2014 Draft Thread (Early offseason panic edition).

[rockymac52]

I will continue to urge people to be cautious when buying into the hype of the strength of the 2014 draft. Wiggins may be the next LeBron. Parker or Randle might be all-stars in their own right as well. That alone makes it a fairly strong draft class, but I don't necessarily think it's as DEEP as people are making it out to be. The fact that the guys at the very top of the draft are extremely good does not have any effect on the quality of the players that will be available in the 10-20 range.

Before you get ahead of yourself, do yourself a favor and rewind 2 years. At this time 2 years ago, the 2012 draft class was hyped up to be one of the strongest in recent memory. It's too early to tell for sure, but I don't think it's going to go down as a very strong or weak draft. Seriously, 2 years ago people were freaking out about acquiring 2012 draft picks, acting like mid-1st round picks were going to net teams superstars. I'm warning you, A LOT can change over the course of the college basketball season. Guys you expect to be stars might disappoint. Some guys might choose to go back to school for another year. You'd be surprised. Try to find some posts on here from 2 years ago discussing the upcoming 2012 draft. People were salivating over the likes of Le'Bryan Nash, Perry Jones, and Quincy Miller. All were seen as locks to go in the lottery and were expected to become great NBA players. Nash is still in college, Quincy is on the verge of being out of the league, and Jones isn't far behind. A lot can change in a very short amount of time. Be careful when you buy into the hype of the 2014 draft. It's probably not filled with superstars like you think it is. You'll see.

[stevemcqueen1]

I will continue to urge people to be cautious when buying into the hype of the strength of the 2014 draft. Wiggins may be the next LeBron. Parker or Randle might be all-stars in their own right as well. That alone makes it a fairly strong draft class, but I don't necessarily think it's as DEEP as people are making it out to be. The fact that the guys at the very top of the draft are extremely good does not have any effect on the quality of the players that will be available in the 10-20 range.

Before you get ahead of yourself, do yourself a favor and rewind 2 years. At this time 2 years ago, the 2012 draft class was hyped up to be one of the strongest in recent memory. It's too early to tell for sure, but I don't think it's going to go down as a very strong or weak draft. Seriously, 2 years ago people were freaking out about acquiring 2012 draft picks, acting like mid-1st round picks were going to net teams superstars. I'm warning you, A LOT can change over the course of the college basketball season. Guys you expect to be stars might disappoint. Some guys might choose to go back to school for another year. You'd be surprised. Try to find some posts on here from 2 years ago discussing the upcoming 2012 draft. People were salivating over the likes of Le'Bryan Nash, Perry Jones, and Quincy Miller. All were seen as locks to go in the lottery and were expected to become great NBA players. Nash is still in college, Quincy is on the verge of being out of the league, and Jones isn't far behind. A lot can change in a very short amount of time. Be careful when you buy into the hype of the 2014 draft. It's probably not filled with superstars like you think it is. You'll see.

No, 2014 is an extremely impressive class. The level of athleticism class-wide is incredible. That's what sets it apart from almost every other class. These freshmen are freaks.

No draft class is ever filled with superstars BTW, that's a generic and meaningless argument IMO. You could use it to justify devaluing picks in any year. Having a bunch of elite players at the top does impact the quality of every pick on down. Most classes don't have more than one or two elite prospects, this one might have at least four or five. They push very good players who normally go top five later into the lottery and good players into the middle of the first and so on.

The class is very deep by the standards of a normal draft class. When you've got good sophomore players like Mitch McGary and Gary Harris as a bit of a reach to make the lottery, it's a good year.

- The freshman class is absolutely incredible, probably the best class in at least a decade. They are so athletic. So skilled too, lots of great slashers in the group with great handles and creativity. And they're big. There are a ton of NBA ready bodies in the bunch, ton of forwards and bigs with prototype size. There are going to be a lot of good freshmen who are top five caliber talents in most years that will probably have to go back to school for another year to go in that range. Guys like Noah Vonleh and Montrezl Harrell and Jabari Parker and Dakari Johnson for instance. That means the 2015 class could end up being a really strong group too. Or else the 2014 class will be ludicrously deep.

- There are two stud international kids in Mario Hezonja and Dante Exum. Plus Dario Saric most likely. Again, I'm thinking they might have to stay abroad just to go where they should. Though Exum and Hezonja are cream enough to rise to the top anyway.

