NBA Draft 2024

[Ghost of Kleine]

Now Missi. Now his strengths sound like the player we need, but at the same time, he is very raw as a 1 year guy, averaged 5.6 rpg and is a 61% FT shooter. He also lacks size, at a little under 6'11 and 235 lbs. KD is 6'11, 240. KD also has a wingspan of 7'5 while MIssi is at 7'2 wingspan.

I don't see him as a starting C but maybe a backup C. He can't shoot 3s, or basically shoot at all, so is pretty much just a lob threat.

It does say shades of Duren though, who I think was drafted high.

I'm worried about his hands. Personally, I'd pass.

I remember long ago some analysis showing that steals was a strangely good predictor of NBA success for big men. Don't know if it still holds true, but if it does, Filpowski or - if we need a project - Adem Bona or N'Faly Dante might be OK in the second round.

Not saying your concerns are not valid as every draft prospect carries their own respective concerns or red flags as part of their value assessment and as determining factors in a team's overall level of interest/investment too. But it's important to remember two things with Missi in this context of his value (or lack thereof) to us:

1- Yves Missi has really only been playing organized basketball for around 3 years in total, so while clearly raw, he's quite far from a finished product!

2- Missis' initial/cor value to us is in his ELITE size, length, mobility, and vertical explosiveness as a long, very athletic, very quick, very explosive elite switchable defender, shot blocker, drop coverage big. Obviously, coming out of the gate, he won't be expected to be some significant or dominant offensive hub option for us. He's being targeted for his defensive acumen/abilities, and his entry pass-catching abilities/hand concerns will be relatively inconsequential to his core value with us. He'll have plenty of time to develop specific aspects of his game further alongside of our core without those concerns being any kind of glaring detriment to us in his formative NBA rookie years.

After all, no rookie has ever come into the league as a finished product and without certain developmental needs to be addressed. This draft although a weak and shallow draft offers players with specific elit outlier traits/skillsets/talents that can help us in a supplementary fashion around our star players. It's in this context that we'll extract proper value. But IF these prospects in our available range didn't have these issues/areas of necessary development, then they'd likely be in the lottery, and well out of our range anyways. So for our most critical needs, players like Missis' developmental shortcomings can/should be viewed as acceptable trade-offs for getting an elite defensive prospect with very complimentary outlier traits that strongly address our imminent needs.

[Ghost of Kleine]

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[bwgood77]

1- Yves Missi has really only been playing organized basketball for around 3 years in total, so while clearly raw, he's quite far from a finished product!

Sounds exactly like Ayton!

[Ghost of Kleine]

1- Yves Missi has really only been playing organized basketball for around 3 years in total, so while clearly raw, he's quite far from a finished product!

Sounds exactly like Ayton!

Of course the clear and obvious difference between Missi and Ayton though being that Missi plays with physicality, purpose, relentless motor and constant effort and intensity.


But yeah, the similarities are in that both have elite athletic outlier traits, and a very high ceiling if they can reach that apec outcome. BOTH are long, athletic and highly switchable all over the court. And both are somewhat humble and soft spoken or even affable. It's the heart intensity, effort and willingness to play physically that separate the two.

Ayton is an incredibly talented and efficient offensive big with outlier athletic ability and a finesse mentality. And Missi is an incredibly talented defensive big with elite defensive awareness/ anticipation and elite outlier athletic abilities/ traits who plays with a physical and relentless aggressive mentality.

But both are very talented athletic bigs with a lot of room for development and both are fairly raw in terms of their development curve currently.

[Ghost of Kleine]

https://arizonasports.com/story/3549424/22-for-22-should-suns-target-potential-hidden-gem-like-g-ajay-mitchell/

22 for 22: Should Suns target potential hidden gem like G Ajay Mitchell?

BY KELLAN OLSON
Suns reporter, ArizonaSports.com editor
Jun 21, 2024, 11:02 AM

There is no way for teams to learn from their NBA Draft mistakes and keep it that way. The corrections will come, only for the same errors to resurface years later.

