Shaedon Sharpe - Kentucky

[The-Power]

Sharpe is gone, he's almost guaranteed to be a top 5 pick without a single dribble on the court, and it means he get's his 2nd contract one year sooner, same with his 3rd and 4th, people still don't realize just how much of a difference this actually makes to someone expecting to make max $ in the NBA at some pt

what's the upside exactly in staying a year at Kentucky at this point?

Not just that – he could also have a poor season or get injured. A player's stock can fall pretty dramatically. Just ask the most recent hyped Kentucky prospect who went from possible top 5 pick in the summer of 2020 to late 2nd-rounder in 2021: Brandon Boston Jr. Just declare and take the guaranteed millions on a team with great incentives to let you play and develop.

[GSWFan1994]

Sharpe is gone, he's almost guaranteed to be a top 5 pick without a single dribble on the court, and it means he get's his 2nd contract one year sooner, same with his 3rd and 4th, people still don't realize just how much of a difference this actually makes to someone expecting to make max $ in the NBA at some pt

what's the upside exactly in staying a year at Kentucky at this point?

But, but... his "mentor" said he has never lied!

[CptCrunch]

Despite Cal's shortcoming as a coach, Cal usually pushes his kids to go pro. The guy is running a pre-NBA prep shop there and afaik has his player's NBA interest in mind. I have no doubt Sharpe will go pro against his mentor's wills.

[Hal14]

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[Duke4life831]

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I feel bad for any UK fan that actually believes he is going to be there next year.

[Ell Curry]

Let's be conservative and say he's the 7th pick behind the Big 3, Ivey, Davis and one other (Griffin?).

Has anyone come back to school since like Tim Duncan when they projected that high? What's the highest someone has been draft projected and come back? Miles Bridges was probably gonna go in the low teens I think?

[Duke4life831]

Let's be conservative and say he's the 7th pick behind the Big 3, Ivey, Davis and one other (Griffin?).

Has anyone come back to school since like Tim Duncan when they projected that high? What's the highest someone has been draft projected and come back? Miles Bridges was probably gonna go in the low teens I think?

Miles Bridges, Harrison Barnes, and McAdoo are the two most recent that come to mind.

Just from a draft perspective, Barnes dropped the least. He went from looking like a top 3-5 pick to dropping to 7th the next year. Bridges was looking like he was in that 6th-8th pick range after his freshman year, dropped to 12th the next year. McAdoo is basically the worst case scenario. Was viewed as a late top 10 pick after his freshman year, ended up staying 3 years and went undrafted.

Blake Griffin is probably the last guy that I can recall (I'm sure there is another one), who was considered an elite recruit coming out of high school (top 15, 5 star), was considered a lotto pick after his freshman year. Then came back and drastically improved his draft stock.

Most of the time the guys usually drop or stay within the same range and that ends up being a waste because they just push back a year of getting an NBA salary and push back getting to that 2nd contract by a year.

So ya in other words, I see no positives for Sharpe to come back and that is why he wont come back. Cal and everyone are only saying this so the UK fan base doesnt turn on him at the moment. Again I think this was no doubt a mutual agreement between Cal and Sharpe.

Sharpe gets to cash in on some NIL cash, gets to workout at a top tier training facility, practice against other high end players. Then for Cal he gets to go out on the recruiting trail talking about the UK recruiting momentum on how he landed the #1 recruit and gets to include Sharpe in his "UK players that went top 5-10 in the draft".

[Im Your Father]

Let's be conservative and say he's the 7th pick behind the Big 3, Ivey, Davis and one other (Griffin?).

Has anyone come back to school since like Tim Duncan when they projected that high? What's the highest someone has been draft projected and come back? Miles Bridges was probably gonna go in the low teens I think?

Miles Bridges, Harrison Barnes, and McAdoo are the two most recent that come to mind.

