PaKii94 wrote:but he is! He's very similar to Jimmy in the regards of he is above average in everything and elite in very impactful things. He's in the 90th+ percentile for pretty much everything but shot creation ability. The following things are very vital in winning basketball games and he's 90th+ percentile in each:
-transition game
-very low turnover rate
-finishing at the rim
-any type of catch and shoot
-any type of defensive metric
Where do you get any of these percentile rankings?
My general thought it:
Transition - Good in transition is something that almost all guards are good at that make it to the NBA.
Finishing at the rim - This is great I guess, but his volume of attempts is very low, so his success rate has a lot less meaning.
Catch and shoot - Again, low volume of attempts
Defensive Metric - Agree he is really good (and elite in college), but think he will be worse at the NBA level because he's good due to skill that other guys will catch up to over time and not due to physical attributes (he's not awful there, but he's not a plus against NBA players while he is a plus against college players and the skill aspect has a lot more meaning now).
You also just ignored virtually everything that is important in offense. He's not a plus ball handler for a guard, he's a huge minus in terms of shot creation, he doesn't have a step back, pull up game, or any other pieces to the offense at all.
These things are all fine, again, he can be Bruce Bowen, a great defender that wasn't a beast athlete and could hit corner catch and shoot 3s, if you want to add decent transition player or guy who can score on cuts in there then be my guest (though I'm skeptical he will be anything special at all in the NBA at this skill, I don't think he'll be deficient either), but those are fringe plays that you can't rely on and don't add all that much value.
I think you are underrating his shooting. They weren't "the very easiest of attempts". Half of them were contested. Also I read he went from a 20% shooter HS to a 40%+ shooter in college. He has improved in that regards. And I think you are putting his shot down a bit too much. It DOES need work but it is nowhere near as broken as lamelos. He also shot 42% on midrange shots which were usually one-two dribble pullups.
The fact that he improved so much makes it far less likely that he'll ever get to a great level, because he's already put a ton of work into getting perfect muscle memory on that wonky form shot. I do think his form projects well for mid range shots to the extent that is important, but I don't think he has the all handling and other things necessary to shoot a lot, again, he didn't manage to do that in college as a sophomore no less.
Vassell is an efficient shooter and can shoot it from anywhere on the floor in a multitude of ways. He had an eFG% of 56.5% this year and shot over 41% from three. It doesn’t even matter what kind of shot it is either. Vassell is lethal in all scenarios where he shoots the ball. In the catch and shoot scenario, Vassell yields 1.22 points per possession (PPP), which is excellent at any level.
It’s not like Vassell was getting wide-open looks either. Just under 48% of his catch and shoot jump shots were contested. Of that 48%, he still converted a PPP over 1, which is ideal for a shooter. This shows that Vassell has put the work in to make his shot consistent, regardless of defense. That is something that every scout must love to see.
Good to hear, it would be good to put these in perspective against other prospects, but I don't know where you can get that type of data.
I am not advocating drafting for need. I am advocating drafting for talent and in that regards I do think vassell is the one to get. Just because a player isn't flashy doesn't mean he can't be valuable.
I think Vassell can be valuable. I think he's a likely NBA rotation player. Just not someone high up in the rotation and someone who has limited value. He can be a starter if he's the 4th or 5th best guy and more of a glue guy / niche guy or a bench player. I'd project him having a ceiling as slightly above the MLE and a floor of a vet min guy that's a deep bench guy.
As far as "providing among the least amount of offense as any prospect in the draft", you don't think it could have anything to do with FSU's equal opportunity offense? On a per possession basis Vassell leads the pack along with advanced team metrics. Vassell knows how to pick and prod the game to his will. He's not going to be a volume chucker because he knows that doesn't help the team.
Could be, I don't know anything about FSU or the offense they play and wouldn't pretend to know. I know that I've watched a lot of videos on him and he doesn't look like he has NBA offense and his numbers don't back up that he has NBA offense. That might all prove wrong due to personal improvement, the fact that the youtube scouting rabbit hole isn't always meaningful, or my own idiocy of course.
