2025 NBA Draft (2)

[youngcrev]

I like on/offs for certain things.

Mostly looking at high usage offensive engine type guys or defensively for bigs.

Only really ever look at for NBA stats though.

[Negrodamus]

You can get weird results with On-Offs, which is why I tend to not put much stock in them. They’re often a measure of bench strength and limited by sample size. We’ve all seen how that can happen with the Sixers over the last X years.

Jordan Pope had an eFG% over 21 points higher in non-Johnson Minutes. That’s probably not repeatable or instructive for example. But it might mean Pope’s game would scale well at the college level.

I agree, I was just getting an idea of what we’re working with in terms of the other top tier prospects after seeing the Rutgers crew.

[Black Mage]

https://barttorvik.com/playerstat.php?link=y&sIndex=31&minusage=24&minGP=15&mineFG=51&minAst=4&minStl=1&minFT=0.6&minftr=20&minht=75&minmidper=0.45&mingbpm=0&minogbpm=0&mindgbpm=0&yvalue=FrSo&cvalue=High%20Major&year=all&start=-11101&end=all0501

I tried to match some of Bailey's unique stats and returned basically just himself since his stats are very uniquely him. So I started tinkering with the stats: drop eFG%, AST%, STL%, FTr, FT%, Far 2FG% to see what FR and Soph since 2011 would appear.

Zion appears in here which is interesting. The others are... well, I'll let you all take a look.

How about using the stats when Rutgers took their version of Ben Simmons off the court opening up space and all of his numbers, especially shooting %'s, went through the roof. See my prior post that apparently every anti-Ace'er is choosing to just ignore and pretend it doesn't exit.

I think it's a little interesting but also hard for me to wrap my head around using the #3 pick on a guy who was so heavily afflicted by a random journeyman. Like 22% difference at the rim because Jeremiah Williams wasn't on the floor? Was Harper suffering that much? Do you think any other top flight prospects would suffer that much by some role player on the roster?

Negro, I'm calling you out on this one. I know you were around for the end of the Ben Simmons run where his refusal to shoot lead to his defender dropping off him and clogging the paint on Joel and the other players. We all analyzed how Ben's mere presence on the court made it harder for Joel, literally a Top 3 player in the league at the time, to score and how the offense became a slog as a whole. Funny, an MVP had a harder time scoring, when one of his teammates didn't need to be guarded and it allowed the opponent to have a free-roaming defender.

Trying to pretend that you can't comprehend how Ace having a player akin to Ben Simmons on the floor could cause a similar offensive issue (which it also affected Harper in the same negative fashion for shooting %) is ridiculous and just drives home that you aren't even willing to look at stats that won't fit your anti-Ace position.

You and every other anti-Ace guy here can't refute that link showing that by just removing from the floor the one starter who wouldn't/can't shoot; lead to Ace's shooting percentages to be EXACTLY where we all thought they would be.

[ProcessDoctor]

The biggest case against Ace might be how good Harper's metrics look. That's what I'm having the toughest time with.

Things would be a lot clearer if he didn't play with another college star and played at a more legitimate program.

[Black Mage]

Also, running the numbers on that site:

Without Harper, Ace seems to shoot worse across the board (but his FTr goes up a little!)
Without Ace on the floor, Harper's 2FG at the rim balloons up to a crazy 79% 2FG% (up from 66%). His midrange and 3FG take a dip.

Should I read into it that Ace is affecting Harper's FG% at the rim or that Ace needs Harper to shoot better percentages?

Yep, but run that query where you have both Ace and #25 off the floor and ::gasps:: Ace's shooting numbers again balloon, especially at the rim.

Yep, it does for Harper too; run that query again with Ace and #25 off the floor and Harper's numbers across every shooting range balloons.

The common theme is both Harper and Ace benefited significantly the moment the non-shooting threat #25 was off the floor. Having any player that isn't a threat to shoot or shoot with any success destroys even the best offensive players scoring ability because you end up playing 4 on 5.

[Negrodamus]

I see you’re going to really ride this narrative that journeyman Jeremiah Williams (for some reason you’re humorously not saying his name) sunk the potential #3 pick in this draft’s stats this year and let me tell you this: I won’t be the one to stop you.

[Black Mage]

You can get weird results with On-Offs, which is why I tend to not put much stock in them. They’re often a measure of bench strength and limited by sample size. We’ve all seen how that can happen with the Sixers over the last X years.

Jordan Pope had an eFG% over 21 points higher in non-Johnson Minutes. That’s probably not repeatable or instructive for example. But it might mean Pope’s game would scale well at the college level.