Just from a draft perspective, Barnes dropped the least. He went from looking like a top 3-5 pick to dropping to 7th the next year. Bridges was looking like he was in that 6th-8th pick range after his freshman year, dropped to 12th the next year. McAdoo is basically the worst case scenario. Was viewed as a late top 10 pick after his freshman year, ended up staying 3 years and went undrafted.

Blake Griffin is probably the last guy that I can recall (I'm sure there is another one), who was considered an elite recruit coming out of high school (top 15, 5 star), was considered a lotto pick after his freshman year. Then came back and drastically improved his draft stock.

Most of the time the guys usually drop or stay within the same range and that ends up being a waste because they just push back a year of getting an NBA salary and push back getting to that 2nd contract by a year.

So ya in other words, I see no positives for Sharpe to come back and that is why he wont come back. Cal and everyone are only saying this so the UK fan base doesnt turn on him at the moment. Again I think this was no doubt a mutual agreement between Cal and Sharpe.

Sharpe gets to cash in on some NIL cash, gets to workout at a top tier training facility, practice against other high end players. Then for Cal he gets to go out on the recruiting trail talking about the UK recruiting momentum on how he landed the #1 recruit and gets to include Sharpe in his "UK players that went top 5-10 in the draft".

Jay Williams in 2001 as well.

[Duke4life831]

Let's be conservative and say he's the 7th pick behind the Big 3, Ivey, Davis and one other (Griffin?).

Has anyone come back to school since like Tim Duncan when they projected that high? What's the highest someone has been draft projected and come back? Miles Bridges was probably gonna go in the low teens I think?

Miles Bridges, Harrison Barnes, and McAdoo are the two most recent that come to mind.

Just from a draft perspective, Barnes dropped the least. He went from looking like a top 3-5 pick to dropping to 7th the next year. Bridges was looking like he was in that 6th-8th pick range after his freshman year, dropped to 12th the next year. McAdoo is basically the worst case scenario. Was viewed as a late top 10 pick after his freshman year, ended up staying 3 years and went undrafted.

Blake Griffin is probably the last guy that I can recall (I'm sure there is another one), who was considered an elite recruit coming out of high school (top 15, 5 star), was considered a lotto pick after his freshman year. Then came back and drastically improved his draft stock.

Most of the time the guys usually drop or stay within the same range and that ends up being a waste because they just push back a year of getting an NBA salary and push back getting to that 2nd contract by a year.

So ya in other words, I see no positives for Sharpe to come back and that is why he wont come back. Cal and everyone are only saying this so the UK fan base doesnt turn on him at the moment. Again I think this was no doubt a mutual agreement between Cal and Sharpe.

Sharpe gets to cash in on some NIL cash, gets to workout at a top tier training facility, practice against other high end players. Then for Cal he gets to go out on the recruiting trail talking about the UK recruiting momentum on how he landed the #1 recruit and gets to include Sharpe in his "UK players that went top 5-10 in the draft".

Jay Williams in 2001 as well.

Ya but we're going way pre OAD era at that point. Even Blake was before the huge OAD wave which really began to take off around 2010 when Cal went to UK.

[Ell Curry]

Blake had some injuries too.

Sharpe hasn't played college, so I think his risk at coming back is higher. What if he's just good as a freshman like Ivey was and he isn't really, really good. Could drop to the late first.

[Duke4life831]

Blake had some injuries too.

Sharpe hasn't played college, so I think his risk at coming back is higher. What if he's just good as a freshman like Ivey was and he isn't really, really good. Could drop to the late first.

Ya it's just not worth it. Say he goes 5th this year. Going off of the salary numbers from last year's draft. There's a 16 million dollar difference for the life of the rookie contract between 5th and #1.

Like okay that's a sizable difference. But you still get to that 2nd contract a year sooner. So there's that big positive and again you run the risk of not climbing in the draft and either staying put or dropping.

It's just financially not worth it at all.

[azcatz11]

Blake had some injuries too.

