Is This Video Workout Of Kristaps Porzingis Being Overhyped? Could Go Top 3 In The Draft Now

[SelfishPlayer]

Wow, I just noticed that KP never actually played in Euroleague, he's a true minor league prospect that didn't start in that minor league. This is like a prospect that didn't start in college.

What? Dude, he has played three seasons in the spanish ACB. I dont think you guys understand the system in europe: you play in your domestic league (in this case spain) and then the best teams from each country plays in the euroleague during the season.

Porzingis hasnt played for a euroleague team, but he has played for a eurocup team (2nd tier tournament, behind euroleague).

Anyway, its nothing like someone who hasnt started in college. He has logged 20+ mins in the spanish ACB for two season now. That level of competition would smash any college team.

He has far more experience than any of the college players in the draft. Porzingis has been playing against pros for three years,

The ACB unlike college basketball doesn't put the best talent they can get on the basketball floor. The ACB constructs their rosters with restrictions like only 2 players that do not have a European passport and mandates that at least 5 players on the team have to be from the country the team is located. WTF?! 5 players that have European or contonou passports, so basically no more han 7 foreign players. ACB isn't about putting the best available players in the world on the court, the ACB is about putting players on the court according to the league restrictions. There would be many more American players in the ACB if the league were dedicated to being the best it could be. It's definetly a league less effective for gauging NBA talent than the NCAA has been IMO.

[Nazrmohamed]

Somebody showed me this and I became instantly less impressed.

[youtube]https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=KzqJyADNaJI[/youtube]

He could easily become a better player. Just saying, his highlights don't look all that intense no more.

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=KzqJyADNaJI

[Scalabrine]

Wow, I just noticed that KP never actually played in Euroleague, he's a true minor league prospect that didn't start in that minor league. This is like a prospect that didn't start in college.

Marvin Williams didn't start in college and he got drafted 2nd, ahead of Chris Paul and Deron Williams, the Hawks needed a PG more than an SF too (had Childress, Smith, Johnson all recently drafted or traded for).

Porzingis is a guy who I have never seen play, and the majority of posters in here acting like they know exactly what this guy offers should be admitting the same.

The video seems like he has some post moves, he seems a little small to be down there but he has the skills to be an elite stretch 4 with ability to play multiple positions in certain situations. He will also certainly get bigger. Put him on the elbow and if he has a shorter guy on him he can shooter over the top or post them up (hopefully pass out of it at an elite level as well), if he has a big man on him, he's pulling them out of the paint at the very least and hopefully he will be able to get by them with a face up game.

I love his potential skill set for this style of NBA that we have been heading too, he seems like a guy that loves the game but thats hard to tell with such little exposure.

[Chocolate City Jordanaire]

Tskitishvili looked great, initially, too.

[903124]

The reason why the Darko comparison is poor is because Kristaps has proven much more. Darko was all potential. He averaged like 3 ppg before heading into the NBA.

http://www.fibaeurope.com/cid_KNce8jInH ... 38624.html

I afraid not.

[NO-KG-AI]

I don't know why people are acting like Darko, Skita, Bargnani etc, are all bad signs for him. Not one of them failed because they lacked talent, and really, talent is what you are looking for... a lot of time, the stuff that makes a great prospect into a great player is hard to recognize in pre draft analysis.

He could be great, or he could bust like those guys did, but it won't be because he isn't a talented, high potential prospect.

[GreatWhiteStiff]

I hate when people point to european busts from 15 years ago to argue how high the bust potential of european players is.
Scouts are much better at evaluating european talent nowadays than before. There also isn't the crazy search for the next Dirk like until the mid 2000's where teams just blindly drafted every somewhat mobile 7 footer.
I'm pretty sure the bust percentage of european first rounders is not higher than that of american players now.
These are the european first round picks of the last 7 years that have played in the NBA.

Danilo Gallinari- Above average but not a star.
Jonas Valanciunas-Close to a bust.
Jan Vesely-Complete bust.
Donatas Motiejunas-Average.
Nikola Mirotic-Decent, but will see if can get much better.

Most of your list is irrelevant. We are talking about tall thin white players from Europe. Of the 5 on your list who qualify, none look likely to ever be an all-star. There are ZERO players like Porzingis in the last 13 years that were worth a top 5 pick.
It's possible that Porzingis might somehow turn out to be the next Nowitzki/Pau Gasol, but the odds are certainly against him.

How's a 16PPG/8RPG Per 36, 60 %TS, and 20 PER 'close to a bust'.

Jonas actually gets 12 boards per 36 afaik. 62% TS too..so you're underselling a bit but point made.

[UcanUwill]

Wow, I just noticed that KP never actually played in Euroleague, he's a true minor league prospect that didn't start in that minor league. This is like a prospect that didn't start in college.

How in hell ACB and Eurocup are minor leagues? Only 24 euro teams play in the Euroleague, a lot of NBA Euro prospects didn't play in the EL. Porzingis faced better competition than most NBAers out of Europe.