No single stat is the end all be all otherwise we'd only use one stat. However, it can be helpful in shifting through the noise. For example, you can go back to one of my first posts about Ace and how I noticed there was some random dude being left completely open and getting the Ben Simmons treatment by the opponent defense. I commented how that created extremely clogged lanes and paint and might explain Ace's apparent struggles.

Now, we can ask, as Negro smartly did at one point, was it just a spacing issue or was Ace just not as good a shooter as we expected. Using the on/off tool you remove the non-shooter to see how Ace played and viola his shooting numbers all improved and improved significantly.

Then you can cross-reference it; did we see a similar upward tick out of Harper if we took the non-shooter off the court? Yes we did. So now we have Rutger's 2 best players both seeing big jumps and their shooting % lining up with other top scoring prospects like Kon, Tre, etc.

Then cross-reference it again; if we keep #25 on the floor and take off each other starter individually did Ace or Harper see similar jumps in shooting %. No they didn't.

Then cross-reference it agian, what if we took off #25 and one of the other starters. Big jumps. So now we know that the main variable pulling down Ace and Harper's shooting %'s is only #25.

You take all of these data points and you can reasonably come to an argument that Ace, and Harper, both would have performed much better offensively if the Rutgers coaches had benched the #25. This is born out in that Rutgers' offensive rating with just #25 off the floor goes deep green representing a top end offensive team in college and playing within the offensive rating ballparks inhabited by Tournament teams like Baylor and Duke.

[Black Mage]

I see you’re going to really ride this narrative that journeyman Jeremiah Williams (for some reason you’re humorously not saying his name) sunk the potential #3 pick in this draft’s stats this year and let me tell you this: I won’t be the one to stop you.

Then tell us all right here. Yes or No. Did Ben Simmons being a non-threat on the offensive end clog up the middle of the floor/paint and bog down the Sixers offense and make it harder for Joel to score?

[Jojothewhale]

I see you’re going to really ride this narrative that journeyman Jeremiah Williams (for some reason you’re humorously not saying his name) sunk the potential #3 pick in this draft’s stats this year and let me tell you this: I won’t be the one to stop you.

Then tell us all right here. Yes or No. Did Ben Simmons being a non-threat on the offensive end clog up the middle of the floor/paint and bog down the Sixers offense and make it harder for Joel to score?

Why are we making like for like comparisons with the NBA and the B1G? They’re completely different spacing environments with wildly different talent levels and athletic thresholds on both sides of the ball.

[Negrodamus]

I see you’re going to really ride this narrative that journeyman Jeremiah Williams (for some reason you’re humorously not saying his name) sunk the potential #3 pick in this draft’s stats this year and let me tell you this: I won’t be the one to stop you.

Then tell us all right here. Yes or No. Did Ben Simmons being a non-threat on the offensive end clog up the middle of the floor/paint and bog down the Sixers offense and make it harder for Joel to score?

I know you want a yes or no answer, but the premise is flawed.

Yes, Ben Simmons did reduce Embiid's possible efficiency, and in spite of that Embiid finished 2nd in MVP voting and averaged 4th in the NBA in scoring in their final year together (Embiid averaged 25ppg while Ben was here).

No, Ben didn't completely tank Embiid's efficiency. Also, no, Ben isn't some scrub that transferred in from Temple. He was way more important to the Sixers offense than Jeremiah Williams was to Rutgers, lmao. What are we even talking about here?

[Negrodamus]

https://barttorvik.com/playerstat.php?link=y&minusage=26&minGP=15&mineFG=53&minTS=59&minAst=11&minStl=2&minFT=0.6&minftr=33&minht=75&minmidper=0.3&mingbpm=7&minogbpm=0&mindgbpm=0&yvalue=FrSo&cvalue=High%20Major&year=all&start=-11101&end=all0501

Funny enough, when doing the Derik Queen stat match, most of his comparisons are guys in this draft (CMB, Flagg). Kaleb Wesson is a good nightmare scenario for him.

[Negrodamus]

https://barttorvik.com/playerstat.php?link=y&sIndex=65&minusage=20&minGP=15&minTS=50&minAst=16&minBlk=1&minStl=1&min3P=0.35&mintp100=10&minFT=0.6&minftr=20&minht=75&minmidper=0.3&mingbpm=4&minogbpm=0&mindgbpm=0&yvalue=FrSo&cvalue=High%20Major&year=all&start=-11101&end=all0501

Tried the same with Tre. Seems like by a decent margin the worst defender here. DLO seems like a decent comp except DLO was a magician as a passer at Ohio State. Not inspiring a lot of excitement for me personally.

