All Things 2017 Draft

[Banks2Pierce]

as long as nobody talks about basketball IQ, I am ok

What do we think about basketball IQ? Jaylen doesn't seem to have it. Should we be concerned about that? Is this typical/less concerning of wings? I remember Pierce's early years, but I didn't watch the games like I do now. Was it obvious that he had 'feel' early on?

[TheOGJabroni]

Man, Lonzo Ball's shoe actually looks real good. Price is way too high for my interest, but these will sell. This will end up working out handsomely for the Balls.

Edit- he's not going after the traditional NBA shoe market, he's clearly going after the niche luxury sneaker market (i.e. the dudes who drop $1,000+ on Kanyes shoes). Very interesting play. If he goes to LA, he's gunna make a fortune. Boston or Philly? Not as much.

It's possible but if Ball ends up being MCW, then those shoes don't sell at all. I'm not predicting this will happen but it's just to show it will end up depending on how good he is.

[pasfru]

Man, Lonzo Ball's shoe actually looks real good. Price is way too high for my interest, but these will sell. This will end up working out handsomely for the Balls.

Edit- he's not going after the traditional NBA shoe market, he's clearly going after the niche luxury sneaker market (i.e. the dudes who drop $1,000+ on Kanyes shoes). Very interesting play. If he goes to LA, he's gunna make a fortune. Boston or Philly? Not as much.

You can see right where the Nike logo was meant to go

They do look pretty nice though.

[pasfru]

as long as nobody talks about basketball IQ, I am ok

What do we think about basketball IQ? Jaylen doesn't seem to have it. Should we be concerned about that? Is this typical/less concerning of wings? I remember Pierce's early years, but I didn't watch the games like I do now. Was it obvious that he had 'feel' early on?

Pierce had a BPM average of +3.9 playing for a 19-win team his rookie year.

Jaylen's a year younger than rookie Pierce, but he still has a long way to go before becoming as productive.

[jmr07019]

Man, Lonzo Ball's shoe actually looks real good. Price is way too high for my interest, but these will sell. This will end up working out handsomely for the Balls.

Edit- he's not going after the traditional NBA shoe market, he's clearly going after the niche luxury sneaker market (i.e. the dudes who drop $1,000+ on Kanyes shoes). Very interesting play. If he goes to LA, he's gunna make a fortune. Boston or Philly? Not as much.

Is the luxury sneaker market that big? Honest question I've never even contemplated dropping close to that much on a pair of shoes. You can take a cheap, long weekend vacation for 500 if you play your cards right haha.

I think all in all it's a good play for Lavar / Lonzo. If Lonzo is a perennial all star the buyout of big baller by nike, addidas or under armour will be massive. If Lonzo busts the Big Baller Brand probably loses a million or two. Great gamble.

[Gomes3PC]

Unless you're anorexic or overweight, weight is almost never a concern. Basketball is a game of speed.

You need to step off the physics for a second. What I'm saying is that on the basketball court playing basketball things like angles, footwork, quickness, anticipation, intelligence are more decisive in deciding things like rebounds, box outs, post defense (areas where strength comes into play) than pure strength. If you can master those concepts, you can be effective and play with force even if you're skinny or lack muscular definition. If you've studied martial arts, you'll know that the key to that art is not brute strength but refining your ability to redirect energy to create force that's greater than something you could create in isolation (you redirect your opponent's force back at them). That's what the best players do too...

A focus on muscles, strength, and physique is generally misguided in the realm of scouting (this is one of my major gripes with Danny). Jaylen Brown's body is much more refined and muscular than Ingram's but both guys are pretty clueless when it comes to using what they have in an intelligent manner in order to generate any significant force so in fact they're both equally "weak" even though one guys looks buff and the other guy look skinny.

Speed matters but strength is absolutely essential in halfcourt, playoff basketball. There's a reason a guy like Marcus Smart has gotten critical minutes despite a clear lack of explosion. He's built like a tank and that allows him to win rebounding battles and fight through screens/post-up's/etc.