Sharpe hasn't played college, so I think his risk at coming back is higher. What if he's just good as a freshman like Ivey was and he isn't really, really good. Could drop to the late first.

Ya it's just not worth it. Say he goes 5th this year. Going off of the salary numbers from last year's draft. There's a 16 million dollar difference for the life of the rookie contract between 5th and #1.

Like okay that's a sizable difference. But you still get to that 2nd contract a year sooner. So there's that big positive and again you run the risk of not climbing in the draft and either staying put or dropping.

It's just financially not worth it at all.

Yeah - makes no sense. Look at Wiseman as a textbook example. Dude played well his first few games and secured that draft slot. If he didn’t play well the rest of the season he would’ve dropped.

What’s the phrase? The unknown is normally more enticing than the known or something along those lines

[Im Your Father]

Miles Bridges, Harrison Barnes, and McAdoo are the two most recent that come to mind.

Just from a draft perspective, Barnes dropped the least. He went from looking like a top 3-5 pick to dropping to 7th the next year. Bridges was looking like he was in that 6th-8th pick range after his freshman year, dropped to 12th the next year. McAdoo is basically the worst case scenario. Was viewed as a late top 10 pick after his freshman year, ended up staying 3 years and went undrafted.

Blake Griffin is probably the last guy that I can recall (I'm sure there is another one), who was considered an elite recruit coming out of high school (top 15, 5 star), was considered a lotto pick after his freshman year. Then came back and drastically improved his draft stock.

Most of the time the guys usually drop or stay within the same range and that ends up being a waste because they just push back a year of getting an NBA salary and push back getting to that 2nd contract by a year.

So ya in other words, I see no positives for Sharpe to come back and that is why he wont come back. Cal and everyone are only saying this so the UK fan base doesnt turn on him at the moment. Again I think this was no doubt a mutual agreement between Cal and Sharpe.

Sharpe gets to cash in on some NIL cash, gets to workout at a top tier training facility, practice against other high end players. Then for Cal he gets to go out on the recruiting trail talking about the UK recruiting momentum on how he landed the #1 recruit and gets to include Sharpe in his "UK players that went top 5-10 in the draft".

Jay Williams in 2001 as well.

Ya but we're going way pre OAD era at that point. Even Blake was before the huge OAD wave which really began to take off around 2010 when Cal went to UK.

Oh yeah, agreed. It wasn't seen as insane that he came back at the time, although it was definitely notable.

I was thinking more in terms of the "since Tim Duncan" comment.

[Hal14]

ok, so assuming he doesn't play for Kentucky at all this season but he does declare for the draft in 2022. Then what? If you're an NBA team, how do you evaluate/rank him on your big board? I suppose pre-draft workouts will be crucial for him.

But how are you supposed to know whether to pick him 1st or pick him 8th?

The other guys projected to go in the top 10, we have more footage. Footage that is of more recent competition and footage vs better competition than high schoolers. We have more stats to go off.

It's like trying to evaluate a kid right out of HS. Sure, we had guys like Garnett, Lebron, T-Mac and Kobe who did that, but:

a) There were just as many busts (if not more) with kids going straight from HS to pros. Do you take Sharpe no. 1 because you don't want to miss out on the next Kobe/LeBron/tmac or do you pass on him no. 1 because you don't want to pick the next Kwame Brown?

b) back in the days of lebron/garnett/tmac/kobe, there was a handful of guys in every draft class going from HS to the pros so we were better able to judge how good those high schoolers were because we could compare them to each other - and sometimes they would play against each other in HS/AAU competition. In a draft of 60 players, it's much harder to evaluate the HS kid when there's 1 HS to the pros kid vs 59 kids out of college than it is to evaluate 5-10 HS to the pros kids vs 50-55 college kids.

