2012 NBA Draft - Part III

[tontoz]

Someone requested my draft rating on Kevin Love. His season at UCLA gives him the 12th highest rating in my spreadsheet. He has the rating of a #1 pick in most drafts, top 5 in any draft. In addition to first-rate production as a freshman, consider that at the draft camps he measured with an average standing reach for a PF, his lane agility time was FAST (above average for a SG prospect), his sprint was FAST (about average for a SG), he did 18 reps on the bench press (above average for a PF or C), and both his no-step and maximum verticals were above average for a PF.

Yeah Love showed out at the combine. Perception and reality frequently don't match up that well.

It is funny to me when i see people act like they can tell exactly how tall someone is by watching them on TV. I remember a guy on here last year that was so sure DWill was under 6'7 barefoot that he wanted to bet on it.

[The Consiglieri]

21-19 with Love and Rubio and the 8 seed
4-18 with just Love, bottom 5 in the league.

Its pretty simple, pair Love with a great PG, kinda like, I dont know, Russell Westbrook at UCLA, and his team is dramatically different, and he is a franchise player. Pair him w/anonymous scrubs, and he isn't. All players need help.

I just find your analysis severely lacking, and insanely narrowly focused. I think if you were right, it would be far more predictive, but it isn't. I think players are much more complex than a couple of measurables that you divine as the golden measurements of hoops. At the end of the day I have no problem imagining that your instincts are reliable in projecting relative chances of success to a degree. I don't by any stretch believe they're definitive.

Darren Collison was the point guard at UCLA. Westbrook played SG, along with Josh Shipp..

http://www.sports-reference.com/cbb/sch ... /2008.html

Thanks, call it, 1 elite teammate .

[DallasShalDune]

An interesting post on Grantland about our future:

Washington

Verdict: The Wizards are locked into the no. 2 position. They are also locked into a future with their 2012 pick, John Wall, Nene, and whatever they can get out of Trevor Booker, Kevin Seraphin, and Jan Vesely. That's actually not all that terrible. They can't do much on the free agent market until Rashard Lewis comes off the books at the end of the 2013 season, but if they can land the Unibrow, the Wizards should have the talent to become a weird, disjointed, and combustible version of the Spurs. Of course, that requires a great coach and a team that commits itself to the defensive end of the court, but if someone could get all of Washington's talented, erratic parts all pointed in one direction, wouldn't they automatically be one of the scariest teams in the Eastern Conference?


Link: http://www.grantland.com/story/_/id/782 ... st-stretch

[Nivek]

An interesting post on Grantland about our future:

Washington

Verdict: The Wizards are locked into the no. 2 position. They are also locked into a future with their 2012 pick, John Wall, Nene, and whatever they can get out of Trevor Booker, Kevin Seraphin, and Jan Vesely. That's actually not all that terrible. They can't do much on the free agent market until Rashard Lewis comes off the books at the end of the 2013 season, but if they can land the Unibrow, the Wizards should have the talent to become a weird, disjointed, and combustible version of the Spurs. Of course, that requires a great coach and a team that commits itself to the defensive end of the court, but if someone could get all of Washington's talented, erratic parts all pointed in one direction, wouldn't they automatically be one of the scariest teams in the Eastern Conference?

Link: http://www.grantland.com/story/_/id/782 ... st-stretch[/quote]

This is some **** writing. The writer strings together "ifs" -- IF they get Davis, IF they can find a great coach, IF they can become a team that commits itself to defense -- they'll "automatically" be a scary team. That's like saying if they trade Blatche for Dwight Howard, they'd be scary. If they could resurrect Wilt Chamberlain -- in his prime -- they'd be scary. If Blatche gave a ****, he'd be good.

Exactly which team wouldn't "automatically" be scary if they landed Davis, found a great coach and committed to playing great defense?

Jeebus.

[Severn Hoos]

Ha - grantland is certainly a mixed bag. I used to expect better, but then came to the conclusion that (IMO) Bill Simmons is overrated.

His good points:
NBA Draft Diary (best column series ever)
Linking up with Malcom Gladwell

His downside:
Pretty much everything else

OK, that's a bit harsh, but he's at the point Wilbon was in the early 90s. Back then, every single article from Wilbon was about Chicago teams (or Duke). Which was OK, except he was writing for the WASHINGTON Post. I grew tired of reading about Boston over and over (with the Clippers thrown in for good measure), and have barely read BS in the past few years.

OTOH, he did give us this:

I'd like to add this one to the list: Don't text, tweet or e-mail at any point if Blake Griffin is playing.