That comes to mind with guard Ajay Mitchell out of UC Santa Barbara, a highly skilled scorer from a mid-major where the question turns into if this guy is slipping through the cracks like others in the past.

Mitchell averaged 20 points, four rebounds and four assists per game for the Gauchos while shooting 50.4% from the field, 39.3% at 3-point range and 85.8% for free throws. Taking those averages and a true shooting percentage of 60% as qualifiers, it has been done less than 50 times in men’s college basketball, per Stathead.

There are nearly a dozen tremendous NBA players on the list: Mark Aguirre, Chris Mullin, Sean Elliott, Steve Smith, Brandon Roy, Stephen Curry, James Harden, Damian Lillard and Ja Morant. There are a handful of serviceable-to-great NBA players on the list: Scott Skiles, Damon Stoudamire, George Hill, Payton Pritchard and Trayce Jackson-Davis. Then, there are the busts in the draft: Steve Rogers, Troy Bell, Kyle Hill, Ricky Minard, Luke Jackson, Reggie Williams and Nate Wolters.


That is conveniently half of the 42 names, meaning the rest weren’t drafted or are recent players like Mitchell or Alabama’s Mark Sears. What grouping Mitchell lands in, a prospect ranked in the 40s, is where the evaluation begins.

A key difference to note right away is those top NBA players were all prospects graded in the lottery. Pritchard and Jackson-Davis are the two recent examples out of the decent turnouts, with Pritchard going 26th in 2020 and the big Jackson-Davis slipping to the end of the second round last year. Point being, scouts didn’t whiff on any of those guys, and Mitchell is graded around the 40s.

With that said, some of the appeal here is there is hidden star potential. Mitchell plays like Jalen Brunson and moves a bit like him too, which makes the comp easy enough. It helps that Brunson was a super skilled guard himself that fell to the second round. The physical profile is a match, while noting Mitchell is taller.

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This is a fun sizzle reel of the whole deal. Mitchell is more springy with his movements than Brunson, who is more compact with what he does. The wish was Mitchell’s shake and burst to get to the basket was more consistent, because at times, it’s there. He’s got everything covered once the path to the basket is created.

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Mitchell took nearly half his shots at the rim and had an efficiency of 62%, with a minuscule 6.8% of those shots getting assisted, the best self-creation numbers you’ll see in this class, per Hoop-Math. The touch is where the Brunson comp really gets going, as the short midrange area of floaters and using footwork is a comfort zone for Mitchell. He drew fouls at a good rate too, taking nearly six free throws per game over the last two seasons.

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And the passing off that rim pressure has some upside.

The jumper will determine how the NBA goes for Mitchell. He upped his 3-point percentage this year from 26.7% to 39.3%, albeit on low volume again, 84 attempts after 75 the previous season. He’s a career 81.8% free-throw shooter, which is promising. Hoop-Math had the two-point jumpers around 43% the last two years, so that’s solid.

That, the defense fluttering somewhere between maybe fine and maybe not and his scoring resume getting compiled mostly against the Big West is what keeps Mitchell out of the rankings in the first round.

Like Bub Carrington, it’s a tough sell for the selection of a scoring guard. But Carrington’s potential is more obvious to see while Mitchell requires some convincing. The reasoning would be locating value in the late first round and taking someone who could potentially be one of the best players in this class.

If Mitchell can still get to the rim in the NBA and shoots it well from deep while not being a defensive liability, he will be one of ’em. Those are three if’s, though, and for a more seasoned prospect like the guy who turns 22 years old on draft night, it’s too big of an ask for Phoenix, especially with a scoring guard.

[Saberestar]

Gambo today:

DaRon Holmes ruled out. Not a good fit for the Suns. Undersized to play at the 5.

The Suns will consider at #22 Tyler Kolek. He can be available even a few spots later and that could give us the option to trade down and get him + another asset.

[Mr Puddles]

Now Missi. Now his strengths sound like the player we need, but at the same time, he is very raw as a 1 year guy, averaged 5.6 rpg and is a 61% FT shooter. He also lacks size, at a little under 6'11 and 235 lbs. KD is 6'11, 240. KD also has a wingspan of 7'5 while MIssi is at 7'2 wingspan.