- Several top kids from last year's class went back for their sophomore years like Isaiah Austin, Marcus Smart, Alex Poythress, Rasheed Suleimon, TJ Warren, Kyle Anderson, Willie Cauley-Stein, Kaleb Tarczewski, Glenn Robinson, + aforementioned Harris and McGary.

- And then you've got a lot of highly accomplished upperclassmen NCAA players filling out the back end of the class who are capable of having solid NBA careers: Russ Smith, Aaron Craft, P.J. Hairston, Adreian Payne, Cory Jefferson, James McAdoo, CJ Fair, Jarnell Stokes, Khem Birch, Patric Young, and Doug McDermott. A lot of these guys will be available into the second round. You're going to have a good shot at getting a legit contributor in the bottom half of the class.

[stevemcqueen1]

Kentucky alone could probably field a respectable NBA team next year. They could probably beat Orlando TBH.

You could build a terrific NBA team picking nothing but Arizona, Kentucky, and Kansas players from next season.

[Rafael122]

Yep, the '14 draft has top tier talent, and deep at the same time. They're saying it might be the best draft class since 2003.

Definitely going to watch a lot more college basketball this year.

[pancakes3]

2012 was touted as a top rated draft class because the lockout merged 2 drafts worth of talent into 1. Perry Jones was hyped and did fall all the way down to 28th overall but it wasn't a roundly touted talent-laden draft like '03... or '98, '96, '92 etc. for that matter.

[Knighthonor]

There are other players in next years draft not named Wiggins and Parker that are going to be very good players.

Julius Randle will be the superstud of this draft, he was actually the original number 1 player in the class of '13 before Jabari Parker won 3 straight Mr. Basketball awards in Chicago and Wiggins reclassified. Randle is versatility, high motor and hustle all in 1!!!

I also have my eye on him. Not to be too bias on the Wiggins/Parker train.

Can he shoot well? How bout from the three?

[rockymac52]

I will continue to urge people to be cautious when buying into the hype of the strength of the 2014 draft. Wiggins may be the next LeBron. Parker or Randle might be all-stars in their own right as well. That alone makes it a fairly strong draft class, but I don't necessarily think it's as DEEP as people are making it out to be. The fact that the guys at the very top of the draft are extremely good does not have any effect on the quality of the players that will be available in the 10-20 range.

Before you get ahead of yourself, do yourself a favor and rewind 2 years. At this time 2 years ago, the 2012 draft class was hyped up to be one of the strongest in recent memory. It's too early to tell for sure, but I don't think it's going to go down as a very strong or weak draft. Seriously, 2 years ago people were freaking out about acquiring 2012 draft picks, acting like mid-1st round picks were going to net teams superstars. I'm warning you, A LOT can change over the course of the college basketball season. Guys you expect to be stars might disappoint. Some guys might choose to go back to school for another year. You'd be surprised. Try to find some posts on here from 2 years ago discussing the upcoming 2012 draft. People were salivating over the likes of Le'Bryan Nash, Perry Jones, and Quincy Miller. All were seen as locks to go in the lottery and were expected to become great NBA players. Nash is still in college, Quincy is on the verge of being out of the league, and Jones isn't far behind. A lot can change in a very short amount of time. Be careful when you buy into the hype of the 2014 draft. It's probably not filled with superstars like you think it is. You'll see.

No, 2014 is an extremely impressive class. The level of athleticism class-wide is incredible. That's what sets it apart from almost every other class. These freshmen are freaks.

No draft class is ever filled with superstars BTW, that's a generic and meaningless argument IMO. You could use it to justify devaluing picks in any year. Having a bunch of elite players at the top does impact the quality of every pick on down. Most classes don't have more than one or two elite prospects, this one might have at least four or five. They push very good players who normally go top five later into the lottery and good players into the middle of the first and so on.

The class is very deep by the standards of a normal draft class. When you've got good sophomore players like Mitch McGary and Gary Harris as a bit of a reach to make the lottery, it's a good year.

- The freshman class is absolutely incredible, probably the best class in at least a decade. They are so athletic. So skilled too, lots of great slashers in the group with great handles and creativity. And they're big. There are a ton of NBA ready bodies in the bunch, ton of forwards and bigs with prototype size. There are going to be a lot of good freshmen who are top five caliber talents in most years that will probably have to go back to school for another year to go in that range. Guys like Noah Vonleh and Montrezl Harrell and Jabari Parker and Dakari Johnson for instance. That means the 2015 class could end up being a really strong group too. Or else the 2014 class will be ludicrously deep.

