Markelle Fultz Discussion

[SelfishPlayer]

What has been the accuracy rate of ESPN's prospect projection?

Fultz will be 19 the whole season, it will be interesting seeing how rapidly he develops being around pros every single day. It would be nice having some true veteran guards on the roster that can do some NBA things at a high level or once did NBA things at a high level. Henderson, Stauskas, and TJ as the top guards on the roster with NBA experience is a joke. Fultz needs some genuine NBA vets like Vince Carter and Jason Terry.

[CoreyGallagher]

Good ranking. This guy does a good writeup on his big board. I disagree with him having Fultz as the top prospect and having Jackson at 6 but he's at least reasonable in why he ranks them the way he does.

https://capstrategist.com/2017/06/20/2017-draft-big-board-tiers-1-and-2/

Read on Twitter

Oh, and the reason Zwicker has Ball in tier 2 is because he does contextualize metrics. Where I got the at-rim stats list posted above. Such glaring outliers shouldn't just be ignored, cause for speculation, at least.

He also mentioned he'd fit best in LA's motion offense (which we also run), but with our roster construction. So, he'd probably actually fit best here, all things considered.

[Negrodamus]

Oh, I don't think he'll be a complete bust. He's just not a star. He doesn't have an elite physical tool other than wingspan. His best attribute is he has a wider variety of skills than every other prospect, but he isn't elite at any one thing. The lack of physical tools will stand out from day one. But I don't think he'll look like a bust.

He landed in the perfect situation for him. He doesn't have anyone to compete with for time, and as long as Embiid and Simmons are healthy, the team will be good and he won't be a focal point for any failure.

If Fultz doesn't become a top 15 player hopefully he can at least become as good as a Brandon Roy level player or to a lesser extent Lavine. As long as Embiid and Simmons are stars it wouldn't be the worst thing to have Brandon Roy as the 3rd option. That's pretty good. I'll take that.

He's not big and physical enough to be Brandon Roy. If his shooting improves I can see him being like CJ McCollum or a poor man's Bradley Beal in 2-3 years.

I actually don't hate the Brandon Roy comparison because what he lacks in height, he makes up in length (Fultz: 6'9, Roy:6'8; both have 8'5 standing reach) and athleticism. I feel like Fultz is better moving laterally. Both have a smoothness to their game on offense.

Strange that Ntilikina is either all star, starter, or bust. I think he has a very high role player potential. In fact, I think this graph is silly. Fultz has the highest chance of being a stud offensive player in the NBA. As far as point guards go (because defense isn't really valued at that position), that equals all star.

[Unbreakable99]

that face you make when you dont agree with the trade not because you dislike Fultz but because you dont think he was worth giving up a likely top-5 pick for when Boston probably wasnt going to draft him at 1 anyway and youve been slightly knocking Fultz all year for a variety of things that scream D'Angelo Russell to you but now that hes on the team and at the price of a "win-soon" mentality, to say anything contrary is just bad for your fandom but you dont know what else to do with your life and now youre in the conundrum of being right about a bad call and watching the team lose momentum as a result or being wrong and the team keeps getting better but you never get behind them like you normally would because you still would rather have had ____ at #3

Not me. I would have rather stayed at 3 and taken Jackson. I'm going to be rooting hard for Fultz. I hope he does prove me wrong. I'm not going to be a jerk and hope he fails so I can be right. I'm a sixers fan so I root for the sixers. It's about winning to see the sixers win a title. If Fultz becomes a top 5 player why would I be angry about that and that my prediction was wrong?

[kriss73]

What has been the accuracy rate of ESPN's prospect projection?

Fultz will be 19 the whole season, it will be interesting seeing how rapidly he develops being around pros every single day. It would be nice having some true veteran guards on the roster that can do some NBA things at a high level or once did NBA things at a high level. Henderson, Stauskas, and TJ as the top guards on the roster with NBA experience is a joke. Fultz needs some genuine NBA vets like Vince Carter and Jason Terry.

