The 2015 NBA Draft Thread: Draft Day Is Here

Was he playing against Marbury's squad?

I understand that was his first game back in a long time... he didn't look explosive to me but there are so many factors to take into account playing in China and the fact that he had a long layoff

I hope he's been working hard to stay in shape. Honestly I wonder if he gets selected in the top 5
 
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I was originally assuming/hoping for Okafor... now the more I see of Towns, he seems like the guy I want in NY.
 
@JonRothstein Karl Towns has only taken 10 or more shots in a game four times this season. His numbers in those games: 16.3 PPG, 10.3 PRG, 57% FG. #BBN
@Mike_Schmitz Karl Towns was shooting a ridiculous 87% from 2 w/ a 90.7 true shooting % in his last 5 before tonight. 8-of-12 with some huge plays tonight
@Mike_Schmitz Towns posted a 72.7 true shooting % in all of February (8 games). Per 40 #s during that stretch: 20.9 PTS, 14.4 REBs, 3.4 BLKs & 2.8 ASTs.
@Mike_Schmitz Talent not the question with Towns. Mobile big man with great length who can score inside/outside and protect the rim. In the mix for #1.
Towns. :pimp:
 
I have always been in my heart a Towns guy, but the cold logical side of me on a pure risk management perspective you should take Okafor.

now my view may be changing to Towns out right.

I think the Knicks, and Lakers are the team that should probably take Okafor if they get 1, they can't afford to miss.
 
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Towns is going against another lottery pick every day in practice, in addition to two other possible first round picks. Okafor is battling a Plumlee. I'd hope Towns is improving..lol.
 
Towns is going against another lottery pick every day in practice, in addition to two other possible first round picks. Okafor is battling a Plumlee. I'd hope Towns is improving..lol.
For some reason I never considered this

AlonzoMourning.gif
 
Towns is as equally can't miss of a prospect as Okafor is to me. H's a little greener, but he's gonna be a damn good player at the next level.
 
Mudiay overload.

DX:
Emmanuel Mudiay Chinese Playoffs Video Analysis

Emmanuel Mudiay started the season in China and played in nine games before suffering an ankle injury that put him on the shelf. Under immense pressure due to an 8-3 start and the incredibly short and condensed nature of the CBA regular season (which packs 37 games into just 90 days), Guangdong elected to replace Mudiay with NBA veteran Will Bynum.

The move seemed to pay off, as the team did not lose a single game until the (meaningless) final game of the regular season, finishing 33-4 and with the #1 overall seed heading into the playoffs.

All the while, Mudiay was still working out and practicing with the team, continuing to collect his paycheck and staying ready for the event that he was called upon due to injury or a coach's decision.

That's exactly what ended up happening, as after losing the first two games of the playoff semifinals, Guangdong head coach Du Feng made the controversial decision to deactivate big man import Jeff Adrien in favor of an all-US backcourt of Bynum and Mudiay. The team only had one day off between games to prepare for this unconventional adjustment, with Mudiay and Bynum never having played together in any type of official setting.

Surprisingly, it worked. Mudiay came off the bench and played 34 minutes, scoring 24 points, grabbing eight rebounds, and dishing out four assists to go along with two turnovers. He shot just 6/15 from 2-point range, but made two of his four 3-point attempts and 6-10 free throws. Guangdong beat Beijing 110-99 at home, forcing a Game Four in Beijing two days later.

Things got a little bit stranger even in Game Four, as towards the end of the first quarter, Will Bynum went down with a hamstring injury that would shelve him for the rest of the game. From that point on, Mudiay was the only import at Guangdong's disposal, and he would go on to play a team-high 44 minutes (including an overtime session), looking utterly exhausted at times. Guangdong seemingly had the game won of a few different occasions, but the heroics of 38 year-old former NBA All-Star Stephon Marbury (who scored 38 points, including an incredible 3-pointer to force overtime) would ultimately prevent them from forcing a decisive Game 5 back on their home floor.

Mudiay didn't find the same success this time around, scoring 15 points, with 7 rebounds and 8 assists, but needing 14 shots (3-10 2P, 2-4 3P) to get there, turning the ball over six times, and again struggling from the free throw line, where he hit just 3-6 attempts (bringing him to 57% from the season). Guangdong's season ended on a disappointing note, with Beijing scoring on a miraculous putback at the buzzer to advance to the Finals against Liaoning.

Still, Mudiay's Chinese adventure went about as well as anyone could reasonably expect considering his age, lack of experience, and the incredible pressure of playing for a championship contending team in one of the least patient and rational basketball environments on earth. There are very few 18-year olds on the planet who are equipped to handle a situation like this, and all things considered, he certainly did not disappoint.

Now it's back to the US where Mudiay will likely keep a low profile until NBA Draft season rolls around, where its unlikely teams will get to see a great deal more than they were able to in China. This is what makes these surprising two playoff games he played this week so interesting, prompting us to take a deeper look at the film and see what can be gleaned.
http://www.draftexpress.com/article/Emmanuel-Mudiay-Chinese-Playoffs-Video-Analysis-4829

Video in the link above.

Ford:
Emmanuel Mudiay's run for No. 1

Duke freshman Jahlil Okafor is leading the conversation for national player of the year, carrying the Blue Devils to a possible No. 1 seed in the NCAA tournament. Kentucky freshman Karl-Anthony Towns is starting for the No. 1 team in the country, helping lead the Wildcats to a potentially undefeated season. Ohio State freshman D'Angelo Russell is slicing through defenses and garnering the rep as the next James Harden, making his case as the slickest, most dynamic scorer in the country.

All three of them are two weeks away from playing on the biggest basketball stage in the world: March Madness. Meanwhile, 8,000 miles away in China, Emmanuel Mudiay -- who before the season was slated to play for SMU -- is packing his bags, preparing for the long trip home to Dallas after spending the past five months playing pro basketball overseas.

Okafor, Towns and Russell are strolling along the tree-lined sidewalks of three of the best universities in the country. They're figuring out how to write papers, study for tests and how to balance the paradox of being celebrities and unpaid students.

Mudiay has been riding his bicycle to practice through the crowded streets of Guangdong, China, for the past five months. He doesn't speak the language. He lives with his mother. There are no classes, no Midnight Madness, no nightlife to speak of. He's making a ton of money but has nothing to really spend it on right now.

