Listening to the Woj podcast with Draft Express/ESPN's Jonathan Givony on & going back to the Doncic discussion here the past few days some interesting things said.
Wojnarowski "I had GMs coming to me after the Arizona/Texas A&M game the other night & saying (Ayton) that's the #1 pick"
Givony "I think it takes more courage to take Bagley or Ayton (#1) because Doncic has done it vs NBA players. You saw Doncic with Porzingis switching onto him & Doncic scoring on him repeatedly. You saw Doncic just kick Evan Fournier's ass & that's a near max guy in the NBA. You saw him destroy Ricky Rubio in the semi-finals of an European championship. What Ayton and Bagley are doing is impressive, and those guys are great prospects, and they have just as good a chance to go #1 as Doncic, but still they're doing it against kids. I think Doncic is just a lot more proven. I don't think it takes any courage at all to take him #1."
Which the question to Givony was "Does it take more courage to take a foreign player over a NCAA star #1?"
Later on Givony says "I could see where Duke has a deep run in the tournament and Bagley plays amazing, Ayton too, and it's in the media every day & there's a lot of public pressure on the team drafting #1 to take one of those guys. If that happens and Doncic falls to #3 and plays great, wins the Rookie of the Year, then I'm not gonna wanna hear anybody say oh how were we suppose to know, he was all the way in Europe. Hell no."
Givony seems convinced Doncic is the #1 pick in this year's draft. Another thing said in this podcast that I found pretty remarkable. They said the year before the Knicks took Porzingis at 4, he was in this same Spanish ACB league and he only averaged 7 and 4 and had some really bad games. They say Doncic hasn't had any bad games and is averaging 16, 7 and 5 at the time of the podcast.
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