This article is part of our NBA Draft series.
With the dust now fully settled on the 2016 NBA Draft, it's time to take a look at the biggest winners and losers from Thursday night's festivities in Brooklyn.
WINNERS
DENVER NUGGETS
The Nuggets capitalized on Jamal Murray's somewhat unexpected fall to No. 7 and were able to add another promising, athletic guard in Malik Beasley at 19. Couple those picks with the selection of Juan Hernangomez at No. 15, and the Nuggets came away with a strong three-man crop. Murray will be an instant-impact player while Beasley should be ready to contribute off the bench in what's suddenly a crowded position group. Hernangomez is a long-term project whose impact likely won't be felt for another two or three years.
MEMPHIS GRIZZLIES
The Grizzlies just had to sit back and wait for Wade Baldwin to fall into their hands at No. 17 to come away winners. The Vanderbilt product won't be able to replace Mike Conley, should he bolt in free agency, but he's the second-best point guard in the draft and projects as an excellent defender who with his 6-11 wingspan can guard up to three positions.Memphis also traded up in the second round to end Deyonta Davis' freefall, landing a player who many projected to come off the board in the top-10. Players don't tumble that far for no reason, but Davis' upside is considerably greater than what Memphis would have found had it kept its original second-round selection at No. 57.
PHOENIX SUNS
In the midst of Boston's furious attempt to trade out of No. 3, the Suns were able to grab Dragan Bender fourth overall. The Israeli forward remains somewhat of an unknown, but he's an excellent fit for a Suns team in dire need of a versatile, floor-stretching forward.Phoenix also took advantage of another top prospect's (very brief) fall, trading with Sacramento to acquire Marquese Chriss at No. 8. Chriss might be Tyrus Thomas, but he also might be Jermaine O'Neal -- the Suns won't know for sure for a few years, but Chriss is well worth the risk. They almost took him at No. 4 and only had to give up their picks at 13 and 28, as well as the rights to Serbian guard Bogdan Bogdanovic, to get him four spots later. It wasn't a quite steal, but the Suns got a fair deal.
OKLAHOMA CITY THUNDER
Sam Presti stole the spotlight early in the first round, pulling the trigger on a blockbuster deal that sent Serge Ibaka to the Magic for Victor Oladipo, Ersan Ilyasova and the rights to Orlando's selection at No. 11, Domantas Sabonis.While the Thunder lose their only true floor-stretching big man, they finally put a stop to their revolving door at shooting guard. Oladipo's jumper is still inconsistent, but he's a major upgrade over Dion Waiters on both sides of the ball. A closing five of Westbrook, Oladipo, Roberson, Durant and Adams is about as terrorizing defensively as it gets.
The loss of Ibaka will hurt Oklahoma City from a spacing perspective, though. Enes Kanter was very good in stretches last season, but his range doesn't extend beyond 15 feet -- same goes for Sabonis, who did most of his work around the basket at Gonzaga. That likely means more of Durant at the four, especially late in games. And of course this is all assuming Durant is back. Sam Presti insisted the team made the move independent of Durant, but it's difficult to imagine the Thunder would trade away such an integral piece without at least consulting Durant's camp on a basic level.
As for the Magic, they gave up quite a bit for what could very well be one year of Ibaka, as he heads into unrestricted free agency next summer. Of course, Oladipo is on the same timeline, and it seems likely that GM Rob Hennigan would have tried to swap the two straight up before including Sabonis. That's the real kicker -- maybe Sabonis is never more than a decent big off the bench, but if his feel for the game translates to the NBA, the Thunder may have stolen a valuable, not to mention dirt cheap, asset for an underutilized player who was likely to walk next summer anyway.
That said, it's tough to truly lose a trade when you end up with the best player in the deal, and that's Ibaka. After being miscast as OKC's Kevin Love for the last three years, Ibaka should flourish in what will be an expanded role with Orlando. The Magic aren't a Serge Ibaka away from contention, though, and even with him they're a fringe playoff team.
LOSERS
SACRAMENTO KINGS
The Kings somewhat salvaged a rough start to the night by trading back into the first round to draft the then-freefalling Skal Labissiere at No. 28, but before that they managed to, in this order:1. Trade out of the No. 8 pick in an eight-player draft
2. Draft someone named Georgios Papagiannis
3. Further piss off their franchise player
Sacramento doesn't exactly have a longstanding tradition of killing it on draft night, but passing on Chriss in favor of Papagiannis was a head-scratcher, even by Kings standards. To their credit, they were able to procure a decent haul from Phoenix to move back five spots, but reaching for Papagiannis was a bizarre choice for a franchise with needs at every position except center.