While Okafor, Towns and Russell are building their brands by starring weekly in front of millions on national TV, Mudiay, on most game nights since late November, has taken his position at the end of the bench, the highest-paid 18-year-old part-time cheerleader, part-time practice player in the world.

Okafor, Towns and Russell are being mentored by three Hall of Fame coaches with a long track record of getting their players drafted at the top of the lottery. Mudiay's head coach, Du Feng, is a former Chinese Olympian and pro basketball player who has never gotten anyone drafted.

One of these four top prospects in the NBA draft is not like the other -- for good and for bad.

Limited exposure

Since deciding in July to withdraw from his commitment to play for Hall of Fame coach Larry Brown at SMU and take a lucrative deal to play professionally in China, Mudiay has played a total of 12 basketball games (averaging 18 PPG, 6.3 RPG and 5.9 APG in 30 MPG) -- none of them in front of the decision-makers who will decide whom to draft at the top of the lottery in late June.

Before a surprise appearance in Games 3 and 4 of the Chinese Basketball Association playoffs on March 1 and 3, Mudiay hadn't played a minute in an official game of basketball since Nov. 23.

Three days after being resurrected off the bench, Mudiay's basketball career in China ended -- mostly sight unseen -- after a Guangdong overtime playoff loss on Tuesday.

Dozens of high-profile NBA general managers and scouts have canceled trips to China to see him play. Most were relegated to watching tape of the 10 games he played in China before hurting his ankle and ultimately being replaced on the roster by former Detroit Piston Will Bynum.

In a world of draft stock and hype, Mudiay is invisible.

Out of sight. Out of mind.

"If we had him right now, we'd be ranked one, two or three in the country," Larry Brown said in a phone interview with ESPN.com. "And along with Russell and Okafor, he'd be the biggest name in college basketball right now. He'd have a brand right now. I tried to tell the family, but he had other people in his ears, and, ultimately, I supported his decision. The kid just wanted to play basketball, but he had a family to support."

It wasn't supposed to be this way.

Prep star

One year ago, Mudiay was the hottest high school player in the country. The Congolese refugee was a McDonald's All American. He was a consensus top-five player, according to all of the major scouting services. In the 2014 Nike Hoop Summit, with NBA scouts and GMs sitting in the stands, he impressed with 20 points, three assists and three steals in a loss for the World Team.

After the Hoop Summit, numerous GMs and scouts told me Mudiay was a serious contender for the No. 1 pick in the 2015 NBA draft.

Here was my scouting report the day after I attended the Hoop Summit:

"If there was one standout prospect from the week, it was Mudiay. Both before and especially after the game, many of the NBA GMs and scouts I spoke with thought Mudiay had the best shot of anyone in this class of being the No. 1 pick and a future All-Star.

"NBA folks love point guards with both size [6-foot-5, 196 pounds] and athleticism, and Mudiay has both. He's a quick, powerful guard who can get to the basket and finish above the rim. He led all scorers at the Hoop Summit with 20 points and also had five rebounds, five assists and one steal, with just one turnover.

"He can overdribble the ball at times, his decision-making and feel for running the point is still a work in progress and his jumper needs a lot of work. But the raw talent to be a Derrick Rose-type power point guard in the NBA is there. The fact that Brown, one of the most respected point guard coaches in the NBA, is his head coach next year is also earning him points among scouts who believe that Brown will get the junk out of his game and make him a better NBA point guard for the NBA.

"If he has a big season for SMU, he has a great shot at going No. 1."

Mudiay debuted at No. 2 in our first 2015 NBA draft Top 100 the day after the 2014 NBA draft. A few weeks later, he shocked the college basketball world by telling coach Brown he'd decided to turn pro and play professional basketball overseas.

"I was excited about going to SMU and playing college basketball for Coach Brown and his staff and preparing for the NBA, but I was tired of seeing my mom struggle," Mudiay told SI.com at the time. "And after sitting down with Coach Brown and my family, we decided that the best way for me to provide for my mom was to forgo college and pursue professional basketball opportunities."

Mudiay would eventually receive an endorsement deal with Under Armour potentially worth as much as $10 million and a $1.2 million basketball contract to play with the Guangdong Tigers in China.

Other high school players had gone a similar route. Brandon Jennings dropped his commitment to Arizona to play in Rome. Jeremy Tyler skipped out on his senior year of high school and his freshman season of college at Louisville to play in Israel and later Japan.

But the experience didn't go well for either player. And neither player was in line to be a potential No. 1 pick in the draft before skipping college.

Decision backlash

Mudiay was immediately attacked by some for being either naive or selfish. Questions about his eligibility at SMU loomed. Some questioned his character and whether the move would hurt his draft stock.

Brown, who was burned by Mudiay more than anyone, scoffs at all of the criticism that came Mudiay's way.

"It wasn't his choice," Brown told ESPN.com. "When someone tells you you get a $10 million shoe deal and $1.2 million contract, I supported that. He didn't have anything. His family made that decision. There are no character issues at all with that kid. He had a chance to take care of his family and he took it. If you think the kid is a problem, then you don't know the kid at all."

Despite Mudiay's decision to skip college, he held firm at No. 2 on our Big Board through the rest of the summer and into the fall. The draft was devoid of top-level point guards or other elite prospects, with the exception of Okafor and Towns.

And there was precedent. Dante Exum, a young point guard from Australia, had just been drafted with the No. 5 pick in the loaded 2014 draft despite finishing his high school career in Australia in December and spending the rest of the year working out in a gym in Los Angeles in preparation for the draft.

If he could do it, so could Mudiay.

Overseas experiment

Mudiay's debut in China came on Nov. 1, the first game of the CBA season. Mudiay started and scored 18 points, grabbed five rebounds and handed out two assists. He shot just 5-for-16 from the field in the loss to Beijing, but the general feeling in China was that Mudiay was for real.

Mudiay exploded in his second game. He scored 29 points, grabbed nine rebounds and handed out seven assists coming off the bench for Guangdong (along with committing six turnovers). While defense isn't a big part of Chinese basketball (former South Florida star and Dallas Mavericks first-round pick Dominique Jones scored 44 points that night for the opposing team) hence the high stats, the result was nevertheless impressive.