- There are two stud international kids in Mario Hezonja and Dante Exum. Plus Dario Saric most likely. Again, I'm thinking they might have to stay abroad just to go where they should. Though Exum and Hezonja are cream enough to rise to the top anyway.

- Several top kids from last year's class went back for their sophomore years like Isaiah Austin, Marcus Smart, Alex Poythress, Rasheed Suleimon, TJ Warren, Kyle Anderson, Willie Cauley-Stein, Kaleb Tarczewski, Glenn Robinson, + aforementioned Harris and McGary.

- And then you've got a lot of highly accomplished upperclassmen NCAA players filling out the back end of the class who are capable of having solid NBA careers: Russ Smith, Aaron Craft, P.J. Hairston, Adreian Payne, Cory Jefferson, James McAdoo, CJ Fair, Jarnell Stokes, Khem Birch, Patric Young, and Doug McDermott. A lot of these guys will be available into the second round. You're going to have a good shot at getting a legit contributor in the bottom half of the class.

I'm quoting this so I can come back to this in a year to prove you wrong. Seriously man, you are listing off name after name, but be honest, you haven't seen any of these kids play before. Maybe you've watched a highlight reel on youtube of a few of them, or you watched the McDonald's All-American Game, but you don't know anything about these players and how they actually play other than what you read on nbadraft.net. A year from now I'm going to pull up this thread and you are going to feel stupid.

You seem to forget that most "experts" were saying the same exact things about the 2012 draft class. Not everyone will live up to the hype. And pancakes, I don't understand what you're saying about the 2012 draft class being 2 draft classes worth of talent. If you are trying to say that with the lockout looming, prospects feared that the new CBA might further restrict early entries, so they jumped into the draft before it was too late, that makes no sense. If prospects were good enough to be taken high in the draft, they would have left after one year anyways. That argument would only mean that there were more guys who should have stayed in college another year or two because they weren't good enough for the pros yet. The reason the 2012 draft class was hyped up was because "experts" legitimately believed that the group of players that would be eligible for the draft that year were going to be exceptionally good. But after a couple months of the college season, it became obvious that that wasn't the case.

I find it funny that you are citing names like Gary Harris and Mitch McGary. Harris was viewed as a late lottery player in this draft, possibly slipping. McGary has his supporters, and some believe he's on the same value level as a guy like Steven Adams, but personally I have my doubts, seeing as he was terrible for the vast majority of the season. He probably wouldn't have been a lottery pick in this past draft, which was supposedly one of the weakest in the last decade. So the fact that those two guys are probably going to be in the 2014 class doesn't impress me.

You clearly just went to draftexpress or nbadraft.net or Chad Ford's rankings and picked out the names at the top of the list that stood out to you. I mean, Kyle Anderson? LOL did you watch him play at all this past season? Other than being Leonardo DiCaprio's long-lost black twin, he didn't have much going for him. Isaiah Austin? The kid was terrible as a freshman, but he has NBA genes and he's 7 feet and thinks he's a SF, so I guess the hype remains. Willie Cauley-Stein? Everywhere is hyping him up solely because he's big and he plays for Kentucky. He looked very pedestrian last season. He's going to slip in the draft just like Terrence Jones did. Dario Saric? Again, another player who dropped out of this past draft because he wasn't even considered good enough to go in the lottery in a very weak draft. You're just naming names that you recognize or that other websites have ranked high, but you have nothing to back that up. It's so funny.

I can't wait to bump this thread a year from now. I'm gonna have a real good laugh that day. You are falling for the hype machine so badly.

[rockymac52]

http://www.nbadraft.net/forum/how-good- ... s-going-be

http://www.waitingfornextyear.com/2012/ ... aft-class/

“Everyone talks about how great this draft is,” one NBA GM told ESPN.com. “On paper in July, it really looked that way. On the ground in February, I’m not that impressed. Anthony Davis is great. But after that, there are a lot of question marks and a surprising lack of depth. I’m not sure that the 2012 draft will be better than the 2011 one.”

http://176.56.226.81/forum/will-2012-nb ... raft-class


Don't be ashamed, plenty of people, myself included, fell for it in the past. Don't buy into the hype until you've seen it for yourself. Wiggins might be the real deal, but after him, I have no confidence in anyone. Guys can live up to the hype and they can just as easily fade into nothing after a month or two.