Marcus is incredibly strong (if I remember correctly he benched 185 33 times at the combine...that's insane) but pure strength is like less than 10% of what makes him a great defender. Anticipation, tenacity, mindset, toughness, great hands and feet are much more important traits. I guess what I'm saying is that Marcus would be a great defender even if like Durant he couldn't bench press 185 even one time. Strength is a tool in the toolbox but you can succeed without having a bunch of it too.

The lack of explosion is a problem on the offensive end but not defensively IMO. Boxing guys out and standing them up when they try to back you down can be a matter of pure strength, but only if you play it like that (and for big muscle bound guys, that's exactly how they play it). But smart defenders like Marcus use leverage to get lower (low man wins), and also tend to hit first and not allow their opponent to get a good position in the first place. So they take the battle from the plane of pure strength to something that allows more gamesmanship.

We all remember when Marcus played a great 4th quarter against Millsap in last years playoff when no other player on our team could guard Millsap. But what Marcus did was more psychological than anything else. Millsap saw that they put a guard on him and thought like all bigs that I'll just take him in the post and get an easy look. But that was exactly what Smart wanted, and by bodying him before he got the ball, and then getting lower when he started to back him down, he forced him into bad off-balance shots (this happens all the time when guys try to post IT too). A smarter player than Millsap would have seen the same scenario and simply isolated against him on the perimeter. Marcus' height disadvantage was actually more detrimental on the perimeter than the interior (it's counterintuitive, I know) because on the perimeter you can easily free your shooting hand for an uncontested shot with a few dribbles moves and countermoves but if you back a smart defender like Marcus down he's going to sap your power, limit your force (because there's no acceleration in close quarters) and be right against your body for every shot you take.

Yes, of course instincts matter. I just don't think it's an accident that every elite wing defender in the NBA just so happens to be absolutely shredded:

Lebron
Kawhi
Smart
PJ Tucker
Iguodala
Tony Allen
Butler
MKG
Roberson
Dray

Athleticism is undoubtedly important, but strength and instincts are more important, at least defensively.

The only beanpole who plays elite D on the wing is Durant, who is basically in a category of his own, and frankly wasn't a good defender until he built up reasonable functional strength in the last ~2 years.

Last thing I will say is that Ingram doesn't have elite quick twitch athleticism. He is long as hell but his feet don't really move that quickly. Maybe he's still growing into his body and that catches up - he is really young - but if he's just mediocre in terms of first step / anticipation, and he will always be weaker (both pure brute force and in functional terms), he's going to struggle without being a top-tier shooter.

In fact, at times that length without strength will hurt him because guys with lower centers of gravity will just push him around and off the spot. To combat that, he needs to either (a) blow by that tight D or (b) shoot over it. He doesn't (yet) have the burst for (a) so he's gonna have to succeed with (b).

That's why I like Jaylen more - a lot more now and likely more in the future. He's already functionally strong enough to be trusted by the staff in spots to defend the physical guys like LeBron, and while he may drive recklessly too often, he has the elite burst on his first step to get by defenders who try to get physical with him.

If you like Ingram, you're basically betting IMO that he develops his jumper to the point where it is dangerous and he adds just enough functional strength that he's not knocked around like a ragdoll.

If you like Brown, you're basically betting that he can tighten his handle / driving ability just enough so that he turns those crazy charges into and-1's. That and his 3 point spot-up jumper is as good as it's looked for most of this year (ie, he's a ~34-36% 3PT shooter, not a 30-33% shooter).

I'll take my chances with Brown, but can understand if someone wants Ingram. He's younger and was put in a tougher spot this year, so he deserves some more time (as does Brown, given his limited action most of the year in a myriad of roles).

[pasfru]

Man, Lonzo Ball's shoe actually looks real good. Price is way too high for my interest, but these will sell. This will end up working out handsomely for the Balls.

Edit- he's not going after the traditional NBA shoe market, he's clearly going after the niche luxury sneaker market (i.e. the dudes who drop $1,000+ on Kanyes shoes). Very interesting play. If he goes to LA, he's gunna make a fortune. Boston or Philly? Not as much.

