2025 NBA Draft Thread (pt 3)

[Smart2Nesmith43]

MPG 14.2 / 14.2
PTS 4.9 / 5.2
2PA 1.8 / 2.4
2FG% 60 / 56.5
3PA 1.4 / 1.7
3FG% 42.9 / 27.1
FTA 1.4 / 1.5
FT% 72.1 / 77.3
ORB 0.5 / 0.8
REB 2.8 / 2.5
AST 2.0 / 0.9
STL 0.4 / 0.5
BLK 0.3 / 0.3
TOV 1.5 / 0.7
AST:TO 1.3 / 1.3

Pretty hilarious how similar 17 year old Luka and 19 year old Hugo numbers are in the ACB. Now obviously there's a gigantic gap between doing something at 17 vs 19 but also Doncic translated fine. I think.

[redslastlaugh]

Luka is such an outlier, I am not really comfortable comparing Hugo Gonzalez to Luka Doncic. And not even taking anything away from Hugo, but I watched Summer League and I am not seeing anything from Hugo's talent that is approaching Luka's

But, Smart2Nesmith, you've been pretty high on Hugo going back a ways. What are the elements of his game that you like the most? What about him as a prospect impresses you and what do you think would be his average outcome and his best case scenario?

MPG 14.2 / 14.2
PTS 4.9 / 5.2
2PA 1.8 / 2.4
2FG% 60 / 56.5
3PA 1.4 / 1.7
3FG% 42.9 / 27.1
FTA 1.4 / 1.5
FT% 72.1 / 77.3
ORB 0.5 / 0.8
REB 2.8 / 2.5
AST 2.0 / 0.9
STL 0.4 / 0.5
BLK 0.3 / 0.3
TOV 1.5 / 0.7
AST:TO 1.3 / 1.3

Pretty hilarious how similar 17 year old Luka and 19 year old Hugo numbers are in the ACB. Now obviously there's a gigantic gap between doing something at 17 vs 19 but also Doncic translated fine. I think.

[Hal14]

Luka is such an outlier, I am not really comfortable comparing Hugo Gonzalez to Luka Doncic. And not even taking anything away from Hugo, but I watched Summer League and I am not seeing anything from Hugo's talent that is approaching Luka's

But, Smart2Nesmith, you've been pretty high on Hugo going back a ways. What are the elements of his game that you like the most? What about him as a prospect impresses you and what do you think would be his average outcome and his best case scenario?

MPG 14.2 / 14.2
PTS 4.9 / 5.2
2PA 1.8 / 2.4
2FG% 60 / 56.5
3PA 1.4 / 1.7
3FG% 42.9 / 27.1
FTA 1.4 / 1.5
FT% 72.1 / 77.3
ORB 0.5 / 0.8
REB 2.8 / 2.5
AST 2.0 / 0.9
STL 0.4 / 0.5
BLK 0.3 / 0.3
TOV 1.5 / 0.7
AST:TO 1.3 / 1.3

Pretty hilarious how similar 17 year old Luka and 19 year old Hugo numbers are in the ACB. Now obviously there's a gigantic gap between doing something at 17 vs 19 but also Doncic translated fine. I think.

I could be wrong but I think his post was less about comparing HUgo directly to Luka and more about pointing out how silly it is to cherry pick a player who had somewhat similar stats and use that as the basis for evaluating a prospect who hasn't played in the NBA yet - especially when that player got such sporadic playing time.

I mean, you compared his stats to Omax Prosper, who was a junior in college..played at the same school for 3 years..was a starter his junior year, got plenty of playing time, had a consistent role.Hugo faced way tougher competition..got much more sporadic playing time which makes it harder to be in rhythm to hit shots or be in the right spots defensively.