I don't see him as a starting C but maybe a backup C. He can't shoot 3s, or basically shoot at all, so is pretty much just a lob threat.

It does say shades of Duren though, who I think was drafted high.

I'm worried about his hands. Personally, I'd pass.

I remember long ago some analysis showing that steals was a strangely good predictor of NBA success for big men. Don't know if it still holds true, but if it does, Filpowski or - if we need a project - Adem Bona or N'Faly Dante might be OK in the second round.

Not saying your concerns are not valid as every draft prospect carries their own respective concerns or red flags as part of their value assessment and as determining factors in a team's overall level of interest/investment too. But it's important to remember two things with Missi in this context of his value (or lack thereof) to us:

1- Yves Missi has really only been playing organized basketball for around 3 years in total, so while clearly raw, he's quite far from a finished product!

2- Missis' initial/cor value to us is in his ELITE size, length, mobility, and vertical explosiveness as a long, very athletic, very quick, very explosive elite switchable defender, shot blocker, drop coverage big. Obviously, coming out of the gate, he won't be expected to be some significant or dominant offensive hub option for us. He's being targeted for his defensive acumen/abilities, and his entry pass-catching abilities/hand concerns will be relatively inconsequential to his core value with us. He'll have plenty of time to develop specific aspects of his game further alongside of our core without those concerns being any kind of glaring detriment to us in his formative NBA rookie years.

After all, no rookie has ever come into the league as a finished product and without certain developmental needs to be addressed. This draft although a weak and shallow draft offers players with specific elit outlier traits/skillsets/talents that can help us in a supplementary fashion around our star players. It's in this context that we'll extract proper value. But IF these prospects in our available range didn't have these issues/areas of necessary development, then they'd likely be in the lottery, and well out of our range anyways. So for our most critical needs, players like Missis' developmental shortcomings can/should be viewed as acceptable trade-offs for getting an elite defensive prospect with very complimentary outlier traits that strongly address our imminent needs.

At #22, whoever we draft is not going to be a starter. From what I can tell Yves Missi should be good enough to play the Drew Eubanks minutes. If he can play switchable defense while catching lobs here and there for 15 min a game, he'd be a solid upgrade at the back-up 5 already.

I know people are down on nurkic, but he looked good in certain match-ups. The matchups Nurk looked bad in are match-ups Missi should thrive in. Both guys are almost polar opposites in terms of their strengths and weaknesses.

[Ghost of Kleine]

I'm worried about his hands. Personally, I'd pass.

I remember long ago some analysis showing that steals was a strangely good predictor of NBA success for big men. Don't know if it still holds true, but if it does, Filpowski or - if we need a project - Adem Bona or N'Faly Dante might be OK in the second round.

Not saying your concerns are not valid as every draft prospect carries their own respective concerns or red flags as part of their value assessment and as determining factors in a team's overall level of interest/investment too. But it's important to remember two things with Missi in this context of his value (or lack thereof) to us:

1- Yves Missi has really only been playing organized basketball for around 3 years in total, so while clearly raw, he's quite far from a finished product!

2- Missis' initial/cor value to us is in his ELITE size, length, mobility, and vertical explosiveness as a long, very athletic, very quick, very explosive elite switchable defender, shot blocker, drop coverage big. Obviously, coming out of the gate, he won't be expected to be some significant or dominant offensive hub option for us. He's being targeted for his defensive acumen/abilities, and his entry pass-catching abilities/hand concerns will be relatively inconsequential to his core value with us. He'll have plenty of time to develop specific aspects of his game further alongside of our core without those concerns being any kind of glaring detriment to us in his formative NBA rookie years.

After all, no rookie has ever come into the league as a finished product and without certain developmental needs to be addressed. This draft although a weak and shallow draft offers players with specific elit outlier traits/skillsets/talents that can help us in a supplementary fashion around our star players. It's in this context that we'll extract proper value. But IF these prospects in our available range didn't have these issues/areas of necessary development, then they'd likely be in the lottery, and well out of our range anyways. So for our most critical needs, players like Missis' developmental shortcomings can/should be viewed as acceptable trade-offs for getting an elite defensive prospect with very complimentary outlier traits that strongly address our imminent needs.