[Iverson Armband]

DLo doesn’t have half the offensive talent as Tre Johnson lol

Of course, no computer would be able to tell you that

[ProcessDoctor]

https://barttorvik.com/playerstat.php?link=y&sIndex=65&minusage=20&minGP=15&minTS=50&minAst=16&minBlk=1&minStl=1&min3P=0.35&mintp100=10&minFT=0.6&minftr=20&minht=75&minmidper=0.3&mingbpm=4&minogbpm=0&mindgbpm=0&yvalue=FrSo&cvalue=High%20Major&year=all&start=-11101&end=all0501

Tried the same with Tre. Seems like by a decent margin the worst defender here. DLO seems like a decent comp except DLO was a magician as a passer at Ohio State. Not inspiring a lot of excitement for me personally.

Can you do your magic with Edgecombe please? lol

[Negrodamus]

DLo doesn’t have half the offensive talent as Tre Johnson lol

That's some revisionist history on DLO coming out of college. The consensus was that he was the next Harden. Tre doesn't have near the lead ball handler potential that DLO was projected to have.

[ProcessDoctor]

Tre Johnson won't be able to positively impact an NBA game without shooting. He literally offers nothing else besides shooting. No free throws, assists, rebounds, blocks, steals, or defensive effort/awareness/skill. He is the biggest landmine in the top 7-8.

If he ends up as good as DLO, I'll be shocked.

[Negrodamus]

https://barttorvik.com/playerstat.php?link=y&sIndex=65&minusage=20&minGP=15&minTS=50&minAst=16&minBlk=1&minStl=1&min3P=0.35&mintp100=10&minFT=0.6&minftr=20&minht=75&minmidper=0.3&mingbpm=4&minogbpm=0&mindgbpm=0&yvalue=FrSo&cvalue=High%20Major&year=all&start=-11101&end=all0501

Tried the same with Tre. Seems like by a decent margin the worst defender here. DLO seems like a decent comp except DLO was a magician as a passer at Ohio State. Not inspiring a lot of excitement for me personally.

Can you do your magic with Edgecombe please? lol

https://barttorvik.com/playerstat.php?link=y&sIndex=65&minusage=24&minGP=15&minTS=55&minAst=15&minStl=2&min3P=0.3&mintp100=7&minFT=0.6&minftr=30&minht=75&minmidper=0.3&mingbpm=7&minogbpm=0&mindgbpm=0&yvalue=FrSo&cvalue=High%20Major&year=all&minmin=70&start=-11101&end=all0501

Kinda hard because his stats are all over the place. Like he's easily number one on the offensive rebound percentage, so it's hard to figure out which ones to fudge around with.

One name that really stuck out to me is Nickeil Alexander Walker. As a big NAW fan when he was coming out of VTech, there's certainly differences between the two but man there's a lot that's the same; particularly the frame.

[ProcessDoctor]

https://barttorvik.com/playerstat.php?link=y&sIndex=65&minusage=20&minGP=15&minTS=50&minAst=16&minBlk=1&minStl=1&min3P=0.35&mintp100=10&minFT=0.6&minftr=20&minht=75&minmidper=0.3&mingbpm=4&minogbpm=0&mindgbpm=0&yvalue=FrSo&cvalue=High%20Major&year=all&start=-11101&end=all0501

Tried the same with Tre. Seems like by a decent margin the worst defender here. DLO seems like a decent comp except DLO was a magician as a passer at Ohio State. Not inspiring a lot of excitement for me personally.

Can you do your magic with Edgecombe please? lol

https://barttorvik.com/playerstat.php?link=y&sIndex=65&minusage=24&minGP=15&minTS=55&minAst=15&minStl=2&min3P=0.3&mintp100=7&minFT=0.6&minftr=30&minht=75&minmidper=0.3&mingbpm=7&minogbpm=0&mindgbpm=0&yvalue=FrSo&cvalue=High%20Major&year=all&minmin=70&start=-11101&end=all0501

Kinda hard because his stats are all over the place. Like he's easily number one on the offensive rebound percentage, so it's hard to figure out which ones to fudge around with.

One name that really stuck out to me is Nickeil Alexander Walker. As a big NAW fan when he was coming out of VTech, there's certainly differences between the two but man there's a lot that's the same; particularly the frame.

I genuinely have no idea what he might look like as a pro. He flashes just enough of everything to entice me, but nothing that really screams "star player." That doesn't mean he won't become an all-star, but it's just not obvious.

[Negrodamus]

Austin Reaves actually feels like an interesting comp for Kasparas Jakucionis.

Watch on YouTube

[Iverson Armband]

Tre Johnson won't be able to positively impact an NBA game without shooting. He literally offers nothing else besides shooting. No free throws, assists, rebounds, blocks, steals, or defensive effort/awareness/skill. He is the biggest landmine in the top 7-8.

If he ends up as good as DLO, I'll be shocked.

Prepare to be shocked.