I think you can extract some info about accuracy from this

http://www.tothemean.com/tools/draft-models/#/2016/dv1/all

It's not an easy read however.

[shawn_hemp]

I dont hope and/or even think he will fail, I think he'll play well enough actually

just feel like we could have done better is all, and without helping the Celtics.

And I really dont get the whole "dont worry about the Celtics!" stance. You dont help teams in your division, teams you should theoretically see in the playoffs for the next X amount of years, teams that are already better than you, acquire a huge asset with which they can turn it into a known commodity like Jimmy Butler for almost nothing now.

When you look at it from this perspective

Danny Ainge was never going to draft Markelle Fultz

the trade becomes a complete heist for the Celtics. They move down to 3 and draft Josh Jackson like they were going to do all along

ALL THE SIXERS HAD TO DO

Celtics draft Fultz, Lakers draft Ball: take Jackson
Celtics draft Jackson, Lakers draft Ball: take Fultz
Celtics draft Jackson, Lakers draft Fultz: take Ball

The Sixers basically just pulled what the Bears did in this year's NFL draft when they traded for Trubisky. Its stupid, and I feel like nobody is pointing that out. Now, all the pressure is on the Sixers and Fultz to be worth it or else the Celtics look like geniuses again and throw in a season-ending Embiid injury and now where are we? Would have been nice to draft Zion Williamson but hey at least he'll look good in Celtic green! Would have been nice to draft Ayton or Bamba but turns out the Laker pick fell to 2-5 (highly likely) and so long to both of them.

Now, after another Embiid sideline, our best chance to replace him over the next two years is gone because we just HAD TO HAVE a combo guard from a conference with no defense who shoots under 70% from the FT line (see: supposed to be a big part of his game, imagine Harden shooting that from the line) with no explosiveness to his game and the pressure of having 2 #1 picks on the same roster with some pretty obvious holes in their game.

Well ****, sign me up man!

and to your last point, well youre a better person than I am

I'd rather be right about the team making a bad call than be wrong about them making a good call

at least I admit it though

[oddwolfhooligan]

This is for you Lloyd



http://www.espn.com/nba/story/_/id/19681478/most-likely-all-stars-starters-role-players-top-2017-nba-draft

Personally I don't completely disagree with this assessment. Fultz is a nice player/fit with us but he has a % of bust maybe higher than other prospects. It's a risk, but a calculated one.

Oh, I don't think he'll be a complete bust. He's just not a star. He doesn't have an elite physical tool other than wingspan. His best attribute is he has a wider variety of skills than every other prospect, but he isn't elite at any one thing. The lack of physical tools will stand out from day one. But I don't think he'll look like a bust.

He landed in the perfect situation for him. He doesn't have anyone to compete with for time, and as long as Embiid and Simmons are healthy, the team will be good and he won't be a focal point for any failure.

If Fultz doesn't become a top 15 player hopefully he can at least become as good as a Brandon Roy level player or to a lesser extent Lavine. As long as Embiid and Simmons are stars it wouldn't be the worst thing to have Brandon Roy as the 3rd option. That's pretty good. I'll take that.

I've maintained that I see Fultz developing into a slightly better passing and more creative Brandon Roy(with slightly worse shooting). If that's the 3rd best player in your big 3, saying that's "pretty good" is completely underselling it. That's fantastic and about as good as any of us would have hoped for when we started this process.

[Simmons25]

Heard today that Fultz has quite big feet for his size... size 15's... which could point to the fact he may not have finished growing yet. Given he is still going to be 19 for a while.. and he is a bit over 6ft 3 at the moment he could end up around 6ft 5" to 6ft 6" when all is said and done.

[shawn_hemp]

LSU went 19-14 with Simmons and narrowly missed the tournament with a pretty awful team (10-21 this past season)

Washington went 9-22 with Fultz on an equally bad team with a coach who was halfway out the door all year.

And I get it, Simmons is the type of player who elevates his team to be better, fair enough

Which is why you WOULD trade up for someone like Simmons.

Fultz put up a bunch of stats that had to come from somebody. Is he a #1 type of talent? Possibly, who am I to say?