At #22, whoever we draft is not going to be a starter. From what I can tell Yves Missi should be good enough to play the Drew Eubanks minutes. If he can play switchable defense while catching lobs here and there for 15 min a game, he'd be a solid upgrade at the back-up 5 already.

I know people are down on nurkic, but he looked good in certain match-ups. The matchups Nurk looked bad in are match-ups Missi should thrive in. Both guys are almost polar opposites in terms of their strengths and weaknesses.

Excellent points!

Missi represents a change of pace different look at backup 5 that we've severely lacked with Nurkic. Do we could keep Nurkic as he's been very productive and solid for us whilst also addressing key athletic and switchability issues/ weaknesses at that position that Nurkic just couldn't cover and are very limited options for us in free agency ( outside of attaching our PHX 2031 1st in some trade packages).

If done correctly, we can either take Missi or Kolek at 22, and address one of our critical positional weaknesses at guard or backup center. Or we can trade down a few spots and still address our positional weaknesses in drafting from the 25- 29 ranges while also picking up another pick in the 2nd round to possibly address another positional need too. Or in picking up a higher upside developmental asset that we can develop, escalate value and showcase for a later trade.

The fact that the Suns are looking st trade back scenarios tells me that they're also prioritizing holding onto the 2031 1st as a high value sweetener in a potential trade deadline deal around either Allen or O'neale in the hopes of returning a bigger impact asset. But overall, in this draft (at 22), getting a very solid utility/ complimentary depth option is still an absolute win so we can head into free agency at least somewhat ahead of the game and in a much more advantagous situation.

[Ghost of Kleine]

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[lilfishi22]

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25 names here.

Interesting that Kolek and Dunn have not been invited by the league. That means that apparently they are not expected to be drafted before #22.

I'm just that those two have been left off the green room list only because of the perception of their skillset limitations in today's game causing their percieved value to slide.

- For Kolek, it's his lack of burst, lack of size/ length, and subpar athleticism. Which Kolek will offset easily enough with his high cerebral basketball IQ and "in game" processing similar to McConnell.
- For Dunn, it's his obvious lack of perimeter shooting and overall mechanics issues (which can be fixed easily enough with the simple investment of a shooting coach to help slightly adjust his mechanics and release point).

But it's funny in that if not for these incremental issues for each player, they'd very likely be lottery picks out of our range anyways. So many people are somehow missing the extreme value of these prospects offsetting these concerns. That eith a small investment, you can get a potential lottery level talent and can cash in on high end value that otherwise you'd have no legitimate chance to get in our current situation.

Prospects all have their flaws, especially in a weak/ shallow draft such as this one. You'd think it'd be easier to identify the immense underlying impact value of these kind of prospects. But it's only often exposed once they're impacting games on the court with reactionary hindsight regrets on the ones who so many passed on.

That isn't a given and shouldn't be described as easily fixed. There are poor shooters with decent enough mechanics who just never improved on their shooting and it isn't without trying.

[Saberestar]

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25 names here.

Interesting that Kolek and Dunn have not been invited by the league. That means that apparently they are not expected to be drafted before #22.

I'm just that those two have been left off the green room list only because of the perception of their skillset limitations in today's game causing their percieved value to slide.

- For Kolek, it's his lack of burst, lack of size/ length, and subpar athleticism. Which Kolek will offset easily enough with his high cerebral basketball IQ and "in game" processing similar to McConnell.
- For Dunn, it's his obvious lack of perimeter shooting and overall mechanics issues (which can be fixed easily enough with the simple investment of a shooting coach to help slightly adjust his mechanics and release point).

But it's funny in that if not for these incremental issues for each player, they'd very likely be lottery picks out of our range anyways. So many people are somehow missing the extreme value of these prospects offsetting these concerns. That eith a small investment, you can get a potential lottery level talent and can cash in on high end value that otherwise you'd have no legitimate chance to get in our current situation.

