Always draft the best player, regardless of position, then figure out the rest later. Always.
That brings us to Vlade Divac, the Hall of Fame basketball player who spent five years as the general manager of the Sacramento Kings. As he did before and will have to until his dying days, Divac defended his 2018 draft pick of Marvin Bagley III over Luka Doncic with the No. 2 pick (the Suns took Deandre Ayton No. 1 that year). this time, Doncic did it to Croatian online newspaper Index (hat tip Hoopshype).
“In that position, I already had De’Aaron Fox, who I drafted a year earlier. At the time, I believed that Fox was a player who could become a franchise star in the coming years. Time will tell if I was wrong. As things stand now, looks like I was, but I still have faith in Fox having a great career.”
We shouldn’t discount Fox, an All-NBA player who won the Clutch Player of the Year award, and averaged 26.6 points and 5.6 assists a game last season. However, he is not Doncic, best player in the league and perennial MVP candidate. Why not play them next to each other, as now do Doncic and Kyrie Irving, a combo that took the Dallas Mavericks to the NBA Finals last season?
“No. Irving is a classic scorer, just like Luka. Fox is not; he is a playmaker who needs the ball, just like Luka. I could have taken Luka, but then I would have had to trade Fox. Interestingly, Phoenix also passed on Luka, and at the time , their coach was Igor Kokoškov, who coached Luka in Slovenia, but they exchanged him his style of basketball I had my own reasons for making that decision Maybe I made a mistake, but time will tell.”
Time has told. Fox is an outstanding player, a top-10 point guard in the NBA right now, but Doncic is at the top of that list – a future Hall of Famer.
Divac explained that one of “my own reasons” for the choice was not a feud with Doncic’s father, a rumor he had previously shot down. Divac believed that Bagley’s ceiling was higher than Doncic’s, and to be fair at the time other scouts thought so too (they did not anticipate the change in the NBA away from traditional big men). There was a segment of the scouting community that didn’t buy into Doncic pre-draft (and a segment that emphatically did).
Phoenix drafted Ayton No. 1 because then-owner Robert Sarver ordered it, believing in the traditional center and that taking the Arizona standout and keeping him in the state was good for the box office, according to league sources. Many teams were high on Ayton at the time, while Doncic suffered from the old-fashioned mentality of “Sure, he dominated the EuroLeague, but this is the NBA, and it’s going to be different.” Atlanta bet on Trae Young in that trade.
Which brings us back to the opening paragraph of this story: Always draft the best player, regardless of position, then figure out the rest later.
For Kings fans, this will always sting. Divac’s decision will be remembered in the same category as the Trail Blazers drafting Sam Bowie ahead of Michael Jordan because Portland had Clyde Drexler and didn’t need a wing player. Divac missed and the franchise continues to pay the price.
