Discussion on Pick #14 - Jake Lever

[anthc]

they all do. and then within 3 or 4 years they all look ripped. except Justin Westhoff.

Lever may turn out to be a better player than Ben Hart IMO. He's the only other player I've seen come in during his first year and immediately be competitive against much bigger players even though his body hasn't filled out yet. Has all the skills and decision making but where he beats Hart IMO is his leadership. He has future captain written all over him.

Yep he has got something special about him and the way he sells that candy tops it of

 

[Mattrox]

I think what Elite Crow is getting at is that if someone like Cory Gregson, who we could have taken at 47 had we not done the trade, ends up having a better career than Wigg, then the club kinda hasn't been proven right.

We could have taken Gregson at 35 if we wanted him.......

 

[cmndstab]

I think what Elite Crow is getting at is that if someone like Cory Gregson, who we could have taken at 47 had we not done the trade, ends up having a better career than Wigg, then the club kinda hasn't been proven right.

You do realise we could have taken Gregson at 35 as well, right? We obviously rated Wigg higher.

There is no argument in which it's better to have pick 47 than pick 35.

This is where all the arguments about whether Wigg turns out to be good or not are pointless. It's not about Wigg. It's about getting an upgrade from pick 47 to pick 35, at the cost of downgrading 14 to 10. Presumably the club did its homework and believed that they could get the same player at 14 that they would select at 10.

Now, of course, we don't know that's the case. Perhaps the club didn't do it's homework, or was naive in its confidence. We don't know. We'll never know. All we can do at this stage is look at the outcome, which is that we picked up Lever with pick 14, the same player we would have taken at pick 10 if we still had it. Which means we lost nothing in the exchange.

So what did we gain? We got to upgrade pick 47 to pick 35. Who we got at pick 35 is totally irrelevant to the discussion. The benefit is not the player we take at pick 35. The benefit is getting to upgrade our pick 12 places. What we then do with pick 35 is up to the recruiting staff. Taking Wigg is separate to the trade and should be judged on its own merits.

The "gamble" as it's been described here cost us the risk of losing a player in picks 10-13 that we would have preferred over the player we got at pick 14. There are really only two scenarios, in hindsight. Either the club did their homework and made an intelligent trade which panned out as they expected..... or they took a risk and it paid off. Either way, it's the kind of thing I wish we'd do more often and it should be viewed in hindsight as a very clever move.

 

[Mattrox]

so your not supportive of taking a risk because it didn't come off.

very dangerous way of thinking.

There was a huge queue of posters flinging s**t at the club for not taking a risk on Dayle Garlett.

The club takes a risk with a pick swap, and we get Lever and posters fling s**t at the club for taking the wrong risk.

 

[Cleric]

Actually my point is this:

Freddy claims those arguing against the swap of picks were wrong because Lever is a gun.

In my opinion that that is incorrect thinking, it only shows what we risked. For it to be claimed a success, the player we selected in Wigg has to be a very good player. Without Wigg becoming a player we risked a lot for no gain.

I think the even crazier logic is the club swapped pick 10 for 14 because the knew Lever would be there still. They then go on to say we got Wigg for free. Its like they think we got picks 14 and 35 for our pick 10 alone, when we also sent them our pick 47 as well.
Thats the only way someone could think Wigg was free. So if people dont even have the ability to know the trade they shouldnt comment on it.
As it stands We could of had Lever with pick 10, Gregson and most likely Wigg with pick 47.
So what the hell did we gain from doing the swap? Just to help Geelong out? Cos we're good guys?
And when you talk about the trade being a winner or not the reason the swap was done was so we could try and get Maynard. But we missed out, so by that alone the trade was a dud.
Theres so much denial going on here its frightning. And even when they are proved wrong they still blindly keep saying the same s**t that was dissproved.

 

[Mattrox]

Not really. You better hope Wigg is a better player than Gregson at Geelong. At the moment hes a fair way back.

We could have had Gregson at pick 35. We didn't need pick 47 to get him. Clearly the club wanted Wigg. Your point is an empty.

 

[huludicidal]

You do realise we could have taken Gregson at 35 as well, right? We obviously rated Wigg higher.

There is no argument in which it's better to have pick 47 than pick 35.

I certainly realise that. But if we were wrong in rating Wigg higher and he never reaches 50 AFL games while Gregson (or whoever was top of our list when pick 47 rolled around) plays 200 games, then the trade is rendered pointless.

I realise going up 12 spots gave us more freedom to choose who we wanted there though, of course.

 

[Cleric]

Lever was predicted to go to Freo wasn't he?

He's having a hard time coming to grips with the fact he is wrong.

 

[Cleric]

We could have had Gregson at pick 35. We didn't need pick 47 to get him. Clearly the club wanted Wigg. Your point is an empty.

Winning the trade is about the result. Just because we could of taken Gregson and didjnt doesnt mean we won the trade. Thats stupid talk. We could of taken Caleb Daniel as well but didnt. And thats called a wrong move by the looks of it. If Gregson and Daniel are better than Wigg, then our recuiters and list managers got it wrong. Simple really.

