2022 NBA Draft live tracker, results: Thunder select Jalen Williams with No. 12 pick

I figured it was possible for the Knicks to trade down or out of the first round coming into the night. This front office has shown a preference to kick the can down the road when it’s not thrilled with its options. They did the same last year, trading No. 19 to Charlotte for a future first.

When Santa Clara coach Herb Sendek was recruiting Jalen Williams, the prospect used to sport a pair of trendy white framed sunglasses. One day Sendek showed up to Williams’ high school in a similar pair of his own. They had a good laugh, with Williams thinking it was pretty funny … and corny.

Here’s what a Pac-12 assistant coach had to say about the No. 12 pick Jalen Williams: “Big combo guard who was a nightmare to guard in P&R situations. Could get downhill and find the open man, or score it himself. Was a tough matchup because of his size. Was able to shoot over most guards in the WCC. Shot it well from 3. I’m not surprised he caught the eye of so many NBA teams.”

Jalen Williams will become Santa Clara’s first first round pick since Steve Nash in 1996.

I’m a buyer of Jalen Williams. It’s extremely hard to find players with genuine dribble-pass-shoot abilities who are also 6-foot-6 with a 7-foot-2 wingspan.

The idea here isn’t terribly dissimilar to what the Lakers had when they took Talen Horton-Tucker and gave him $30 million on his second contract. The difference here, however, is that Williams is a better shooter and passer and generally has more basketball skill.

If you believe in Williams’ shooting ability, it’s kind of hard to see how it totally fails. And if you buy into his defensive tools and playmaking upside, there are legitimate starter pathways here even if he’s not the best isolation creator. At the end of the day, teams should take Williams in the middle of the first round at some point if only because the skill-set intersection with the positional scarcity of having skilled wing playmakers will make him an extremely valuable player if he hits.

(Photo: James Snook / USA Today)

With Ousmane Dieng, you’re betting on your developmental program being able to bring out his shooting. If he shoots, his potential is very high because of how he can process the game and read the floor. He easily could become a dribble/pass/shoot threat who is a long, switchable defender. Those types of players are worth their weight in gold in today’s NBA.

A Dieng who shoots consistently from 3 is someone who turns into, at the very least, a very valuable role player in the vein of a mid- to late-career Nicolas Batum. But if he doesn’t shoot it, the concerns become a bit more magnified, and it becomes somewhat harder to see how he impacts the game effectively on the offensive end. He’s not such a good creator with ball in hand that a good team will ever want him to have the ball all the time. Much like with many role players in the league, it comes down to betting on the shot. Dieng has enough touch and upside with the rest of his game, if that comes, I’m willing to bet on him in the middle of the first round.

Are there any answers for the Bucks at the wing position in the 2022 NBA Draft?

Before we take a look at some prospects that might be able to help, let’s first look at what the team does well on the wing and what they might need moving forward.

The Athletic‘s Eric Nehm has more below.

(Photo: Jerome Miron / USA Today)

That was four consecutive players taken, picks 6 through 9, who grew up outside of the US: Bennedict Mathurin (Canada), Shaedon Sharpe (Canada), Dyson Daniels (Australia) and Jeremy Sochan (England).

Of course, this is just more proof that AAU basketball is the devil, right? (Insert eye roll)

Here’s what an SEC assistant coach said about No. 10 pick Johnny Davis “Very competitive wing that rebounds well from his position. Has the ability to guard 2-4. Score well at the rim but needs to improve from behind the arc. Great leader and is not afraid of the stage. Has the winner gene.”

“Dieng did not play well early in the year. That’s probably an understatement. So you can look at him as half full or half empty. He was coming from lower-level France to the Australian League… It’s a man’s league. The team that won it this year, Sydney, RC Buford’s son (Chase) coached. The roster is littered with guys who’ve had NBA associations, American players that are three, four years out of college. So he’s adjusting to living real far away from home, New Zealand, and a huge jump in class. And his team wasn’t very good. So all that’s going on. His overall numbers are not impressive, but if you look at the last 10 games or so, 11 games in snippets, he did some real good things. He’s big. He’s got a good feel for the game. He’s got mobility. He can handle the ball. The shooting numbers aren’t all that impressive, but he’ll go on some tears in games. He’s all finesse right now, lacks physicality. He’s going to have to transform his body. But for a big guy, there’s a handle, a feel, and when you see him at his best, can score.”

When Johnny Davis came back to Wisconsin’s campus last July for the final few weeks of summer workouts, Badgers coach Greg Gard could see that a massive transformation in his game already was well underway. Davis had spent the early portion of that month in Latvia helping the USA Basketball under-19 team win a gold medal at the FIBA ​​World Cup. Upon Davis’ return to Madison, Gard said he saw “a totally different player” who realized he belonged with the world’s best players his age.

There’s been lots of talking about the Knicks still chasing Jaden Ivey. My colleague, James Edwards, has already reported the Pistons plan to keep him, even as they continue to receive calls about him after making the pick. For what it’s worth, I’m not sure Detroit ever came close to accepting an offer from the Knicks.

“Had his breakout game (this season, in January) at Purdue where he almost single-handedly won the game for them, made all these big shots, on the road, down the stretch, in high ball screens. He hit multiple 3s and was very aggressive driving to the basket. I think that catapulted him in the draft. A little like (Iowa forward Keegan) Murray in the tournament — he got banged up late in the year, and he kind of came back to earth a little bit. He and (Badgers guard) Brad Davison had to do so much on their team, I think they got worn out. They had the Big Ten season won outright, total, and they lost to Nebraska in their last home game when they had no business losing. So they had to tie for the Big Ten regular season instead of winning outright, and then they played terrible the rest of the year. (Guard Chucky) Hepburn got hurt. They weren’t deep enough. And Johnny Davis got hurt in the Nebraska game, and he was just a normal player the last four, five games.”