After months and months of anticipation, the first round of the 2024 NBA Draft is officially in the books, with 30 picks ranging from surprising to shocking announced by Adam Silver in a night that will shape the Association forever.
Some of the picks were celebrated, like Dalton Knecht falling to the Los Angeles Lakers at pick 17 or the OKC Thunder selecting Josh Giddey's replacement in Nikola Topić shortly after shipping him to the Chicago Bulls for Alex Caruso. Others drew much stronger reactions, namely Zach Eddey going in the top 10 to the Memphis Grizzlies when some talent evaluators wondered if he would even be a first-round pick at all.
Surely, the first round of the 2024 NBA Draft will be debated for a very long time, but there are two picks in particular that instantly feel a bit off because they didn't fit what their respective teams were seemingly looking to accomplish heading into the night.
2. The San Antonio Spurs should have kept point guard Rob Dillingham
In a draft that wasn't particularly deep but still had some exciting players, the San Antonio Spurs were the rare team with two high-profile selections, giving them a unique ability to move around the board if they so saw fit, package picks and players for a proven pro, or even just add two more lottery picks to a team looking to forge an identity around 2024 Rookie of the Year, Victor Wembanyama.
At pick four, the Spurs did just that, adding Stephon Castle out of UConn.
Standing 6-foot-6, 210 pounds, Castle is a big, strong defensive guard who led the Huskies to an NCAA Championship earlier this year. While he isn't a ready-made 3-point shooter who can space the floor for Wemby, he does provide versatility at one of the game's most important positions and can play alongside either Tre Jones as a two or Devin Vassell running the point in a versatile backcourt both now and into the future.
And then, four picks later, the Spurs followed it up with another point guard in Rob Dillingham, a speedy point guard who seemingly complemented Castle well as a shooter and a fast break threat.
Did the Spurs need to draft two point guards? No, not necessarily, but after spending much of the past season with no traditional point guard, loading up at the position felt like a smart way to maximize the Rookie of the Year heading into the future, especially considering he has SEC Sixth Man of the Year experience due to his unique role for the Wildcats in 2023-24.
Unfortunately, the Minnesota Timberwolves will be benefiting from his success, not the Spurs, as they traded a 2031 unprotected first-round pick and a 2030 top-one protected pick swap to bring him in as the Robin to Mike Conley's Batman.
Now granted, the Spurs got great value for Dillingham and may have the last laugh in the end once this pick comes through next decade, but considering the Spurs look like they are only a few players away from being a legitimate threat in the West, kicking a top-8 pick over a half decade into the future feels antithetical to building the sort of team Wemby believes he can win with a decade into the future.
1. The Miami Heat should have drafted Jared McCain over Kel'el Ware
On the same day news broke that the Miami Heat intended to give starting center Bam Adebayo a new three-year, $166 million contract extension, Pat Riley and company decided to help him out by drafting… another center in Kel'el Ware with the 15th overall pick in the 2024 NBA Draft.
Standing 6-foot-11, 210 pounds, the Indiana native is a promising rim-protector who could hold down the paint and even switch around defensively if need be but isn't expected to be flexible enough to kick it down to the four, let alone pace Adebayo in the painted area to take over traditional center responsibilities. While Adebayo isn't the biggest center in the world at 6-foot-9, 255 pounds and was projected as a bit of a tweener coming out of Kentucky, he's never averaged more than .6 3-pointers a game over a season, making him an unusual option to play the four regularly at either end of the court.
Who knows, maybe the Heat saw Minnesota's success in the playoffs and thought it appropriate to draft another center to field a supersized look of their own, but the skillsets of Adebayo and Ware simply aren't that complementary, whereas adding a player like Jared McCain, who went off the board one pick later at pick 16 to the Philadelphia 76ers, would have been a more natural addition both in 2024, but also into the future.
Of the players locked in as the Heat's “core” moving forward – Adebayo, Jamie Jasquez, and maybe Tyler Herro – none are traditional point guards. Sure, the team still has Terry Rozier, who is under contract through 2026, but he's more of a tweener combo guard and actually has extensive experience playing in a two point guard offense with LeMelo Ball from his time in Charlotte. Even if the Heat worried about drafting a player like Knecht, who had Jasquez's size and collegiate experience but not his defensive abilities, McCain projects as a good backcourt defender heading into the future and likely could have formed the sort of 1-5 game the Heat would certainly like to deploy regularly into the future.
Could this pairing ultimately work? Sure. Could the Heat look like geniuses for pairing up Adebayo and Ware heading into the future? Yes, as well, but right now, this feels like drafting Precious Achiuwa instead of Tyrese Maxey back in 2020, which didn't exactly work out well for the Heat, considering where both players are today.
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