2025 NBA Draft Prospect Part 3

[BoyzNTheHood]

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[LoveMyRaps]

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hmmmmmmm Queen do got a lil bit of Sabonis to him

[UnbelievablyRAW]

Almost at the point where I'd rather have Queen than Khaman. Feel like he can be a better Naz Reid as a bench big and play in small ball lineups with Scottie as the 4.

Idk about him as a full time C though. Don't like the block numbers but he's been a beast on the boards

All this assuming we land 6 or lower

[BoyzNTheHood]

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hmmmmmmm Queen do got a lil bit of Sabonis to him

Going back and seeing Sabonis averaged less than 2 assists both of his seasons at Gonzaga is kind of wild.

[ItsDanger]

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Nikola Jokic got drafted 41st. Hasn't been a white player drafted 1st overall since Bargs. This guy should STFU.

[Dalek]

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Big men almost always look good in college because when do they even police those guys on being in the paint?

Let's see Dairy Queen have the same level of impact in Europe playing against men. He is having a good year but he also doesn't even shoot threes (2 made) and has a negative assist to turnover rating and averages 55% from the field. He might not make it off the bench in Europe.

If anything, I'd say European bigs typically get taken much later in the draft than Americans bigs. Many end up in the late second round and end up pretty decent (Jokic, Hartenstein, Zubac) where as college guys like James Wiseman, Mo Bamba, Jhalil Okafor end up footnotes in history.

[Psubs]

Almost at the point where I'd rather have Queen than Khaman. Feel like he can be a better Naz Reid as a bench big and play in small ball lineups with Scottie as the 4.

Idk about him as a full time C though. Don't like the block numbers but he's been a beast on the boards

All this assuming we land 6 or lower

Playing against players that are 7 ft tall will not help his block numbers no his rebounds.

Lately his monster games have been against bigs that are his height or shorter.

[Dalek]

Almost at the point where I'd rather have Queen than Khaman. Feel like he can be a better Naz Reid as a bench big and play in small ball lineups with Scottie as the 4.

Idk about him as a full time C though. Don't like the block numbers but he's been a beast on the boards

All this assuming we land 6 or lower

Except he doesn't defend or shoot threes or is mobile like Naz Reid - and he comes with a sense of entitlement. But, sure they are sort of the same size of undersized big.

[Psubs]

Almost at the point where I'd rather have Queen than Khaman. Feel like he can be a better Naz Reid as a bench big and play in small ball lineups with Scottie as the 4.

Idk about him as a full time C though. Don't like the block numbers but he's been a beast on the boards

All this assuming we land 6 or lower

Except he doesn't defend or shoot threes or is mobile like Naz Reid - and he comes with a sense of entitlement. But, sure they are sort of the same size of undersized big.

Sense of entitlement without being a 1 is not good for a small market team. You'll have to pay max money to retain them. Look at Jimmy Butler. He started as a late 1st pick and developed the sense of entitlement. I guess you want confidence without entitlement.

[REJECTEDBYCLARK]

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Nikola Jokic got drafted 41st. Hasn't been a white player drafted 1st overall since Bargs. This guy should STFU.

Reminds me of Barlowe saying that Tyler Smith would be a lotto pick if his last name were Smithovic or that nobody would care about Ace Bailey's shot selection if he were white. Barlowe seems like an angry man who listens to Public Enemy in his bedroom all day on repeat. I wish him and his wife the best as she is battling cancer but he really is a massive race-baiter.

[Rapsfan07]

Almost at the point where I'd rather have Queen than Khaman. Feel like he can be a better Naz Reid as a bench big and play in small ball lineups with Scottie as the 4.

Idk about him as a full time C though. Don't like the block numbers but he's been a beast on the boards

All this assuming we land 6 or lower

Maybe's he's a Wendell Carter Jr type? Without the 3 ball and less injury prone?

[Psubs]

Almost at the point where I'd rather have Queen than Khaman. Feel like he can be a better Naz Reid as a bench big and play in small ball lineups with Scottie as the 4.

Idk about him as a full time C though. Don't like the block numbers but he's been a beast on the boards

All this assuming we land 6 or lower

Maybe's he's a Wendell Carter Jr type? Without the 3 ball and less injury prone?

Much more nimble. He could be a weaker Sengun.

[Rapsfan07]

Assuming we don't get any of the fancy names..cause we're Toronto:

1) Draft Tre Johnson (or VJ)

2) Assuming Danny Wolf is available at Orlando's highest pick, trade Gradey + Ochai for Goga + Wolf. (Gradey and Tre are redundant. Ochai will be looking for his new contract in a couple years)

3) Draft Miles Byrd with the 2nd rounder.

Depth chart:

Poeltl / Goga
Scottie / Wolf / Mogbo
Ingram / Ja'Kobe
RJ / Tre / Byrd
IQ / Shead

This would be ideal for me. Edgecome with our first, a Dick trade for a later first rounder to select either Wolf, Richardson or Flemming and then I'd go with Condon for that second rounder.

