Ramon Sessions worth in 2008 draft

[XuDa]

Alright, then Yi is 6-11.

With above average length and athleticism, which allow him to play bigger than that. Sessions has neither. Besides of that, my original point was that legit 7 footers (in NBA terms) are rare, 6'3 guards are not.

He did ride the bench much of the year. And I encourage you to look up some actual threads, where many people were predicting pretty much exactly 8 points and 5 rebounds. Many predicted better. Few predicted worse.

He averaged more minutes than most of the lottery picks and started for a good part of the season. That's hardly riding the bench when you look at it in context.

Maybe here on the Bucks board people expected more out of Yi, but not elsewhere. Look through some of the pre 2007 draft threads. Yi was being hailed as a bust by the NBA community before he stepped foot on the court.

Duhon is far from the lowest of the low, but I'll accept that that's your opinion. Your implication, though, was that not only is Duhon that bad, but that everyone with whom he was matched up was that bad. Just not true.

That was hardly my implication - I would suggest reading through my original post again.

[emunney]

With above average length and athleticism, which allow him to play bigger than that.

Alright... how can you possibly argue that Yi plays bigger than his height? That is completely and utterly ludicrous. Maybe he will in the future once he has the core strength to actually absorb any contact, but right now he contests shots like a big man, but he doesn't finish around the hoop like even a mediocre little man, and his rebounding is likewise sub-par.

Sessions may not have tested out as an elite athlete, but it's clear on the court that he's more than adequate for NBA point guard. If he was actually poor in both length and athleticism, he wouldn't be throwing down two-handed dunks in traffic. He gets exceptionally vertical for a point guard. No question. Unlike Yi, he actually does play big.

Yi played less than 20 minutes a game from February on. That's a lot of bench time -- and it's a fact, not a point of debate.

[XuDa]

I'm not sure where to begin on this post, but I'll give it a shot by starting from the top. Firstly let me say my premise was not to bag Yi whom I still have high hopes for, but simply to say he was a high lotto pick and I'm not certain I'd trade Sessions for him right now based purely on their respective rookie campaigns. Honestly if we ignored where they were taken in the draft respectively it becomes a pretty tight run thing for me, and I was interested in others opinions. Also I'm not sure how asking a question of our posters is poor logic, I was simply looking for some feedback.

It's poor logic becausse you were essentially resigning to a future as a "good jumpshooting PF" at best.

Anyway going point by point - Yi is not freakishly athletic, he is athletic yes but not freakishly so imo. And Sessions is 6'3' as already stated.

http://sports.yahoo.com/nba/news;_ylt=A ... &type=lgns

"I think he's the most athletic 7-footer in the league," said Del Harris, the Dallas Mavericks' consultant who coached China's national team in the 2004 Olympics. "I don't think any 7-footer can beat him in a race. I don't think anybody can jump higher. It's one thing to jump, but if you're there too early or too late, it's no good."

Your very own Andrew Bogut:

"He's as athletic as anybody I've seen."

http://blogs.jsonline.com/bucks/archive ... iring.aspx

If I watch Yi in international ball I'll see he's more than a jumpshooter? That's great, but isn't that like saying if you watched Sessions in the D League you'd see he's a great defender?

Read your own post again. You claimed that Yi's future is a "potentially good jumpshooting PF" as if he has no chance of being anything more than a jumpshooter. I responded that Yi has skills other than a jumpshot already. I never stated, for example, that Sessions would always be a poor defender.

I was after all talking purely about their rookie campaigns in the NBA. And no Yi didn't have a 'horribly disappointing season', if you read my post and didn't misquote me you'd see I said "Yi's solid start and 29 point game, and subsequant horribly disappointing end to the season".

C'mon, his end to the season was no worse than the rest post-29 points. Therefore you're claiming his season was horribly disappointing other than the "solid start and 29 point game".

I don't think I'm in the minority around here in saying that the end of his season was 'horribly disappointing', but the start of it was infact very encouraging. And I just want to make sure I'm clear, but you think that 8/5 was above expectations for a #6 who was started right out of the gate and never made to earn his minutes?

Yi did not enter the NBA as someone who was expected to contribute immediatly. 8/5 is perfectly acceptable for such a player. Especially one who is exhausted, injury ridden, and barely featured in his teams offense.

