JayMKE wrote:El Duderino wrote:
One often stated narrative i disagree with that's been stated on this board and by draft pundits is that supposedly Parker is the safest pick among the main three prospects. I think Wiggins is.
1-- Embiid comes with the injury fears
2-- Parker in a worst case scenario ends up not only being a tweener type of defensive liability, he potentially could become a high usage but inefficient scorer who doesn't pass the ball enough. Thus his offensive contributions wouldn't be high enough to offset his defensive shortcomings.
3-- Wiggins worst case scenario is that his handles and jumper never improve enough to where in the half court offense he's only a mediocre contributor. He at least though would always be able to contribute on the defensive end as a big and very athletic guy who locks down various type of players, along with being a consistent beast in transition offense.
If healthy over their careers, i think all three will end up being quality to very good NBA players, but i just don't get why so many want to label Parker as a "safer" pick than Wiggins given his defense, athleticism, and skills in transition will translate very well to the NBA even if he never becomes a force offensively.
I don't see Parker being a Michael Beasley or Al Harrington type no-d chucker, by all accounts Parker is a pretty hard worker and smart kid. If he's not the all world type scorer he has the potential to be, I don't see him being totally inefficient. If he were that type of he'd probably would of been playing at Kentucky or somewhere else other than Duke for Coach K.
FWIW, i'm not saying that Parker will for sure end up being some mindless chucker.
All i was saying is that in a worst case scenario for each player, Wiggins at least will have his defense, fabulous athleticism, and transition abilities to fall back on even if he never develops a lot in his half court offense.
For Parker though in a worst case scenario, if he remains a defensive liability in the NBA, he'd need to be really good offensively to offset his problems on defense. As Bucks fans we've seen what happens when skilled offensive players are bad defensively, it tends to wash each other out. Well, it's not as if Parker had some sort of transcendent offensive season last year like some great freshman have had. In fact, his numbers in conference play were no better than Wiggins. So it's far from a lock that he'll be both a good scorer and efficient scorer in the NBA. That his passing will improve a lot from what little he did with Duke.
That's why for me in a worst case scenario at least, i see Wiggins as a safer pick because he has some near guaranteed traits to fall back on even if his half court offense never fully develops. For Parker though, if he continued to be a defensive liability, i didn't see him come close to dominating enough offensively at Duke to say it's a near lock he'd score efficiently enough to offset bad defense.