[stevemcqueen1]

I will continue to urge people to be cautious when buying into the hype of the strength of the 2014 draft. Wiggins may be the next LeBron. Parker or Randle might be all-stars in their own right as well. That alone makes it a fairly strong draft class, but I don't necessarily think it's as DEEP as people are making it out to be. The fact that the guys at the very top of the draft are extremely good does not have any effect on the quality of the players that will be available in the 10-20 range.

Before you get ahead of yourself, do yourself a favor and rewind 2 years. At this time 2 years ago, the 2012 draft class was hyped up to be one of the strongest in recent memory. It's too early to tell for sure, but I don't think it's going to go down as a very strong or weak draft. Seriously, 2 years ago people were freaking out about acquiring 2012 draft picks, acting like mid-1st round picks were going to net teams superstars. I'm warning you, A LOT can change over the course of the college basketball season. Guys you expect to be stars might disappoint. Some guys might choose to go back to school for another year. You'd be surprised. Try to find some posts on here from 2 years ago discussing the upcoming 2012 draft. People were salivating over the likes of Le'Bryan Nash, Perry Jones, and Quincy Miller. All were seen as locks to go in the lottery and were expected to become great NBA players. Nash is still in college, Quincy is on the verge of being out of the league, and Jones isn't far behind. A lot can change in a very short amount of time. Be careful when you buy into the hype of the 2014 draft. It's probably not filled with superstars like you think it is. You'll see.

No, 2014 is an extremely impressive class. The level of athleticism class-wide is incredible. That's what sets it apart from almost every other class. These freshmen are freaks.

No draft class is ever filled with superstars BTW, that's a generic and meaningless argument IMO. You could use it to justify devaluing picks in any year. Having a bunch of elite players at the top does impact the quality of every pick on down. Most classes don't have more than one or two elite prospects, this one might have at least four or five. They push very good players who normally go top five later into the lottery and good players into the middle of the first and so on.

The class is very deep by the standards of a normal draft class. When you've got good sophomore players like Mitch McGary and Gary Harris as a bit of a reach to make the lottery, it's a good year.

- The freshman class is absolutely incredible, probably the best class in at least a decade. They are so athletic. So skilled too, lots of great slashers in the group with great handles and creativity. And they're big. There are a ton of NBA ready bodies in the bunch, ton of forwards and bigs with prototype size. There are going to be a lot of good freshmen who are top five caliber talents in most years that will probably have to go back to school for another year to go in that range. Guys like Noah Vonleh and Montrezl Harrell and Jabari Parker and Dakari Johnson for instance. That means the 2015 class could end up being a really strong group too. Or else the 2014 class will be ludicrously deep.

- There are two stud international kids in Mario Hezonja and Dante Exum. Plus Dario Saric most likely. Again, I'm thinking they might have to stay abroad just to go where they should. Though Exum and Hezonja are cream enough to rise to the top anyway.

- Several top kids from last year's class went back for their sophomore years like Isaiah Austin, Marcus Smart, Alex Poythress, Rasheed Suleimon, TJ Warren, Kyle Anderson, Willie Cauley-Stein, Kaleb Tarczewski, Glenn Robinson, + aforementioned Harris and McGary.

- And then you've got a lot of highly accomplished upperclassmen NCAA players filling out the back end of the class who are capable of having solid NBA careers: Russ Smith, Aaron Craft, P.J. Hairston, Adreian Payne, Cory Jefferson, James McAdoo, CJ Fair, Jarnell Stokes, Khem Birch, Patric Young, and Doug McDermott. A lot of these guys will be available into the second round. You're going to have a good shot at getting a legit contributor in the bottom half of the class.

I'm quoting this so I can come back to this in a year to prove you wrong. Seriously man, you are listing off name after name, but be honest, you haven't seen any of these kids play before. Maybe you've watched a highlight reel on youtube of a few of them, or you watched the McDonald's All-American Game, but you don't know anything about these players and how they actually play other than what you read on nbadraft.net. A year from now I'm going to pull up this thread and you are going to feel stupid.

You seem to forget that most "experts" were saying the same exact things about the 2012 draft class. Not everyone will live up to the hype. And pancakes, I don't understand what you're saying about the 2012 draft class being 2 draft classes worth of talent. If you are trying to say that with the lockout looming, prospects feared that the new CBA might further restrict early entries, so they jumped into the draft before it was too late, that makes no sense. If prospects were good enough to be taken high in the draft, they would have left after one year anyways. That argument would only mean that there were more guys who should have stayed in college another year or two because they weren't good enough for the pros yet. The reason the 2012 draft class was hyped up was because "experts" legitimately believed that the group of players that would be eligible for the draft that year were going to be exceptionally good. But after a couple months of the college season, it became obvious that that wasn't the case.