[tdotrep2]

this narrative that teams would look more favorably at a player if he is was white is kind of funny, it's probably the exact opposite lol

[grant101]

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Big men almost always look good in college because when do they even police those guys on being in the paint?

Let's see Dairy Queen have the same level of impact in Europe playing against men. He is having a good year but he also doesn't even shoot threes (2 made) and has a negative assist to turnover rating and averages 55% from the field. He might not make it off the bench in Europe.

If anything, I'd say European bigs typically get taken much later in the draft than Americans bigs. Many end up in the late second round and end up pretty decent (Jokic, Hartenstein, Zubac) where as college guys like James Wiseman, Mo Bamba, Jhalil Okafor end up footnotes in history.

I really don't get why this is a big deal and why Derik is receiving any kind of criticism for this. His coach used hyperbole to hype his player, and Queen is confident without being a braggard. He comes across as level-headed in this video.

The examples you lay out seem very cherry-picked. there have been several European and American bigs that have failed to make an impact. The NBA is hard, and most prospects don't make it. It's tough to make any generalizations on which place produces better players.

On that note, one aspect that hasn't been talked about is how copy-cat the league is, and how because of this GMs end up making determinations based more on squishier factors (origin, appearance, body type, etc.). For example, after Dirk hit, you get folks over-drafting players like Nikoloz Tskitishvili, Jan Vesely, Dragan Bender, etc. Same thing happened with mobile, undersized 5s with any kind of passing after Draymond hit. In this case, I think it's fair to say that ppl are looking for the next Jokic or Sengun - prodigious, slower, High-IQ bigs out of Europe. I am NOT saying that Queen will be as successful as those two, but he has many similar attributes save for the fact that he's American. Perhaps some of this went into his coach's thinking - that if he was playing in Europe, more people would be dreaming that he could become the next Jokic/Sengun?

That said, the 'white' thing is silly. People said the same thing about Luka Garza

[Ell Curry]

He is barely playing, but I wonder if we could make a promise with the PDX 2nd to take Ngongba - or if someone picking before us will - assuming we don't end up at #4 or #5 and love Maluach.

#20 on 247 coming into the year, so you'd figure he should go about #30 after adding in 4-5 international kids, 2-3 freshman and 3-4 sophomores/juniors and maybe 1 senior.

Not really his fault (I think he was injured, and they have Maluach and the backup center is Brown, a junior with a 9BPM, that's not a guy whose minutes you look to cut) that he's not playing more than 5-10 minutes a night, and his numbers in that tiny sample size are pretty good. Presumably he'll come back and be the starter next year and compete for the top center spot with Cenac (the only highly rated center next year I guess?) and maybe one of the international kids will blossom and also be up there, but I dunno, might be a way to steal a starting center with a 2nd rounder. Will be interesting to see how long Brown is out and if enough good 10-12 minutes performances on a team as prominent as Duke and we're talking about the 3rd or 4th center taken in the draft if he wants to come out.

[mdenny]

17 when Lebron was drafted, I remember the hype. I also remember people saying that Darko had better long term potential than Lebron. I'm also trying to be objective in my analysis and adding that it was my opinion and not overall hype. Lebron was in the 99.9th percentile in terms of size/athleticism which lead to a lot of the hype. He also had an incredible bbiq, but was also a high schooler so it is probably tough to know just how great his bbiq was. As a rookie in the NBA he struggled a bit in the half court when defenses just backed off and dared him to shoot.

He had extreme outlier size/athleticism, and extreme outlier bbiq/ work ethic which is actually really hard to measure, especially in high schoolers. Very good handle, but very poor shooting. It's also incredibly difficult to project high schoolers as #1 RSCI guys as many fall off. Cade Cunningham and Andrew Wiggns were probably the most decorated high schoolers I remember in the last decade and after seeing Cade in college for a year wasn't in my top 4.

Cooper Flagg probably had similar amounts of hype as Cade, but in his year of college has shown to be a far superior prospect.

If Flagg was a year older with the same production he'd still be my runaway #1, a full two years older and he's still solidly #1. 3 years older and he's still in contention to be #1 for me.

Looking back I would have Luka, Wemby, and AD ahead of Flagg as prospects and Zion close to him.
I wasn't into numbers and drafting until the 2013-2014 NBA Draft when Dean on Draft and a few others were posting on 2+2 their opinions and backing it up with numbers and comparables and then became much more into it when I realized they were better at projecting talent than every site out there. A bunch of them got hired by NBA front offices, Dean I presume wasn't because of how outspoken he was and other personality factors that might have made working with him difficult.
Looking at Oden and how much I value certain numbers I probably wouldn't have been super high on him at that time. (center with lowish steals and terrible assists/turnovers).

Hard for me to project one specific thing for Flagg, he could be a top 5 wing defender in the league. He could also end up being a top 20 offensive player that he does the Kawhi and Lebron thing of coasting on D to save energy for offense.
The archetype to me is an early Lakers Lebron James who was still a top 5-10 player. The fact he is so young and still so productive over so many categories is what gets me excited for him.

I appreciate this response but I perceive it as hyperbole.

