SkyBill40 wrote:Sunsdeuce wrote:dremill24 wrote:
You are free to believe what you believe (for the record I'm a bit skeptical as well), but you can't really argue the fact that you can't be proven right or wrong for a few years. This is true of ALL draft picks, even more polished young players take quite a while to reach their ceiling. So like...you can be grumpy about that response but that doesn't make it any less true.
Andrew Bynum is the only player I remember being a project who played less that 7 minutes a game his first year as a center who turned into a stud (VERY VERY brief stud because he was out of the league by 27 years old).
Can you think of any centers who barely played their first 2-3 years and turned into studs?
I'll take Joel Embiid for $500, Alex.
But if I'm being honest, that's a pretty easy pick. The question is much harder when considering players today as there aren't many that are true centers seeing how much the league and game have changed to one of being somewhat positionless.
I can think of a few....
-Zubac averaged 9 mins a game in his second year, and like ~15-16 mins a game through his first 4. Granted he was being played by a trash Lakers org (2016-2019)
-Bam Adebayo didn't have a super impressive rookie season 6.9 pts on 51% FG/ 5.5 rebounds / 1 assist and I think Mal could easily beat it if he can actually earn some minutes over Mark Williams (who is better across the board at this point)
-Sabonis had an even worse rookie season....5.9/3.6 rebounds on 39% FG.
Granted, these guys were all older than our project #10 pick who has 5 years of organized ball under his belt? And quite a few of them had better tools....Zubac has Rodman's nose for the ball with a true center's length / decent foot speed. Sabonis and Bam are freakishly strong. Adebayo can move in space like a small forward.
But my point is, I think Mal is an intriguing project and I was / am totally good with the org swinging for the fence with him. Big men historically take time, and Mal comes in the league as one of the youngest players.
If he locks down his three ball and the game slows down for him around February/March, plays hard, etc....it would solve a lot of problems for this org.