IDK, I can see maybe Sharpe falls to pick 6 or 7 because teams view the college kids as safer picks since they've already proven a full year of elite performance vs college competition. After all, we don't know how good Sharpe would be if he was playing college ball right now - would his stock plummet like BJ Boston last yr? Patrick Baldwin, Caleb Houston, Peyton Watson and Jaden Hardy are all guys in the 2022 draft class who were seen by many as top 10 picks before this season started - now consensus has all of them out of the lottery - would the same thing have happened to Sharpe if he played this season at Kentucky? If so, does that concern/risk cause Sharpe to fall out of the top 5, out of the top 10 or even out of the lottery?

Or do scouts fall in love with what they see in his HS film and Sharpe kills it at some predraft workouts that he goes no. 1? After all, the other guys in the top 5 all have noticeable warts:

Chet is too skinny so he won't hold up to physicality of NBA season over the course of 82 games,
Paolo isn't a great shooter, not super fast, not a great defender, really good player but is he really dominating at duke like you'd expect from a no. 1 pick?
Jabari settling for jumpers because he can't get to the rim and struggling to finish at the rim, not a great handle
Ivey at only 6'4", undersized at the 2 guard spot, is he that good that it makes sense to pick a 6'4" guy no. 1? Also not much of a mid range game, not much off the dribble other than straight line drives, sometimes issues with being engaged defensively
Griffin - lacking the athleticism to play above the rim very much, you'd like to see more explosiveness off the dribble and better lateral quickness defensively, doesn't jump like at all on his shot, all of which likely tie back to long injury history

Is Sharpe the only projected top pick with no warts? Or does it just seem that way cause he's the only one who hasn't faced elite competition yet?

[BostonCouchGM]

If Sharpe is choosing to not play when he could and is still going pro after this season, then that's not a good look. I want kids that love the game and want to play. I don't care how talented he is. He's automatically behind all the kids that DID play who are in the same talent tier

[MemphisX]

If Sharpe is choosing to not play when he could and is still going pro after this season, then that's not a good look. I want kids that love the game and want to play. I don't care how talented he is. He's automatically behind all the kids that DID play who are in the same talent tier

[babyjax13]

Let's be conservative and say he's the 7th pick behind the Big 3, Ivey, Davis and one other (Griffin?).

Has anyone come back to school since like Tim Duncan when they projected that high? What's the highest someone has been draft projected and come back? Miles Bridges was probably gonna go in the low teens I think?

Miles Bridges, Harrison Barnes, and McAdoo are the two most recent that come to mind.

Just from a draft perspective, Barnes dropped the least. He went from looking like a top 3-5 pick to dropping to 7th the next year. Bridges was looking like he was in that 6th-8th pick range after his freshman year, dropped to 12th the next year. McAdoo is basically the worst case scenario. Was viewed as a late top 10 pick after his freshman year, ended up staying 3 years and went undrafted.

Blake Griffin is probably the last guy that I can recall (I'm sure there is another one), who was considered an elite recruit coming out of high school (top 15, 5 star), was considered a lotto pick after his freshman year. Then came back and drastically improved his draft stock.

Most of the time the guys usually drop or stay within the same range and that ends up being a waste because they just push back a year of getting an NBA salary and push back getting to that 2nd contract by a year.

So ya in other words, I see no positives for Sharpe to come back and that is why he wont come back. Cal and everyone are only saying this so the UK fan base doesnt turn on him at the moment. Again I think this was no doubt a mutual agreement between Cal and Sharpe.

Sharpe gets to cash in on some NIL cash, gets to workout at a top tier training facility, practice against other high end players. Then for Cal he gets to go out on the recruiting trail talking about the UK recruiting momentum on how he landed the #1 recruit and gets to include Sharpe in his "UK players that went top 5-10 in the draft".

Ivey seems like an example this year. He probably would have gone late lottery (I had him just behind the 'consensus' top 5 and in the group w/Barnes, Keon Johnson, Jalen Johnson - obviously I was very wrong about where the latter two would end up) and this year he is going top 5, with a (very) outside shot of going first.