I learned this lesson during a Spurs-Clippers game -- my friend Strik texted me because he wanted to meet up at halftime, my phone vibrated, I glanced down to read it, and here's what I missed. Look closely and you'll see me on the left, right above the heads of Manu Ginobili and DaJuan Blair, looking down at my BlackBerry. Look at that dunk. And look at me. What an ass. I share this picture because I had to man up, and also, because it's something of a cautionary tale: don't look down when Blake Griffin is playing. Ever. You never know when you'll end up looking like an unattentive butthead in a photo gallery.

[DallasShalDune]

The Book of Basketball was an entertaining read, if not occasionally insightful. Simmons is a major homer.

And Kev is right that the writer jumps to a bunch of major conclusions. I was just surprised to read something positive about the Wizards. I've been reading mostly negative overviews on the Wizards, always point out how they are a laughing stock (though deserved). It was refreshing to read another POV.

[Dr Positivity]

I think Bill's success rate with his articles looks like mediocore baseball hitter's, but the BS Report continues to be greatness to me

[Ed Wood]

Generally Simmons' saving grace is that he does a reasonable job most of the time of being honest about his intentions as a writer: to entertain and to put more than a modicum of thought into his attention to sports but not to sell himself as an expert. Occasionally he tries a little too hard and crosses into a weird area in trying to act as though he has bona fides in a sort of a Bill James outsider way. His longstanding joke about trying to become the general manager of the Timberwolves was one of those instances, mostly not serious but a little overly persistent, particularly his habitual putdowns of David Kahn.

When he really tries to be a basketball philosopher things don't usually click, his "the downside of statistical analysis" roundtable at the Sloan Conference this year was more than a little uncomfortable, but he's an entertainer and I admire that he basically doesn't have a tolerance threshold for cerebral approaches to sports. He's very fond of advanced metrics and the philosophy that inquiry is always welcome. He's just not that good at actually floating in the deep end of that pool. Anyway okay for what he does, can be very entertaining, sometimes confuses himself with Michael Lewis or Bill James (who can be pretty insufferable himself) but nobody's perfect.

[DallasShalDune]

Generally Simmons' saving grace is that he does a reasonable job most of the time of being honest about his intentions as a writer: to entertain and to put more than a modicum of thought into his attention to sports but not to sell himself as an expert. Occasionally he tries a little too hard and crosses into a weird area in trying to act as though he has bona fides in a sort of a Bill James outsider way. His longstanding joke about trying to become the general manager of the Timberwolves was one of those instances, mostly not serious but a little overly persistent, particularly his habitual putdowns of David Kahn.

When he really tries to be a basketball philosopher things don't usually click, his "the downside of statistical analysis" roundtable at the Sloan Conference this year was more than a little uncomfortable, but he's an entertainer and I admire that he basically doesn't have a tolerance threshold for cerebral approaches to sports. He's very fond of advanced metrics and the philosophy that inquiry is always welcome. He's just not that good at actually floating in the deep end of that pool. Anyway okay for what he does, can be very entertaining, sometimes confuses himself with Michael Lewis or Bill James (who can be pretty insufferable himself) but nobody's perfect.

I'm with Ed 100%. I love Simmons, who is obviously more coherent writer than Kang, who wrote the Tankonia! on Grantland article. His weaknesses are apparent and frustrating as a reader occasionally.

Grantland has been a mostly-successful but occasionally incoherent experiment. Chang's article was interesting and entertaining in its tone, but Kev is right. His conclusion is based on no logic.

[The Consiglieri]

I view him strictly as an entertaining writer who doesn't seem to understand that a huge percentage of his readers couldn't give a rats arse about Boston teams period. Then again ESPN has this blind spot as well, consistently obsessing on all things New York, Boston, SEC, and big name oriented. As someone born and raised in the bay area, I've always found this highly irritating, but then again, as Cowherd says, and it is true, the west coast doesn't tend to pay as much attention to sporting anything, unless our teams are doing well, there's just too much to do, and the mentality here is very much an outdoors mentality, w/sports being simply scene as an entertaining option for entertainment when it's worthwhile, not a a live and die romance from the day you choose your team (I used to argue this, but whats happened with LA and football, gone for nearly 20 years without a peep, makes me at least believe that SoCo, a huge portion of the west's population base, feels this way about sport) like it is in the South and much of the Northeast.

That doesn't legitimize his asinine obsessive writing about Boston though, Boston simply has nowhere near enough of a fanbase to justify these constant loveletters, even the hatebase, which is substantial, isn't enough to justify it. That, combined with the bizarre affinity for fake wrestling is utterly confounding to me. Why on earth he ever mentions wrestling is deeply embarrasing to me, he's an entertaining writer, and to slog through the equivalent of a drunks soap opera is beyond me (i always equated wrestling, to women's affinity for soap opera, the worst of women-directed entertainment, while Wrestling was the worst of men's sporting entertainment).