And who was supposed to recieve Yi's minutes? Charlie V? He stunk it up while on the court.

Finally before I start bagging Sessions D too much I'd take a good look at Yi, who was hardly Rodman on the block this season.

I don't recall Yi being lit up the way Sessions was. Duhon with 22, points, 15 assists, no turnovers...

And (from a later post) the reason I referred to Yi's 'good' jumpshooting potential and Sessions 'great' ball distributing potential is because in Yi's best period he scored the vast majority of his points from the jumper and a season high of 29 is 'good' from a numbers perspective, maybe 'very good'. Sessions month of around 12 assists is 'great' from a numbers perspective, hence the distinction which I flippantly based purely on the stats.

But the statement implies that Yi has less potential than Sessions, which is absolutely not true.

Now if we can move back onto Sessions that would be great, how dare I question Yi's worth compared with a PG scrub? I think you maybe need to try to take these things a little less personally, it was a long season for all of us.

Huh? Why would I take this personally?

With above average length and athleticism, which allow him to play bigger than that.

Alright... how can you possibly argue that Yi plays bigger than his height? That is completely and utterly ludicrous. Maybe he will in the future once he has the core strength to actually absorb any contact, but right now he contests shots like a big man, but he doesn't finish around the hoop like even a mediocre little man, and his rebounding is likewise sub-par.

True enough. Maybe I should have said "will allow" him to play bigger than his height. You can't deny he has more length and athleticism relative to his position than Sessions does.

Yi is a poor finisher and a mediocre rebounder, but these are things that WILL improve with adjustment and weight training. How much is up in the air.

Sessions may not have tested out as an elite athlete, but it's clear on the court that he's more than adequate for NBA point guard. If he was actually poor in both length and athleticism, he wouldn't be throwing down two-handed dunks in traffic. He gets exceptionally vertical for a point guard. No question. Unlike Yi, he actually does play big.

I don't recall using the word "poor". And I never said his length and athleticism were not adequate.

Sessions does play big. He has above average height and bulk for a PG, so I'd expect him to. Yi didn't have the benefit of an NBA-ready body, or any amount of rest for that matter, when coming into the league.

Yi played less than 20 minutes a game from February on. That's a lot of bench time -- and it's a fact, not a point of debate.

You can't just cut out half of the season. His overall averages show that he had plenty of court time in relation to the other lottery picks.

[TheGhostDog]

I wish I had more time to pick apart GD's post, but I have a meeting in 15 minutes.

I'll simply say that

1 - He's comparing apples to oranges. Neither Ford nor Williams were late season callups happy to get on the court at any opportunity. Both Ford and Williams were the guys at the end of the season that simply didn't care.

2 - If you're going to cherry pick a handful of games in which Sessions averaged 15 assists, then shouldn't we be allowed to cherry pick the same sample size with Davis? Over that six game stretch Davis averaged 11 assists a night.

If there are holes in my arguments by all means fire away, but in my own defense I did try my best to anticipate as many concerns as I could.

Re apples to oranges, yes neither Ford nor Williams were late season call-ups hell-bent on showing they belonged in April - that is why I went back and looked at Ford and Mo's monthly assist totals over their entire Bucks careers. Surley at some point they too were the new guy desperate to prove that they were the answer at PG? Ford's career best month did come in his second full month as a Bucks starter when he was no doubt still very fired up to show his skills, but as I posted he still only averaged 7.5 assists for that month. And I think it is reasonable to compare Sessions to Williams' and Ford's time in Milwaukee because they were all passing to a similar Bucks roster. I deliberately didn't look at Ford's numbers in Toronto because I thought that would be a clear case of apples to oranges/passing to a completely different roster of scorers within a different offensive scheme (and Chris Bosh).

Regarding cherry-picking, well I did everything I could not to cherry pick Sessions' best games - I simply used every game I could where Sessions played a reasonable amount of minutes. Over ten games in April Sessions never played fewer than 24 minutes in a game, but before April Sessions had never played as much as 15 minutes in any game. If I really wanted to cherry pick on Sessions' behalf I only would have looked at the seven games Session started - in which case his assist average rises to 13.1 per game, but as long as he got at least 20 minutes per game throughout April I went with as much data as we can realistically consider. If I was cherry-picking regarding the Ricky Davis sample I could have included his last game of the season, but he played 0 minutes and that would have been clearly fudging the data to get a desired outcome. Or I could have included the five games in March where Davis averaged 34 minutes per game but only managed assist totals of 2,5, 2, 1 and 5, but I respected Bernman's choice of Davis' "hot" period.

