Official #2 Pick Thread - Ford #7: Parker

[europa]

Again, I'm not dismissing the hard work. Nobody gets to the NBA, much less has a great career, without putting in the work.

Maybe you're not "dismissing" the hard work, but you are marginalizing it. Is Ray Allen a gifted shooter because he worked/works hard at it, or because he was born that way?

Can you give us an example of a guy who was not born with the gift of being able to shoot a basketball, but is a great shooter now?

I cited Redd as an example. He almost completely transformed his game after coming to the NBA. He was much more of a slasher in college. After getting to the NBA (and working with Ray), he crafted an outside game.

I don't think I'm marginalizing anything. I think you could make a case that Ray had a born gift. Through determination and hard work he turned that gift into a special NBA career. It's a combination of the two. But like I said, I've seen enough players who have a natural ability to shoot. I do believe some people are just born with it.

[Badgerlander]

I don't see many similarities between Parker and Green at all.

They are the same size, probably be pretty similar defensively. The bonus is you get 1.5 times the offense at the same efficiency with Parker which translates to over 20ppg in the NBA if you use Green as a reference.

[Licensed to Il]

Bad example, Nash is another guy who obsessively worked on his shooting in season and off season. You guys literally picked the two guys in Nash and Ray that are public about crediting their shooting skills to relentless practice and repetition.

I do think there are some skills that are inherent, such as hustle, predicting what is about to happen, and even passing. But in my experience, even those come from figuring them out earlier than your peers do, and thus always being ahead of the pack for the remainder of the development curve.

[paulpressey25]

I still think the Jabari thing might be a smokescreen but who knows. But if Jabari is coming here, I'll play devils advocate now for the Wiggins supporters.

Remember in 1994 when we had a similar choice between a guy who had supreme talent but was a little moody and not necessarily outgoing? Had no handles either. He too was the consensus #1 overall for the year prior.

We stacked him up against a Duke player who flat out was a winner. Very talented, outgoing, hard working, team leader.

We made the wrong choice. Grant Hill was a major success on and off the court. Exactly the type of guy that MKE can use.

Of course I do need to mention the Duke player had stress fracture problems with his feet that ultimately shortened his career.

[SupremeHustle]

Again, I'm not dismissing the hard work. Nobody gets to the NBA, much less has a great career, without putting in the work.

Maybe you're not "dismissing" the hard work, but you are marginalizing it. Is Ray Allen a gifted shooter because he worked/works hard at it, or because he was born that way?

Can you give us an example of a guy who was not born with the gift of being able to shoot a basketball, but is a great shooter now?

I cited Redd as an example. He almost completely transformed his game after coming to the NBA. He was much more of a slasher in college. After getting to the NBA (and working with Ray), he crafted an outside game.

I don't think I'm marginalizing anything. I think you could make a case that Ray had a born gift. Through determination and hard work he turned that gift into a special NBA career. It's a combination of the two. But like I said, I've seen enough players who have a natural ability to shoot. I do believe some people are just born with it.

You don't think saying he came out of the womb a gifted shooter marginalizes the work he put in to become a great shooter?

[SupremeHustle]

Bad example, Nash is another guy who obsessively worked on his shooting in season and off season. You guys literally picked the two guys in Nash and Ray that are public about crediting their shooting skills to relentless practice and repetition.

I do think there are some skills that are inherent, such as hustle, predicting what is about to happen, and even passing. But in my experience, even those come from figuring them out earlier than your peers do, and thus always being ahead of the pack for the remainder of the development curve.

I'm going to bow out. You got this.

[europa]

Maybe you're not "dismissing" the hard work, but you are marginalizing it. Is Ray Allen a gifted shooter because he worked/works hard at it, or because he was born that way?

Can you give us an example of a guy who was not born with the gift of being able to shoot a basketball, but is a great shooter now?

I cited Redd as an example. He almost completely transformed his game after coming to the NBA. He was much more of a slasher in college. After getting to the NBA (and working with Ray), he crafted an outside game.

I don't think I'm marginalizing anything. I think you could make a case that Ray had a born gift. Through determination and hard work he turned that gift into a special NBA career. It's a combination of the two. But like I said, I've seen enough players who have a natural ability to shoot. I do believe some people are just born with it.