Prospects all have their flaws, especially in a weak/ shallow draft such as this one. You'd think it'd be easier to identify the immense underlying impact value of these kind of prospects. But it's only often exposed once they're impacting games on the court with reactionary hindsight regrets on the ones who so many passed on.

That isn't a given and shouldn't be described as easily fixed. There are poor shooters with decent enough mechanics who just never improved on their shooting and it isn't without trying.

I agree.

Good to know that Dunn is already working with one of the best shooting/development trainers in the world.

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[Ghost of Kleine]

Spoiler:

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25 names here.

Interesting that Kolek and Dunn have not been invited by the league. That means that apparently they are not expected to be drafted before #22.

I'm just that those two have been left off the green room list only because of the perception of their skillset limitations in today's game causing their percieved value to slide.

- For Kolek, it's his lack of burst, lack of size/ length, and subpar athleticism. Which Kolek will offset easily enough with his high cerebral basketball IQ and "in game" processing similar to McConnell.
- For Dunn, it's his obvious lack of perimeter shooting and overall mechanics issues (which can be fixed easily enough with the simple investment of a shooting coach to help slightly adjust his mechanics and release point).

But it's funny in that if not for these incremental issues for each player, they'd very likely be lottery picks out of our range anyways. So many people are somehow missing the extreme value of these prospects offsetting these concerns. That eith a small investment, you can get a potential lottery level talent and can cash in on high end value that otherwise you'd have no legitimate chance to get in our current situation.

Prospects all have their flaws, especially in a weak/ shallow draft such as this one. You'd think it'd be easier to identify the immense underlying impact value of these kind of prospects. But it's only often exposed once they're impacting games on the court with reactionary hindsight regrets on the ones who so many passed on.

That isn't a given and shouldn't be described as easily fixed. There are poor shooters with decent enough mechanics who just never improved on their shooting and it isn't without trying.

That's a fair statement of course, but context both situational and individual respective are still important considerations too:

Situational for Dunn:
At Virginia they obviously have/ had a stellar defensive program. However, they didn't have and weren't at all good or elite in really any aspects of offensive creation or development. Now how this relates to Dunn is in that his specific role for them focused solely on his elite defensive outlier traits and abilities. He obviously excelled significantly in his role defensively and became widely known as the absolute best defender in all of college basketball!

But again, his specific role was as an elite utility defensive connector/ playmaker and not as an offensive option nor hub. Now he at this point of entering the draft is only a sophomore with two seasons under his belt and he's achieved recognition as being the consensus top defender in all of college basketball among all positions too. This speaks to his ability to achieve and excel in the role he's asked to play in. So it's not at all inconceivable that if asked to expand that role more offensively, that ye couldn't achieve that too.

He just wasn't directed to be that/ focus on those attributes at Virginia beyond being an elite lockdown defensive stopper for them. Opportunity and development matters.

Individual respective context for Dunn
Dunn again has shown the type of relentless work ethic necessary to become an absolutely elite lockdown defender as well as the willingness to play his role ideas and sacrifice other aspects of his game in order to excel in whatever role is asked of him. His intensity, work ethic and dedication to one end could clearly give him an advantage over other players that have struggled offensively but have lacked the elite work ethic and intensity to be driven towards excellence and becoming elite at various aspects of basketball.

Again, a huge part of being able to overcome these types of skillset adversities are the actual drive , determination, willingness to diligently work at changing and improving. Dunns' elite defensive achievements speak to these traits and relentless determination to become great. Because 90% of great defense is effort and relentless determination/ awareness. I believe that Dunn can "easily enough" apply these critical habits to the offensive aspects of his game too.

So sure there's always examples of players who didn't improve their shooting mechanics. But with Dunn, he already has acceptance and awareness of these weaknesses, he already has the relentless determination and drive to improve, and he's obviously high IQ and adaptive which has been illustrated by his defensive versatility and elite defensive awareness and recovery aspects of his play. I believe all of these traits give him added advantages towards overcoming such concerns at a higher level of probability than the baseline outcomes.