[ReasonablySober]

GD, to your first point, the timing has everything to do with it. As others have said, Sessions played in glorified pickup games. They were one step away from being Rookie/Sophomore Game quality.

So, same as others that have come before him, Sessions was in a spot in which he was trying to prove he belonged while everyone else on the court really could have given a damn. During Ford's and Mo's stints as the starting PG I don't ever remember them being in that situation, i.e. playing in that kind of environment.

However, maybe the closest Mo comparison you could make would be when he started that first November back in 2004. He wasn't the presumptive starter heading into the season, being a second round pick and all. In six games that month when he played over 30 minutes, he averaged 10.6 assists per night. This was back when the opposition actually tried, too.

[TheGhostDog]

GD, to your first point, the timing has everything to do with it. As others have said, Sessions played in glorified pickup games. They were one step away from being Rookie/Sophomore Game quality.

So, same as others that have come before him, Sessions was in a spot in which he was trying to prove he belonged while everyone else on the court really could have given a damn. During Ford's and Mo's stints as the starting PG I don't ever remember them being in that situation, i.e. playing in that kind of environment.

However, maybe the closest Mo comparison you could make would be when he started that first November back in 2004. He wasn't the presumptive starter heading into the season, being a second round pick and all. In six games that month when he played over 30 minutes, he averaged 10.6 assists per night. This was back when the opposition actually tried, too.

As to your first point, well I refuse to play god and pretend to know just how hard every single player was trying all those nights, but I think its a little too convenient to propose that Sessions was the single player on court for both teams that was trying over all those minutes and all those nights. The Bucks/Bulls game was clearly a track meet, but the others were legit and Sessions' numbers were impressive throughout. And if noone else gave a damn, why did Sessions' teammates even bother to make their shots when passed to? Again, Sessions assist totals are entirely dependent on what his teammates do with the ball after he passes to them. If they didn't care wouldn't that weigh down his assist numbers?

As for your Mo November '04 comparison, well now who is treading much closer to cherry picking non-consecutive games? Throwing out the one game where Mo only played 11 minutes is fine, but you are also tossing out games in the middle of the period where Mo played 28, 24, 25, 24 and 24 minutes and only registered 4, 3, 6, 6 and 4 assists. Even if remove the 11-minute game from the sample Mo's monthly assist average for the remaining 11 games was 7.9.
http://sports.yahoo.com/nba/players/375 ... ?year=2004

[magee]

I haven't read the entire thread, but a lot of people have made very valid points. I'm not a Bucks fan, nor a fan of any specific team because it's much easier to root for everyone (cop out, I know), but after watching a couple games of his in the D-league and after watching him for a good chunk at the end of the season, I'll say this:

if he were in the draft this year, he'd be a Top 15 pick. He'd be more valued than Bayless and more polished than Westbrook. He would've also made Javele McGee a top 20 pick and a decent low-post threat. Nevada would've been in the NCAA Tournament, win two games and give Sessions the showcase he needed to boost his stock up enough to garnish some Top 10 consideration.

Ah, the difference one year can make.

[Nowak008]

It's hard to describe how much we gave on D during April. The opposing team scored an average of 112.1 per game against us in April. We let them score just so we could get back on offense quicker.


Having said all that. It's hard not to get excited about his potential.

[LUKE23]

I've broken it down like this with Sessions:

The excitement I have for the playmaking he showed was greater than the concern for the lack of D. You have to weigh the two. It's hard to impact a game defensively when no one on the roster is playing it and it's a lame duck coach that probably doesn't give a crap.

Let me put it this way. If I had to wager on one of the elements sticking between the great playmaking and the bad defense, it would be on the great playmaking.

I just think a lot of this comes back to Mo, sadly, and to which side of the fence people are on with him instead of just looking at Sessions as an individual player.