Is the luxury sneaker market that big? Honest question I've never even contemplated dropping close to that much on a pair of shoes. You can take a cheap, long weekend vacation for 500 if you play your cards right haha.

I think all in all it's a good play for Lavar / Lonzo. If Lonzo is a perennial all star the buyout of big baller by nike, addidas or under armour will be massive. If Lonzo busts the Big Baller Brand probably loses a million or two. Great gamble.

People have paid a lot more in the past for shoes that don't even look that nice.

[SmartWentCrazy]

Man, Lonzo Ball's shoe actually looks real good. Price is way too high for my interest, but these will sell. This will end up working out handsomely for the Balls.

Edit- he's not going after the traditional NBA shoe market, he's clearly going after the niche luxury sneaker market (i.e. the dudes who drop $1,000+ on Kanyes shoes). Very interesting play. If he goes to LA, he's gunna make a fortune. Boston or Philly? Not as much.

Is the luxury sneaker market that big? Honest question I've never even contemplated dropping close to that much on a pair of shoes. You can take a cheap, long weekend vacation for 500 if you play your cards right haha.

I think all in all it's a good play for Lavar / Lonzo. If Lonzo is a perennial all star the buyout of big baller by nike, addidas or under armour will be massive. If Lonzo busts the Big Baller Brand probably loses a million or two. Great gamble.

It's definitely not my thing, but google 'Air Yeezy'. Lots of people pay lots of money for shoes. It's market dependent, which is why I think it'll do better if he's in NY of LA, but people will buy his shoes for sure.

[jmr07019]

Man, Lonzo Ball's shoe actually looks real good. Price is way too high for my interest, but these will sell. This will end up working out handsomely for the Balls.

Edit- he's not going after the traditional NBA shoe market, he's clearly going after the niche luxury sneaker market (i.e. the dudes who drop $1,000+ on Kanyes shoes). Very interesting play. If he goes to LA, he's gunna make a fortune. Boston or Philly? Not as much.

Is the luxury sneaker market that big? Honest question I've never even contemplated dropping close to that much on a pair of shoes. You can take a cheap, long weekend vacation for 500 if you play your cards right haha.

I think all in all it's a good play for Lavar / Lonzo. If Lonzo is a perennial all star the buyout of big baller by nike, addidas or under armour will be massive. If Lonzo busts the Big Baller Brand probably loses a million or two. Great gamble.

It's definitely not my thing, but google 'Air Yeezy'. Lots of people pay lots of money for shoes. It's market dependent, which is why I think it'll do better if he's in NY of LA, but people will buy his shoes for sure.

Holy crap I had no idea Kayne was selling shoes never mind selling them for 1,000 a pop. Damn people are crazy.

[London2Boston]

LaVar has been hanging out with too many Cali folk. That is probably the only market that may still buy the shoes at that price.

[jmr07019]

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[SmartWentCrazy]

I'm growing more fond on Jacksons fit on our team going forward. We need a secondary ball handler/creator off the bench, and I like what Jackson brings from the wing.

More importantly, he's a nuclear athlete and a second unit of Rozier/Jaylen/Jackson would be fun as ****. Just electric athletes capable of switching heavily and running wild on offense. Spacing/shooting may suck, but god damn would they be fun.

[Bleeding Green]

Man, Lonzo Ball's shoe actually looks real good. Price is way too high for my interest, but these will sell. This will end up working out handsomely for the Balls.

Edit- he's not going after the traditional NBA shoe market, he's clearly going after the niche luxury sneaker market (i.e. the dudes who drop $1,000+ on Kanyes shoes). Very interesting play. If he goes to LA, he's gunna make a fortune. Boston or Philly? Not as much.

Is the luxury sneaker market that big? Honest question I've never even contemplated dropping close to that much on a pair of shoes. You can take a cheap, long weekend vacation for 500 if you play your cards right haha.

I think all in all it's a good play for Lavar / Lonzo. If Lonzo is a perennial all star the buyout of big baller by nike, addidas or under armour will be massive. If Lonzo busts the Big Baller Brand probably loses a million or two. Great gamble.

