stitches wrote:What am I missing with Bam, guys? I don't get how low so many draftniks are on him. I truly don't get it? I don't get how they have 7-8-10-15 bigs ahead of him? WTF?
It's just a question of where the league is headed. There's no question to me that Bam can do what Derrick Favors gave us last year, or that he can be a more explosive Taj Gibson. Honestly, he should be better than both those guys. He can finish pick and rolls, guard out to 20+ feet on the floor, help-defend with quick reactions, make 17-foot jumpers, hit his free-throws, run the floor. He's an amazing athlete. Amazing. His hands are good. His feet are great. He has 9-ft standing reach and a 38.5" max vertical. His freshman year at UK is comparable to Blake Griffin's freshman year for crying out loud, his measurables are at least as good, and he's only 19. It's just that the league now is obsessed with bigs who shoot 3s, handle the ball and initiate the pick-and-roll.
I've also talked about this before on Jazzfanz, but I believe there exists a bias whereby people overreact and misjudge prospects based on their initial expectations for the player. Bam came into UK with very high expectations. He was pretty much their only low-post presence, rebounder and rim protector. He was put under a microscope. He put up 13/8 for the year and had some 20/14 games as well. He was great, but because the expectations were so high for him, some people think he underdelivered. That then becomes a bias where people are now down on him for some reason. But then you see a guy like Anigbogu who didn't have those expectations, and who produced very little as a back-up at UCLA. Everything Ike did was a pleasant surprise, and now people really like him as a prospect. I would take Bam over Ike Anigbogu every day of the week because Bam is basically the same size, was 8 or 10x as productive and is 3x as quick. Want someone to battle with Draymond Green in the paint and also switch onto Klay Thompson? Bam can do it.
The year prior, Skal Labissiere badly underperformed relative to high expectations. He slid all the way to #28. Even with his poor freshman year at UK, he was still a top-10 or so prospect in that draft. I mean -- Henry Ellenson? C'mon. By mid-season, Skal started looking really good. Now in a re-draft he'd go top 5.
People are evaluating prospects with inconsistent expectations. They're seeing what they want to see instead of seeing what's there.