[paul]

I'm not sure why you would take it personally, but it appears you are, I've no idea why we're still talking about Yi in a thread on Sessions but anyway. Again, point by point -

Yes Yi can run and jump very well for a 7 footer, and yes his strength is way below par for a 7 footer. I'm not sure if he's a freak on the bench press as well, but his on-court strength was extremely sub-par. I'm not going to describe someone as a freak athletically when he is below par in one of the most important facets of being a 7 footer, but like I said he is very athletic with regards to running and jumping. I would hope his jumping in the future can be combined with a higher level of strength to produce some power finishes at the bucket, something we didn't see this season.

C'mon, his end to the season was no worse than the rest post-29 points. Therefore you're claiming his season was horribly disappointing other than the "solid start and 29 point game".

I think we're talking about semantics here, but yes I would say that his 'second half' to the season was very very disappointing. From January onwards, although that disapointment was created partially because of his relatively strong opening to the season. Is that better?

Yi did not enter the NBA as someone who was expected to contribute immediatly. 8/5 is perfectly acceptable for such a player. Especially one who is exhausted, injury ridden, and barely featured in his teams offense.

Yes 8/5 is acceptable for the expectations on him the day he entered the league, however those eventual numbers came about after a strong opening (didn't he get up to about 12/7?) followed by a very very large dropoff. No matter how he was viewed when he entered the league he was a starting PF who was on the court for his scoring ability, if we compared those numbers to other 'scoring' starting PF's how do you think they'd stack up? He also didn't enter the nba being viewed as a 'starter', but through circumstance he was, it would be remiss to ignore that.

And who was supposed to recieve Yi's minutes? Charlie V? He stunk it up while on the court.

Yes CV was supposed to get his minutes, Yi is the first rookie I can remember that didn't seem to have to earn his minutes at all. He had long stretches of very poor play that were rewarded with the same regular starters minutes as his good play, all the while we had our former starting PF sitting on the bench, or getting yanked when he was playing well. It was obvious from day dot that LK had a personal problem with CV, and Yi was the beneficiary of that. There were many reports of rumblings in the locker room over this very issue, and there were 100 threads on here about it.

CV's numbers as a starter (who "stunk it up while he was on the court") - 14.9/8/1.4
Yi's numbers as a starter - 9.7/5.8/.9

CV has many many floors to his game, but he was clearly a far better option than Yi this season (or almost any other rookie in the league), I infact think it was unfair of LK to expect Yi to deal with the pressure that comes with being a rookie starter, on both mind and body.

I don't recall Yi being lit up the way Sessions was. Duhon with 22, points, 15 assists, no turnovers...

This is partly because the Bucks 'hid' Yi on the floor whenever they needed to on the defensive end. He was protected by making Bogut guard the opposition's best big, no matter how big a mismatch that was. Think of Bogut guarding West, KG, Boozer, Jaimeson etc etc. All of those guys (and many others) are 4's, but all of their teams don't have a strong inside scoring 5, so Yi got the 5 while Bogut was clearly outpaced often by guarding the 4. Sessions did get burnt on D at times, but all those times he was guarding his direct matchup.

But the statement implies that Yi has less potential than Sessions, which is absolutely not true.

Yi does not have less potential than Sessions, far from it. Again and for the final time I was referencing only what we saw in their rookie campaigns and ONLY WHAT WE SAW IN THEIR ROOKIE CAMPAIGNS - that is Yi was a jumpshooting PF and Sessions was a ball distibuting PG. I didn't only discount Yi's ability to one day be a strong post player or lock down defender, I also discounted Sessions ability to one day be a scorer or lead the league in steals. We didn't see any of those things in their rookie season from either of them, and given I was only talking about their rookie season why would I mention them? I'm not sure how many more times I have to say 'based purely on their rookie campaigns'.

[crkone]

I guess you can liken Sessions to Ryan Braun when he was first called up. He was batting .349 with 7 home runs after a month and a week. He also committed 15 errors in that time. There were legitimate concerns that his defense wouldn't improve, but most people thought that it would improve if he was given time. His offense though was so superb that you couldn't keep him out of the lineup. And it wasn't like the team was in a playoff race, it was the end of May and during June. Sessions showed a lot in those games he played, and in the NBDL. That's just like how Braun showed a lot in the minors. Both committed defensive errors by mostly mental mistakes. I remember thinking, "What the hell is he doing out there?", when Sessions would wander away from his man when he is playing zone and everyone else is playing man to man. We're lucky we have a good defensive coach (proven) than can take his and everyone else defense up a notch. Braun wasn't so lucky as he has Yost, enough said.