Here we are. Draft night is done and the Magic have selected Jalen Suggs, Franz Wagner, and [cash considerations]. There's going to be tons of discussion, debate, and general chatter about the calls the Magic FO made tonight. There's likely a front page post for that, or two, maybe even three.
So what I wanted to do here, is give the OPP fans a chance to put their scouting reps on the line, and declare with finality: "This is who I would have drafted."
I'd like to list the draft order as it happened. If you're willing, if you're brave enough, feel free to post in the comments who you would have taken at the spots the Magic chose, knowing now who was off the draft board by the time you picked. We can revisit this Post after the rookie season and take a look at the players that everyone would have selected & really see how much better/worse the youtube-scouting contingent was.
Once you take your player, assume that the rest of the teams kept picking as they did. If you take someone that another team took, go ahead and assume they took who the Magic took tonight instead. It's not perfect, but it should do the job.
Without further ado, here's the order of players taken:
1. Cade Cunningham
2. Evan Mobley
3. Jalen Green
4. Scottie Barnes
5. [your selection here] - Magic took Jalen Suggs
6. Josh Giddy
7. Jon Kuminga
8. [your selection here] - Magic took Franz Wagner
9. Davion Mitchell
10. Ziaire Williams
11. James Bouknight
12. Josh Primo
13. Chris Duarte
14. Moses Moody
15. Corey Kispert
16. Alperen Sengun
17. Trey Murphy III
18. Tre Mann
19. Kai Jones
20. Jalen Johnson
21. Keon Johnson
22. Isaiah Jackson
23. Usman Garuba
24. Josh Christopher
25. Quentin Grimes
26. Nah'Shon Lee "Bones" Hyland
27. Cam Thomas
28. Jaden Springer
29. Day'Ron Sharpe
30. Santi Aldama
31. Isaiah Todd
32. Jeremiah Robinson-Earl
33. [your selection here] - Magic traded for Future 2nd & Cash
This isn't a "maybe this player or this player" or a debate...all things being equal, if you were on the clock at those picks...who do you take?
[UPDATE]-----------------------------------------------------[UPDATE]
Now that Summer League has begun, and we can now see how prospects are playing, I'm shutting down any new entries into this exercise. The idea was to guess based on what we knew pre-draft, which is no longer the case. Any new info now will either be bragging rights or regrets.
The plan is to revisit this at the end of the season, and see how we all would have done!
Here's the final rundown from those brave enough to put their scouting chops to the test:
Notes:
Unsurprisingly, an overwhelming majority of people happily snapped up Jalen Suggs when he fell to the Magic at #5.
Troll Wizard stuck to their pick of Kuminga at 5, though I suspect this was just for funsies, and probably would have gone Suggs in the real world.
Moody (7) just beats out Wagner (6) for the most desired pick at #8.
As expected, the #33 pick was kind of all over the place...though McBride, Cooper, and Boston all had multiple takers.