Deyonta Davis
Davis was invited to the green room with the belief that he was a near-lock to come off the board somewhere in the lottery. Instead, the Michigan State product slipped all the way out of the first round before the Grizzlies worked a deal with Boston to move up and grab him 31st overall.Memphis is actually a perfect landing spot for Davis, but that won't erase the embarrassment of such a drastic slide in front of a national television audience. While undoubtedly relieved to finally hear his name called, Davis was (understandably) unable to mask his disappointment in this Sarah-McLachlan-dog-commercial-level of depressing video from the backstage media gauntlet.
BOSTON CELTICS
It's tough to knock the Celtics considering they were essentially playing with house money, but once again Danny Ainge was unable to parlay his vast array of assets into an established superstar.After being linked to potential deals for Jimmy Butler and Nerlens Noel, Boston ended up coming away with Jaylen Brown and a pair of European big men -- Ante Zizic and Guerschon Yabusele -- in the first round.
While Brown immediately upgrades the Celtics' defense on the wing, analysts remain split on whether he has the tools, offensively, to ever be more than a very good role player.
Boston may have come away with an underwhelming draft-night haul, but Ainge's refusal to deal either of the Brooklyn picks was the right move. Butler is a top-15 two-way player in the league, but next year's draft is stacking up to be, well, stacked, and the Nets' sending Thad Young to the Pacers on Thursday means that 2017 Nets pick has an even higher likelihood of landing near the top of the draft.
Boston's quest for a superstar is far from over. Ainge will be back on the phone when the clock strikes midnight on July 1, and it will be interesting to see whether his hard-line stance on those future picks, as well as Jae Crowder and Avery Bradley, softens as the pressure to land a marquee name intensifies.
MILWAUKEE BUCKS
The Bucks aren't a loser because they drafted Thon Maker, they're a loser because of where they got him. Most expected Maker to fall into the back-third of the first round and possibly into the second amid concerns about his age and NBA readiness.Certainly, Milwaukee combed the market on draft night for deals to potentially move back, but in the end their known affection for Maker resulted in asking prices that were too high. While we'll never know how far Maker might have fallen, taking him at No. 10 means the Bucks will be judged extra-harshly if it doesn't work out.
The counter to all of the criticism is "if not Maker, then who should the Bucks have taken?" This is a team in desperate need of shooting, but there weren't any can't-miss prospects available at 10. Wade Baldwin, Henry Ellenson and Deyonta Davis -- three players to which Milwaukee had been linked -- each fell several picks lower than expected, signaling that none of the three were universally coveted.
The Bucks have a recent history of swinging for the fences, and that's exactly what they did Thursday night. After all, this is the team that struck it rich with a similarly unknown prospect just three drafts ago. An athletic, rangy forward with end-to-end ball-handling skills, Maker fits the Bucks' current mold of increasingly positionless basketball. The question is whether his game is developed to the point that he'll be ready for the physical tolls of the NBA. Without an exclusive D-League affiliate, trial by fire may be the only way Milwaukee finds out exactly what it has in the 7-1 Maker.
RICKY RUBIO
The Timberwolves came agonizingly close to acquiring Jimmy Butler -- at least we think they did -- but trade talks ultimately fizzled out amid Tom Thibodeau's reported refusal to part with both Zach LaVine and the No. 5 pick. Minnesota ended up selecting Kris Dunn, universally regarded as the best point guard prospect in the draft. With prototypical size and strong defensive chops, Dunn is exactly what Thibs looks for in a lead guard. The problem, of course, is Minnesota already has a point guard. While the Wolves insisted Thursday that Rubio and Dunn can coexist, frankly that seems unlikely in the long-term.They didn't draft Dunn to come off the bench, and Rubio would likely prefer to play elsewhere than shift to a reserve role. Neither player is a strong enough shooter to play off the ball, especially with the Wolves coming off of a season in which they ranked 29th in made threes.
Minnesota may have initially drafted Dunn with the intent of starting a bidding war, but at this point it looks increasingly likely that Rubio's time in Minnesota will soon come to an end. Dunn is the younger and much cheaper option with a closer developmental timeline to that of LaVine, Karl-Anthony Towns, and Andrew Wiggins.