I dunno how big and profitable the industry, but you can definitely get some Rick Owens or SLP or Maison Margiela or Common Projects in that range or even less made with actual quality products with a quality design. I don't think anyone spending 500 bucks is wearing this to actually play basketball in, right? It's strictly a fashion sneakerand it's pretty ugly. Even Yeezys retail for like 220 or something; the crazy aftermarket prices are just because demand is so high and they make so few that are all bought by chinese bots.

I hope Lonzo succeeds because LaVar is just hilarious. He took the Kobe 5 and added a cheap adidas boost midsole and is trying to sell it for 500 bucks (no refunds or exchanges allowed lol). Good luck you crazy ****. Everything about it is so cheesy from the logo to the brand name to the straight ripoff of the design (though I kinda like the Z inside the 0 design on the back, even if it's pretty generic).

[soxfan2003]

First shoe of the big baller brand (aka Lavar and Lonzo ball) will cost $500 lololololol good luck Lavar

The shoe looks better than I thought it would. Ridiculous price though.

What are the made out of gold nuggets?

Who exactly do they think their market is?

What kind of margins are they really getting here? It seems to me like the margins are so high on sneakers that it makes more sense to charge less, and get that much more people actually willing to buy the product... At $500 a pair they're going to seriously reduce their sales volume.

They may just be trying to create a premium image and then get some influential sneaker heads who will buy it at any price. Then if Ball is a very good player, perhaps come up with version 2 and drop the price with sales possibly going much higher.

I would never and have never bought an expensive basketball shoe but from my non sneaker head perspective, they look better than 90% of basketball sneakers the major companies produce but would look better without the branding in the back of the shoe.

There may be some collectors that just end up gambling Ball gets drafted by the Lakers and is some sort of all star level of player and the shoes since they are the first in a series become worth a ton of money.

Not a gamble I would make but despite knowing Jordan's greatness as a player before he played an NBA game and having in confirmed his rookie year, I never in my wildest dreams thought a pair of original Air Jordan's would be worth so much money. And the supply of those were not artificially restricted even though the price back then was expensive for those times.

[soxfan2003]

I have said this before in other threads in the past but when Larry Bird was asked about athleticism and perhaps jumping, the one athletic gift he said he wish he had was more speed. Other people may have different real life experiences of their own but his comments matched my personal experience. I got much, much better at 5 on 5 full court basketball despite rarely playing it for 3-4 months after playing a speed position in football which required me to really improve both my speed and stamina. Shooting ability temporarily declined since I was barely playing any bball, vertical jumping ability declined since football was training different leg muscles but I was much better 5 on 5.

Now if one can add a lot of strength and just lose a little speed/stamina that trade off is probably worth it but that is very hard to do I suspect for most players.

[ryaningf]

Good post Gomes...

Last thing I will say is that Ingram doesn't have elite quick twitch athleticism. He is long as hell but his feet don't really move that quickly. Maybe he's still growing into his body and that catches up - he is really young - but if he's just mediocre in terms of first step / anticipation, and he will always be weaker (both pure brute force and in functional terms), he's going to struggle without being a top-tier shooter.

Ingram has some fast twitch athleticism, though like Marcus it's probably a mix of fast and slow twitch.

What Marcus has done with his mix is to workout in a way that accentuates the slow twitch fibers (which are for endurance). Maybe this helps him some on the few occasions he gets stuck in pure strength battles (and it certainly helped him bench 185 33 times) but if I was advising him I'd be training for pure explosion with his body type, aiming to drop 10-15 lbs of slow twitch and fat and hopefully replacing half of that with fast twitch. I think his defensive instincts are so great that he's still great even without defensive explosiveness but offensively he'd really propel himself to another level if tweaked his training (and stopped drinking altogether, but that's another story).

For guys with the mixed twitch muscle types, training correctly is key. To improve the fast twitch, you have to work on explosive movements, usually low reps and high intensity. The Lakers have a top 3 training staff in the NBA, so I have no doubt they'll get him where he needs to be.