I find it funny that you are citing names like Gary Harris and Mitch McGary. Harris was viewed as a late lottery player in this draft, possibly slipping. McGary has his supporters, and some believe he's on the same value level as a guy like Steven Adams, but personally I have my doubts, seeing as he was terrible for the vast majority of the season. He probably wouldn't have been a lottery pick in this past draft, which was supposedly one of the weakest in the last decade. So the fact that those two guys are probably going to be in the 2014 class doesn't impress me.

You clearly just went to draftexpress or nbadraft.net or Chad Ford's rankings and picked out the names at the top of the list that stood out to you. I mean, Kyle Anderson? LOL did you watch him play at all this past season? Other than being Leonardo DiCaprio's long-lost black twin, he didn't have much going for him. Isaiah Austin? The kid was terrible as a freshman, but he has NBA genes and he's 7 feet and thinks he's a SF, so I guess the hype remains. Willie Cauley-Stein? Everywhere is hyping him up solely because he's big and he plays for Kentucky. He looked very pedestrian last season. He's going to slip in the draft just like Terrence Jones did. Dario Saric? Again, another player who dropped out of this past draft because he wasn't even considered good enough to go in the lottery in a very weak draft. You're just naming names that you recognize or that other websites have ranked high, but you have nothing to back that up. It's so funny.

I can't wait to bump this thread a year from now. I'm gonna have a real good laugh that day. You are falling for the hype machine so badly.

It sounds like you got mad because you got called out for talking out of your ass.

FWIW, I've seen all of those kids I mentioned play except for some of the Euros. I bet there are probably only six or seven regulars in the thread who have, and you clearly aren't one of them. If you had, you would know you're wrong and that the level of talent and athleticism in this class is on a different level. I've also watched Kyle Anderson and Isaiah Austin play several times. Perhaps you find it difficult to believe others have actually watched all of these players because YOU don't watch any of them?

Your comments about the returning NCAA freshmen show a poor understanding of player projection. They would have struggled to make the lottery because their roles were so limited as freshmen or they struggled with skills and attributes that tend to improve like strength and shooting and decision making. You're not projecting them as freshmen any more. You're assuming an expansion of their roles as sophomores and a reasonable level of improvement. It's done for every player.

On McGary vs. Adams: I actually watched Adams play last year, and I'd be surprised if anyone else in here but the GTown fans watched him live at any point last season. I followed the thread from January and I know no one else mentioned him from that point to the tourney game--when I brought him up. And I don't think many people watched the tourney game either because I remember getting very little response. So I know that his wide support was almost entirely based off obscure metric analysis and draftnik talk and highlights because all it took was watching him to realize he is basically nothing more than a body right now. I watched McGary too, and I saw with my own eyes that he was a far better player than Adams, and if given the choice between the two, I would absolutely rather have McGary.

Also, 2012 WAS an excellent class. Players from every class fail to live up to their draft slot. A class is judged relative to other classes, not an absolute standard of every pick being a hit. You're trying to claim that it wasn't an excellent class?

Feel free to bump this thread during the draft. Some of the names I mentioned won't pan out, but others that aren't on the radar are going to explode and take their places at the top. That happens every year. The fact of the matter is this class is flush and loaded with talent and size and athleticism no matter what specific names you mention. You realize basically every NBA observer, including actual NBA FO types acknowledges this right?

[Ruzious]

It's too early to rate next year's draft for me - since I haven't seen the froshees in real games, but fwiw, I love McGary's potential (way more than Adams'), wouldn't draft Kyle Anderson in the 2nd round, still like Cory Jefferson more than Isaiah Austin, love Marcus Smart, disappointed to see that Jahlil Okafor still has another year of HS left, think Glenn Robinson is overrated as of now, and very intrigued by Saric.

[stevemcqueen1]

It's too early to rate next year's draft for me - since I haven't seen the froshees in real games, but fwiw, I love McGary's potential (way more than Adams'), wouldn't draft Kyle Anderson in the 2nd round, still like Cory Jefferson more than Isaiah Austin, love Marcus Smart, disappointed to see that Jahlil Okafor still has another year of HS left, think Glenn Robinson is overrated as of now, and very intrigued by Saric.