All this tirade being said though, I still believe he's an outstanding writer whose a great great read, highly entertaining and unique, and with a wonderful voice. Nobody reads at all like him, whereas most sportswriters are cut from very similar cloths (which is why I also really like Boswell and Feinstein, 2 other D.C. writers with great voice, and unique approaches, though to a lesser degree than Simmons (which is not to say, not as profound, since both are vastly more articulate and impressive as technical writers).

[dandrews]

An interesting post on Grantland about our future:

Washington

Verdict: The Wizards are locked into the no. 2 position. They are also locked into a future with their 2012 pick, John Wall, Nene, and whatever they can get out of Trevor Booker, Kevin Seraphin, and Jan Vesely. That's actually not all that terrible. They can't do much on the free agent market until Rashard Lewis comes off the books at the end of the 2013 season, but if they can land the Unibrow, the Wizards should have the talent to become a weird, disjointed, and combustible version of the Spurs. Of course, that requires a great coach and a team that commits itself to the defensive end of the court, but if someone could get all of Washington's talented, erratic parts all pointed in one direction, wouldn't they automatically be one of the scariest teams in the Eastern Conference?

Link: http://www.grantland.com/story/_/id/782 ... st-stretch

This is some **** writing. The writer strings together "ifs" -- IF they get Davis, IF they can find a great coach, IF they can become a team that commits itself to defense -- they'll "automatically" be a scary team. That's like saying if they trade Blatche for Dwight Howard, they'd be scary. If they could resurrect Wilt Chamberlain -- in his prime -- they'd be scary. If Blatche gave a ****, he'd be good.

Exactly which team wouldn't "automatically" be scary if they landed Davis, found a great coach and committed to playing great defense?

Jeebus.

To be fair, they probably mentioned IF they get Davis because the whole premise of the article is tanking for Anthony Davis.

[Knighthonor]

On this site I notice that MKG is rated lower on the shot than Beal
http://nbadraft.net/players/michael-kidd-gilchrist

Also suggest Thomas Robison. Why him?

[hands11]

http://espn.go.com/nba/lottery2012/mockdraft

So this seem to have situational results already.

Here is what it has us doing given what pick we get.

Pick 1 Davis
Pick 2 MKG
Pick 3 Beal
Pick 4 Beal/Robinson
Pick 5 Drummond

We take Beal with the 3rd if Mil, Cats take MKG with the second
We take Robinson with the 4th if Beal and MKG are gone.
if NO or Nets take Robinson 3rd, in that scenario we could get Beal at 4

NO, Nets, King seem to be slotted for a big so they that Robinson and Drummond given the chance which helps us get Beal at 4 when they end up ahead of us and MKG is off the boards.

Is this thing right. NO, POR and the Jazz all have two slots in the lottery ?

If 3 teams are set up like this the question is, if we get the number 1, do we swop with one of them and trade down to get MKG, Beal or Robinson and their second number 1. If we don't like the player available there, we can always trade down again and pick what we want. Maybe one of thoe nice PG or SG available lower. And would they even do that?

The situation mostly comes up with NO. We would get Robinson and Tyler. What if we could get Eric Gordon out of the deal?

[Ed Wood]

On this site I notice that MKG is rated lower on the shot than Beal
http://nbadraft.net/players/michael-kidd-gilchrist

Also suggest Thomas Robison. Why him?

A fine college player coming off of a very effective junior season on a strong Kansas roster, Robinson is well regarded as a prospect because he sports the dual desirable denominators of excellent physical traits and very gaudy rebounding numbers.

You're not going to find all that many prospect prognosticators, amateur or otherwise, who will own up to the opinion that Robinson is transcendent and he's thought of as a one year wonder unfortunately (he'd played well in limited minutes) but he's viewed as a safe pick.

For the Wizards in particular Robinson continues in the ideological vein that the team has let ofttimes during the Leonsis regime. Robinson projects as a serious minded, composed player ready to contribute in a meaningful way and very likely to reach something very well near the extent of his potential. The Wizards have a crowded frontcourt, but Robinson, in my opinion, isn't going to have much trouble providing an upgrade. His rebounding is, in particular, a godsend for a team perennially poor indeed in that area. He has also shown the makings of a nice midrange shot, which would be appreciated given the state of the team's offense.

Overall Robinson isn't a player who's setting hearts aflutter but increasingly the concrete, ready-made production and dependability he offers is the way the Wizards operate.

We're simply not assured of getting a really dynamic or franchise altering player past the hirsute but overwhelming package Davis offers with the first overall. We may be lucky but absent the good fortune necessary to have that opportunity there's a train of thought that it's tremendously important to be sure of what we're getting, and Robinson is seen as safe.
?

[hands11]

And what if we got 5th. We could end up with Drummonds. Would we keep him ?

