from Eric Duhatschek of The Athletic,

GMs will tell you that given their preference, they’d acquire picks in 2022 rather than 2021 because there will be greater certainty by then – more eyeballs on the prospects, a truer sense of what players’ upsides might be.

If you’re a team selling low-budget rentals at or before the trade deadline this year and all you are offered in return is a bunch of fifths, sixths and sevenths, is it even worth the bother? The answer, according to at least one decision-maker, is yes, absolutely.

His thinking: If there’s ever a year to accumulate extra late-round picks, it is this one, on the grounds that if it truly is a shot-in-the-dark draft anyway, the more guesses you get, the greater your odds of actually turning a long shot into a gem.

The draft, remember, doesn’t create talent, it just distributes it. The lack of playing time is going to set a lot of prospects back, not just high-end, first-year draft-eligible ones. It doesn’t mean they can’t blossom eventually.

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