Fair enough, but you can see the tools from watching the All Star games and international competition--the level of athleticism, if not structured system play and defense, etc. You get to watch these kids just running and jumping and you can see the group is special for how many of these big, creative, athletes it has. Plus ESPN has shown high school games for the top guys if you're looking for in season competition, I'm pretty sure I watched Simeon twice this year.

Also, I agree with you on a lot of the specifics you mention. I think Kyle Anderson is slow but I think he has a place in the NBA. He won't do the Lamar Odom role in the NBA, but he'll find a home somewhere. I didn't think much of Austin... until that 19 & 20 game. He's got a pretty wild skill set and I wouldn't rule out him showing a good deal of improvement this season. Jefferson is nice though. I didn't like Glen Robinson last year because I thought he was passive and a tweener. But he's in the type of situation now where he could shoot up like Porter did. He and McGary are going to be the guys now. He's got some skills and legit athleticism and size. And he plays in an actual system where he's going learn the game and show off well rounded offensive skills. I don't like his raw potential as much a lot of the top freshmen. But I do think he has a good chance to demonstrate he's a strong prospect this season.

I like Smart too. I think he made a huge mistake not coming out. He's powerful and has a good NBA body and is a good leaper off two feet. But he's going to be hurt by a comparison to the faster, more explosive athletes at the top of the class. I think there is a real chance that excellent players like Smart and Jabari Parker could fall out of the top five this year even if they play great because of their lesser athleticism relative to the other top kids this year. That alone would be a clear demonstration of the strength of the class.

[Ruzious]

Yeah, Robinson could change my mind if he shows he can play the 2 and if he's more aggressive - but he's got to do that. Last I checked, Draftexpress had him 7th. Right now, I'd bet he won't be a lotto pick.

I still don't know what position Smart will play in the NBA. I just feel confident that he'll help his team win. But yeah, he risked a ton of money by staying in school.

[mhd]

It's too early to rate next year's draft for me - since I haven't seen the froshees in real games, but fwiw, I love McGary's potential (way more than Adams'), wouldn't draft Kyle Anderson in the 2nd round, still like Cory Jefferson more than Isaiah Austin, love Marcus Smart, disappointed to see that Jahlil Okafor still has another year of HS left, think Glenn Robinson is overrated as of now, and very intrigued by Saric.

My problems from McGary is that he's way overraged. Doug McDermott is only freaking 6 months older and he's a senior.

[pancakes3]

Here's a thought... would being overaged be a good thing for a big man? Do big men blossom later due to an innate brain chemistry thing as they get fully accustomed to their massive frames, or is it simply a matter of experience?

[Ruzious]

It's too early to rate next year's draft for me - since I haven't seen the froshees in real games, but fwiw, I love McGary's potential (way more than Adams'), wouldn't draft Kyle Anderson in the 2nd round, still like Cory Jefferson more than Isaiah Austin, love Marcus Smart, disappointed to see that Jahlil Okafor still has another year of HS left, think Glenn Robinson is overrated as of now, and very intrigued by Saric.

My problems from McGary is that he's way overraged. Doug McDermott is only freaking 6 months older and he's a senior.

Meh. At 21, he's overaged for a sophomore but not for a prospect. He performed well for a top team - a 25.9 PER with high efficiency.

[mhd]

It's too early to rate next year's draft for me - since I haven't seen the froshees in real games, but fwiw, I love McGary's potential (way more than Adams'), wouldn't draft Kyle Anderson in the 2nd round, still like Cory Jefferson more than Isaiah Austin, love Marcus Smart, disappointed to see that Jahlil Okafor still has another year of HS left, think Glenn Robinson is overrated as of now, and very intrigued by Saric.

My problems from McGary is that he's way overraged. Doug McDermott is only freaking 6 months older and he's a senior.

Meh. At 21, he's overaged for a sophomore but not for a prospect. He performed well for a top team - a 25.9 PER with high efficiency.

I don't know. I loved McGary until I read about his age. To me, that is a big red flag. Now, he's got excellent statistics. I think this is obviously his last year in college, or he risks serious blowback from his age. This is why I love McDermott as a prospect. I don't think he can fail in the NBA. He'll be a solid pro for 10+ years in the NBA.

[Ruzious]

Mhd, I'd agree with you if McGary was playing against kids mostly a couple years younger than him, but that wasn't the case.

