If you are a fan of the Charlotte Hornets and went into Thursday night's draft expecting to be overwhelmed, that didn't happen.
But "overwhelming" is hard to do when you're picking No. 12, and so it makes some sense that the Hornets chose a player who was repeatedly described as "solid" _ Kentucky's PJ Washington.
I like the pick. I don't love it, but I like it. The Hornets chose Washington over North Carolina's Nassir Little, along with a group of three to four other players they considered, at No. 12. They also considered a bunch of trade scenarios, both to move up and move down, before dismissing all of them.
So was it better to take Washington over Little? I think so. After watching Little for that inconsistent freshman year at UNC, if I were a general manager, I wouldn't want to risk a large part of my NBA team's future on him. He's too up-and-down. Plus, in an NBA where everyone but true centers must be able to shoot 3s, Little _ who ended up not being drafted until No. 25 overall by Portland in one of the big draft-night surprises _ really can't do that yet.
Washington is the rare Kentucky lottery pick who actually came back for a second year as a Wildcat, after figuring out following his freshman year that he might not even be a first-round pick if he left his name in the 2018 draft.
Washington was way better as a sophomore in most everything, as Hornets GM Mitch Kupchak pointed out _ shooting 3-pointers, playing with more passion and in general making what Kupchak called "a huge jump" from Year One to Year Two in college.
Kupchak acknowledged that a lot of people might want to believe that the Hornets should have taken a guard, given the uncertainty surrounding franchise point guard Kemba Walker, who enters unrestricted free agency June 30. But, Kupchak said: "We're not going to pick a player based on position."
The NBA has evolved into nearly a position-less game these days, with the exception that every team needs a point guard. Kupchak is trying to build a young core with the Hornets that includes players like Miles Bridges, Dwayne Bacon, Malik Monk and Devonte' Graham. Washington will be part of that mix, and Kupchak said he hoped the young players would do everything from "have lunch together" to, most importantly, "get in the gym."
Every NBA pick was a gamble, but this was less so than a lot of them. The Hornets aren't expecting Washington to be spectacular right away. They want him to be solid. To be a part of things, not the main thing. And at No. 12, that's pretty realistic.
