Dark Faze wrote:Those defensive stats for Len mean almost nothing though. A lot of bigs have good numbers in terms of points against because of how bad most guys are in the half court and how much undersized players depend on offensive rebounds. I'd be surprised if Witheys wasn't shockingly low as well.
I don;t know that these stats are meaningful or not. Which ones would you suggest using? Comparing them to others does make sense.
Len is going to be average to bad on offense.
Ok, I'm glad that's been cleared up. I was under the mistaken impression that how good Len turned out to be was a function of how much work he put in to improve.
I'm not about to dismiss the fact that I'm intrigued by what Len brings to the table defensively, but my argument isn't really so much about why Len shouldn't be the pick, but why he SHOULD be the pick over guys who, IMO, impressed me much more defensively who I believe we could trade up to get in the form of Dieng, Steven Adams, and Withey.
Ah, so this is a great point and is worth exploring further. In Adams we seem to have another pup, but one who compares well to Len. WIthey and DIeng are both three years older and thus seemingly have less room to grow (both physically and in terms of skills). Withey's blocks are impressive (same rate as Noel's). His rebounding is just okay. He;s pretty efficient on offense, but my sense is that he;s pretty limited; if he's willing to play within those limitations, then great. I don't sense star potential with Withey, but he's solid for sure.
Dieng's story is fantastic (per the article I posted a few pages back). It's hard to know what to make of him; he came to basketball extremely late, so one might suspect his got more room to improve. But for the most part, his numbers are pretty flat over his three seasons. This year he was better than Len on the defensive boards, and in blocks, steals and assists -- but not by massive margins. Dieng turned it over more on much lower usage; Len had the higher offensive rating of the two this season.
Why should I waste a top 10 pick on Len when Gorgui Deng was the best player on a national championship team, had better advanced stats, looks better with the eye test, and will be cheaper to get?
Well, per what I wrote above, I don't think his advanced stats were indeed better on offense (save passing). Given the age difference and the size difference, Len seems like a much better bet to become a high level NBA center along the lines of Gasol, Hibbert, Ilgauskas, Smits, Vlade, etc.
It will be really interesting to see how these guys all measure and to see more scouting reports on them all. Good discussion.
