2019 Draft Discussion

[In2ition]

Watch on YouTube

Barkley's guard skills were evidently further along than Zion's but there's a lot of similarities

Evidently? Zion is a pretty good ball handler.

It's pretty good for someone his size but I thought Barkley's ball handling was much tighter. Subjective I suppose

You might be right about subjectivity, but I always thought that Barkley's dribbling was too high and he always was looking at the ball. Zion's is much tighter with some advanced dribbling without constantly looking down at the ball. Keep in mind that this is Barkley 3 years older than Zion too.

[ImNotMcDiSwear]

Evidently? Zion is a pretty good ball handler.

It's pretty good for someone his size but I thought Barkley's ball handling was much tighter. Subjective I suppose

You might be right about subjectivity, but I always thought that Barkley's dribbling was too high and he always was looking at the ball. Zion's is much tighter with some advanced dribbling without constantly looking down at the ball. Keep in mind that this is Barkley 3 years older than Zion too.

Yeah, right now my board consists of 1. Zion, 2. WGAF.

[jcsunsfan]

You look at Zion and his speed, athleticism, ball-handling and defense. That type of physical presence and domination is Barkley and LeBron like. If his shooting/scoring is good, he will have a chance at superstardom. All those things can be in place, but there also has to be something special between the ears--competitiveness, feel for the game, bball IQ and instincts.

[bwgood77]

It's pretty good for someone his size but I thought Barkley's ball handling was much tighter. Subjective I suppose

You might be right about subjectivity, but I always thought that Barkley's dribbling was too high and he always was looking at the ball. Zion's is much tighter with some advanced dribbling without constantly looking down at the ball. Keep in mind that this is Barkley 3 years older than Zion too.

Yeah, right now my board consists of 1. Zion, 2. WGAF.

Right now we are mocked to get him. 7 out of the top 8 are wings. http://www.tankathon.com/mock_draft

[ImNotMcDiSwear]

You might be right about subjectivity, but I always thought that Barkley's dribbling was too high and he always was looking at the ball. Zion's is much tighter with some advanced dribbling without constantly looking down at the ball. Keep in mind that this is Barkley 3 years older than Zion too.

Yeah, right now my board consists of 1. Zion, 2. WGAF.

Right now we are mocked to get him. 7 out of the top 8 are wings. http://www.tankathon.com/mock_draft

Doubt he'll fall that low, but we won't be picking that high unless Giannis has a season-ending injury.

[bwgood77]

Yeah, right now my board consists of 1. Zion, 2. WGAF.

Right now we are mocked to get him. 7 out of the top 8 are wings. http://www.tankathon.com/mock_draft

Doubt he'll fall that low, but we won't be picking that high unless Giannis has a season-ending injury.

We could. Even if we finish with more wins than expected and fall short of the playoffs, the top 4 picks are drawn now so we could jump from like 8 or 9 to 4. The 8th worst team has almost half as much chance as getting a top pick as the worst team (6% compared to 14%). 7th worst has 7.5%.

[Mischa]

Man Dukes freshman class is special to say the least. Reddish wasn’t playing in any of their three games this past week I believe, but Barrett and Williamson combined for 60 points.

Reddish will be interesting to see. He's the best high school kid I've seen play. He's like a tall Iverson in terms of quickness and shooting ability. I saw his Westtown team destroy LSU bound Nazir Reid and Roselle Catholic last summer. I kinda fell victim to the Zion W is a youtube highlight only vs a player, but seeing a bit of the other night (plus seeing a clip of him dunking from the free throw line) hes legit.

They all can fill it up, but the real question will be can these guys play solid enough defense against legit D1 teams (apologies to the Ryerson fans reading this) this year. Can they play man or do they stick with the last years hide Marvin 2-3 defense? My guess is they'll be able to by March but will have some hiccups in the early season.

[bwgood77]

This game against McGill University probably won't provide much of a test. They lost to Ole Miss by 41 and to the Bearcats by 26 in the last couple weeks.

[In2ition]

I'm cautiously optimistic about Duke this year, as they have all been enrolled and practicing early because of the trip to Canada. Unlike last season where they didn't have a trip and Bagley enrolled late. I think their defense will show much better, with a bunch of switchable defenders out there. Idk if they win the title, but they should show a bit of improvement over last year's team where Duval couldn't shoot, and they were exposed when playing man to man.

[Mischa]

^ Yep. While all these guys Duke brought in are very good players, I'm not sure that team has more "talent" than they had last year, and we saw what happened, largely because of the defensive end. If they can guard people, they'll be tough to stop, but at this point that's a big "if" until they show it. I think almost everyone would say that K is a better coach than Calipari but that's one area I think you have to give Cal the edge...he gets his team to play good to great defense every single year, despite the roster turnover. K has a lot of holes in that area.

[In2ition]

^ Yep. While all these guys Duke brought in are very good players, I'm not sure that team has more "talent" than they had last year, and we saw what happened, largely because of the defensive end. If they can guard people, they'll be tough to stop, but at this point that's a big "if" until they show it. I think almost everyone would say that K is a better coach than Calipari but that's one area I think you have to give Cal the edge...he gets his team to play good to great defense every single year, despite the roster turnover. K has a lot of holes in that area.

It's funny, K has always been a defense first type of coach and used to always have one of the best defenses year in and year out at Duke. It's changed quite a bit with the one and dones though.

Kentucky should have a very good team this year. The college basketball season is going to be interesting.

[bwgood77]

^ Yep. While all these guys Duke brought in are very good players, I'm not sure that team has more "talent" than they had last year, and we saw what happened, largely because of the defensive end. If they can guard people, they'll be tough to stop, but at this point that's a big "if" until they show it. I think almost everyone would say that K is a better coach than Calipari but that's one area I think you have to give Cal the edge...he gets his team to play good to great defense every single year, despite the roster turnover. K has a lot of holes in that area.

It's funny, K has always been a defense first type of coach and used to always have one of the best defenses year in and year out at Duke. It's changed quite a bit with the one and dones though.

Kentucky should have a very good team this year. The college basketball season is going to be interesting.

Cautiously optimistic about Duke? I mean that's like saying you're cautiously optimistic about the Warriors. Blasphemy!

This year's class is better I think...they got the top 3 guys. I know if they were all ranked in the same class Bagley may have been 1 but the three guys this year are probably 2-4 followed by Carter.

The biggest reason last year's team might have been better is because they had a 4 year center glue guy, great passer, savvy feisty defender, 3 pt shooter in Grayson Allen....and they lose that this year...not sure who their vet holdovers are.

[bwgood77]

Read on Twitter

[lilfishi22]

For such a big guy, he has a certain level of raw finesse (oxymoron, I know). As in, he has a finesse game that he has yet to find situations where he can consistently put it into action. If he can get that 3PT to fall, he'll be attacking closeouts like nothing we've seen outside of Lebron.