You don't think saying he came out of the womb a gifted shooter marginalizes the work he put in to become a great shooter?

No because I think he clearly worked his ass off to craft the gift he had and make it special. It's not just enough to have a gift. You have to work at it and develop it further if you want to be great. Ray did that and the results have been evident.

[Licensed to Il]

I still think the Jabari thing might be a smokescreen but who knows. But if Jabari is coming here, I'll play devils advocate now for the Wiggins supporters.

Remember in 1994 when we had a similar choice between a guy who had supreme talent but was a little moody and not necessarily outgoing? Had no handles either. He too was the consensus #1 overall for the year prior.

We stacked him up against a Duke player who flat out was a winner. Very talented, outgoing, hard working, team leader.

We made the wrong choice. Grant Hill was a major success on and off the court. Exactly the type of guy that MKE can use.

Of course I do need to mention the Duke player had stress fracture problems with his feet that ultimately shortened his career.

First of all, Hill did not want to be here and once admitted to playing left handed when he worked out with Dunleavy Sr. Second, Big Dog was far and away the best prospect that year. His career was hampered by ankle, knee, weed, and women issues. But with what was known at the draft, Big Dog was far and away the most promising option. Third, all these players are different guys, there are no parallels or wise oracles from 1994 that will guide us here. Its a new day and new personel and at this point people are grasping at straws and conjuring weird stuff.

[europa]

In retrospect, the Bucks made a mistake taking Big Dog over Hill and Kidd. But yeah at the time he was the guy everybody wanted. I remember Jerry West practically drooling over him in interviews. He loved Glenn's talent and potential to be a superstar NBA offensive player.

And it's not like Glenn stunk. He was a terrific scorer. He wasn't as good as Kidd or Hill (when healthy) but it's not like he was a bust in my opinion.

[KeyRabbit]

I still think the Jabari thing might be a smokescreen but who knows. But if Jabari is coming here, I'll play devils advocate now for the Wiggins supporters.

Remember in 1994 when we had a similar choice between a guy who had supreme talent but was a little moody and not necessarily outgoing? Had no handles either. He too was the consensus #1 overall for the year prior.

We stacked him up against a Duke player who flat out was a winner. Very talented, outgoing, hard working, team leader.

We made the wrong choice. Grant Hill was a major success on and off the court. Exactly the type of guy that MKE can use.

Of course I do need to mention the Duke player had stress fracture problems with his feet that ultimately shortened his career.

He also sandbagged his workout and interview with the team, which the then-FO may have factored in. Hopefully the forces of nature that are the new owners will just wash all that kind of BS away. I feel like most agents wouldn't want to get on their bad side but we shall see.

[WeekapaugGroove]

Other than the fact they both went to duke I simply don't get the parker / grant hill comparison. to me they arent even remotely comparable players. Grant was an outstanding athlete and distributer.

I still prefer wiggins but after parker measured out at acceptable PF size I'm completely fine with him being the pick. Had he measured out shorter I would have had concerns because I'm not sold on him as wing long term. But knowing you can slide him down to the 4 makes his bust potential alot lower imo.

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[Bernman]

First of all, Hill did not want to be here and once admitted to playing left handed when he worked out with Dunleavy Sr. Second, Big Dog was far and away the best prospect that year. His career was hampered by ankle, knee, weed, and women issues. But with what was known at the draft, Big Dog was far and away the most promising option. Third, all these players are different guys, there are no parallels or wise oracles from 1994 that will guide us here. Its a new day and new personel and at this point people are grasping at straws and conjuring weird stuff.

Yeah, I really hate these analogies to a single draft. That doesn't constitute a trend, and often times the comparisons are even superficial. Hill had some of his own reasons for becoming an All-NBA player, G-Rob for not, Oden his own health problems, and Durant his own set of skills. Those aren't compelling reasons to not draft Parker or Embiid, or to draft Wiggins.

[ReasonablySober]

I still think the Jabari thing might be a smokescreen but who knows. But if Jabari is coming here, I'll play devils advocate now for the Wiggins supporters.

Remember in 1994 when we had a similar choice between a guy who had supreme talent but was a little moody and not necessarily outgoing? Had no handles either. He too was the consensus #1 overall for the year prior.