Most of the folks who did film breakdowns of Hugo had him ranked in the 21-34 range. Here's where these scouts/analysts had him ranked:

AVC: 21
Ben Pfeifer: 34
Sam Vecenie: 29
Ersin Demir: 27
Jonathan Givony of ESPN: 22
Jonathan Wasserman of Bleacher Report: 24
Kevin O'Connor of Yahoo Sports: 31

[Smart2Nesmith43]

Luka is such an outlier, I am not really comfortable comparing Hugo Gonzalez to Luka Doncic. And not even taking anything away from Hugo, but I watched Summer League and I am not seeing anything from Hugo's talent that is approaching Luka's

But, Smart2Nesmith, you've been pretty high on Hugo going back a ways. What are the elements of his game that you like the most? What about him as a prospect impresses you and what do you think would be his average outcome and his best case scenario?

To be clear I'm not saying he is on a Doncic like trajectory (the age difference is a huge part of this). Just providing some context for his numbers.

I'll be honest I don't really care much about the specifics of someone's game before they get to the league. All rookies suck, it's about whether they are willing to put in the work to continue to get better. What I like about Gonzalez is his work ethic, unselfishness and self awareness. Those guys are the ones that'll do what it takes to improve over time. Now sure, if he is still shooting 28% from three five years from now, he isn't a NBA guy but that's true for every non-Flagg player in the draft anyway.

[redslastlaugh]

Prosper was 21.0 yrs old, measured 6-6.5" bareft with a good frame, questionable 3pt shooter, with a negative ast:tov ratio, and was picked 24th in a recent draft
Gonzalez was was 19.4 yrs old, measured 6-6.5" barefoot with a good frame, questionable 3pt shooter, with a negative ast:tov ratio and picked 28th in the draft

Obviously, OMax is older and played a starting role at Marquette, but other than that, seems a fair comp or at least the closest statwise. If you disagree, who is a closer statistical comp for Hugo who was drafted in the last 3 or 4 drafts? I'm not married to Prosper as a comparable, it just struck me that the stat comp was the closest.

It's hard to find a statistical comp for a player who has Hugo Gonzalez's reputation as a prospect and also Hugo's role/minutes in his predraft yr.

And as far as where draft media projected Hugo to be selected, I comped him to a player who was selected higher than him. It's not like Hugo went 50 and I'm over here comping him to a player who was the 2nd overall pick. Or vice versa. I comped a player picked 24th to a player picked 28th

Luka is such an outlier, I am not really comfortable comparing Hugo Gonzalez to Luka Doncic. And not even taking anything away from Hugo, but I watched Summer League and I am not seeing anything from Hugo's talent that is approaching Luka's

But, Smart2Nesmith, you've been pretty high on Hugo going back a ways. What are the elements of his game that you like the most? What about him as a prospect impresses you and what do you think would be his average outcome and his best case scenario?

I could be wrong but I think his post was less about comparing HUgo directly to Luka and more about pointing out how silly it is to cherry pick a player who had somewhat similar stats and use that as the basis for evaluating a prospect who hasn't played in the NBA yet - especially when that player got such sporadic playing time.

I mean, you compared his stats to Omax Prosper, who was a junior in college..played at the same school for 3 years..was a starter his junior year, got plenty of playing time, had a consistent role.Hugo faced way tougher competition..got much more sporadic playing time which makes it harder to be in rhythm to hit shots or be in the right spots defensively.

Most of the folks who did film breakdowns of Hugo had him ranked in the 21-34 range. Here's where these scouts/analysts had him ranked:

AVC: 21
Ben Pfeifer: 34
Sam Vecenie: 29
Ersin Demir: 27
Jonathan Givony of ESPN: 22
Jonathan Wasserman of Bleacher Report: 24
Kevin O'Connor of Yahoo Sports: 31

[Hal14]

Prosper was 21.0 yrs old, measured 6-6.5" bareft with a good frame, questionable 3pt shooter, with a negative ast:tov ratio, and was picked 24th in a recent draft
Gonzalez was was 19.4 yrs old, measured 6-6.5" barefoot with a good frame, questionable 3pt shooter, with a negative ast:tov ratio and picked 28th in the draft

Obviously, OMax is older and played a starting role at Marquette, but other than that, seems a fair comp or at least the closest statwise. If you disagree, who is a closer statistical comp for Hugo who was drafted in the last 3 or 4 drafts? I'm not married to Prosper as a comparable, it just struck me that the stat comp was the closest.