[Ghost of Kleine]

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[Fo-Real]

Who are we picking boys?

[bwgood77]

Spoiler:

I'm just that those two have been left off the green room list only because of the perception of their skillset limitations in today's game causing their percieved value to slide.

- For Kolek, it's his lack of burst, lack of size/ length, and subpar athleticism. Which Kolek will offset easily enough with his high cerebral basketball IQ and "in game" processing similar to McConnell.
- For Dunn, it's his obvious lack of perimeter shooting and overall mechanics issues (which can be fixed easily enough with the simple investment of a shooting coach to help slightly adjust his mechanics and release point).

But it's funny in that if not for these incremental issues for each player, they'd very likely be lottery picks out of our range anyways. So many people are somehow missing the extreme value of these prospects offsetting these concerns. That eith a small investment, you can get a potential lottery level talent and can cash in on high end value that otherwise you'd have no legitimate chance to get in our current situation.

Prospects all have their flaws, especially in a weak/ shallow draft such as this one. You'd think it'd be easier to identify the immense underlying impact value of these kind of prospects. But it's only often exposed once they're impacting games on the court with reactionary hindsight regrets on the ones who so many passed on.

That isn't a given and shouldn't be described as easily fixed. There are poor shooters with decent enough mechanics who just never improved on their shooting and it isn't without trying.

That's a fair statement of course, but context both situational and individual respective are still important considerations too:

Situational for Dunn:

Now how this relates to Dunn is in that his specific role for them focused solely on his elite defensive outlier traits and abilities. .......But again, his specific role was as an elite utility defensive connector/ playmaker and not as an offensive option nor hub. So it's not at all inconceivable that if asked to expand that role more offensively, that he couldn't achieve that too.

He just wasn't directed to be that/ focus on those attributes at Virginia beyond being an elite lockdown defensive stopper for them. Opportunity and development matters.

Dunn may be able to get better at his shooting, but it's not entirely likely. You have tons and tons of guys that never can. You can name guys we have had...Okogie, KBD, Josh Jackson, etc...or a guy Dunn is compared to in Andre Roberson.

Dunn is an awesome defender. It would be great to have him on the floor on that side. But he requires a lot of development to even get CLOSE to being a good shooter, which will likely take years if it happens.

His mindset is very very tentative on the offensive side. Even if open, he usually just passes it. And if he shoots it from 3, it's a 20% shot, and that was against college level from the shorter 3 pt line.

I just don't think you can afford to draft a guy in the NBA today that cannot shoot or hit free throws unless it's an elite defensive big who can finish at the rim.

[bwgood77]

Who are we picking boys?

Trading it for 3 future 2nds of course! Or with Little for some vet that won't end up being very good.

[Ghost of Kleine]

Spoiler:

That isn't a given and shouldn't be described as easily fixed. There are poor shooters with decent enough mechanics who just never improved on their shooting and it isn't without trying.

That's a fair statement of course, but context both situational and individual respective are still important considerations too:

Situational for Dunn:

Now how this relates to Dunn is in that his specific role for them focused solely on his elite defensive outlier traits and abilities. .......But again, his specific role was as an elite utility defensive connector/ playmaker and not as an offensive option nor hub. So it's not at all inconceivable that if asked to expand that role more offensively, that he couldn't achieve that too.

He just wasn't directed to be that/ focus on those attributes at Virginia beyond being an elite lockdown defensive stopper for them. Opportunity and development matters.

Dunn may be able to get better at his shooting, but it's not entirely likely. You have tons and tons of guys that never can. You can name guys we have had...Okogie, KBD, Josh Jackson, etc...or a guy Dunn is compared to in Andre Roberson.

Dunn is an awesome defender. It would be great to have him on the floor on that side. But he requires a lot of development to even get CLOSE to being a good shooter, which will likely take years if it happens.

His mindset is very very tentative on the offensive side. Even if open, he usually just passes it. And if he shoots it from 3, it's a 20% shot, and that was against college level from the shorter 3 pt line.

