grant101 wrote:REJECTEDBYCLARK wrote:grant101 wrote:
I like Smith's toughness, passing and strength more, so I think he has a better chance of making it. That said, I'm super wary of small guards with sub-par athleticism. My track record for picking which ones makes it is very bad (I was super high on Jared Butler, liked Flynn, less high on Pritchard, thought Colin Gillespie had a shot, etc. etc.), so I avoid them altogether. For every exception there are sooooooo many star college guards that don't pan out. It's a crapshoot. I think Braden gets drafted (or is at worst among the first to get offered a SL invite), but I'm not at all confident he can hang athletically. The bar for small guards in the NBA is very high.
smith's wingspan as measured by purdue clears all of those guys
it's not entirely correct to classify him as a small guard if his ht/ws ratio and hand size comes back as v good
which is why combine measurements will be quite important for him
Could be, but his wingspan is at most +5, which would make is 6'5. Good, not great - especially for someone with his level of athleticism. I think that if he makes it, it's cause of his poise, BBIQ and ability to run an offence, with enough scrappiness to hold-up defensively. Kinda like Tyus Jones.
very rare to find a +5 among small guards, i don't think he's a horrible athlete either. in fact the term i used with my friend to describe smith's movement is that he "glides" on the court. decent blend of agility and playing under control. against all odds he has found a way to perform against guys who are bigger and stronger. i can't take that away from him just because of his dimensions on paper, production speaks for itself. with guys like reed there actually was and still is the concern that he doesn't have good enough functional strength or ability to generate P+A volume against bigger players.
even though small guards need to find more ways to compensate to stick you also have teams overdrafting long players with low levels of hooperism based almost exclusively off of obsession with dimensions. i completely omitted risacher, williams, salaun and others from my t20 for a reason. at the end of the day the goal is to identify which players are legit regardless of their stature.
the most obvious studs are the ones who blend athleticism with efficiency and athletic production markers but once those guys are off the board you just have to accept lots of flaws here or there and try to find the guys who can overcome them. in a year like this one sifting through the garbage i think smith could be at least a very good backup pg and increases in his ability to generate 3PT volume over time could make him more.
production/profile wise he is not far off from wichita FVV but the big difference really is just in body-type. fred was and is a thick boy with very good functional strength. how smith's physical profile impacts his ability to translate is up in the air for me because he's slightly unique given how he produces, but at the very least i think there's no issue becoming stud backup PG and maybe more.
i would have liked smith's FTr to be higher but his .442 ftr over 1061 mins as a freshman, rebounding totals and career dbpm give me a ton of hope for him. and it's not a propped up dbpm like jamal shead's was in kelvin sampson's system. smith is legitimately a good defender. well jamal is too but every houston player's metrics get boosted - look at LJ Cryer from baylor to now.
Would definitely take everything someone like that says with a grain of salt going forward.