SmoothLefty21 wrote:cgf wrote:SmoothLefty21 wrote:If we screw ourselves over once again and pick in the 8-10 range, give me James Bouknight. Dude's stock will continue to rise and is probably the sleeper of the draft right now. He reminds me of Jamal Murray but he's a better athlete. Insane body control and an explosive leaper. He had 40/5/2 with five triples against Creighton this afternoon.
He's another kid I like but not that high. Between the top 4 (Cade, Green, Mobley & Suggs); the elite wings (Kuminga / Ziaire / Boston) & the playmaking PFs (Barnes & Jalen Johnson); you've already got 9 prospects that Bouknight will have a tough time surpassing.
He's more in that late lotto mix with the Tennessee guards (Springer & Keon Johnson), Moody, Clarke, Christopher, Garuba, Brown, etc...and I think if anyone from that group solidifies themselves as top 10 picks in this class it'll be one of the UT guards because both have really interesting potential if their shooting comes along, or Moody as a plug-n-play 3&D guy.
Age makes things murky but I'm not sold on Boston or Ziare or Jalen Johnson over him yet but that's because I think Bouknight's playmaking potential is greater than many scouts think, though he is up to #10 in a few mocks. I know those players are the consensus choice over him right now but I need to see more. Bouk will probably end up going in the 11-15 range but teams make mistakes every year. I do really like Keon Johnson.
Fair enough. I love Ziaire...as this thread has probably made clear by now
...so I have a tough time seeing him fall out of the top 10; the package of length, athleticism, shooting, intelligence & playmaking is just too high caliber to fall out of the top 10; even if Stanford keeps him in a secondary/tertiary ball-handler role all season.Boston is a victim of the team around him...as he's not as ready to run an offense as some of his bigger fans were hoping he'd be...but has still shown off tools that it's hard for me to see no one in the top 10 being willing to gamble on, even if this Kentucky squad never gets their s*** together.
And even though I'm skeptical of JJ's ability to keep up with high caliber NBA wings on the perimeter & he needs to continue progressing with his jumper; I have a tough time seeing him not going top 10 as well...he just pushes so many buttons that teams typically love on draft night.
While Bouknight is the kind of prospect that seems to usually go lower than hindsight would say they should have because their star potential was under-estimated...a la Donovan Mitchell, which is kinda the path I'm expecting from him. Unlikely to be as good as Mitchell has turned out to be, but I can certainly see Bouknight going in the late lottery and having a good shot at ROY if he lands with his version of the Hayward-less Jazz.