"It's pretty tough for a high school guy to come over there and play," one high-level NBA scout who made the trip to China at the start of Mudiay's season told ESPN.com. "He's playing against talented guys every night who were either elite college players or borderline NBA players. They're all at least four years older than he is. What was clear from those early games was that his confidence level is high. He doesn't back down. When he makes mistakes, he played through it and never seemed to get rattled."

Our source was one of the few high-level NBA scouts to get to China in Mudiay's first 10 games. A large contingent of scouts had lined up a trip in early December to see Mudiay play, but his ankle injury suffered on Nov. 23 scuttled their plans.

Here's what that NBA scout saw when he was in China:

"I saw him in several practices and games just after the start of the season," the scout said. "I'm enamored with his athletic ability. He has incredible potential. He always plays in attack mode. He has terrific quickness and speed, both north to south and east to west. He plays with both gears, which is really impressive for a kid his age. He has things that just can't be taught. He plays hard, fast, reckless.

"His shot is OK. It's not broken," the scout continued. "He can hit shots from anywhere on the floor. It's more about shot selection. At times, he was forcing shots.

"Defense was a big part of his success early in China," he added. "He could defend anyone. There's not a lot of defense in China -- which is something that stands out. You tell him to do something, he does it. On side and high pick-and-rolls he's good at forcing his offensive player down. He can keep a player to the side of the court and keep them over there without them turning. Coaches will love him on the pick-and-roll. He pursues and his hands are active. My only real knock on him defensively is that, at times, he's trying to leak out because he's so offensive oriented."

But the scouting report had its fair share of flaws as well.

"I felt like he was looking to score too much," the same NBA scout said. "To be a NBA point guard, he has to become a better passer. In China, he's more of a shoot-first instead of a pass-first player. At times, I felt like he played out of control. He was forcing a lot of plays. Because of his strength and size he was able to score and have success because they don't play defense, but in the NBA, he's going to have to play smarter. You're going to have to live through his turnovers. You have to have a coach that's patient."

By late November, Guangdong's head coach was running out of it. Two sources close to the team told me that had Mudiay not injured his ankle, the team would've likely looked to find a veteran replacement anyway. While Mudiay was playing incredibly well for an 18-year-old and the team was an impressive 8-1 before Mudiay got injured, the coach wanted an NBA veteran with more experience. Bynum, or someone like him, was probably coming anyway.

By the time Mudiay had recovered fully from his ankle injury in mid-December, Bynum had taken over his minutes and Mudiay was relegated to spectator.

Bynum was good, by the way, but he wasn't much better than Mudiay. They posted similar numbers across the board in everything but 3-point shooting. Still, as Mudiay sat, and Okafor, Towns and especially Russell began to dominate at the collegiate level, his chances of being the No. 1 pick in the draft began to dwindle.

As teams pored over Mudiay's game film, most of them came away thinking it was inconclusive. I spoke with a number of other NBA scouts and GMs who are familiar with Mudiay's games on tape. Some wrung their hands over missed free throws, pedestrian 3-point shooting and turnovers. But most were concerned with something entirely different -- 10 games in China just isn't much to go on when deciding whether to take a player at the top of the draft.

"Those games really tell us nothing," a veteran international scout told ESPN.com. "There's not much defense played in China, if any at all. The real work comes from getting info on how he is working and handling the pro game."

Development

That background intel on Mudiay is coming back even more positive than his performances in China.

"Everyone there has been really positive about him," another NBA scout told ESPN.com. "I've spoken to his coach, to his teammates, to his opponents. They are all saying the right things about his professionalism and his work ethic. He doesn't complain. Even when he was healthy and wasn't getting any minutes, he was great. He fits in with everyone. He's polite. Gets along well with others. I don't think there's any question he's a great kid."

Said another scout who was put in charge of doing background checks on Mudiay: "His being away from home has helped mature him. It's hard to live in a foreign country as an 18-year-old. He's been a professional, and I think that has a lot to do with his background as a refugee. He's been through much harder things than playing pro ball in China. He's going to have a leg up on the college kids because it's a different life over there."

Added another scout about the mentoring Mudiay has received: "He's also been around a bunch of former NBA and D-League guys who are out of the league and want to be back in. He knows he has to work hard; he knows it's a gift to play there. Those vets are telling him what it takes to make it."

Mudiay's development was never more evident than on Sunday, when he was activated before Game 3 in the playoffs. Guangdong was down 2-0 in the playoffs to Beijing. One more loss and the Tigers' season would be over.

A source close to the team told ESPN.com that several players approached management about activating Mudiay for Game 3. He had been playing so well in practice that the players thought he could give them a chance to stave off elimination. He had earned the right.

Mudiay, who hadn't played in more than three months, came off the bench on Sunday, scoring 17 points in the first half and ending with 24 points, 8 rebounds, 4 assists and just 2 turnovers. He shot 8-for-19 from the field and 2-for-4 from beyond the arc. Most importantly, Guangdong won the game, forcing a Game 4.

"It just goes to show you," one NBA scout told ESPN.com, "how far the kid had developed. In November they weren't convinced he could carry them to the finals. In March they were asking him to save the season."

Just two days after Mudiay's triumphant return on Sunday, his season was over. Mudiay posted 15 points, 8 assists, 7 rebounds and 4 turnovers while shooting 5-for-14 from the field in an overtime loss to Beijing. Guangdong's season was over. The Mudiay Chinese experiment was over. He's now free to return to the United States to begin preparing for the 2015 NBA draft.

Draft stock, outlook

Mudiay's career in the CBA won't define him, however. It's the NBA that matters. Teams are scrambling to know where he fits in the draft. Is he a real point guard or a combo guard? Just how good of an athlete is he? Can he shoot it well enough to keep defenses honest? Is he just a good prospect or an elite one?

Of the two dozen or so NBA scouts and executives I spoke with, all of them currently have Mudiay ranked somewhere between two and five on their internal team big boards. A small handful still believe he has a chance to be the No. 1 pick.

"The two guys with the biggest upsides in the draft are Mudiay and Towns," one NBA GM told ESPN. "Okafor and Russell are more sure things, but neither of those guys have the ceiling of Mudiay and Towns. And of those four, Mudiay is the best athlete. I can understand a team taking any of those four guys No. 1. But if you're asking me who has the chance to be a game-changer in the NBA, I think it's Mudiay. Big risk, big reward."