[The Consiglieri]

Yep, the '14 draft has top tier talent, and deep at the same time. They're saying it might be the best draft class since 2003.

Definitely going to watch a lot more college basketball this year.

I tend to think it will be better than '03 simply because it's deeper. A lot of the love for '03 comes because it had 4 players that potentially could be called HOF's in the top 5 or so picks, none of the elite guys busted except for Darko etc. But I really don't see it being deeper than '14. I think '14 has basically about 10-15 players that would normally go in the 7-14 zone that won't be able to crack it. That's an amazing draft. Essentially the bulk of the guys getting picked between 7-24 or so would have almost across the board gone 5-15 in most typical drafts, maybe pure lottery. That's an amazing draft.

Monumentally frustrating to see this class crop up immediately following five years spent in lottery hell w/o any franchise players to show for it other than maybe Wall.

[The Consiglieri]

I will continue to urge people to be cautious when buying into the hype of the strength of the 2014 draft. Wiggins may be the next LeBron. Parker or Randle might be all-stars in their own right as well. That alone makes it a fairly strong draft class, but I don't necessarily think it's as DEEP as people are making it out to be. The fact that the guys at the very top of the draft are extremely good does not have any effect on the quality of the players that will be available in the 10-20 range.

Before you get ahead of yourself, do yourself a favor and rewind 2 years. At this time 2 years ago, the 2012 draft class was hyped up to be one of the strongest in recent memory. It's too early to tell for sure, but I don't think it's going to go down as a very strong or weak draft. Seriously, 2 years ago people were freaking out about acquiring 2012 draft picks, acting like mid-1st round picks were going to net teams superstars. I'm warning you, A LOT can change over the course of the college basketball season. Guys you expect to be stars might disappoint. Some guys might choose to go back to school for another year. You'd be surprised. Try to find some posts on here from 2 years ago discussing the upcoming 2012 draft. People were salivating over the likes of Le'Bryan Nash, Perry Jones, and Quincy Miller. All were seen as locks to go in the lottery and were expected to become great NBA players. Nash is still in college, Quincy is on the verge of being out of the league, and Jones isn't far behind. A lot can change in a very short amount of time. Be careful when you buy into the hype of the 2014 draft. It's probably not filled with superstars like you think it is. You'll see.

No, 2014 is an extremely impressive class. The level of athleticism class-wide is incredible. That's what sets it apart from almost every other class. These freshmen are freaks.

No draft class is ever filled with superstars BTW, that's a generic and meaningless argument IMO. You could use it to justify devaluing picks in any year. Having a bunch of elite players at the top does impact the quality of every pick on down. Most classes don't have more than one or two elite prospects, this one might have at least four or five. They push very good players who normally go top five later into the lottery and good players into the middle of the first and so on.

The class is very deep by the standards of a normal draft class. When you've got good sophomore players like Mitch McGary and Gary Harris as a bit of a reach to make the lottery, it's a good year.

- The freshman class is absolutely incredible, probably the best class in at least a decade. They are so athletic. So skilled too, lots of great slashers in the group with great handles and creativity. And they're big. There are a ton of NBA ready bodies in the bunch, ton of forwards and bigs with prototype size. There are going to be a lot of good freshmen who are top five caliber talents in most years that will probably have to go back to school for another year to go in that range. Guys like Noah Vonleh and Montrezl Harrell and Jabari Parker and Dakari Johnson for instance. That means the 2015 class could end up being a really strong group too. Or else the 2014 class will be ludicrously deep.

- There are two stud international kids in Mario Hezonja and Dante Exum. Plus Dario Saric most likely. Again, I'm thinking they might have to stay abroad just to go where they should. Though Exum and Hezonja are cream enough to rise to the top anyway.

- Several top kids from last year's class went back for their sophomore years like Isaiah Austin, Marcus Smart, Alex Poythress, Rasheed Suleimon, TJ Warren, Kyle Anderson, Willie Cauley-Stein, Kaleb Tarczewski, Glenn Robinson, + aforementioned Harris and McGary.

- And then you've got a lot of highly accomplished upperclassmen NCAA players filling out the back end of the class who are capable of having solid NBA careers: Russ Smith, Aaron Craft, P.J. Hairston, Adreian Payne, Cory Jefferson, James McAdoo, CJ Fair, Jarnell Stokes, Khem Birch, Patric Young, and Doug McDermott. A lot of these guys will be available into the second round. You're going to have a good shot at getting a legit contributor in the bottom half of the class.