So top 5 wing defender like say....Paul George? I could deal with that.

In fact...what about Paul George as a player comparison?(I think there is a very small chance Flagg is ever as good as Paul George in his prime)

I don't see Flagg's handle as good as Paul George. His 3 is not as smooth in mechanics. Perhaps his defense is similar.

Th one x factor I see is his intensity and work ethic. So if he ends up being a gym rat type of guy....I can see him getting better and better each year.

But I think he is gonna fall flat in his first 3 months in the league. And I mean FLAT. and it'll be because there is someone on every team that is better than him at each facet of the game. He don't specialize in anything.

Can you at least see what I mean by that? The jack of all trades prospects often fall flat because they have no particular thing to fall back on. Yes, lebron was a jack of all trades prospect too....but he was an anomaly. Flagg is not an anomaly.

One last thing....when I hear ppl try to downplay the hype of Greg Oden....it just reaffirms to me that the prospect draft hype is just such a here today/gone tomorrow trend-driven phenomenon. Drafting Greg Oden at that time was generally assumed as being assured multiple championships. Everyone loves to talk NOW about how "they never believed in oden".

That is literally like trying to hear someone say "I wouldn't have taken Wemby first overall" 15 years from now if injuries plague his career. That **** just screams dishonesty to me. Oden was so dominant in the NCAA tournament....it seemed like it was impossible for his team to lose.

I don't disagree about the hype of Oden, but looking at the predictor stats I look at now he would not have been high up for me, but it's difficult to compare across eras as the game has changed a lot in the last 10 years, let alone 18. I wasn't into those things back then though, I'm trying to look objectively at previous prospects from a statistical standpoint. Traditional post scoring bigs were en vogue back then with Shaq and even Roy Hibbert. You needed one to score AND defend against the other team's post scoring centre. We now realize that bbiq is more important than size/length as a center.

His team probably should have lost to Tennessee in the elite 8, but it's hard for me to remember 17 years ago exactly.

Paul George is a decent comparison as an archetype, but Flagg is a far superior prospect. George played in the WAC which is pretty terrible and had similar shooting stats across two years, and similar stocks and rebounds. Flagg is much younger, committing a full less foul per 40, has a higher free throw rate, and shows far superior assists with fewer turnovers.
Paul George obvious hit a pretty high percentile outcome in the NBA, 90%+, but Flagg has a significantly higher starting point as a prospect.

Edit: To add, looking back at Marcus Smart he crushed the indicators I like to look at, but probably only hit his 10th percentile outcome, maybe less if you remove injuries. He also never improved once he got into the league. He would have been my #1 over Embiid when I try to look back at that draft objectively.

I definitely appreciate the honesty/sincerity regarding Marcus smart.

To be honest...I always thought he would become a much better player than his career has evolved into. Who knows....he still might find the right place to flourish. I think he is a super high IQ player.

[REJECTEDBYCLARK]

i don't think maluach can be ruled out because if you asked him to just go out on an nba floor as even an 18 year old just to set screens, rim run, rebound and defend he'd do it pretty well. the hope is that scheyer is showing him how to play a disciplined team role and that he can use that as a launch pad for adding layers to his game that would make him valuable down the line.

there's even a chance that his strength and ability to grab defensive boards could quickly improve like his somewhat comparable statistical cousin john collins. also i know the sample is small but he attempted almost 4 3PA/36 in BAL which moves me as that is major volume for a then 17 year old mobile 7'2 center.

the goal is for maluach to have learned to play disciplined in preparation for a more open environment like the NBA instead of being a foul and turnover machine like it appeared he would have been playing in a less structured system than Duke's. how this plays out is very difficult to determine but duke kids tend to take what they've learned and apply it going forward.

[Ell Curry]

Edit: To add, looking back at Marcus Smart he crushed the indicators I like to look at, but probably only hit his 10th percentile outcome, maybe less if you remove injuries. He also never improved once he got into the league. He would have been my #1 over Embiid when I try to look back at that draft objectively.

I'm not sure why Smart never developed into a better pure PG type on O. Maybe just a lack of first step, but I remember being relatively impressed with his PG skills in college and thinking he could bully smaller, weaker, less tough guards enough that he could finish inside and draw help.

Perhaps the sort of Mark Jackson/Andre Miller burly type PG just isn't as effective anymore, and if you can't force teams to go over picks because of your off the dribble-shooting or have an elite first step, you're just not gonna be good on O. Smart never had Miller's scoring craft and change of pace on drives or Jackson's passing and post-up game, but I would have thought he'd develop and get some sort of offensive signature thing like those guys found and made them top 10-15 PGs in their prime on O.

Obviously he was much better defensively than both, but never found an offensive skill to drag himself up to being like the 15th best starting PG on O to go with being a top 2 defender along with Jrue at the position. I guess Jrue was quicker and even stronger, and while he struggled to run efficient offences at the 1, he leveraged his strength on O much better than Smart ever has and turned himself into a very solid offensive player even if in the playoffs he was up and down as a primary ball-handler.

[GoRapstheoriginal]

/deadpans: Is it March 16th yet?