Previewing the NBA Draft with Zach Cohen

Zach Cohen joined Gill Alexander and Kelley Bydlon on A Numbers Game to give a betting preview for the upcoming NBA Draft including his best bet for the number one overall pick.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
All right, here's the here's the NBA draft thing. The
Atlanta Hawks. Remember they won the number one overall pick
despite having the tenth best odds. You came on this
show some time ago and said you are taking You're
gonna take a flyer on clinging Donovan Klingon to go
number one. Now, their early target was, by all reports,

(00:20):
Alexander Saw but it seems like he's not trying to
work out with him despite the Hawks attempts to bring
him in. And so what you have now in the
market is Zachary, Risa Shay and Klingon. They have moved
up there shorter. This is according to Jonathan Gavoni. You're

(00:40):
feeling good about this, I would imagine clean. So it's
Sar at minus one fifteen. This is to go number one, Zachary,
Resa Shay, both the French players at plus one ten.

Speaker 2 (00:48):
Flip flip, Now, yeah, Reesa che is a favorite as
of this morning at minus one fifteen.

Speaker 1 (00:52):
Okay, So so Resa Shay the slight favorite, Sar the
slight dog, and then Clinging it plus three seventy. That's
gonna happen for you, I hope.

Speaker 3 (01:00):
So yeah, I gave out clinging at plus eleven hundred
M plus twelve hundred. Now it's looking like it's riesa
Chet or Clinging. They think of a problem with the
Hawks is they have a lot of voices in their
front office, and you kind of don't know who's going
to get to make the pick. So I kind of
the whole time said, if Quinn Snyder, the head coach,
has any say in this pick, I think he's going
to go Clinging because I don't think he wants to
go through a long rebuild. I think he wants somebody

(01:22):
that can anchor that defense and really, you know, kind
of make up for Trey Young's inability to guard the perimeter.
Clinging could do that. I think Clinging is a player
that's a lot like you know, a Rudy Gobert, maybe
more like a Marcassol, just a guy that can really
just be a massive body in the paint, contests every shot.
But then offensively, he's a really good passer. Apparently he's
shooting the three ball really well in workouts, I mean,

(01:43):
which is not that surprising if you just look at
the way he shoots the ball, like he has really
nice form. So I think if he's a guy that
is making shots consistently and you're comfortable with it in
the way you're shooting the ball. Workouts Like it makes
a lot of sense to Graham at Won in a
week draft because I do think he has all defense
upside and whatever he can do on offense just gravy.

Speaker 1 (02:00):
Uh. What are you seeing in terms of the breath
of the menu here? For the draft itself, I like this.

Speaker 3 (02:07):
Draft a little bit better than most people do. But
I think that because I write about the draft, I
just kind of like fall in love with players that
maybe other people would in. But I do think that
there's going to be a lot of value to be
had later in the draft, and I do think that
we're going to get, you know, a few All Stars
in this draft. I just kind of think that it's
inevitable that some players in the draft will turn into
an All Star. This one is one where there are

(02:27):
players with all types of upside. Maybe have some concerns
with shooting or something like that, but you know, most
of these teams can figure something like that out.

Speaker 1 (02:35):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (02:35):
I think Kings has a ton post DraftKings, they keep
putting more and more stuff up.

Speaker 1 (02:39):
It's really impressive.

Speaker 2 (02:40):
The Uh, and to that point, Zach, I mean, hey,
we all thought the Anthony Edwards draft was going to
be terrible, and uh, he's looking pretty good right now.
I think the consens is it's just not top heavy,
right but there are a lot of good players in
this draft just doesn't have the superstar here. By the way,
when Nevada gets legalized sports betting, I'm sure we're going
to have at least one.

Speaker 1 (03:00):
NBA draft. From Where do you fall on Bronnie?

Speaker 3 (03:04):
I like Bronnie a little bit. I think he's going
to be, you know, potentially a solid rotation player. Like
I don't think he should go seventeens of the Lakers.
I don't think the Sun should take him at twenty two,
but I think in the second round he's a decent value.
Like I think that people ignore about Bronnie is that
he was like the twentieth ranked player in his high
school class, and you know, it was above players like

(03:25):
right in the range of a player like Reed Shepherd
who's now protected to go top five in this draft.
I think that Bronnie is a talented player that had
a really tough go in college. I think that people
ignore kind of the fact that he wanted to cardiac arrest.
You know, in the summer, got off to a slow
start where he really wasn't able to ramp up for
training camp. They played him, you know, small short minutes
when he started the season out and he was playing

(03:45):
for a USC team that had a bunch of ball
dominant guards. So I don't think that you know, getting
him good looks for the three was you know, a
priority for the USC offense. I think that Bronnie is
a player that can defend on the perimeter, it can
hit the three. I kind of think he's like a
Deuce McBride type where you're gonna like him coming off
the bench.

Speaker 1 (04:00):
Do you have any bets on are you Kelly either,
either of you guys? Nothing.

Speaker 3 (04:03):
I took the under on that thirty eight and a half.
I don't know how good I feel about it right now,
because you know, yesterday Rich Paul came out and said
that he's not going at seventeen, He's not going at
twenty two. So that was kind of my theory is
that he had a draft promise somewhere in the first rounds.
But at the same time he kind of threw out
there that the Raptors are interested, they have a pick
in the thirties, so I still can see him going,
you know, thirty eight or earlier