That's a minority opinion right now. But he's not the only one. Mudiay's biggest supporter is the coach he spurned in July.

Brown, the guy who has mentored Allen Iverson, Mark Jackson and Chauncey Billups, among others, thinks Mudiay is going to be "special."

"This league [the NBA] is all about point guards," Brown said. "Can you defend the pick-and-roll? Can you keep guys in front of you? Can you make people better? Can you score when necessary? He has all of that.

"He has unbelievable size and athleticism for a point guard," Brown continued. "You don't usually find guys that size that are point guards. Guys like [Russell] Westbrook, [John] Wall and Rose evolved into real point guards, but at first they were just great athletes. What separated him was he was already a great point guard. He has an unbelievable feel for the game."

And how does he compare to his main competition, D'Angelo Russell? Slightly more than half of the NBA scouts and execs I spoke with had Mudiay ranked ahead of Russell as the top guard prospect in the draft. It's basically 50/50 right now, but Brown doesn't see it that way at all.

"They aren't at all the same," Brown said. "Russell's a better shooter. He sees the floor, but he's not a point guard. He's just a basketball player. I don't think you want him bringing up the ball or initiating the offense. I don't know [if] he could guard the point. He hasn't had to guard point guards. Defense is such an underrated thing for these young guards. If you can't guard pick-and-rolls, it breaks everything. I used to tell Mudiay every day, 'You are going to have guard Russell Westbrook one night and then Derrick Rose the next night. It never stops.' I used to tease him about that. Point guard is the premier position in the NBA these days. You have to get it done on both ends of the floor."

That's the question that teams at the top of the draft, such as the Philadelphia 76ers, New York Knicks and Los Angeles Lakers -- all teams in desperate need of point guard help -- will be carefully studying the next four months. He'll do workouts, but it's unlikely, given his draft position, that he'll work out against anyone. Shooting jumpers and going through drills against chairs in empty gyms aren't going to tell anyone much of anything. None of the teams at the top of the draft can afford to make a mistake at this critical juncture in the rebuilding process. Will they risk taking a mystery man over a known commodity lighting up scoreboards on college basketball's biggest stage?

"I just wish he had gone to play with Larry [Brown] for the season," one NBA exec said. "I think he needed that. I think we needed to see that to be sure. I think he could have been the No. 1 pick had he played for Larry at SMU. Now, it's anyone's guess, and you know this league: We can be a bit risk-averse."

Brown says the NBA guys will get what they asked -- a Larry Brown-coached Mudiay -- just a little later than they thought.

"He's coming to hang out with me when his season is over," Brown said. "I'll get him ready. He's going to be special. Just wait and see."

Mudiay's push to be the No. 1 pick in the 2015 NBA draft might have only just begun.
http://insider.espn.go.com/nba/draf...-draft?ex_cid=InsiderTwitter_Ford_whoisMudiay
 
Goodman:
Sizing up Emmanuel Mudiay

When Emmanuel Mudiay up and left to play pro ball in China this season, there was all sorts of speculation as to why he didn't play for coach Larry Brown at SMU. It doesn't matter now, as Mudiay's season in the Chinese Basketball Association is over and he's on his way back to the U.S. to get ready for the NBA draft.

Mudiay, who turns 19 on March 5, posted impressive numbers in China -- averaging 18.0 points, 6.3 rebounds and 5.9 assists while shooting 48 percent from the field in 12 CBA games -- but his playing time was restricted by an ankle injury and midseason benching (former NBA player Will Bynum took over lead duties of his team, the Guangdong Southern Tigers, in mid-December, though Mudiay did play well in a couple of recent playoff appearances).

As a result of his shortened season, few scouts were able to get an in-depth read on his game and development. However, we spoke to several players in December who saw Mudiay up close in China, including teammates and opponents, to get their take on his skill set, strengths and weaknesses. (Note this was earlier in the season, prior to Mudiay's injury.)

No one spent more time with Mudiay this season than former Texas A&M-Corpus Christi big man Chris Daniels. The 30-year-old has spent much of his time bouncing around overseas and said he considers Mudiay a little brother, someone he helped adjust to professional basketball.

"He's a good kid with a very high ceiling," Daniels said earlier this season about the point guard prospect. "I can't wait to see who picks him. He's so coachable and is a hell of a kid. He doesn't have one bit of ego, and loves the game. He's got a high IQ."

Daniels said the most shocking aspect of Mudiay is his patience.

"I'd never heard of him before," Daniels said. "I looked at a couple clips and the adjustment he has made has been unbelievable coming from high school. He has the size and ability to go by his man at any time, but he's let the offense come to him. He's setting up everyone else. He's on a veteran team, and he's making sure everyone else is happy."

The major question mark with Mudiay's game revolves around his ability to make shots consistently from the perimeter -- and also run a team. Daniels, when we spoke with him earlier this season, wasn't concerned about Mudiay's ability to knock down shots from deep.

"It's gotten better because he works at it," Daniels said. "He takes 200 shots after every practice and his shot is coming along. It's much further along than when he first got here a couple months ago. It takes time for most guys to develop that part of their game. There just aren't many Ray Allens and J.J. Redicks. It's going to come because his work ethic is crazy. He's relentless."

There just aren't many guys like Mudiay -- even in the NBA. He's a 6-foot-5, strong, athletic point guard. That's why so many NBA guys are gushing about his long-term prospects.

Daniels came up with one comparison: Penny Hardaway.

"He's not as long and tall, but he's still long and is a streaky shooter like Penny was," Daniels said. "He can get to the basket, he'll get you dimes and he's a high-volume scorer -- and also a high-volume assist guy."

But the most important question for Daniels. Would he take Mudiay with the No. 1 overall pick?

"Yeah. I've got to go with my guy," Daniels said in December. "But I'm biased. He's so likable. If I had to pick a point guard, I'd definitely pick this guy 10 times out of 10 -- because of his talent, his work ethic and his ceiling."

Another former NBA player, 34-year-old Al Harrington, who spent more than 15 years in the NBA before heading to China this season, pointed to a variety of Mudiay's skills that will transfer well to the NBA.

