Tank watch for the last ten days of the season

[Mavs2021]

Agreed.  Trading down for multiple picks would make some sense.  Personally, I'd also be fine with trading out of the draft for more of a known quantity.  Is there a RFA in 2027 whose team might not be able to afford them?  Anthony Black?  Cason Wallace?  There is more than one way to skin a cat.

Note that only 3 on the 2017 list were in the vaunted Top 8.  Remember all the talk that the Mav's were drafting 9th in an 8 player draft.  Most of that Top 8 turned out to be trash.  We have a Top 2 player from the 2018 draft on our roster currently making the minimum.  The surety of getting a sure-fire running mate for Flagg is not nearly as high as we'd like to think.

But that draft mostly fell apart on non-basketball matters. Teams have gotten much better imho profiling personalities and health.

Fultz with his shoulder condition/mental problems.
Ball had the messed up knee.
Jackson with his legal troubles.
Isaac with his injury history and coming to Jesus moment.
Malik Monk with his drug issues.

So basically from the top 14 picks, the only two that were "busts" for basketball reasons as far as we know were Ntilikina and DSJ. Everybody knew coming in that Ntilikina and DSJ could not shoot. That was the big gamble and they never learned how to. They still had seven year NBA careers and Ntilikina now playing for the absolute top tier teams in Europe. Also think DSJ has had awful agents or just not the personality for it, but he could probably be in Europe or China making more money than in the G-League.

There are not that many basketball related flops at the top of the draft anymore. You basically find the best players in the lottery. There is maybe one exception in every recent draft.

2018 Jalen Brunson.
2019 it probably was Goga Bitadze until NAW blew up.
2020 Tyrese Maxey.
2021 Sengun (I said before the draft he should be top 5) and Jalen Johnson
2022 Kessler, Eason, Watson, Braun ?
2023 George

Obviously depends on the draft class how far the good players last, but it´s really hard to find special players outside the lottery, since all teams have gotten so good. What I find interesting is that there seems to a trap region 7-11ish in very good draft classes, where teams feel obligated to reach for what a player could be on paper (like Ntilikina/DSJ) if they learn one crucial skill.