dockingsched wrote:russell westbrook was a project with more potential than actual production and darren collison, though solid with ucla, wasn't anything special as evidenced by his late first round pick status. luc wasn't anything special either, and has far surpassed what people expected of him.
their nba success just shows how great ben howland is at preparing his players for nba style ball. ucla has the most players in the nba, with a ton of guards (though some who didn't play for howland)
anyway, making it to the final four and losing to a derrick rose led memphis tigers team isn't anything to scoff at, considering the tigers later had to forfeit all those games.
I really see this very differently.
Russ was a huge hit with the team that year because of all the little things he did to fill the gaps. He was Pac 10 DPOY for crying out loud, and filled in at PG when Collison was out. It's hard to imagine a player you'd reallistically expect to get around Love & Collison that would work better, unless you're talking about...
Luc Richard. Great defender, did a lot without needing the ball. And here's the thing also:
He was as good as a freshman as he was at the end of his junior year.
He was about as good as a rookie as he is now.
Basically, the guy came with his game largely already formed before it Howland, and its shown both remarkably to be about as effective in the pros as in college and yet unable to really be built upon.
Using Collison being drafted late in the first round as proof he wasn't special seems odd to me, given that if he hadn't drastically outperformed where he was drafted, this thread probably isn't being made.
I'm glad you pointed out that UCLA has essentially been the most successful program in the last decade at turning out NBA players, as that's on my mind lately along with the fact that the program fell off a cliff in recent years, and now we have a scandal where it's basically clear Howland is actually quite limited as a miracle worker.
It makes me wonder if an alternative explanation is actually better. That being, UCLA got lucky and managed to acquire the most talent out of any program out there, and Howland still couldn't win a title with them, so now when he's had not as amazing talent with far weaker player leadership, we're seeing how fortunate he'd been before.
I don't know. I'm a UCLA alum, and I'm really discouraged with all that's happening right now, so maybe I need to gain more perspective.