"I like his size, explosiveness and the form on his jumper," Harrington said. "He's a really good passer. In China, the team he is on has really good domestic players. So that stops him from having to do too much. But he seems to be able to run a team at his age and he plays really hard -- which is good. I like him. He's definitely a pro."

Former NBA player Jeff Adrien actually saw a different comparison: Kyrie Irving.

"He has a good feel for the game," Adrien said. "He got anywhere on the floor. He plays hard and has a good touch. He seems like a pretty good shooter and handles the rock well."

Harrington also weighed in on what Mudiay needs to improve.

"He still needs to work on his entire game. He could do everything better at this point. His jumper, handles tighter, finishing at the rim. But a lot of his drives would be fouls in the league. In China they want to see blood to blow the whistle for import players. And his strength -- which he'll get. I like him."

Willie Warren, who played two seasons at the University of Oklahoma before being a second-round pick of the Los Angeles Clippers in 2010, pointed out something Mudiay is currently lacking.

"He has a lot of talent and upside, but I haven't yet seen the dog in him -- which is what I think will take him to the next level," Warren said. "I think he will be great, but he just needs to develop that killer instinct like [Russell] Westbrook and then the sky will be the limit."

Warren offered his take on Mudiay's draft stock: "I would definitely take him top five in the draft coming up based on his skill."

Several players cited Mudiay's athleticism and jumper as strong points.

"He's very athletic, and can shoot the ball as well," said Josh Harrellson, who played at Kentucky and three seasons in the NBA. "He's young and raw, but he will be very good with work. He can attack the basket with both hands, is better going right and can create his own shot and has a nice one- or two-dribble pull-up."

Harrellson saw a very high ceiling for Mudiay: "I think eventually he can be a star. The numbers aren't accurate over here, though. He was guarded by Chinese players the entire game and usually all the foreigners are. He's a lot more athletic than the guys he plays against. It's like LeBron versus Steve Nash. Ha ha."
http://insider.espn.go.com/mens-col...d=InsiderTwitter_Goodman_Mudiayplayervsplayer
 
Mudiay has major NBA potential:
The most recent occasion college and NBA basketball fans saw Emmanuel Mudiay play was in April 2014, when he was competing for the World Team at the Nike Hoop Summit in Portland, Oregon. The anticipation then was that he would lead coach Larry Brown's SMU Mustangs back to the NCAA tournament this season as a freshman before heading to the NBA.

But last summer, the 6-foot-5 point guard decided to forgo college basketball, and he signed a professional contract with the Guangdong Tigers of the Chinese Basketball Association. The idea was to use his season in China to prepare for June's NBA draft. While a mild risk, it showed a lot of maturity for an 18-year-old.

Chinese professional basketball is quite an adjustment, even for a 10-year NBA veteran. The uniquely different culture, the distance from home, and the wacky nature of the CBA and its players, coaches, owners and rules are not easy to master.

The one-year plan, however, went awry when Mudiay injured his ankle in December, and he did not play in a game again until Sunday. With Guangdong trailing two games to none in its CBA semifinal playoff series with Beijing, Mudiay re-emerged and helped the Tigers to a 110-99 win, scoring 24 points and grabbing eight rebounds. His season ended with a 5-for-14 shooting performance and six turnovers in a loss on Tuesday.

Regardless of how little Mudiay played this season, he is still likely to be a high lottery pick. And even though he is now healthy enough to work out for NBA teams in the spring, he will remain an international man of mystery until he steps on an NBA court in a summer league in Las Vegas or Orlando.

I saw Mudiay play quite often when he was in high school in Texas, and I think I knew his game well before he left for China. How much he has improved or regressed remains to be seen upon his return to the United States.

We will break down his brief career in China in a future "Film Session." In the meantime, here is an initial breakdown of his game based on competition against many of the outstanding young stars who played at the Hoop Summit. Up to seven could make themselves available for June's draft.

Mudiay's greatest attribute is his size and body type for his NBA position. He is built to be able to attack the basket and is not afraid to throw his body at defenders on drives. If you couple that with above average open-court speed, you have a good idea why NBA teams are excited about him.

While the Hoop Summit was essentially a high school all-star game, both teams featured a number of players who will be in the NBA in the very near future. Watch this coast-to-coast drive by Mudiay past Arizona's Stanley Johnson and Duke's Jahlil Okafor and you get an idea of Mudiay's explosiveness:

Mudiay-001.gif


Here, Mudiay hangs in the air and attacks 6-8, 240-pound Kansas Jayhawk Cliff Alexander with his body. As you can see, there is little doubt that once he catches the ball at midcourt, he is going hard to the basket to initiate contact.

Mudiay-007.gif


While Mudiay can score, he also can use his size and speed to run the fast break and get his teammates involved in the offense. After this steal on Texas forward Myles Turner's drive, Mudiay nearly stumbles at midcourt, regains his balance, keeps his head up, and finds his teammate, Turkish forward Metecan Birsen, under the basket (Birsen eventually hits the short jumper):

Mudiay-0055.gif


If there are two areas where Mudiay can improve, in my opinion, they are his inconsistent jump shot and his tendency to be careless with his passing.

His jumper is a concern at the moment only because it is rare that a player can become an elite NBA point guard without keeping defenses honest with an accurate jump shot. More often than not, an average-to-below average shooter at the position will compromise his team's floor spacing.

Opponents will go under ball screens in the pick-and-roll while guarding him because they will not fear his 3-point shooting. Defenders will feel no need to help off great spot-up shooters to play his drives and can treat him as a nonshooter to help on good low-post players.

Mudiay's shooting technique when he left for China was what I would describe as "loose." Because his technique had flaws, the chances to repeat an accurate shot each time were low. Hopefully it's something that he has worked on.

On this pull-up jump shot in a screen-and-roll play, watch how he does not hold his follow-through with his shooting hand but rather pulls it back like a gun recoiling. He also lands with his shooting foot a good deal in front of his other foot, causing poor body balance on his landing:


These are correctable shooting mistakes with proper technique and perfect repetitions -- something he will receive the day he reports to his NBA team.

Not surprisingly, because of his size, Mudiay loves to post up smaller guards. This will be an added bonus for a creative NBA coach.

When I have watched Mudiay, he has had a tendency to not value the basketball and be sloppy with his decision-making. It's not surprising for young players to fall into these habits, but it is something that will be corrected with good coaching and maturity.