Is he worth trading for?

hell no

[SelfishPlayer]

17 year old high school seniors are being penalized by fans for not looking as impressive as their 18-19 year old competition.

[oddwolfhooligan]

LSU went 19-14 with Simmons and narrowly missed the tournament with a pretty awful team (10-21 this past season)

Washington went 9-22 with Fultz on an equally bad team with a coach who was halfway out the door all year.

And I get it, Simmons is the type of player who elevates his team to be better, fair enough

Which is why you WOULD trade up for someone like Simmons.

Fultz put up a bunch of stats that had to come from somebody. Is he a #1 type of talent? Possibly, who am I to say?

Is he worth trading for?

hell no

Just to be clear, in no way are LSU and UW comparable situations. LSU had at least 3 guys after Simmons who would've been better than anyone else that Fultz had on his team.

[CoreyGallagher]

Fultz put up a bunch of stats that had to come from somebody. Is he a #1 type of talent? Possibly, who am I to say?

Is he worth trading for?

hell no

He put up a bunch of stats efficiently, though, there's a difference compared to putting up 'hollow' stats, which is inefficiently. The team didn't win despite him, just as we were usually losing games earlier in the season despite Embiid.

[brannigan73]

Personally I don't completely disagree with this assessment. Fultz is a nice player/fit with us but he has a % of bust maybe higher than other prospects. It's a risk, but a calculated one.

In their analysis' of the players, they mention that Fultz assist% and block% was above average, but his shooting was worse than. They mention that Ball's shooting was exceptional, his efg% being the highest in their database dating back to 2001. Efg% adjusts 3 point shooting and 2 point shooting. Fultz and him shot the same % from deep with close to the same volume. The difference was their 2 point fg%.

Diving into that, Fultz did attempt too many mid range jump shots, but that's because he wasn't able to get to the rim as much by himself as perhaps fans expected him to have, attempted only 4.0 unassisted attempts at the rim per 40 minutes (still twice as many as Ball did, lol) and wasn't assisted much when he couldn't get there himself (17.4% of his shots were assisted at rim). Comparatively to Ball, just about every shot Lonzo took that was inside the arc was at the rim and he was assisted on 51.5% of his shots there (comp [as cited below] - Fultz 17.4%, Fox 19.6%, Smith 20.4%), when he wasn't being fed the ball he attempted only 2.1 unassisted attempts per 40.



Analytics do love Lonzo, he played exceptionally smart, but also his assisted % and unassisted attempts at rim are both glaringly noticeable outliers, especially for a PG. I think that's worth considering, which obviously a draft model can't consider.

The way Lonzo Ball played at UCLA is not fully transferable to the pros. He is going to have to take and make some tough 2 point field goals in the NBA defense are too good. The phoniest analytical number in all of college basketball this past season was Lonzo's fg% on 2's. All these models should be taking that into account heavily. In the NBA if he can shoot 50% on 2's he would be one of the best guards in the league on twos. 70% is a nonsense number.

[Brauer]

Fultz is going to be great. I am more worried about Simmons. A lot of the concerns people have about Fultz, they existed for Kyrie Irving. Yet Fultz is bigger, longer and a better passer. And his late-bloomer status/age is something people have to keep in mind.

[Kolkmania]

I dont hope and/or even think he will fail, I think he'll play well enough actually

just feel like we could have done better is all, and without helping the Celtics.

And I really dont get the whole "dont worry about the Celtics!" stance. You dont help teams in your division, teams you should theoretically see in the playoffs for the next X amount of years, teams that are already better than you, acquire a huge asset with which they can turn it into a known commodity like Jimmy Butler for almost nothing now.