It's hard to find a statistical comp for a player who has Hugo Gonzalez's reputation as a prospect and also Hugo's role/minutes in his predraft yr.

The 2 year age difference and significant difference in competition between ACB/Euroleague and the Big East makes comparing their stats apples to oranges. Not to mention the very different roles..Omax starting consistently for Marquette means he's in a groove, in rhythm, more likely to make his shots then someone who barely plays on a team full of former NBA players.

Not sure who is a good statistical comp. But I'm not sure it matters that much. I think a lot of folks these days rely too much on stats when evaluating pre-draft prospects, rather than watching film.

For folks who do insist on statistical comps though, Barttorvik is a site that helps with finding them..but it only has college players which makes it tricky to find a statistical comp for overseas players since the game and the comp is very different overseas.

If we plug some of HUgo's numbers into Barttorvik and filter for only freshman (so more apples to apples in terms of age) we get this:

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Guys like Wiggins and Bridges are who Hugo could be if he really hits - or perhaps someone like Christian Braun or Josh Hart.

Also, I wouldn't write off Prosper yet. He only got drafted 2 yrs ago. It takes at least 3 or 4 years after a guy is drafted before we can really start to tell how well that pick turned out. And even if he doesn't hit, it could just be because Dallas did a poor job of developing him or didn't play him enough. Or maybe Prosper just didn't work hard enough, who knows. It's gonna be hard for him though with Flagg coming in and they still have Klay, Washington, Naji Marshall, etc. Might be a guy who is able to find his groove on his 2nd team, since Dallas has so many other guys at the forward positions.

There's so many factors at play that you can't just say that Prosper didn't make it so Hugo won't either.

[165bows]

Ah I remember really liking Justin Anderson at the time.

Maybe his spirit animal Ron Harper Jr can make it happen.

[redslastlaugh]

OMax was 21.0 yrs old, measured 6-6.5" bareft with a good frame, questionable 3pt shooter, with a negative ast:tov ratio, and was picked 24th in a recent draft
Gonzalez was was 19.4 yrs old, measured 6-6.5" barefoot with a good frame, questionable 3pt shooter, with a negative ast:tov ratio and picked 28th in the draft

I'm not married to Prosper as a comparable, it just struck me that the stat comp was the closest.

The 2 year age difference and significant difference in competition between ACB/Euroleague and the Big East makes comparing their stats apples to oranges. Not to mention the very different roles..Omax starting consistently for Marquette means he's in a groove, in rhythm, more likely to make his shots then someone who barely plays on a team full of former NBA players.

Not sure who is a good statistical comp. But I'm not sure it matters that much. I think a lot of folks these days rely too much on stats when evaluating pre-draft prospects, rather than watching film.

For folks who do insist on statistical comps though, Barttorvik is a site that helps with finding them..but it only has college players which makes it tricky to find a statistical comp for overseas players since the game and the comp is very different overseas.

If we plug some of HUgo's numbers into Barttorvik and filter for only freshman (so more apples to apples in terms of age) we get this:

Guys like Wiggins and Bridges are who Hugo could be if he really hits - or perhaps someone like Christian Braun or Josh Hart.

Also, I wouldn't write off Prosper yet. He only got drafted 2 yrs ago. Some guys take longer than that to develop and find their way in the league. And even if he doesn't hit, it could just be because Dallas did a poor job of developing him or didn't play him enough. Or maybe Prosper just didn't work hard enough, who knows. It's gonna be hard for him though with Flagg coming in and they still have Klay, Washington, Naji Marshall, etc. Might be a guy who is able to find his groove on his 2nd team, since Dallas has so many other guys at the forward positions.

There's so many factors at play that you can't just say that Prosper didn't make it so Hugo won't either.