Here is a poor pass where he has tunnel vision and doesn't seem to see the traffic in the lane, and it leads to an easy steal and turnover:

Mudiay-004.gif


One of the reasons Mudiay chose SMU was to play for Hall of Fame coach Larry Brown. He knew Brown's reputation for molding point guards even at the expense of irritating them at times. Mudiay seemed to embrace that opportunity "to play the right way," but it never came to fruition for him.

Despite his short time playing in China, the team that drafts Mudiay will get the opportunity to develop a 19-year-old point guard talent (his birthday is on Friday) the way Brown couldn't. Like most of the young players in this year's NBA draft, he has a lot to learn, but his starting point is greater than most.
http://insider.espn.go.com/nba/draf...udiay-possesses-major-nba-potential-nba-draft
 
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Put those videos in spoiler man. Killing the page loads.
PMatic and others, every bit of info is APPRECIATED but to view the info it can be a pain to come into the thread if there's all these GIFS and videos. I think a spoiler would be resolve that issue
 
@JonRothstein Karl Towns has only taken 10 or more shots in a game four times this season. His numbers in those games: 16.3 PPG, 10.3 PRG, 57% FG. #BBN
@Mike_Schmitz Karl Towns was shooting a ridiculous 87% from 2 w/ a 90.7 true shooting % in his last 5 before tonight. 8-of-12 with some huge plays tonight
@Mike_Schmitz Towns posted a 72.7 true shooting % in all of February (8 games). Per 40 #s during that stretch: 20.9 PTS, 14.4 REBs, 3.4 BLKs & 2.8 ASTs.
@Mike_Schmitz Talent not the question with Towns. Mobile big man with great length who can score inside/outside and protect the rim. In the mix for #1.
Towns. :pimp:

Future Laker. :smokin
 
@JonRothstein Karl Towns has only taken 10 or more shots in a game four times this season. His numbers in those games: 16.3 PPG, 10.3 PRG, 57% FG. #BBN
@Mike_Schmitz Karl Towns was shooting a ridiculous 87% from 2 w/ a 90.7 true shooting % in his last 5 before tonight. 8-of-12 with some huge plays tonight
@Mike_Schmitz Towns posted a 72.7 true shooting % in all of February (8 games). Per 40 #s during that stretch: 20.9 PTS, 14.4 REBs, 3.4 BLKs & 2.8 ASTs.
@Mike_Schmitz Talent not the question with Towns. Mobile big man with great length who can score inside/outside and protect the rim. In the mix for #1.
Towns. :pimp:

Future Knick. :smokin

fixed
 
Speaking of:
Should Jahlil Okafor Be the Knicks’ Center of Attention?

Even for the Knicks, who have been terrible for much of the past decade, this season has brought a new low. The team is on pace to finish with the worst record in its history. Unlike in previous years, however, the Knicks haven’t also squandered a top draft pick in exchange for being so bad.

In fact, not only have they retained their first-round pick in 2015, they are in good position to land the top overall selection thanks to their league-worst performance. At worst, they’ll have a ticket to the draft lottery.

With that in mind, we’re going to travel the country and take a granular look at the collegiate players whom the Knicks might select, and how those players might fit in New York—with the triangle offense, with next year’s roster, etc.

Naturally, our first candidate is the player widely considered to be the most talented available: Duke freshman center Jahlil Okafor. A Chicago native who stands 6-foot-11 and weighs 270 pounds, Okafor leads the Blue Devils in scoring (18.2 ppg), rebounding (9.2) and blocks (1.4), and he’s sixth in the nation with a .663 shooting percentage.

Stay tuned in the coming days and weeks for more reports on the draft’s most eligible bachelors, and whether the Knicks should commit.

THE GOOD

Enormous hands: Okafor has the hands of a man who stands 6-foot-11 and has a wingspan of 7-foot-5. He often palms the ball and holds it out of an opponent’s reach while he surveys the court to find an open teammate. He can also catch poor entry passes into the post.

Patience: He rarely begins a play with a predetermined sense of what he’s going to do once he gets the ball in the post. Often he’ll immediately kick it back out to a guard and establish deeper position with a re-post.

Not a ball-stopper: Despite scoring 18 points a night, Okafor is mindful about when and where he uses his dribble, if at all. According to SportVU player-tracking technology, he holds the ball for just two seconds per touch. That means he’s getting rid of the ball about 20% quicker than ex-Knick Amar’e Stoudemire, who often got stripped by double-teams.

Footwork: He has a fantastic drop step, makes great use of his pivot foot, and he can feel which way defenders are leaning when his back is to the basket. As such, Duke has posted 1.42 points per play and shot nearly 73% when Okafor touches the ball inside the paint. One of his favorite moves: Tucking the ball under his arm (like a running back) and sprinting into the lane between two defenders for a short hook. His footwork is a big part of why he shoots 66%.

Passing: Thanks to his knack for finding the open man, opponents have found it nearly impossible to double-team Okafor—an ideal skill in the triangle offense. His passing is comparable to that of Sacramento’s DeMarcus Cousins (whose 19.6% assist rate this season is best among NBA players 6-foot-11 and taller), and it often alters defensive game plans. After a Feb. 18 win over rival North Carolina, Tar Heels coach Roy Williams said, “Late in the game, we decided to stop doubling Jahlil because we didn’t want to give them anymore threes. Threes add up faster than twos, and he found people for threes every time we sent a double.” Duke players have shot 52% overall, and 45% from three, when their looks stem from an Okafor pass, per SportVU; a positive sign for the Knicks, who rank 26th in field-goal percentage.

THE BAD

Shooting: Okafor’s jumper is far from pristine—just 33% on shots from 12 feet or farther, according to Shot Analytics. He often tries to bank shots off the glass, and has a habit of falling off to his right when rising up to release. But his free-throw shooting is the real problem: His 52.5% mark ranks second-worst in the nation among qualifying shooters, forcing coach Mike Krzyzewski to sub him in and out at the ends of close games (as he did against Louisville, Florida State and Notre Dame). He shot 0-of-6 from the line in the overtime win against North Carolina

Struggles on perimeter: Okafor is generally hard-wired to stay at home, under the rim, where opponents have managed a lowly 45.8% shooting percentage against him, according to SportVU. But he hasn’t fared well when forced to guard pick-and-rolls or jump-shooting big men. North Carolina State, Miami and Notre Dame (all of whom beat Duke) targeted Okafor’s indecision on pick-and-rolls. Wisconsin also exploited him by luring him out to the perimeter to defend, which landed him in early foul trouble.