I'm quoting this so I can come back to this in a year to prove you wrong. Seriously man, you are listing off name after name, but be honest, you haven't seen any of these kids play before. Maybe you've watched a highlight reel on youtube of a few of them, or you watched the McDonald's All-American Game, but you don't know anything about these players and how they actually play other than what you read on nbadraft.net. A year from now I'm going to pull up this thread and you are going to feel stupid.

You seem to forget that most "experts" were saying the same exact things about the 2012 draft class. Not everyone will live up to the hype. And pancakes, I don't understand what you're saying about the 2012 draft class being 2 draft classes worth of talent. If you are trying to say that with the lockout looming, prospects feared that the new CBA might further restrict early entries, so they jumped into the draft before it was too late, that makes no sense. If prospects were good enough to be taken high in the draft, they would have left after one year anyways. That argument would only mean that there were more guys who should have stayed in college another year or two because they weren't good enough for the pros yet. The reason the 2012 draft class was hyped up was because "experts" legitimately believed that the group of players that would be eligible for the draft that year were going to be exceptionally good. But after a couple months of the college season, it became obvious that that wasn't the case.

I find it funny that you are citing names like Gary Harris and Mitch McGary. Harris was viewed as a late lottery player in this draft, possibly slipping. McGary has his supporters, and some believe he's on the same value level as a guy like Steven Adams, but personally I have my doubts, seeing as he was terrible for the vast majority of the season. He probably wouldn't have been a lottery pick in this past draft, which was supposedly one of the weakest in the last decade. So the fact that those two guys are probably going to be in the 2014 class doesn't impress me.

You clearly just went to draftexpress or nbadraft.net or Chad Ford's rankings and picked out the names at the top of the list that stood out to you. I mean, Kyle Anderson? LOL did you watch him play at all this past season? Other than being Leonardo DiCaprio's long-lost black twin, he didn't have much going for him. Isaiah Austin? The kid was terrible as a freshman, but he has NBA genes and he's 7 feet and thinks he's a SF, so I guess the hype remains. Willie Cauley-Stein? Everywhere is hyping him up solely because he's big and he plays for Kentucky. He looked very pedestrian last season. He's going to slip in the draft just like Terrence Jones did. Dario Saric? Again, another player who dropped out of this past draft because he wasn't even considered good enough to go in the lottery in a very weak draft. You're just naming names that you recognize or that other websites have ranked high, but you have nothing to back that up. It's so funny.

I can't wait to bump this thread a year from now. I'm gonna have a real good laugh that day. You are falling for the hype machine so badly.

I think you're half right in your contrarian analogy. The '12 draft was expected to be a very good one. Not surprisingly, it appears they were mostly right: Both Davis and Drummond look like Studs, Lillard is better than expected, Beal was awesome, Barnes drew raves, Henson is a building block piece to the F.O. in Milwaukee, Harkless blew up.

There were certainly plenty of Debbie downers. McAdoo outright skipped it, going back to UNC against expectations, Sully and Lamb saw their stocks implode, and had lost seasons, and MKG wasn't anything huge, the say what?!?! Terrence Ross pick proved vanilla at best, Waiters showed potential but not much else.

However, all in all, the '12 draft ended up being only a little bit below expectations, and a good chunk of that was because some people were delusional (why was Sully always so overrated, even by some here?), and MKG and Lamb proved to be very disappointed and McAdoo went back to school. In terms of the top 10, very little was all that disappointing.

And the '12 draft, while highly thought of for sure (I think only the '10 draft in the past six or seven years had as much love, and that was largely because of the big 4, that Johnson inexplicably invaded), is nowhere near as highly thought of as the '14. Most scouts consider Wiggins to be probably in the top 4 or 5 of prospects rated in the last 15 years. Add in guys like Randle, Gordon, Harrison, Smart, and Parker, guys considered to be top 3 picks in any draft, and there's a reason its getting raves.

For all the love the '12 draft got, the only guys perceived as franchise players were the big men, Drummond, and Davis, what was so well liked about that draft two years ago was the fact that it was super deep in potential tier 2 very good players: MKG, Beal, McAdoo, Miller, Sully, Lamb, Barnes, PJIII all tended to be listed in the 2-10 range. That's what hurt the draft, because for now, only 2 of those 8 have delivered, while 4-5 look like definitive busted prospects.

[montestewart]

I like it when the draft heavy hitters get into a big roundtable discussion.