I wouldn't say OMax didn't make it so Hugo won't make it either. Even if Hugo and OMax had the exact same stats coming into their draft year, there are enough differences between the two men that they could have different career success because of those other factors you mention, like coaching, personality traits, work ethic & opporuntunity

In Hugo's defense, besides the age advantage of being younger, he has somewhat better stats that OMax in a couple of critical areas. Prosper only tallied 0.8 ast per 36 against 1.7 tov. This is a 1:2.1 AST:TOV ratio. Hugo tallied 1.9 assist to 2.0 turnovers, so while still negative it is basically a 1:1 ratio.

And then for stocks, OMax in his predraft season at Marquette tallied 1.3 stocks per 36. Hugo stocks totalled 2.0.

So despite being a good bit younger and playing more sporadically, two of the key indicators ast:tov and stocks, Gonzalez put up better numbers. And Prosper's lousy numbers in these categories really indicated perhaps some deficiencies in processing the game necessary to succeed on the wing at the NBA level. But even in OMax case, I would agree that it's not impossible he could improve over time and get better

[redslastlaugh]

Upside Swing pod grades Celtics draft, and the grades from the 3 hosts vary from A+ to D+

Celtics talk at 1:32:55 to 1:39:01

Watch on YouTube

[redslastlaugh]

Just saw on the timeline ESPN's Pelton's final stat based Big Board which is on the free (not insder) espn.com site
https://www.espn.com/nba/story?id=44888875&_slug_=nba-draft-2025-projecting-30-best-prospects

Pelton's final rank for the four prospects we got:
Max Shulga (41)
Hugo Gonzalez (70)
Amari Williams (103)
RJ Luis (104)

According to Pelton's model the best prospects on the board when Celts pick came up at #28
1. Rasheer Fleming
2. Liam McNeeley
3. Koby Brea
4. Kam Jones

[Hal14]

Just saw on the timeline ESPN's Pelton's final stat based Big Board which is on the free (not insder) espn.com site
https://www.espn.com/nba/story?id=44888875&_slug_=nba-draft-2025-projecting-30-best-prospects

Pelton's final rank for the four prospects we got:
Max Shulga (41)
Hugo Gonzalez (70)
Amari Williams (103)
RJ Luis (104)

According to Pelton's model the best prospects on the board when Celts pick came up at #28
1. Rasheer Fleming
2. Liam McNeeley
3. Koby Brea
4. Kam Jones

Basing draft picks or draft rankings only on stats is ridiculous imo.

If NBA teams actually based on their picks only on stats, Brandon Clarke would have been a top 5 pick. Robbie Hummel, Justin Anderson, Tyler Lydon, Derrick Williams, Denzel Vantenine would have all been lottery picks, Jimmer Fredette would have been a top 10 pick, Doug McDermott would have been a top 5 pick, etc. Meanwhile, Tatum would have been picked outside of the lottery, Jaylen Brown would have been picked in the 2nd round, Wemby would have gone in like the 15-25 range, Giannis would have gone undrafted, Donovan Mitchell, SGA, Maxey, Bam, Lamelo and Anthony Ewards would have been picked in like the 20-30 range, etc.

I wrote an article on this and found that only about 7% of NBA teams' draft evaluations/draft picks are based on stats and no NBA team actually drafts based only on stats or some "formula"

https://the-center-hub.com/2025/05/28/inside-the-war-room-what-nba-teams-value-during-the-draft/

Stats matter. But not *that* much and context behind the stats matters a lot. And you gotta watch the games..

It seems like you just keep trying to find any piece of content you can to try and push this narrative that we had a bad draft, which is odd.

We have to just let things play out. We won't know how good our picks were for at least another 3-5 years. That's how long it takes to see how well a pick turned out.

And even then, how good they turned out could be impacted by injuries, the situation/context on the team that drafted them, maybe after they got drafted their NBA team's coach gets fired and the new coach has a different vision, maybe that player stops working as hard, loses their confidence, maybe they go to an NBA team that messes up their shot, who knows.

