Redrafting the 2015 NBA Draft: Role players everywhere
By Corey Rausch
#6 Pick: Kelly Oubre Jr. (Originally: Willie Cauley-Stein)
For some unknown reason the Sacramento Kings really liked taking additional big men with lottery picks during the DeMarcus Cousins era. During the time he was there they took Thomas Robinson, Willie Cauley-Stein and finally Georgios Papagiannis. Even in the years when they took guards to complement their All-Star they took Jimmer Fredette, Ben McLemore and Nik Stauskas. Getting six straight first-round picks wrong is how you end up being the Kings.
Trying to fix one of these could go a long way in making the most of DeMarcus Cousins’ era. His first two years were a slow development by but in his third year he was a double-figure scorer for Washington. Kelly Oubre Jr. has grown further in Phoenix given and increase in opportunity, improving to 18.7 points and 6.4 rebounds in his first full season with the new team.
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Oubre is improving his efficiency as he gets more minutes, a good sign for his growth for the future. Providing effective floor spacing around Cousins would have been a stark improvement for the offense, something they were clearly looking for when they drafted Fredette and Stauskas. There are a few better players still available and you should not draft for need when you are as bad as these Kings were, but giving them another center as they were wont to do was not in the cards.
With the seventh pick the 2015 NBA Redraft the Denver Nuggets select…