I was trying to find the quote lmao.
Check back in like 20 minutes.
Edit: Found it
Did anyone hear on NBA Sirius radio David Griffin on the mock draft show? When they were talking about Orlando he mentioned how they need a point guard but Trae Young didn't fit their profile (I guess they have guys that used to be in Milwaukee who historically just draft the best athletes and then figure it out).
He said Colin Sexton was a better fit for what they (Milwaukee now Orlando) did historically because he's a much better athlete than Trae Young. Anyway, then he tied it to the Sixers. He said Orlando and Philly may be a great fit trade wise. Basically the trade was something to the effect of #6 and Biyombo (who they are trying to salary dump) for #10, #26 and a second or two. He was less clear on exactly what the Sixers would give up. He said the Sixers were trying very hard (may have even said desperately) to move up because their was a player projected in the top 5 that they absolutely loved. And of course, he said there was a chance he fell to 6. This was the first time I had heard this. The show was on last night I believe but I heard a replay of it driving to work this morning.
Here’s some stuff about the Sixers scouting Mudiay.
I worked for the 76ers at the time, and Mudiay was a high-priority target for us. After the trade of Michael Carter-Williams midway through that previous season, we had a hole at point guard. We needed to know as much as we could about Mudiay to make the most informed decision possible, but circumstances were making that complicated.
We did everything we could. We acquired the film of all of his games and watched them in painstaking detail. We recorded stats from that film. We compared his stats to other Americans who had played in the Chinese Basketball Association (CBA), to get some sense of how his play measured up.
And what we found concerned us. Mudiay seemed to be lacking a burst around the basket, so that even in the CBA, a league not known for its defense, he was not an efficient scorer. For a player with a shaky shot who had not displayed good touch away from the basket, poor finishing at the rim and a below-average rate of drawing fouls were major red flags. Further testing during his workouts only deepened those fears. Mudiay needed to be a rim attacker, but we feared he didn’t have the athleticism for it.
Through three full NBA seasons, that analysis seems to have been correct. Mudiay has been one of the least efficient players in the NBA in each of those seasons. In particular, although he does take a high rate of shots at the basket, he has been a dreadful finisher. This past year is the first in which he made more than 50% of his shots at the basket.
