keevsnick1 wrote:Hal14 wrote:keevsnick1 wrote:
Garza, easily. He's at least played in the NBA. A back half of the 2nd around rookie on a two way getting any real time at all would be shocking (except for the fact he might have to with the C's having so few big men).
FWIW, this guy has Amari ranked 23rd in this draft class:
And this guy had him ranked 17th:
I
'm not quite that high on him. But I wouldn't write him off just because he was a mid 2nd round pick. He should get a decent chance at earning some playing time and a role, given our lack of big man depth.
If he's good enough and able to learn the NBA game quick enough, he could really surprise some people.
That's just the history of 2nd round picks. Sure, some internet people may be higher on him but generally if a player makes it to the back half of the second round without being picked it means that NBA front offices who get invest a significant amount of time and capital into scouting these guys think he's unlikely to be that good. Otherwise, he's taken sooner.
That doesn't mean he can't be good, I hope he is and like some of his tools. But its a long shot and certainly unlikely in his rookie year at least.
He's a good passer and rebounder. But he may just be too big a liability defending in space to see time. he's not a great finisher either for a center.
"Internet people" ?
I know who both of those people are who ranked him 17th and 23rd. They both put in *tons* of time this season watching film, crunching numbers and doing research on prospects all year long. A fairly large amount of the scouts who have been hired by NBA teams in recent years (by teams like Memphis, Philly, OKC, etc.) started off as guys who were on twitter or youtube or wrote articles, did scouting breakdowns for different websites..these guys might be next to get hired, and might be better scouts than people who drafted Cody Williams or Tidjane Salaun in the top 10 last year.
Where a player gets drafted doesn't really mean that much. NBA teams make mistakes when drafting *a lot*. Look at how high guys like Anthony Bennett, Kai Jones, Josh Christopher, Keon Johnson, Isiah Todd, James Bouknight, Stanley Johnson, ROmeo Langford and Josh Jakckson got drafted and look how low guys like SGA, Haliburton, Jokic, Draymond, Vanvleet, Caruso, Hauser, Jimmy Butler, Derrick White, Giannis, Tyrese Maxey, Desmond Bane, Caleb Martin, Luke Kornet, Khris Middleton and Austin Reaves got drafted.
Amari might not be great defending in space but he's a drop big. You play drop coverage with him and he'd do fine. Most teams play drop coverage. Some of the better defensive bigs in the league play drop like Zubac, Gobert, Clingan, etc. And his touch isn't great..he mostly makes layups/dunks for his FG's, but that was the case in Boston for Time Lord, Queta and Kornet.
Of course, not saying he'll be as good as all of those guys but all rookies have flaws and his flaws really don't seem that bad imo. Our team right now just has him, Tillman, Garza and Queta at the 5. So Amari should have a pretty god opportunity to get mins and prove himself in a bridge year.