[SelfishPlayer]

Wow, I just noticed that KP never actually played in Euroleague, he's a true minor league prospect that didn't start in that minor league. This is like a prospect that didn't start in college.

How in hell ACB and Eurocup are minor leagues? Only 24 euro teams play in the Euroleague, a lot of NBA Euro prospects didn't play in the EL. Porzingis faced better competition than most NBAers out of Europe.

Most of that is your opinion, care to provide some evidence about the quality of competition? Name some big men KP competed directly against.

[GreatWhiteStiff]

Somebody showed me this and I became instantly less impressed.

[youtube]https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=KzqJyADNaJI[/youtube]

He could easily become a better player. Just saying, his highlights don't look all that intense no more.

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=KzqJyADNaJI

Bargnani has some offensive skill. I imagine many bigs would like the pure skill bargs has in terms of ball handling/outside shooting. Bargs also scored 20 ppg in the nba. Still he's terrible and basicly a bust, but its kind of unfair to say because bargs is a bust this guy will have no heart/defensive awareness as well. Note: I have no idea if he has heart or defensive awareness...he may not.

[laika]

Danilo Gallinari- Above average but not a star.
Jonas Valanciunas-Close to a bust.
Jan Vesely-Complete bust.
Donatas Motiejunas-Average.
Nikola Mirotic-Decent, but will see if can get much better.

Most of your list is irrelevant. We are talking about tall thin white players from Europe. Of the 5 on your list who qualify, none look likely to ever be an all-star. There are ZERO players like Porzingis in the last 13 years that were worth a top 5 pick.
It's possible that Porzingis might somehow turn out to be the next Nowitzki/Pau Gasol, but the odds are certainly against him.

How's a 16PPG/8RPG Per 36, 60 %TS, and 20 PER 'close to a bust'.

Jonas actually gets 12 boards per 36 afaik. 62% TS too..so you're underselling a bit but point made.

And he has one of the worst RAPM in the league and an awful unadjusted +/-. That's why I said I wasn't going to bother to argue the point. Most people simply ignore advanced stats when evaluating players.

[903124]

How's a 16PPG/8RPG Per 36, 60 %TS, and 20 PER 'close to a bust'.

Jonas actually gets 12 boards per 36 afaik. 62% TS too..so you're underselling a bit but point made.

And he has one of the worst RAPM in the league and an awful unadjusted +/-. That's why I said I wasn't going to bother to argue the point. Most people simply ignore advanced stats when evaluating players.

http://www.gotbuckets.com/statistics/rapm/2014-rapm/ 13-14 season

This season his BPM is -0.5 is a bit mediocre but certainly not worst in league. His VORP is 0.8 which is about no.150 out of the league.
Moreover RAPM and BPM can be improved over time like Marreese Speights had nearly worst RAPM last year and surely you will tell he is a scrub this year. JV is nowhere a bust if Motiejunas is an average player.

[batsmasher]

Fool me once...

[WhateverBro]

The ACB unlike college basketball doesn't put the best talent they can get on the basketball floor. The ACB constructs their rosters with restrictions like only 2 players that do not have a European passport and mandates that at least 5 players on the team have to be from the country the team is located. WTF?! 5 players that have European or contonou passports, so basically no more han 7 foreign players. ACB isn't about putting the best available players in the world on the court, the ACB is about putting players on the court according to the league restrictions. There would be many more American players in the ACB if the league were dedicated to being the best it could be. It's definetly a league less effective for gauging NBA talent than the NCAA has been IMO.

So? That doesn't matter. The players are still MUCH better than NCAA players, regardless of them being they are foreign or not. I don't understand your point, at all.

[SelfishPlayer]

The ACB unlike college basketball doesn't put the best talent they can get on the basketball floor. The ACB constructs their rosters with restrictions like only 2 players that do not have a European passport and mandates that at least 5 players on the team have to be from the country the team is located. WTF?! 5 players that have European or contonou passports, so basically no more han 7 foreign players. ACB isn't about putting the best available players in the world on the court, the ACB is about putting players on the court according to the league restrictions. There would be many more American players in the ACB if the league were dedicated to being the best it could be. It's definetly a league less effective for gauging NBA talent than the NCAA has been IMO.

So? That doesn't matter. The players are still MUCH better than NCAA players, regardless of them being they are foreign or not. I don't understand your point, at all.

To you it doesn't matter, but in reality ACB teams by nature of their roster restrictions on number of foreign players reduces the overall quality of the rosters because at least 5 domestic players have to be on the roster. Those are 5 players that potentially wouldn't be able to get on the team if there were an open competition for those very same 5 spots with NCAA and DLeague players. ACB teams only have 2 Americans because the league restricts it to such, without that restriction Americans would dominate ACB. NCAA has more talented players than ACB. The roster restrictions of the ACB essentially mandates that a certain number of homegrown domestic players have to be on the team, those very same players often are too horrible to ever qualify for an NCAA D1 scholarship!
I'm looking at KP's ACB roster and there is only one player that was drafted to the NBA! Derrick Byars!