We stacked him up against a Duke player who flat out was a winner. Very talented, outgoing, hard working, team leader.

We made the wrong choice. Grant Hill was a major success on and off the court. Exactly the type of guy that MKE can use.

Of course I do need to mention the Duke player had stress fracture problems with his feet that ultimately shortened his career.

I guess I'm not following the comparison here. Robinson = Parker...right? I mean, that's just a really easy one to make. Nationally known, the player coaches seem to drool over. If Robinson came out today he'd be viewed almost exactly the way Parker is now.

[M-C-G]

Barring embiid somehow not being #1, the pick will be Jabari Parker and everyone pretty much knows it... I would also like to say that I'm very excited about it. Parker is going to bring some excitement to Milwaukee that hasn't been seen for a long time. I'm looking forward to watching him grow with Giannis and our other young pieces.

I believe that Parker will help establish a culture... Not gonna come out and say a winning culture but a "we're not backing down to anyone" culture vs the "we're prolly catching an L tonight, we're we going for dinner" culture that we've watched for the past few years.

I see Parker as bigger Grant Hill.

I see him making everyone around him better.... I see Larry Sanders getting on board and I see a toughness infused into this team with a young star in Parker and a soph Giannis as the faces of this franchise.

Can't wait

Really like this post, agree with pretty much all of it.

I think the board gets too caught up in trying to convince themselves that one of these guys has even a chance of becoming Lebron.

[No-Man]

I got Jabari Parker, Jabari Brown, Jahii Carson and Thanasis Antetokounmpo for the Bucks with the picks you got.
There are really nice players to be drafted with those two early 2nd rounders.

[machu46]

But Ray Allen himself frequently talks about the 1000s of hours he spent shooting ad a kid. And he has the most famous / obsessive pre game shooting routine in the league. Explain?

Of course some people have an inherent giftedness towards a skill, but what does that even really mean other than that they obsessively devote themselves to perfection.

The kids I know that were nicknamed "prodigy" or "the natural" spent 90% of their free time shooting or dribbling in an empty gym. Its earned and forged.

I honestly have no idea if this is true, but didn't Steve Nash prefer soccer growing up over basketball? He probably didn't spend as much time shooting as a kid as Ray did, but he too was always a very good shooter.


The countless hours in the gym definitely helps a ton, but there's also a knack for just sort of being able to see how far away you are from the basket and being able to know based on that how much force you have to put behind your shot. It's gotta be some sort of hand-eye coordination kinda thing or something, depth perception, whatever. That's an innate skill that goes a long ways in helping to be a good shooter.

Growing up, I was always a good shooter. Shot around 40% from the high school 3 point line pretty much every year, but when I really started to put in the effort... going to the gym a couple hours before school started to just shoot and then doing it again after school, my 3 point percentage jumped up to 50%. So like one of the other posters said, shooting is something that can definitely be improved, but it's also something that you can be naturally good at.

Nash wasn't always a good shooter. He used to put up Jennings-like percentages. Even in college he wasn't a great shooter.

The dude shot over 40% from 3 for his college career and over 40% in the NBA basically every season of his career. He's always been an elite shooter.

[LUKE23]

I think we end up with Parker. I don't think it's smokescreen.

[jakecronus8]

Watching more tape on AP.

One thing I never took much notice before is his high dribbles on penetrations and post ups. He's gotta iron those out of his game or turnovers will be a very big problem for him at the next level.

I'm liking his tape the more I watch, yet there's still something missing for me.

[M-C-G]

Of course I do need to mention the Duke player had stress fracture problems with his feet that ultimately shortened his career.

You don't mean Grant Hill do you? The guy played 20 seasons, because of his character, passion and desire for the game....while the other guy sat on his laurels, even though I love the Big Dog, he is a cautionary tale about why the "it factor" and drive should be strongly considered when evaluating players.

[KeyRabbit]

I think we end up with Parker. I don't think it's smokescreen.

Given what's in the other thread about the "close Edens family friend" saying that Wes doesn't like Parker, how bad would it suck to have the first major decision cause a rift?

I'm very interested to learn more about how this ownership group will actually operate. Neither got to where they are by being deferential or submissive.