nolang1 wrote:King Ken wrote:Fr3yr wrote:Cole Anthony doesn't seem to be even 50% the athlete people were hyping him up to be. He is skilled, yet he has not shown much explosivness and is first step is above average at best. He seems crafty and a great shooter with good handles and IQ, but his passing was nothing spectacular. Overall, the point guards in this draft do not seem as special as they were said to be.
His AAU athleticism hasn't translated and didn't at Oak Hill for me. That said, he is crafty and swifty like Trae Young but his shooting form is pure and he already has tremendous instincts which we saw in HS.
I don't know if he is a 10 apg guy but no one on this level will stop him. His energy level is crazy good too.
I am team Edwards #1 overall but Anthony might be the best player in this class. I just think Edwards has the upsides. I love Wiseman but man, he looks like a blend of Myles Turner and JJJ. Not sure that's a top 5 pick in today's NBA when you got Isaiah Joe, Anthony, Ball, Edwards and Maxey.
Maxey can be the future modern Gary Payton
Edwards can be a superstar to me. He got it all for a combo guard. He will need time but he got extreme potential.
Ball is another that will need time but like Edwards, he got extreme potential
Joe 6'5 who can shoot for everywhere, with elite volume and moves exceptionally well. Ray Allen tease?
I love Wiseman's floor but his ceiling just isn't elite to me. You basically rocking with him due to his high floor
His skill is he runs the floor exceptionally well, kinda like Jaxson Hayes
Anthony has always been a great rebounder for a guard (would not be surprised for him to finish the season around 8-10 rebounds per 40, especially because UNC isn't as stocked with big frontcourt players as it's been in recent years), and you can't do that without at least some athleticism. He's certainly comparable to Kyrie on the athleticism front and will be a better defender than that. What I like about his game is that usually when you say someone's a 'combo guard' it just means they're an undersized shooting guard or a point guard who isn't good at passing, but Cole is able to move off the ball and do a lot of damage there as well (I'd put Maxey in the same boat, which is why I've long considered him a top 5 player in the class as well).
The part you wrote about Wiseman seems incongruous with how you don't think the point guards in this draft are as good as advertised (which I'd agree with just based on the fact that this is a weak draft where I'm not banking on the 3rd-4th best players to be stars). Sure he doesn't have the upside of an Embiid or Towns, but those guys are 7-8 years older than he is and will not be as big of factors by the time Wiseman is in his prime. Plus even in an average draft, if you get a player who makes 1 All-Star team 4th overall, you're ahead of the curve. All things being equal, I would prefer to draft a top-tier scorer/playmaker, or an elite 3-D wing, but who is that going to be in this draft? It's just another example of how 'top 5' or 'lottery pick' doesn't mean all that much without considering who the alternatives actually are in a particular draft. Even comparing him to Myles Turner (2nd in VORP from the 2015 draft) and JJJ (7th in VORP from 2018 despite being the youngest player in the draft and missing games due to injury) isn't doing anything to disqualify him from being a mid-high lottery pick.
The other two things I'll say about Wiseman are 1) you will see flashes of skill from him throughout the season; the assist he had in his first game was a pretty good one where he brought the ball up the court against a press and found a shooter in the corner (also he had no turnovers and given his shooting percentage and offensive rebound percentage, he should obviously be spending most of his time close to the basket and not kicking the ball out when he gets it) and 2) running the floor extremely well as a big man is an underappreciated skill as it doesn't always result in better box-score outputs but scrambles the defense so much that other players are able to score much more efficiently.
I don't know about Kyrie athletically but we will see. He is only a teenager.
I do agree with you on the fact that Cole is a combo guard but he actually has PG skills and off ball skills. He's different. He is an offensive dynamo like Trae Young but different in how he does it.
Maxey PG skills is lacking but his feel, shooting, scoring, and skills is top notch. He will have to develop into a PG like the 2009 guys outside of Rubio but I would bet high on him.
I don't see the upside in Wiseman offensively that those stars flashed even in college. He doesn't have the catch radius of Hayes and doesn't have a great shooting touch that JJJ or Towns has although he has a decent one like Turner. I just don't see the upside. VORP is meaningless at this stage. Wait till 10 years. Bebe was the leading VORP of his class for three years till Giannis took it in year 4.
Wiseman floor is great but honestly this is a PG draft. Being that most of the bad teams have bad PGs, this is the perfect year to tank for one.
I think this class is strong but it will take time to see your return on investment outside of guys like Wiseman and Anthony. Maybe even Edwards depending on his development this year.
