RollingWave wrote:So explain to me how he's different from Derrick Williams? Not saying that he is, but there's a lot of similarity no?
Only in a very general/superficial sense. Chriss is more explosive and looks to have better range and a purer stroke, and he wasn't a super stand-out statistically like D Will was his soph year at Arizona. Chriss is skinnier, too, plays more agile and less powerful. He's an upside guy, though, whom you're hoping will build on what he already has and become more dominant than he's yet been.
I think of D Will, on the other hand, as one of the great small-sample-size lessons of the last decade: he didn't develop badly or anything (or fail because of a bad work ethic or whatever), he was just overrated as a prospect because he shot the ball absurdly well over 30-some games his soph year at Arizona. Shot like 57% on 3s (!) and 60% from the field that year--good for a ridiculous 70% TS on pretty big volume--and he had monstrously good advanced stats as a result. People looked at him like, 'he's crazy efficient and he's got NBA strength and good hops--this guy's amazing!' But he really just had a crazy hot streak going for most of that year and was more like a 50/34/70 shooter as a shooting prospect (i.e. decent but nothing to get excited about). When he got to the NBA he didn't fail or suck, he just didn't have any special skills or abilities that would make him stand out--he had pretty good athleticism and strength and some serviceable perimeter skills. But most guys in the NBA are really good, so he's been a sort of whatever NBA player: decent production, respectable efficiency, enough to stick in rotations but not be more. Interesting prospect to have followed.