[Masterfully]

Wow, I just noticed that KP never actually played in Euroleague, he's a true minor league prospect that didn't start in that minor league. This is like a prospect that didn't start in college.

Marvin Williams didn't start in college and he got drafted 2nd, ahead of Chris Paul and Deron Williams, the Hawks needed a PG more than an SF too (had Childress, Smith, Johnson all recently drafted or traded for).

And how did that work out for them? I can't say for certain that Porzingis will be a disappointment, but I can say I wouldn't take the risk on an unknown Euro with a top 5 pick.

[JXL]

He's more Darko than Dirk, don't fall in love with workout videos. If he cannot build up strength and become more of an interior defender, he's A LOT like Darko.

[UcanUwill]

Most of that is your opinion, care to provide some evidence about the quality of competition? Name some big men KP competed directly against.

Not even a big Porzingis fan per se, just responding to ridiculous comments.

Spanish ACB is strongest domestic league in Europe easily, and its not an opinion, its common knowledge. And Eurocup, well I dont think I have to explain what Eurocup is, now do I? How is this my opinion? Fact is, just some NBA drafted Euros play in the Euroleague or Eurocup, and most of them play in far lesser domestic leagues.

All year long he faced teams like : Barcelona, Real Madrid, Laboral, Bilbao, Juventud, Unicaja, Valencia, Virtus, Nymburk, Lietuvos Rytas.
He faced Euroleague caliber players very often, I will not bother naming them right now, but pretty much any team I mentioned, and a lot of other ACB teams has such players.

The ACB unlike college basketball doesn't put the best talent they can get on the basketball floor. The ACB constructs their rosters with restrictions like only 2 players that do not have a European passport and mandates that at least 5 players on the team have to be from the country the team is located. WTF?! 5 players that have European or contonou passports, so basically no more han 7 foreign players. ACB isn't about putting the best available players in the world on the court, the ACB is about putting players on the court according to the league restrictions. There would be many more American players in the ACB if the league were dedicated to being the best it could be. It's definetly a league less effective for gauging NBA talent than the NCAA has been IMO.

This is just American superiority complext speaking. Fact is, the majority of top quality players in Europe are either European or have European passports ( a lot of well established Non European players end up with European citizenships). Americans by no means dominate European basketball, to so the least. So ACB can't collect all Charles Jenckins'es and Bryce Taylors, thats a big loss Ha, give me a break. ACB rosters reflect team budgets very well, the pool of players to choose from is huge.
I am not even sure about that ''at least 5 players have to be domestic" thing. How many Spanish players do Barcelona have? The answer is 2, 3 if you count Oleson, who has Spanish citizenship (thats what they do, they give citizenships left and right in sports, to come around all these restriction loopholes you speak of).

[SpeedyG]

dirk











or bargs

Or worse....Darko.

[WhateverBro]

The ACB unlike college basketball doesn't put the best talent they can get on the basketball floor. The ACB constructs their rosters with restrictions like only 2 players that do not have a European passport and mandates that at least 5 players on the team have to be from the country the team is located. WTF?! 5 players that have European or contonou passports, so basically no more han 7 foreign players. ACB isn't about putting the best available players in the world on the court, the ACB is about putting players on the court according to the league restrictions. There would be many more American players in the ACB if the league were dedicated to being the best it could be. It's definetly a league less effective for gauging NBA talent than the NCAA has been IMO.

So? That doesn't matter. The players are still MUCH better than NCAA players, regardless of them being they are foreign or not. I don't understand your point, at all.

To you it doesn't matter, but in reality ACB teams by nature of their roster restrictions on number of foreign players reduces the overall quality of the rosters because at least 5 domestic players have to be on the roster. Those are 5 players that potentially wouldn't be able to get on the team if there were an open competition for those very same 5 spots with NCAA and DLeague players. ACB teams only have 2 Americans because the league restricts it to such, without that restriction Americans would dominate ACB. NCAA has more talented players than ACB. The roster restrictions of the ACB essentially mandates that a certain number of homegrown domestic players have to be on the team, those very same players often are too horrible to ever qualify for an NCAA D1 scholarship!
I'm looking at KP's ACB roster and there is only one player that was drafted to the NBA! Derrick Byars!

I'm sorry but I don't get your point. Again, so what!? Porzingis plays for a pretty bad ACB league team, they finished 15th out of 18 teams. But that's irrelevant, what's relevant is the fact that he has played against some of the best players europe has to offer on a daily basis for the last couple of years. Which says alot more than playing against college kids. I don't understand your point on the restrictions for US players, so what? The players in the spanish ACB are pros and much better than college kids on average. If your point is that the ACB could be better, just in general... then sure? I don't know. But to act like it's close to the NCAA is laughable.

I don't think you understand how big the talent gap is between euro teams with professional players compared to college players, especially the top teams. I remember watching a preseason game between California golden bears against a swedish(!) team and Cali got beat pretty handidly. And it should be noted that Cali were closer to their season than the swedish team AND that the swedish league is a top 15 league in europe, at best.