[Knighthonor]

Nvm found it.

Check this out
http://swishscout.com/?page_id=710

Another on MKG!

Again notice the shooting rating and the comments. I really want to know what you all think about this.

Because he seem like another player like Wall, who can't shoot.
Not sure how MKG along side John Wall is a good deal, when nether can shoot.

I must be missing something here. Heavy paint defense shuts that kind of play down, as seen by this season.

Why draft somebody like this to go along with Wall?

[gesa2]

Nvm found it.

Check this out
http://swishscout.com/?page_id=710

Another on MKG!

Again notice the shooting rating and the comments. I really want to know what you all think about this.

Because he seem like another player like Wall, who can't shoot.
Not sure how MKG along side John Wall is a good deal, when nether can shoot.

I must be missing something here. Heavy paint defense shuts that kind of play down, as seen by this season.

Why draft somebody like this to go along with Wall?

There isn't anyone that I know of that debates the fact that MKG lacks a reliable outside shot right now. He is a very good athlete, finishes around the rim well, and has the reputation of someone with excellent leadership, work ethic and character. Those that want to draft him high for the Wizards use the arguments that:

a.He's young and with his work ethic, will develop an outside shot with time

b.If the Wizards draft him, we can get a free agent 2 or 4 that shoots well, such as Eric Gordon, Danny Green, or Eryan Ilyasova

c.We have so little talent that trying to fit a piece in with the current roster is misguided, and we should draft the player with the highest grade regardless of how he fits in with the current team.

Personally, I believe b and c more than a. It's hard to count on someone developing a great shot, lots of good players never did (Iguadala is one of MKG's comparables, and he's a good example. Became OK from outside, but never should have taken as many jumpers as he has over the years.)

[Ruzious]

Kev, apologies if you've already mentioned him, but did you run Drexler through your system? David Thompson would be another I'd be interested in.

Funny -- just got Drexler's numbers in. Thompson goes too far back -- I'm okay with estimating the breakdown of offensive and defensive rebounds, but with Thompson I'd have to estimate offensive and defensive rebounds, assists, steals, blocks, turnovers and personal fouls. I could do it just to see -- maybe see if there's someone with similar per minute numbers and apply those to Thompson, but I don't think those results would be worth a whole lot.

As for Drexler, as a junior he had a solid top 5 rating -- possibly as high as #1 overall depending on the draft class. In Wall's class, for example, Drexler would have had the highest score. I have Clyde rated in a group that includes Kyrie Irving, Jason Richardson, Kenyon Martin, Okafor, Battier (JR), and Duncan (SO). He wasn't super-efficient offensively, but he rebounded, assisted and got a TON of steals. I wonder how good he'd have been with a 3pt shot, which wasn't around when he played college ball.

Also got Stockton in. He rated below the draft threshold (in a 60-pick draft) for his first 3 years in college. His senior year, he rated as a mid-1st round pick.

Good stuff. You hear the "man amongst boys stuff" a lot, but Drexler figuratively was a man amongst boys in college - at both ends of the court. He was the most spectacular of the spectacular. There were 2 things he was criticised for at Houston - which was why he was passed over in the draft for the likes of Jeff Malone. One was - he had no jump shot at Houston, and 2 was - his style of play was consider "undiciplined". If there's one player you go back to watch ESPN classics, I'd pick Drexler - just over Magic, Bird, and David Thompson.

[Dr Positivity]

Nvm found it.

Check this out
http://swishscout.com/?page_id=710

Another on MKG!

Again notice the shooting rating and the comments. I really want to know what you all think about this.

Because he seem like another player like Wall, who can't shoot.
Not sure how MKG along side John Wall is a good deal, when nether can shoot.

I must be missing something here. Heavy paint defense shuts that kind of play down, as seen by this season.

Why draft somebody like this to go along with Wall?

One thing I like about MKG is he seems like the best transition prospect in years. Apparently had the best transition finishing % in the NCAA + amazing speed, good with the ball in his hands, cerebral IQ, lots of rebounds to start breaks himself. I don't like it when players get written in as transition players because they played in an up tempo college system (ie Wes Johnson at Syracuse) cause I think the NBA is just too athletic, but MKG seems like an exception. At least beside Wall. I don't like MKG nearly as much for teams like Sac or Det who appear to be committed to a walk the ball up and feed the post player halfcourt offense

[Ruzious]

I don't really disagree, but MKG did play on a Kentucky team that ran extremely well as a team and probably ran as much as they could. They were probably as fast as any team in the country - from PG to center - and they didn't just hit the defensive boards real well - they started breaks off of blocks as well as any team in college ball. Wes Johnson has stunk in the NBA because he's been terrible as a half court player. He is better in transition.