[babyjax13]

If Sharpe is choosing to not play when he could and is still going pro after this season, then that's not a good look. I want kids that love the game and want to play. I don't care how talented he is. He's automatically behind all the kids that DID play who are in the same talent tier

I mean, what's laughable about that statement? "he's automatically behind all the kids that DID play who are in the same talent tier," I feel that way about every player who takes the easy way out to avoid the spotlight and possible failure. I think it's pretty reasonable to have doubts about Sharpe relative to say ... Mathurin and Davis. The same goes for Montero relative to whoever is in his tier, being nice, we can call that TyTy Washington, Kennedy Chandler, and JD Davison (although I'd feel more sure about Caleb Love, as well). EYBL, high school, etc. all counts for something, but there are plenty of players who went the next level up and failed, and while Sharpe probably would/will be great at the college level, there is the outside chance that he would/will disappoint. So, personally, I'd have a hard time taking him above Mathurin and Davis, not to mention Ivey, unless he had just incredible workouts that involved matching up w/his peers.

[Hal14]

If Sharpe is choosing to not play when he could and is still going pro after this season, then that's not a good look. I want kids that love the game and want to play. I don't care how talented he is. He's automatically behind all the kids that DID play who are in the same talent tier

I mean, what's laughable about that statement? "he's automatically behind all the kids that DID play who are in the same talent tier," I feel that way about every player who takes the easy way out to avoid the spotlight and possible failure. I think it's pretty reasonable to have doubts about Sharpe relative to say ... Mathurin and Davis. The same goes for Montero relative to whoever is in his tier, being nice, we can call that TyTy Washington, Kennedy Chandler, and JD Davison (although I'd feel more sure about Caleb Love, as well). EYBL, high school, etc. all counts for something, but there are plenty of players who went the next level up and failed, and while Sharpe probably would/will be great at the college level, there is the outside chance that he would/will disappoint. So, personally, I'd have a hard time taking him above Mathurin and Davis, not to mention Ivey, unless he had just incredible workouts that involved matching up w/his peers.

Exactly. I've got Sharpe no. 8 right now, behind davis and Mathurin.

I was digging in to some Sharpe game film (both from HS and EYBL) and while there's the occasional eye popping play, there was also some stuff that made me shake my head and think "this guy isn't even that good" like some careless passes, lackluster defense and overall lack of motor/intensity/hustle.

I'm tempted to move him down even further than 8th..I mean, how do we not know he would have done any better vs college/g league competition than Hardy/Baldwin/Houstan/Watson/Boston ?

[MemphisX]

If Sharpe is choosing to not play when he could and is still going pro after this season, then that's not a good look. I want kids that love the game and want to play. I don't care how talented he is. He's automatically behind all the kids that DID play who are in the same talent tier

I mean, what's laughable about that statement? "he's automatically behind all the kids that DID play who are in the same talent tier," I feel that way about every player who takes the easy way out to avoid the spotlight and possible failure. I think it's pretty reasonable to have doubts about Sharpe relative to say ... Mathurin and Davis. The same goes for Montero relative to whoever is in his tier, being nice, we can call that TyTy Washington, Kennedy Chandler, and JD Davison (although I'd feel more sure about Caleb Love, as well). EYBL, high school, etc. all counts for something, but there are plenty of players who went the next level up and failed, and while Sharpe probably would/will be great at the college level, there is the outside chance that he would/will disappoint. So, personally, I'd have a hard time taking him above Mathurin and Davis, not to mention Ivey, unless he had just incredible workouts that involved matching up w/his peers.

You do know NBA teams evaluate players as soon as they hit the scene. There was scouting when HS players were able to enter the draft. There are players who sat out their entire freshman season that were drafted. To blindly say a prospect is behind other prospects simply because he didn't play this season is laughable.,