What??? How can you even believe that lol. Sure it can be developed to a certain extent from being bad to being around average but elite defense isn't something that is learned. It is ingrained in instinct and Vassell has that it factor. He will definitely be competing for all-defense NBA teams and honestly once he puts on some mass I wouldn't be surprised if he's in the running for DPOY. His defense is THAT good.
Who are the DPOY guard candidates that don't have elite athleticism. I think that list is probably about zero names long, so maybe Vassell will be the first, but I generally assume when something goes heavily against the grain that I'm going to bet on it continuing to do so rather than betting on it to switch.
The athletic bar for defense in the NBA is ridiculously higher than in college and skill is the skill threshold of all the guys goes way up. Maybe I'm selling Vassell's athletlicism too short though, and he'll be better here than I credit.
But anyway, who are these freak athletes that developed into elite defenders?? I can't think of any that didn't have a rep for defense that miraculously became all-nba.
Kobe and LeBron would be the first two that come to mind. While he didn't make an all defense team, Derrick Rose was another guy who went from god awful on defense to someone I thought was quite good in his ACL injury year, and I think was on his way to becoming a great defender prior to injury.
but you should believe in vassell's shot! I don't expect him to be pulling up from everywhere but Vassell definitely will have more gravity than Okoro. Players won't be sagging off of him. As far as Okoro's game goes, I like him, but not as much as Vassell. Okoro reminds me of Marcus smart in that he's a bulldog of a player. High intensity. Vassell is more cerebral. More like a predator.
Okoro's style of defense, to me, is ridiculously more valuable in the NBA than Vassell's. You need someone to lock up a non athletic player, then Vassell's your guy.
My view on Vassell's game is that everything else outside of shot creation is star level. We don't need shot creation ability for him to provide that impact. Let him develop his offensive game in the background. If he does, that's the cherry on top and we have a superstar on our hands, if he doesn't, we still have a near all-star level impact player that does all the little things the team desperately needs.
You might as well just say Vassell's game outside of 90% of what makes someone great on offense is star level. In that 90% of what makes you good on offense, he's kind of trash, but in the other 10% of stuff that virtually anyone in the NBA can do (run in transition, make an occasional cut, hit an open jump shot) he can be really good. Who is the wing who is basically a zero in shot creation that's a top 50 player?
As far as "he's still not going to be a match for sheer athletes." I will acknowledge his deficiencies as still scrawny (lack of strength) and low FT drawing rate (which I think is somewhat related to lack of strength). However, I believe he has a very good frame to put on muscle and still be agile. I definitely do think he will have enough mass/length to defend current NBA wings/stars. He's not a jump out of the gym athlete but he's not a plodding big either. I would say he's a 85 percentile athlete who is more fluidity than explosion.
You think he's more athletic than 85% of the wings in the NBA? If he is, then sure, I'd like him a lot more. I don't think that's true though, but if it is, then I'm significantly underrating his athleticism and that's good cause for the outrade in our opinions.
If he doesn't put on muscle, obviously his ceiling is quite a bit lower. But from going into his background, he also is in the underrated underdog gym rat mold of late blooming 2-way stars (giannis, jimmy, kawhi, PG)...very low ranked coming out of HS, barely played as a freshman, developed his shot/game/body enough to be the top contributor on a high winning team in a strong program sophomore year.
so I do expect him to continue to put in the work.
I expect him to put on plenty of muscle if he tries. Almost everyone does that. I don't even consider it a weakness among draft prospects unless they're like 150lbs or something ridiculously stupid.
Think its misleading when people name three superstars that have a similar (and uncommon) path, you want to go look up probably 1,000 players that fit this profile that didn't become stars and name them instead? I mean all of those other guys you named are much better athletes than Vassell IMO.