When you look at it from this perspective

Danny Ainge was never going to draft Markelle Fultz

the trade becomes a complete heist for the Celtics. They move down to 3 and draft Josh Jackson like they were going to do all along

ALL THE SIXERS HAD TO DO

Celtics draft Fultz, Lakers draft Ball: take Jackson
Celtics draft Jackson, Lakers draft Ball: take Fultz
Celtics draft Jackson, Lakers draft Fultz: take Ball

The Sixers basically just pulled what the Bears did in this year's NFL draft when they traded for Trubisky. Its stupid, and I feel like nobody is pointing that out. Now, all the pressure is on the Sixers and Fultz to be worth it or else the Celtics look like geniuses again and throw in a season-ending Embiid injury and now where are we? Would have been nice to draft Zion Williamson but hey at least he'll look good in Celtic green! Would have been nice to draft Ayton or Bamba but turns out the Laker pick fell to 2-5 (highly likely) and so long to both of them.

Now, after another Embiid sideline, our best chance to replace him over the next two years is gone because we just HAD TO HAVE a combo guard from a conference with no defense who shoots under 70% from the FT line (see: supposed to be a big part of his game, imagine Harden shooting that from the line) with no explosiveness to his game and the pressure of having 2 #1 picks on the same roster with some pretty obvious holes in their game.

Well ****, sign me up man!

and to your last point, well youre a better person than I am

I'd rather be right about the team making a bad call than be wrong about them making a good call

at least I admit it though

Who says that Danny Ainge wasn't drafting Fultz if they maintained their #1 pick? I don't believe DA saying that he would have taken Jackson/Tatum/Smith at #1. That's just trying to justify his trade and make it seems like he easily won the trade.
Even if the Celtics sign Butler they have a window of roughly three years that they can compete at a high level with IT, Butler and Horford. That's not the same time window we are aiming for, so I do think you're overreacting about strengthening a division (do we really care about those extra 3 matchups per year?) rival.

After all it's a matter of personal evaluation of the prospects. You are clearly more of a Josh Jackson fan than I am for example. Combine that with the horrific spacing playing both Simmons and Jackson at the forward spots and the picture perfect fit between Simmons/Fultz, I think trading up for Fultz is well justified.

And you do know we didn't give up both the Sacramento and Lakers pick, but just one of them? There's even the case that we don't give up one . BC protected us from missing out on the #1 pick in both years as well.

Also there's the scenario that Joel Embiid doesn't suffer a season ending injury like you almost suggest is a certainty to happen. In that case the 2018 draft is full of misfits for our current roster. Bamba, Ayton, Carter and Knox are very poor fits with Simmons and Embiid, I think Porter Jr is a PF like Simmons and even Sexton might be somewhat redundant with Fultz. So I really hope the Lakers pick falls to ~#5 and we gave up 3 and 5 for the perfect fit for our roster and we maintain the opportunity to draft Bagley/Williamson/Reddish/Barrett/Langford in 2019.

[Simmons25]

LSU went 19-14 with Simmons and narrowly missed the tournament with a pretty awful team (10-21 this past season)

Washington went 9-22 with Fultz on an equally bad team with a coach who was halfway out the door all year.

And I get it, Simmons is the type of player who elevates his team to be better, fair enough

Which is why you WOULD trade up for someone like Simmons.

Fultz put up a bunch of stats that had to come from somebody. Is he a #1 type of talent? Possibly, who am I to say?

Is he worth trading for?

hell no

Just to be clear, in no way are LSU and UW comparable situations. LSU had at least 3 guys after Simmons who would've been better than anyone else that Fultz had on his team.

Who did Simmons have? I watched most LSU games and their roster was absolutely terrible and their coaching even worse.

Antonio Blakeney? He flamed out big time and was one of the biggest disappointments in College. Went from the #15 ranked kid by ESPN before his rookie season, to not even being in the top 100 after his 2nd season as a Sophomore.

Definitely not Tim Quarterman... he wasn't even nationally ranked in the top 100. Just an awful player who couldn't pass to save his life.

Keith Hornsby? Again not even ranked top 100 and had an awful shot. He also missed most of the season with an injury. Better known for being Bruce Hornsby's son than a basketballer.

Factor in that Simmons was played out of position the entire season, was frozen out for extended periods of the game because he was playing in the post and nobody could get him the ball, player politics with the senior players not being happy with Simmons and Blakeney being "the saviours" and he virtually had no chance of doing well at LSU.