 

[cmndstab]

I certainly realise that. But if we were wrong in rating Wigg higher and he never reaches 50 AFL games while Gregson (or whoever was top of our list when pick 47 rolled around) plays 200 games, then the trade is rendered pointless.

I realise going up 12 spots gave us more freedom to choose who we wanted there though, of course.

Yes. The recruitment of Wigg is a separate argument that will be more reasonably had in a year or two when we see how he develops.

Having twelve more players available at our selection (and most likely twelve players who are all at least as good or better than the rest) is the benefit in question here, not Wigg himself.

 

[Cleric]

We could have taken Gregson at 35 if we wanted him.......

Its like you think we traded pick 10 to get a better pick with which we needed to get Wigg with lol. We wanted Maynard not Wigg.

 

[cmndstab]

Winning the trade is about the result. Just because we could of taken Gregson and didjnt doesnt mean we won the trade. Thats stupid talk. We could of taken Caleb Daniel as well but didnt. And thats called a wrong move by the looks of it. If Gregson and Daniel are better than Wigg, then our recuiters and list managers got it wrong. Simple really.

Try to understand. They are separate issues.

Issue 1 : The trade. We lost nothing (unless you're going to argue we would have taken one of the players recruited at 10-13 instead). We gained superior options for our second round pick. If we're going to talk purely about the result then the trade was inarguably positive. The only possible argument against the trade is that we took a bad risk and were just fortunate - but you've claimed that the result is the only thing that matters, which means we definitively won the trade.

Issue 2 : The selection of Wigg at 35. Which may or may not prove to be a poor choice. Too early to tell at this point.

 

[Cap]

I think the even crazier logic is the club swapped pick 10 for 14 because the knew Lever would be there still. They then go on to say we got Wigg for free. Its like they think we got picks 14 and 35 for our pick 10 alone, when we also sent them our pick 47 as well.
Thats the only way someone could think Wigg was free. So if people dont even have the ability to know the trade they shouldnt comment on it.
As it stands We could of had Lever with pick 10, Gregson and most likely Wigg with pick 47.
So what the hell did we gain from doing the swap? Just to help Geelong out? Cos we're good guys?
And when you talk about the trade being a winner or not the reason the swap was done was so we could try and get Maynard. But we missed out, so by that alone the trade was a dud.
Theres so much denial going on here its frightning. And even when they are proved wrong they still blindly keep saying the same s**t that was dissproved.

The logic of the trade was sound at the time.

The club was really clear on it, they wanted to upgrade Pick 47 which they did, so the trade was a success.

I don't know who they were targeting,but that is largely irrelevant when talking about the decision.

If based on their intel the risk were worth it then the decision needs to be made every day of the week, as taking a risk based on sound decision making needs to be appluaded.

The trade is a dud rubbish is just emotive crap and more so because posters want to know who we were after so they can hang the recuiting staff in one way or another.

 

[Cleric]

Try to understand. They are separate issues.

Issue 1 : The trade. We lost nothing (unless you're going to argue we would have taken one of the players recruited at 10-13 instead). We gained superior options for our second round pick. If we're going to talk purely about the result then the trade was inarguably positive.\

Issue 2 : The selection of Wigg at 35. Which may or may not prove to be a poor choice. Too early to tell at this point.

Try to understand.
We traded pick 10 to get Geelongs pick 35. We did this to try and get Maynard. We didnt get him. It didnt work out. We didnt get the result we wanted. And now you have had it shown to you we didnt know Lever was going to be there at 14 your whole inital attempt to make us look bad has failed.

 

[Mattrox]

Winning the trade is about the result. Just because we could of taken Gregson and didjnt doesnt mean we won the trade. Thats stupid talk. We could of taken Caleb Daniel as well but didnt. And thats called a wrong move by the looks of it. If Gregson and Daniel are better than Wigg, then our recuiters and list managers got it wrong. Simple really.

Let me remind you why we don't believe you when you tell us the recruitment team got it wrong.

We screwed up not drafting Garlett last year and it just continued on out inept trading period last year. He will be long gone next draft before we get a pick. And to those saying "but every other team passed on him", well no other teams had their first two draft picks taken from them for the next two years. We needed to take a risk to secure talent in the face of Triggs **** up. I would be willing to bet my tool shed that Garlett is going to play more high level AFL games than Joyce, Atkins and Siggins are going to by the end of their careers. We stuffed up and we will miss out.
I was saying it at the time and Im saying it now.

Did Garlett play any AFL games?

 

[Drugs Are Bad Mackay?]

Given that we're (hopefully) going to be after a fast, skillful mid this year I wonder if we'll try to upgrade our first rounder?

There might be other clubs prioritising a defender like us last year that we can swap with.

