Syd-TK3 wrote:OAKLEY_2 wrote:HeadtopChunes wrote:"UCLA: Guard-forward Jonah Bolden's college debut was delayed a game when he sat out as punishment for violating unspecified team rules." source:
http://www.espn.com/ncb/recap?gameId=400814200This is the only thing I can find. 1 game looks more like academic probation than "significant character concerns" to me. Which makes sense given the "failed his classes rumors"
But like Chuck said "they're not here to play school"
Sorry if dude failed his courses he should have been in NAIA. Really hard to not take good athletes like Semi and Swani who bust their tails in school and go for an Iverson unless of course he's Iverson. If someone is Iverson I don't care how they do in school. Bolden doesn't look half as talented as Mitchell and I would take Leaf over Bolden each and every time. The Bolden hype is getting very Skal IMHO.
I don't think its that serious, like someone else mentioned he admitted to being immature and cited how much he has grown spending time away in Serbia.
At the end of the day the most important knowledge is for the player to be smart at basketball all the other extracurricular accolades are just bonus.
Also to each is own and you have your opinion while others differ so the leaf vs bolden thing is whatever you could make equal arguments to place one over the other.
But why do you keep bringing up Mitchell he's way out our range so not sure how he can be compared.
There are probably a ton of guys who did crap in school. I like Rabb, who apparently has always been a great student, but it's not something I put a lot of stock in. How hard a person works at their craft is a hell of a lot more significant to me. A lot of my favorite players ever were somehow labelled as being bad guys including Iverson and when you learn a little more than what you hear in a sound bite they're typically okay people.
Regardless, the team seems to have a goal of making the playoffs as long as possible, so I would expect another unexciting pick again. I think Masai will be gun shy about drafting unsafe picks for the rest of his tenure in Toronto after the Bruno wasted pick.
And yeah, stop bringing up Mitchell. Lotto pick guys are not relevant to the conversation unless they slide like Skal, Davis and Korkmaz did last year. Then we just take them and run.