In fact, at times that length without strength will hurt him because guys with lower centers of gravity will just push him around and off the spot. To combat that, he needs to either (a) blow by that tight D or (b) shoot over it. He doesn't (yet) have the burst for (a) so he's gonna have to succeed with (b).

What I saw from Ingram was a guy who was physically and mentally unable to play at the NBA level in October and he surely but slowly adapted to the pace of the game and physicality as the season wore on and by the end of the year he looked really really good. This was without getting buff or adding weight, just through experience and repetition. Once he works on his core a little over the summer, he's gonna be tough to stop.

Ingram is a 4/5 who needs to get a little quicker so he can defend 4s in space and use his length to bother ballhandlers in the P&R. I think he's going to have a great career and depending on how well he shoots it could be a multiple time All-Star.

That's why I like Jaylen more - a lot more now and likely more in the future. He's already functionally strong enough to be trusted by the staff in spots to defend the physical guys like LeBron, and while he may drive recklessly too often, he has the elite burst on his first step to get by defenders who try to get physical with him.

If you like Ingram, you're basically betting IMO that he develops his jumper to the point where it is dangerous and he adds just enough functional strength that he's not knocked around like a ragdoll.

I like Jaylen's mentality and even-keelness, but I don't think he plays physical on defense at all (he's bad at pretty much everything to do with playing defense tbh). I had him pegged as a 4 early in his career and right now he's a 2 who can play some 3. His speed is special and his ball-handling has improved a lot in a short amount of time. Watching him initiate offense in garbage time last night was pretty exciting - he actually looked okay, got to his spots, ran the plays, and dealt pretty flawlessly with decent pressure defense. If he could be a secondary ball handler, then I think a path to fringe All-Star status is in the cards. But for me to really be impressed I need to see him use his athletic potential to lock dudes down.

I think they both suck at defense right now. You could argue that Jaylen's athleticism gives him an edge on defense going forward, but my counterargument is that if they both suck equally right now then in essence Ingram is doing more with less and that bodes well for him going forward. When you can't coast by on your athleticism it often provides the impetus to improve other areas of your game.

[jmr07019]

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well at least a few famous people are supporting big baller brand.


Big Baller brand also selling flip flops for 220 a pair lmao. I agree with Smart went crazy these will sell better in NY and especially LA but would bomb in philly or boston. I can see NFL players buying these. Tough sell to parents/kids when they can go get the Curry 3 for 100 or a LeBron or KD for I'd guess 150.

[SmartWentCrazy]

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well at least a few famous people are supporting big baller brand.


Big Baller brand also selling flip flops for 220 a pair lmao. I agree with Smart went crazy these will sell better in NY and especially LA but would bomb in philly or boston. I can see NFL players buying these. Tough sell to parents/kids when they can go get the Curry 3 for 100 or a LeBron or KD for I'd guess 150.

I think, above all, I'm rooting for him in this venture because it's not easy. These big companies make hundreds of millions of dollars licensing athletes likenesses, while paying basically nothing up front. Steph Curry is locked up on a ~3M a year deal while UnderArmor makes 9 figures. It's crap. I'd rather an athlete get rich selling his likeness than a corporation get rich licensing it.

Lonzo has the potential to radically redistribute the wealth from the current model, and I am all for it.

[Gomes3PC]

Good post Gomes...

Last thing I will say is that Ingram doesn't have elite quick twitch athleticism. He is long as hell but his feet don't really move that quickly. Maybe he's still growing into his body and that catches up - he is really young - but if he's just mediocre in terms of first step / anticipation, and he will always be weaker (both pure brute force and in functional terms), he's going to struggle without being a top-tier shooter.

Ingram has some fast twitch athleticism, though like Marcus it's probably a mix of fast and slow twitch.

What Marcus has done with his mix is to workout in a way that accentuates the slow twitch fibers (which are for endurance). Maybe this helps him some on the few occasions he gets stuck in pure strength battles (and it certainly helped him bench 185 33 times) but if I was advising him I'd be training for pure explosion with his body type, aiming to drop 10-15 lbs of slow twitch and fat and hopefully replacing half of that with fast twitch. I think his defensive instincts are so great that he's still great even without defensive explosiveness but offensively he'd really propel himself to another level if tweaked his training (and stopped drinking altogether, but that's another story).

