clyde21 wrote:jman3134 wrote:Proving a negative is a frivolous pursuit - that the NCAA tournament is NOT weighed when evaluating prospects. To do this, I would have to have every team's draft board pre tournament. Or we can look at ESPN's as a proxy (assuming they actually are doing their jobs and talking to scouts, which I'm not sure about) and see Mathurin move into the top 10 (which to be fair to you should have happened pre tournament anyway). Somehow my argument is being strawmanned as "NBA prospect A became a prospect because of his unblemished NCAA tournament performance and eventual national championship." That is a far different statement than "these games don't matter."
I'll just note that all these NCAA tournament games are irrelevant and Ben Mathurin and Ivey will not jump into your top 5-7.
Don't really have a need to prove any of this to you because players like Davion Mitchell getting drafted #9 overall last year (not 2007) mean this is an obvious part of the process for better or for worse.
i don't think it's weighted at all for blue chip prospects, specifically for FS/Soph, it's approached differently for upperclassmen but that's a different discussion entirely.
again, we have a history of proving NO correlation between tournament success and NBA success.
Deandre Ayton laid a monstrous egg in his 1 tournament game - still went #1 overall, meanwhile Bagley averaged 21/8 and shot 70% over 4 games and went 2nd, and guess who's been better in the NBA? didn't matter for scouts and definitely didn't matter in the NBA.
not sure how many cases I have to throw out here to disprove this logic.
I still don't think you see what I am saying. 1 or 2 games do not negate the whole of the overall profile or establish a "new top prospect". The sample size is too small for that. No one is saying that. Nor is anyone saying that it is more important than all regular season games combined. I explained that multiple times.
You cherry picking examples and playing the false equivalency game does next to nothing to dispel what I am saying (because even though you think you are "proving me wrong", we both lack the data concerning where players ranked on NBA teams' draft boards before and after the tournament). Ayton was the surefire number 1 pick before and after a bad game in the tournament. Did his wingspan shrink from 7'6 to 6'7 postgame? And I stated pretty clearly that what I am saying is *most* applicable for guards and wings.
The first statement you made was that it means next to nothing. And now I have you at next to nothing for blue chips. I'll play though. The guys you are citing are the cream of the crop, who you already know what you are getting and the tournament does little for. The NCAA tournament has raised some blue chips over others. Here are some late rising "blue chips" without the projectible profile, who used the tournament to solidify their case.
Here are last years:
Jeremiah Robinson-Earl - definitely did something to solidify himself as an early second round pick. 5 star recruit without the obvious physical advantages/projectible NBA body who had to continue to prove his skillset at the highest stage. Against Baylor, he was efficient but not great. But, he left a solid impression with his overall performance. Probably killed the interviews too because he is mentally head and shoulders more mature and intelligent basketball wise than most of the class.
Joshua Primo - 4 star had a good game against Maryland in the NCAAs in a supporting role. Then he is taken out of his system and kills it at the combine and suddenly he is a high draft pick.
You could also make the case that Jalen Suggs improved his stock considerably in the tournament for him to go over Kuminga, though he was also excellent in the regular season. This is a useless conversation once again because none of us have the draft boards of NBA teams pre tournament to even make this assessment.
Bad overall season, and he also did not play in the tournament - BJ Boston goes from a projected mid-late 1st round pick by most pre tournament to a 2nd rounder come draft time. Same solid physical profile and projectible skillset. I agreed with you that the downgrade was not warranted, but the nature of UK as a dumpster fire team missing the NCAA tournament impacted his stock. For every Anthony Edwards/Ben Simmons whose team stinks and they flash and put up numbers/have obvious projectible skillsets, there is a BJ Boston, who stinks it up during the year and people sour on him. And not showing progression clearly impacted his stock.
And you citing the MOP of the tournament just goes to show that you are not interested in seriously discussing this. That is like throwing out college regular season ppg numbers and then stating, "look how high Tyler Hansbrough and Luka Garza are on this list. Regular season games must be irrelevant for draft stock."
