ranking. He could definitely fall on this list. He could also be higher on this list. If he’s the best player in this class, which is possible, he would be higher than fourth. So, I’m slotting him in here kind of tentatively, but uh some some projection to be sure. Number three on the list, John Collins, the number 19 overall pick. Keep that in mind. That’s a big part of why he’s here. Of note, again, Risha could jump ahead of Collins very easily. But for now, I think Collins is the right pick at number three. And again, because of where he went. As a reminder also, here are the players who went directly in front of John Collins in the 2017 draft. Justin Jackson, Justin Patton, DJ Wilson, and TJ Leaf. All four of them are out of the league, and John Collins is John Collins. So, if you do a reddraft of that draft, he is clearly a lottery pick for sure. There’s a probably debate on how high he would go, but certainly a lottery pick, and he went 19th in that class. Not a star, but perennially a top hundred guy when he was in Atlanta year after year. his last five seasons. So take take out his rookie year in Atlanta. His last five years in Atlanta, he averaged 17.2 points and 8.1 rebounds with 62.6% true shooting. That’s very, very, very good. In the 2017 class, he is currently for their careers sixth in points per game and third rebounds per game. And I think he’s either first or second in efficiency. So it went pretty good. I know John Collins is not a superstar. I understand. But at 19 overall, awesome pick. And uh there you have it. All right, number two is, drum roll please, Trey Young number five in 2018. Now, one more time, one more one more reminder. This does not include the trade. Put the trade to the side. Just the pick. Again, just the pick. At number five in the draft, Trey Young is a grand slam pick. There’s no doubt about that. The only player drafted below him in that class that you’d choose over him is Shel Sha Alexander, who’s obviously a top five player in the league. I get it. Um, but no matter what revisionist history you might see now, that was not a consistent opinion at the draft. Shay was not probably going to go as high as Trey, nor I had Trey Hire at at that point in time, etc. But no matter what, this is not a tough story to Hawks fans. Trey is a potential Hall of Famer like he’s on that track who went fifth in the draft. It’s pretty easy to see the win through that through that lens as a pick. The trade is still controversial. It always will be. I understand that the pick itself and the evaluation of Trey were spot on at that point in time. Um, all right. And of course, number one, if you have been doing the countdown, you will know this is Jaylen Johnson. So, importantly, if you asked me right now who will have a better career, Trey Young or Jaylen Johnson, I would say Trey Young. That’s not a shot at Jaylen Johnson by any means. And by the way, it’s possible Jaylen Johnson has a better career. That’s I’m not ruling it out, but I think Trey Young is probably going to make the Hall of Fame. And that might sound crazy to people, but number one, baseline of Hall of Fame is lower. Number two, Trey Young is the third all-time person right now on assist per game in his career while averaging 25 points a game plus. Like, you can’t fake those numbers, etc., etc. But regardless, all that stuff, you can’t project that for Jaylen just now. But the big thing is Trey went fifth and Jaylen went 20th. Like that’s it’s that simple. Also, Jaylen was the best possible pick on the board. I’ve looked at that draft many times, but if you do it right now, if you look below where he was drafted, he is by far the best player. By far. So, it’s helpful to get the best player possible at 20. Uh he’s a top five guy probably in that class. Maybe conservatively top six or seven if you want to go a little bit lower. But, um yeah, no guarantee at all that Jaylen becomes a perennial all-star or as good as he could be. But even if he’s just the guy he’s been last season, like he it’s a grand slam at number 20 overall. He’s the best value overall of all the picks the Hawks have made and uh I think he stays number one. Is there a world in which maybe he flips with Trey again because Jaylen like sputters out or something like that? Sure, it’s possible. There’s some projection in here, but given the 15 the 15 spot kind of range there where Jaylen went lower than Trey and and where he actually is at his age, I’m going to lean in with Jaylen Johnson at this point. And hey, the only guy that could crack higher, barring an ace a new like turbo breakout that I don’t really see coming, Reese Shay number one overall, he’d have to be awesome for that to happen, but that’s it’s always conceivable to me at some point. But anyway, that’s the list. And look, I said it many times on this before we sign off. A lot of this is subject to change. A lot of these guys are still playing, which matters. Like some examples that I referenced already, but just would emphasize one more time. I literally already changed this list because of Buffkin’s trade. Um, if Asa No becomes a long-term starter, he probably goes in the top five somewhere given where he was drafted. If Risha becomes an all-star for five seasons in a row and Jaylen doesn’t, maybe he maybe he goes to number one overall. Like there’s definitely flexibility in some of these, but for me, a fun exercise. Not too many like ultra definitive answers. I approached this hopefully with some nuance and some context and trying to utilize the expected value of where guys are supposed to be getting for picks and all that stuff and context around the time and afterward. It helped that I covered every single one of these picks. It’s a little bit harder to be accurate when you don’t cover stuff. So, if you go back to the 80s and 90s, I was not covering this stuff. But the Toner wrestler era, I was literally already covering the team. So, I’ve been plugged in ever since and has some extra verve as a result of that. All right, everybody. Hopefully, this was an enjoyable exercise. Please subscribe to Locked on Hawks anywhere you find your podcasts, Apple, Spotify, YouTube, etc. Follow the show on ex Twitter at Lockton Hawks. Follow me there at BT Roland. I am also on Blue Sky BT Roland and my nonpodcast coverage of the Hawks can be found at patreon.com/btoland. All right, everybody. Enjoy the rest of your Thursday evening into Friday and we’ll see you all next time.

Brad Rowland (@BTRowland) hosts Episode 2058 of the Locked on Hawks podcast. The show begins by touching on the beef between Trae Young and Patrick Beverley before ranking the first round picks of the Tony Ressler era with the Atlanta Hawks, including Young, Jalen Johnson, Cam Reddish, De’Andre Hunter, John Collins, Zaccharie Risacher, Kobe Bufkin, AJ Griffin, and more.

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