[redslastlaugh]

Just saw on the timeline ESPN's Pelton's final stat based Big Board which is on the free (not insder) espn.com site
https://www.espn.com/nba/story?id=44888875&_slug_=nba-draft-2025-projecting-30-best-prospects

Pelton's final rank for the four prospects we got:
Max Shulga (41)
Hugo Gonzalez (70)
Amari Williams (103)
RJ Luis (104)

According to Pelton's model the best prospects on the board when Celts pick came up at #28
1. Rasheer Fleming
2. Liam McNeeley
3. Koby Brea
4. Kam Jones

Basing draft picks or draft rankings only on stats is ridiculous imo.

If NBA teams actually based on their picks only on stats, Brandon Clarke would have been a top 5 pick. Robbie Hummel, Justin Anderson, Tyler Lydon, Derrick Williams, Denzel Vantenine would have all been lottery picks, Jimmer Fredette would have been a top 10 pick, Doug McDermott would have been a top 5 pick, etc. Meanwhile, Tatum would have been picked outside of the lottery, Jaylen Brown would have been picked in the 2nd round, Wemby would have gone in like the 15-25 range, Giannis would have gone undrafted, Donovan Mitchell, SGA, Maxey, Bam, Lamelo and Anthony Ewards would have been picked in like the 20-30 range, etc.

I wrote an article on this and found that only about 7% of NBA teams' draft evaluations/draft picks are based on stats and no NBA team actually drafts based only on stats or some "formula"

https://the-center-hub.com/2025/05/28/inside-the-war-room-what-nba-teams-value-during-the-draft/

Stats matter. But not *that* much and context behind the stats matters a lot. And you gotta watch the games..

It seems like you just keep trying to find any piece of content you can to try and push this narrative that we had a bad draft, which is odd.

We have to just let thing play out. We won't know how good our picks were for at least another 3-5 years. That's how long it takes to see how well a pick turned out.

And even then, how good they turned out could be impacted by injuries, the situation/context on the team that drafted them, maybe after they got drafted their NBA team's coach gets fired and the new coach has a different vision, maybe that player stops working as hard, loses their confidence, maybe they go to an NBA team that messes up their shot, who knows.

I'm putting draft content in the thread for posterity's sake. Whatever the content, I'd put it in the thread no matter if the analyst said we had an A+ draft or a D+ draft.

I don't think we should draft based solely on stats, I don't even think Pelton argues for that, but the stat models are fairly interesting as data points. Morey has drafted pretty well given his draft position using primarily analytical models, but I wouldn't bet the farm on what some stat model predicts.

I am very interested in what is going on behind the scenes in the C's front office because they haven't used the draft that much for signing players in the last few years. And when they do make picks, I wonder who is behind the scenes advocating for what player, etc. So that interests me as a fan of the team but also as a fan of team building generally.

I'm also disappointed that we get so little reporting about the front office from the Celts beat reporters since Murphy and Bulpett retired. I'd like to hear why Drew Nicholas, for example, was hired as Dir of Player Personnel, what are his wins in scouting at Brooklyn or Denver that caught Brad's interest? But there hasnt been one deep dive article about the Nicholas hire that I'm aware of. Back in the old days, we'd bring in Leo Papile and get 1500 words on him working on post footwork with Lorenzo Coleman in the Lawrence YMCA or something, lol ... and I miss that kind of reporting

But I don't hate our 2025 draft picks, I'm glad we got four players because that's four chances to find a hidden gem and I really like the Amari Williams pick, Shulga I think could have a long career as an ETwan Moore type of 3rd guard, RJ Luis was a draftable wing, & Hugo Gonzalez was a highly regarded prospect who didn't do much as 19yr old on a veteran team. It's fine. But also, it might literally be nothing, and none of these guys may be in the NBA in five years. We shall see

edit: just to be clear, and maybe this is what you are referring to about negativity, I'm not high on the Hugo pick, but Brad picked him and so he likes him, so I hope I am just wrong in my opinion and that Gonzalez becomes a good Celtic