Defensive awareness: He occasionally forgets who he is responsible for guarding. Other times, he neglects to use the baseline to his advantage. And sometimes he fails to help when he’s close enough to impact a play. Taken together, it’ll be a tough sell for a Knicks team ranked 28th in defense.

Athleticism: Much of his game is based on his superior offensive fundamentals, the size of his hands, and his 7-foot-5 wingspan. Unlike Duke’s hyper-athletic forward, Justise Winslow, Okafor won’t fly in for a put-back dunk, or make highlight-reel blocks. He’s young, and he will get plenty of training work in as a pro, but analysts agree that he needs to improve his body and conditioning.

NOTES

Uses his dribble to escape traffic: When he sees a double-team approaching, Okafor likes to take a dribble or two away from the basket and make a play for himself, or make a cross-court pass. He doesn’t get trapped much for how often opponents try doubling him. Drafting him would likely prompt the Knicks to chase three-point specialists to ensure maximum spacing.

Doesn’t like going to his left hand: Okafor is right-hand dominant, meaning he almost always shoots with his right hand—even when going to his left. He had a couple shots blocked in Duke’s road games at Notre Dame and Syracuse while trying to do this. He’s only been blocked 10 times this season, according to Hoop-Math, but in the NBA longer defenders will bother his shots more.

Can be gullible on defense: He has a tendency to guess or leave his feet, rather than simply stand his ground and play solid defense, when post players use up-and-under moves.

Doesn’t set solid screens: Duke has scored an average of 1.3 points a play when Okafor sets ball screens. The triangle doesn’t feature many screen-and-rolls—the Knicks have run fewer than any NBA team, per Synergy Sports—but ideally he’d make more contact with NBA defenders in order to create maximum space for his guards.

Block percentage is low for a big man: Only one NBA big man, Brooklyn’s Mason Plumlee, posted a lower collegiate block percentage in his final year of college than Okafor’s current 4.3% rate, according to research by Turner Sports draft analyst Jonathan Wasserman. Most NBA-caliber college big men have block percentages double or triple that.

Still figuring out his own body: Okafor’s skilled footwork in the post, at his age and size, is fantastic. To some extent, though, his ability to maneuver around defenders has some wondering how good he can be once he figures out how to manhandle them on the block. “When he goes to establish post position, he does it pretty much standing straight up; he’s not getting low and crashing into his opponents’ thighs yet,” says former Duke guard Jay Williams, an ESPN analyst. “The best post players get that low center of gravity and establish a base so you can’t move them out of the paint or stop them from getting a shot up. It’s kind of scary to think how much damage Jahlil can do once he eventually starts doing that.”

THE UPSHOT

His inconsistent shooting notwithstanding, Okafor is great offensively, particularly for a 19-year-old. His footwork would make the Knicks—who are currently shooting the fourth-fewest free throws per game in NBA history—more efficient on offense by getting them to the foul line more. Even without a consistent jumper, Okafor would be a good fit in the triangle thanks to his ability to create space and hurt defenses with his crisp passing.

The real question with Okafor, as it relates to the Knicks, is how the team would fare if he served as its anchor on defense. He’s fulfilled that role at Duke, despite playing with a group of undersized defenders. But it’s worth noting that opponents have generally had their way when Okafor has played without top wing defender Justise Winslow. Teams have shot 53% from two-point range against Okafor when Winslow is on the bench, far better than the 45% they’ve shot when Winslow is there to help keep ball handlers in front of Okafor, according to Hoop-Math.

With that in mind, the thought of Okafor trying to defend pick-and-rolls with Jose Calderon, while Carmelo Anthony and Tim Hardaway, Jr. provide help, is deeply unsettling. But for now, those three are the only rotation players under contract for next season.

The Knicks can find more balanced prospects than Okafor. But there’s no telling when a prospect this polished offensively, particularly in the post, will come around again. That might make Okafor too enticing for the Knicks to pass up, even if there are other players with more upside.
http://www.wsj.com/articles/should-...f-attention-1425436361?KEYWORDS=chris+herring
 
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“With The First Pick In The 2015 NBA Draft …”
With March Madness around the corner and an undefeated season in sight, University of Kentucky head coach John Calipari has gone away from his much publicized platoon system. After playing his top players comparatively limited minutes over the first few months of the season, Cal has started to ride them down the stretch, most notably freshman phenom Karl Towns. In Kentucky’s 72–64 win at Georgia on Tuesday, Towns was limited to just 27 minutes because of foul trouble, but when he was on the floor, he was truly dominant (19 points, 7 rebounds, 1 assist, 1 steal and 1 block on 12 shots).

In fact, when Kentucky has been challenged in SEC play of late, they have gone to Towns, who seems to get better by the week:

  • vs. Georgia: 15 points, 13 rebounds, 3 assists, 2 blocks on 11 shots
  • at Florida: 19 points, 8 rebounds, 3 assists, 2 blocks on 11 shots
  • at LSU: 12 points, 13 rebounds, 2 assists, 2 blocks, 2 steals on 13 shots

Towns’ February surge comes too late, most likely, to put him in the Player of the Year race, but his overall numbers do now compare more favorably against Duke freshmen Jahlil Okafor, long considered the front-runner to be the No. 1 overall pick in this year’s draft.

  • Towns (per-40 minutes): 18.8 points, 12.8 rebounds, 2.1 assists, 0.8 steals and 4.4 blocks on 56.7% shooting
  • Okafor (per-40 minutes): 23.4 points, 12.3 rebounds, 1.9 assists, 1.1 steals and 1.8 blocks on 66.3% shooting

There is little doubt that Okafor is the better scorer of the two, but Towns is the better defensive player. At 7'0 250 with a 7'3 wingspan, he has the length, athleticism and timing to be one of the best shot-blockers and rebounders in the NBA.