For guys with the mixed twitch muscle types, training correctly is key. To improve the fast twitch, you have to work on explosive movements, usually low reps and high intensity. The Lakers have a top 3 training staff in the NBA, so I have no doubt they'll get him where he needs to be.

In fact, at times that length without strength will hurt him because guys with lower centers of gravity will just push him around and off the spot. To combat that, he needs to either (a) blow by that tight D or (b) shoot over it. He doesn't (yet) have the burst for (a) so he's gonna have to succeed with (b).

What I saw from Ingram was a guy who was physically and mentally unable to play at the NBA level in October and he surely but slowly adapted to the pace of the game and physicality as the season wore on and by the end of the year he looked really really good. This was without getting buff or adding weight, just through experience and repetition. Once he works on his core a little over the summer, he's gonna be tough to stop.

Ingram is a 4/5 who needs to get a little quicker so he can defend 4s in space and use his length to bother ballhandlers in the P&R. I think he's going to have a great career and depending on how well he shoots it could be a multiple time All-Star.

That's why I like Jaylen more - a lot more now and likely more in the future. He's already functionally strong enough to be trusted by the staff in spots to defend the physical guys like LeBron, and while he may drive recklessly too often, he has the elite burst on his first step to get by defenders who try to get physical with him.

If you like Ingram, you're basically betting IMO that he develops his jumper to the point where it is dangerous and he adds just enough functional strength that he's not knocked around like a ragdoll.

I like Jaylen's mentality and even-keelness, but I don't think he plays physical on defense at all (he's bad at pretty much everything to do with playing defense tbh). I had him pegged as a 4 early in his career and right now he's a 2 who can play some 3. His speed is special and his ball-handling has improved a lot in a short amount of time. Watching him initiate offense in garbage time last night was pretty exciting - he actually looked okay, got to his spots, ran the plays, and dealt pretty flawlessly with decent pressure defense. If he could be a secondary ball handler, then I think a path to fringe All-Star status is in the cards. But for me to really be impressed I need to see him use his athletic potential to lock dudes down.

I think they both suck at defense right now. You could argue that Jaylen's athleticism gives him an edge on defense going forward, but my counterargument is that if they both suck equally right now then in essence Ingram is doing more with less and that bodes well for him going forward. When you can't coast by on your athleticism it often provides the impetus to improve other areas of your game.

Fair points all around, and if Ingram can really learn to work as a 4 rather than a 3, I like his chances of success a lot more. His foot speed goes from ordinary to good as he moves up the defensive spectrum, and he doesn't have to be an elite shooter to be effective at PF.

Agree that Jaylen is not a "good" defender yet, but have seen enough that with coaching he will get there. Neither will be All-NBA guys simply because they lack the instincts on that end. I frankly did not see a lot of Ingram after ~February, so if he did make some real progress in the last 15-20 games, that's certainly got to be encouraging for our beloved rivals.

EDIT - totally agree on Marcus, FWIW. He needs to get on the James Johnson workout regime, drop 10-15 pounds and work on explosion. He's built like a tank right now which is great for the quirky 4-guard lineups Brad is using, but long term Smart is not gonna be a SF/PF. It seems he lost real lift this year in adding mass and while he made great strides in the P&R, smart teams have learned to just play him to pass and he gets caught way too often mid-air without a place to go because his passes are cut off and he lacks the explosion to finish at the rim.

[SmartWentCrazy]

Jonathan Tjarks from the Ringer had an interesting article today: https://theringer.com/2017-nba-draft-centers-og-anunoby-jonathan-isaac-e345e30acdd6

No one really needs a no. 4 starter in October, but there’s still plenty of value in having a guy who can reliably throw 200 innings from April to September. If Isaac is a small forward who can play power forward in certain matchups, he’s probably fairly valued by most draft sites near the bottom of the top 10. If he’s a power forward who can play some center, he could end up being the steal of the draft.

I agree and am finding the concept of Isaac more and more intriguing.