 

[cmndstab]

Try to understand.
We traded pick 10 to get Geelongs pick 35. We did this to try and get Maynard. We didnt get him. It didnt work out. We didnt get the result we wanted. And now you have had it shown to you we didnt know Lever was going to be there at 14 your whole inital attempt to make us look bad has failed.

I'm not really sure what's going on with your final sentence there, but I'm not "attempting to make you look bad". I'm not interested in winning internet points.

Look, let's assume that you're right and we wanted Maynard, and then missed out on him. It is a logical fallacy to claim that since we wanted outcome X, and didn't get it, that the trade was a failure. You judge a trade by looking at what we gave up compared to what we gained.

We gained an improvement in our selection. Pick 47 to 35. You can have an argument about what that's worth, but if your argument is that it's worth zero because we didn't get Maynard, then you need to stop and think before posting.

We lost the certainty of being able to take whoever was available at pick 10. That was the gamble. Now, we don't know if the club did their homework or not, but given the outcome it is only reasonable to give them the benefit of the doubt. In terms of absolute outcomes, the gamble paid off, and we lost nothing.

If we lost nothing, and gained something, the trade is a win. How big of a win is up for debate, but to call it a failure or even a break-even trade is simply not correct.

If you want to argue that the club couldn't possibly have known who would be available at picks 10 and 14, and that the gamble was stupid on those grounds, then fine. At least there is some sense in that argument. But Wigg is irrelevant to the discussion.

 

[anthc]

Try to understand. They are separate issues.

Issue 1 : The trade. We lost nothing (unless you're going to argue we would have taken one of the players recruited at 10-13 instead). We gained superior options for our second round pick. If we're going to talk purely about the result then the trade was inarguably positive. The only possible argument against the trade is that we took a bad risk and were just fortunate - but you've claimed that the result is the only thing that matters, which means we definitively won the trade.

Issue 2 : The selection of Wigg at 35. Which may or may not prove to be a poor choice. Too early to tell at this point.

Yep we took a risk and got lever, Wigg might turn out great too who knows. but on the hole our drafting has been good in recent years and if our worst *up is obtaining lever well it could be worse

 

[Red mist]

We could have had Gregson at pick 35. We didn't need pick 47 to get him. Clearly the club wanted Wigg. Your point is an empty.

Wasn't getting 35 also a scenario we wanted so we could get closer to Braydon Maynard. Weren't we into him for round 2?

 

[headache1]

Our new coach came in and highlighted the importance of foot skills, and left footers. The best left foot kick in the draft ends up on our list. I don't think it's a coincidence. He hasn't even played a game of AFL football, and people are already calling drafting him a mistake, based on Gregson and Daniel playing some decent games. Some players are ready to go straight away, some aren't. This early on in the picture, there remains the distinct possibility that Wigg has a much higher upside than the other two players.

 

[Mattrox]

Wasn't getting 35 also a scenario we wanted so we could get closer to Braydon Maynard. Weren't we into him for round 2?

We wanted a 1st and 2nd round pick. After draft sanctions this our top priority.

I think we were into a lot of players. But we did talk to Wigg pre draft that we wanted him.

 

[Mego Red]

Not really. You better hope Wigg is a better player than Gregson at Geelong. At the moment hes a fair way back.

Sorry - what? Your lack of logic is CRAZY.

THE TRADE DIDN'T GIVE US WIGG.

The trade gave us OPTIONS IN THE DRAFT WE DIDN'T HAVE.

We could have had Gregson, Wigg or Daniel. We chose Wigg. That's a draft pick. Nothing to do with the trade, other than it gave them that choice.

Your version gave us no choice. The club took a measured risk and benefited from it.

 

[Mego Red]

Try to understand.
We traded pick 10 to get Geelongs pick 35. We did this to try and get Maynard. We didnt get him. It didnt work out. We didnt get the result we wanted. And now you have had it shown to you we didnt know Lever was going to be there at 14 your whole inital attempt to make us look bad has failed.

False logic.

We might have wanted Maynard. We might have wanted Wigg. You CANNOT know for a certain.

All you CAN know is they wanted pick 35 because they thought the draft was deep enough to get some talent there but that it thinned down drastically.

Who's shown us anything? You make foolish quotes of anonymous internet opinion and think that counts.

The club got exactly who they wanted - Lever - and got to pick in the 2nd round without giving up any additional assets. That's the only truth and the rest is your spin.

 

[Emperoar]

It wasn't too long ago that whenever discussion pointed towards our defence you anticipate a cringe coming by. Now we've got Talia, Laird and Lever and I can't help but get super excited.

He's in the same category as Talia, Sloane, Betts and Laird on that when the ball is in their hands - something good will come out of it.

 

[SES SA]

Yeah I still think we need another Rutten down there. Not easy to find though.

I would be keen for them to go after Michael Talia. The guy is consistently dropped from the dogs side, he has a link to the crows and there is an opportunity here for that second tall defender spot. Doubt it will happen given the Talia's close ties to the dogs, but I think it would be good.

Hartigan has been improving in the past month or so. Suns got hold of him, so its really up in the air with him.