I just don't think you can afford to draft a guy in the NBA today that cannot shoot or hit free throws unless it's an elite defensive big who can finish at the rim.

Dunn finishes near 70% ( 68%) at the rim and has a 10.4% block percentage averaging over 2 blocks a game for a 6'8 wing. It get your concerns, but he'll likely be ok because he won't be needed to be an offensive focal point or offensive hub with all.of the elite offensive weapons our team has currently. His defensive impact will.provide more than enough value to offset his offensive blemishes man. Besides, it's not like we're going to be targeting players to take the ball.out of our stars hands now is it.

I seriously doubt we're expecting star potential from this draft anyways, and we're most likely not prioritizing any high usage options either that'd reduce posessions for our starters either.
It should be fairly obvious that this draft will be best served for us to target supplemental utility and connective players for positional depth. And Dunn, despite those valid concerns Ideally fits multiple criteria for our imminent needs.

Besides, if we draft him with a late first or 2nd round pick in a trade back scenario, the implied risk of such concerns is only further minimized due to the lower contextual cost in an already shallow/ weak draft! Being able to get a potential multi time all defensive player even with some attached concerns is still very solid value in this type of draft and considering Jones' track record in the draft.

[Qwigglez]

If the Suns can sneak back in and grab an early 2nd round pick, Kevin McCullar is someone that is a James Jones special. 23 years old, 6'6 with a 6'9 wingspan. He reminds me of Kevin Martin. He can score the ball from anywhere. His 3P% is a bit low but his FT% is good at 80%, so I think he can improve his efficiency from 3.

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[bwgood77]

That's a fair statement of course, but context both situational and individual respective are still important considerations too:

Situational for Dunn:

Now how this relates to Dunn is in that his specific role for them focused solely on his elite defensive outlier traits and abilities. .......But again, his specific role was as an elite utility defensive connector/ playmaker and not as an offensive option nor hub. So it's not at all inconceivable that if asked to expand that role more offensively, that he couldn't achieve that too.

He just wasn't directed to be that/ focus on those attributes at Virginia beyond being an elite lockdown defensive stopper for them. Opportunity and development matters.

Dunn may be able to get better at his shooting, but it's not entirely likely. You have tons and tons of guys that never can. You can name guys we have had...Okogie, KBD, Josh Jackson, etc...or a guy Dunn is compared to in Andre Roberson.

Dunn is an awesome defender. It would be great to have him on the floor on that side. But he requires a lot of development to even get CLOSE to being a good shooter, which will likely take years if it happens.

His mindset is very very tentative on the offensive side. Even if open, he usually just passes it. And if he shoots it from 3, it's a 20% shot, and that was against college level from the shorter 3 pt line.

I just don't think you can afford to draft a guy in the NBA today that cannot shoot or hit free throws unless it's an elite defensive big who can finish at the rim.

Dunn finishes near 70% ( 68%) at the rim and has a 10.4% block percentage averaging over 2 blocks a game for a 6'8 wing. It get your concerns, but he'll likely be ok because he won't be needed to be an offensive focal point or offensive hub with all.of the elite offensive weapons our team has currently. His defensive impact will.provide more than enough value to offset his offensive blemishes man. Besides, it's not like we're going to be targeting players to take the ball.out of our stars hands now is it.

I seriously doubt we're expecting star potential from this draft anyways, and we're most likely not prioritizing any high usage options either that'd reduce posessions for our starters either.
It should be fairly obvious that this draft will be best served for us to target supplemental utility and connective players for positional depth. And Dunn, despite those valid concerns Ideally fits multiple criteria for our imminent needs.

Besides, if we draft him with a late first or 2nd round pick in a trade back scenario, the implied risk of such concerns is only further minimized due to the lower contextual cost in an already shallow/ weak draft! Being able to get a potential multi time all defensive player even with some attached concerns is still very solid value in this type of draft and considering Jones' track record in the draft.

Oh, the main reason I quoted that specific part I don't think I said...how do you know that HIS specific role was to ONLY focus on defense and ignore offense? Are you just assuming that because he was so bad at offense? I know Virginia is a defensive team, but do you have some knowledge on what exactly they wanted out of him?