At least Fultz was the primary ball handler at Washington and could control his own destiny. The primary ball handler at LSU was Tim Quarterman... much to Simmons disappointment and Rich Paul's frustration. The only time Simmons was given the ball and became the point guard was when they were down 10 with 3 mins to go and it was too late.

[76ciology]

Good ranking. This guy does a good writeup on his big board. I disagree with him having Fultz as the top prospect and having Jackson at 6 but he's at least reasonable in why he ranks them the way he does.

https://capstrategist.com/2017/06/20/2017-draft-big-board-tiers-1-and-2/

Read on Twitter

Oh, and the reason Zwicker has Ball in tier 2 is because he does contextualize metrics. Where I got the at-rim stats list posted above. Such glaring outliers shouldn't just be ignored, cause for speculation, at least.

He also mentioned he'd fit best in LA's motion offense (which we also run), but with our roster construction. So, he'd probably actually fit best here, all things considered.

Lonzo projects to be worse at the rim than DLo. That's a big red flag for me.

So far..
-DLo is horrible at unassisted at the rim drives
-will have a hard time getting that shot off NBA defenders

[kriss73]

LSU went 19-14 with Simmons and narrowly missed the tournament with a pretty awful team (10-21 this past season)

Washington went 9-22 with Fultz on an equally bad team with a coach who was halfway out the door all year.

And I get it, Simmons is the type of player who elevates his team to be better, fair enough

Which is why you WOULD trade up for someone like Simmons.

Fultz put up a bunch of stats that had to come from somebody. Is he a #1 type of talent? Possibly, who am I to say?

Is he worth trading for?

hell no

Okafor won a Championship.
I suppose he elevated his teammates with this logic.

[76ciology]

Heard today that Fultz has quite big feet for his size... size 15's... which could point to the fact he may not have finished growing yet. Given he is still going to be 19 for a while.. and he is a bit over 6ft 3 at the moment he could end up around 6ft 5" to 6ft 6" when all is said and done.

Also big head, quite frankly

[SelfishPlayer]

LSU went 19-14 with Simmons and narrowly missed the tournament with a pretty awful team (10-21 this past season)

Washington went 9-22 with Fultz on an equally bad team with a coach who was halfway out the door all year.

And I get it, Simmons is the type of player who elevates his team to be better, fair enough

Which is why you WOULD trade up for someone like Simmons.

Fultz put up a bunch of stats that had to come from somebody. Is he a #1 type of talent? Possibly, who am I to say?

Is he worth trading for?

hell no

Just to be clear, in no way are LSU and UW comparable situations. LSU had at least 3 guys after Simmons who would've been better than anyone else that Fultz had on his team.

Who did Simmons have? I watched most LSU games and their roster was absolutely terrible and their coaching even worse.

Antonio Blakeney? He flamed out big time and was one of the biggest disappointments in College. Went from the #15 ranked kid by ESPN before his rookie season, to not even being in the top 100 after his 2nd season as a Sophomore.

Definitely not Tim Quarterman... he wasn't even nationally ranked in the top 100. Just an awful player who couldn't pass to save his life.

Keith Hornsby? Again not even ranked top 100 and had an awful shot. He also missed most of the season with an injury. Better known for being Bruce Hornsby's son than a basketballer.

Factor in that Simmons was played out of position the entire season, was frozen out for extended periods of the game because he was playing in the post and nobody could get him the ball, player politics with the senior players not being happy with Simmons and Blakeney being "the saviours" and he virtually had no chance of doing well at LSU.

At least Fultz was the primary ball handler at Washington and could control his own destiny. The primary ball handler at LSU was Tim Quarterman... much to Simmons disappointment and Rich Paul's frustration. The only time Simmons was given the ball and became the point guard was when they were down 10 with 3 mins to go and it was too late.

Tim Quarterman played 16 NBA games last season. He's a pro, you can't take that away from him. LSU had two pros...