drsd wrote:MagicFan101 wrote:Sure.
But when they drafted Giannis he was a guy announcers pointed to on draft nights as the freak who could change the league ... or never see a minute of playing time.
No one is talking about any of these guys with that kind of potential. That is all I’m saying. There is no such player in this class with incredible hype around them but enough flaws that they might be available.
Sure, players like Draymond Green and Gilbert Arenas go overlooked all the time and someone outplays their draft slot. That’s a different scenario.
Any scouting on Théo Maledon?
He is in the mid-teen on some backs, but I know nothing of his game.
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If he is still available, Magic should draft him. That my opinion, and let me talk about last 3 seasons with ASVEL.
Background
France has two Big prospects born in 2001. Killian Hayes from Cholet (his father played for Cholet) and Théo Malédon from Rouen (Parker grew up in the same area). Hayes stayed home in Cholet. Cholet is not a rich club, but a real "prospects factory" (Rigaudeau, Gélabale, De Colo, Beaubois, Séraphin, Gobert). Malédon went to ASVEL, Tony's Parker Club.
2017-2018
At 16 Malédon and Hayes played in "Espoirs". This is U21 teams from professionnal clubs. Most of french professional played in this championship. Hayes became MVP by far, and Malédon was the next one. That was a great performance from so young players. Malédon also few played few minutes with ASVEL pro team.
2018-2019
Everybody is expexting Hayes' show at beginning of the season, but instead of this we had Malédon's show with ASVEL thé best french team. Unfortunately, Hayes' team was quickly too weak, and you can't tank in european championships, or you may go down to a lower championship. So bye bye Hayes'development, welcome experienced players. Meanwhile, Malédon showed Real abilities to lead his team and scoring, and thus in Jeep Elite and Eurocup. He was clearly the best 2001 propesct for all Europe. He even knew french national team, but was not ready for a World cup. For comparaison, he was more interesting than Élie Okobo, a guy who already played into NBA.
2019-2020
Hayes chose a weak Eurocup team with the aim to make stats for draft. So he became a top propesct while making si much turnovers. You can't imagine Mitrovic -ASVEL's coach- allowing Malédon doing this. Malédon has to fit in coach's system ans perferctly do it.
First week of octobre he get a violent hit on his shoulder. ASVEL chose to be very careful, injury is not that serious, but need to rest, and Tony Parker would had never accept any risk with futur France NT point guard. Late october, without Malédon, Mitrovic launched Matthew Strazel (born in 2002), who scored 9 points for his first Euroleague game. When Malédon Came back, ASVEL met a kind of rookie wall as a new Euroleague team, and Mitrovic could not send back Strazel to Espoirs. So there had 4 PGs (so Malédon, Strazel, Jordan Taylor and Antoine Diot, a real injury prone, but former Parker substitue with France, a good Euroleague players when healrhy). Late february, early marche, record is not getting better for ASVEL, but there is some tough games versus great teams like Barcelona, and Malédon was on the good path before lockdown.
But people expected a lot from him, and didn't pay attention to circumstances, or to the fact that Euroleague is really a higher level than Eurocup. So he went down in mock draft this year. Considering circumstances and the fact Parker says that he does really fit more with NBA than Euroleague, I think he should still be a top 15 or even a top 10 pick. Hype was not on him that year, that's it. But I Hope that GM's and scouts do their job as well as possible, and that he won't be available for Magic.
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