[lilfishi22]

Spoiler:

I'm just that those two have been left off the green room list only because of the perception of their skillset limitations in today's game causing their percieved value to slide.

- For Kolek, it's his lack of burst, lack of size/ length, and subpar athleticism. Which Kolek will offset easily enough with his high cerebral basketball IQ and "in game" processing similar to McConnell.
- For Dunn, it's his obvious lack of perimeter shooting and overall mechanics issues (which can be fixed easily enough with the simple investment of a shooting coach to help slightly adjust his mechanics and release point).

But it's funny in that if not for these incremental issues for each player, they'd very likely be lottery picks out of our range anyways. So many people are somehow missing the extreme value of these prospects offsetting these concerns. That eith a small investment, you can get a potential lottery level talent and can cash in on high end value that otherwise you'd have no legitimate chance to get in our current situation.

Prospects all have their flaws, especially in a weak/ shallow draft such as this one. You'd think it'd be easier to identify the immense underlying impact value of these kind of prospects. But it's only often exposed once they're impacting games on the court with reactionary hindsight regrets on the ones who so many passed on.

That isn't a given and shouldn't be described as easily fixed. There are poor shooters with decent enough mechanics who just never improved on their shooting and it isn't without trying.

That's a fair statement of course, but context both situational and individual respective are still important considerations too:

Situational for Dunn:
At Virginia they obviously have/ had a stellar defensive program. However, they didn't have and weren't at all good or elite in really any aspects of offensive creation or development. Now how this relates to Dunn is in that his specific role for them focused solely on his elite defensive outlier traits and abilities. He obviously excelled significantly in his role defensively and became widely known as the absolute best defender in all of college basketball!

But again, his specific role was as an elite utility defensive connector/ playmaker and not as an offensive option nor hub. Now he at this point of entering the draft is only a sophomore with two seasons under his belt and he's achieved recognition as being the consensus top defender in all of college basketball among all positions too. This speaks to his ability to achieve and excel in the role he's asked to play in. So it's not at all inconceivable that if asked to expand that role more offensively, that ye couldn't achieve that too.

He just wasn't directed to be that/ focus on those attributes at Virginia beyond being an elite lockdown defensive stopper for them. Opportunity and development matters.

Individual respective context for Dunn
Dunn again has shown the type of relentless work ethic necessary to become an absolutely elite lockdown defender as well as the willingness to play his role ideas and sacrifice other aspects of his game in order to excel in whatever role is asked of him. His intensity, work ethic and dedication to one end could clearly give him an advantage over other players that have struggled offensively but have lacked the elite work ethic and intensity to be driven towards excellence and becoming elite at various aspects of basketball.

Again, a huge part of being able to overcome these types of skillset adversities are the actual drive , determination, willingness to diligently work at changing and improving. Dunns' elite defensive achievements speak to these traits and relentless determination to become great. Because 90% of great defense is effort and relentless determination/ awareness. I believe that Dunn can "easily enough" apply these critical habits to the offensive aspects of his game too.

So sure there's always examples of players who didn't improve their shooting mechanics. But with Dunn, he already has acceptance and awareness of these weaknesses, he already has the relentless determination and drive to improve, and he's obviously high IQ and adaptive which has been illustrated by his defensive versatility and elite defensive awareness and recovery aspects of his play. I believe all of these traits give him added advantages towards overcoming such concerns at a higher level of probability than the baseline outcomes.

My comment isn't taking away from what he can do defensively at the NBA level or his work ethic/drive, only that improving on his shooting which has been pretty poor in both seasons at the college level will be a bigger ask and a bigger leap of faith than say an ok shooter becoming at even better shooter in the NBA.

For me, non shooters at the college level is generally a red flag (although not always a deal-breaker) but with Dunn specifically, in the two years at Virginia, he really didn't improve his shooting at all which doesn't give me much more optimism he'll "get it" in the NBA. I can forgive a poor shooting freshman year but to see virtually no improvement in his sophomore season is a real worry