BoyzNTheHood wrote:CoachJReturns wrote:BoyzNTheHood wrote:It doesn't matter. How many 4's were 6'4" before Barkley? How many 1's were 5'9" before IT? If you can play, you can play. Bottom line.
I'm all in favor of taking the most talented player(which he probably would be if he somehow fell to us), but he's not Barkley. The moment you start mentioning top 5 players of all time at their position you hurt your argument. Those guys are all unique and not the norm. I'd draft Bridges due to his athleticism, but I wouldn't count on him to slow down any power forwards and that includes stretch 4s. Their height and length advantage would give them an advantage to just shoot over him. He's ranked lower than his athletic talent would suggest for a reason and it's not an attitude issue, or lack of effort. He's undersized. End of story.
No one said he wasn't undersized so that's clearly not the end of the story. And Barkely was undersized, and IT is undersized... It makes no difference which undersized player I mention the point stands. There's a reason IT was the last pick and it's only because he was undersized.
The league is also showing a preference towards small ball lineups. So the only time Bridges would struggle is if he has to face a big lineup. But in the modern NBA you can put him on guys like Draymond, or Channing Frye and he'll have no issues.
It makes a difference because if the examples you can find of outliers are totally unique players, and Barkley definitely was, then you're putting an absurdly high expectation on a prospect. I tried to think of more average examples and there aren't many. Heck, I think of Patterson as being a modern sized/style power forward and he's still 6'8 or 6'9.
Don't get me wrong, I'd be thrilled if Bridges were still available at one of our picks. He's one of the best pure athletes in this draft and seems to have a motor. My point is simply that we see more guys like him who fail than succeed. The D League is truly full of tweeners who just aren't that useful.
A pretty good comparison, though not perfect, to Bridges would be Joey Graham. Terrific athlete(best testing at the combine overall) and great size for a wing. Unfortunately, he didn't have the guard skills needed and he was pretty much a wasted pick.
I'm not saying Bridges becomes Graham, but the odds of him becoming a star power forward at 6'6 are about the same as the odds of him being Joey Graham 2.0.
I'd happily be wrong, but a guy his size is more likely to be successful if he can play primarily at SG and SF rather than PF.
Other than that, I'll say we should agree to disagree because we're going in circles.
Maybe Avery Bradley 2.0. His shooting form isn't bad so can improve.