1*rIeI5wnyk2ITOLSdDEYEow.jpeg


Quite simply, the paint is a no-fly zone when Towns is in the game:

1*q6_ft-2v9ebrYoKXxYrAuQ.gif


Georgia has two solid NCAA big men in Marcus Thornton and Nemanja Djuresic, and neither had much success creating 1-on-1 offense against Towns. Here, the Kentucky big uses his supreme length to swallow up Thornton on a face-up attempt:

1*YAOY2XwHoHINafpBqtfmug.gif


Trying to post Towns up is a largely fruitless exercise, too, as he has the bulk to push offensive players off the block and the length to contest their shot while staying in front of them:

1*iXvzfyPhtHcBgavO77fiQQ.gif


Opposing teams have had virtually no success in attacking Towns this season, something which you don’t see all that often for a freshman big man, no matter how talented.

1*B3OW8wAeEKDgW-hqalv5qg.jpeg


To its credit, Georgia was able to stay in the game against the Wildcats because they spread the floor, and by running multiple pick and rolls, forced the Kentucky big men to defend out to the three-point line. Towns does possess the athletic ability to be an excellent perimeter defender, but he’s still years away from developing the instincts to be able to contest shots without fouling. And even though the Bulldogs guards didn’t always make shots in the two-man game, they did manage to get decent looks — a virtual impossibility for Kentucky ‘s previous opponents this season:

1*ErxN4vCkGnCM7UwzIoioUw.gif


Georgia did find success in taking advantage of Towns aggressiveness on the defensive end of the floor. As one would expect for a freshman big men who is one of the nation’s best shot-blockers, Towns has a hard time resisting a pump fake in the lane.

1*AJUK4W3m92s1VTZdQMQmvg.gif


In fact, the biggest knock on Towns’ readiness to play at the next level is his astronomical foul rate (he averages 5.7 fouls per 40 minutes of action and has been in foul trouble several times over the last few weeks). Discretion is the better part of valor, and that’s one of the toughest things for a young guy with Towns physical ability to learn. When he can keep his hands straight up, and put the opposing ball-handler in jail around the rim, he has more than done his part:

1*SiMK48MYZoXtFRswQ4pVfw.gif


As Charles Barkley mentioned during the telecast, one of the most difficult aspects of playing Kentucky is the fact that they almost always have two seven-footers on the floor during the game.

Basically, even if you can get Willie Cauley-Stein out on the perimeter and away from the basket, Calipari still deploys a second elite shot-blocker in Towns behind him. Of course, this only works because Towns is the rare 7'0 player with the skill-set and athleticism to be able to play as a PF in the modern NBA, and that might actually be the most intriguing part of projecting him at the next level.

Towns is the rare rookie who will walk into the NBA with a size and athleticism advantage on the vast majority of the guys he will be going up against:

1*Cb98wXh2p90khGvXFeN4BQ.png


That type of size advantage translates just as well to the offensive end of the floor, where Towns can bully smaller players at the front of the rim. With the game on the line, Kentucky repeatedly went to Towns in the post, and there was almost nothing the smaller Georgia defenders could do to stop him:

1*C7nigDE8QQnNcTeiKV-rzg.gif


Even if you push him out of the lane, he can operate out of the mid-post just as easily, using his quickness to create an easy shot at the rim:

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Towns shot chart shows a guy with few offensive weaknesses at the college level. You can run offense through him at the front of the rim, on the low block, and from the high post:

zlwv3r.png


Where Towns takes things to another level is his excellent passing skills. He just knows how to read the floor with his back to the basket. Watch him dissect a Georgia double-team and find the open man in a corner, which ends up resulting in an easy put-back dunk for Marcus Lee:

1*8u7vY4-IXRrBhyt4fb3QQg.gif


When Towns make plays like that, you can see why the vast majority of NCAA teams sit in a zone against Kentucky, just daring the ‘Cats guards to beat the from the perimeter. Devin Booker should have to give a percentage of his lottery paycheck to Towns and Cauley-Stein because he gets to feast on so many uncontested shots from the perimeter.

Say what you want about Calipari’s stacked roster, as much talent as Kentucky enjoys, everything starts with Towns — who simply took over the final few minutes against Georgia:

1*AxWxIo8E7GyUVz2zw_1A_A.gif


Even crazier, as dominant as Towns has been, he hasn’t really been allowed to showcase the full extent of his game. Because Kentucky sees so much zone (and Towns is usually playing with another big man who clogs the lane), they rarely use Towns in the pick-and-roll, which will undoubtedly be a staple of his game at the next level.

1*kd2FzsxDFpnTbfGJ_4gmpA.jpeg


Imagine Towns in a spread pick-and-roll with a high-level NBA point guard, surrounded by with NBA-caliber three-point shooters (i.e. not the Harrison Twins), and there’s really no telling what he could do.

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Simply put, Towns is as impressive a prospect as has come out of the college game in recent memory. He is an athletic seven-footer with elite offensive upside, whose defensive game is NBA-ready right now, and he can comfortably swing between the center and power forward positions.

Towns projects as an elite scorer, shooter, rebounder, passer and defender, and in just his first season of college basketball, he is the best player on an undefeated team that has the chance to go down as one of the best in the history of the sport. You just can’t draw it up much better than that.

Forget 2015 — what with Okafor lurking. There aren’t any drafts where a player as gifted as Towns wouldn’t be able to make a strong case to be the No. 1 overall pick.

Happy hunting Knicks, Sixers and Timberwolves!
 
Maybe the most intriguing guy not in the top four to me:

How Picking The Wrong Coach Hurts Draft Stock

Before they started their college careers, Jahlil Okafor, Karl-Anthony Towns and Myles Turner were widely seen as the three best freshmen big men in the country. All three were near 7’0 and all three were blessed with a rare combination of size, skill and athletic ability. In the week of practices leading up to the McDonald’s All-American Game, the 1-on-1 showdowns between the future NBA big men were the talk of the camp. But while Okafor (Duke) and Towns (Kentucky) went to two of the marquee programs in the country, Turner wound up staying close to home and playing for an embattled coach at Texas.

Before he signed Turner, Rick Barnes was fighting for his job in Austin. He made his name by bringing in a wave of high-profile recruits in the mid 00’s - TJ Ford, LaMarcus Aldridge, Kevin Durant - but he had never been able to get past Bill Self and win an undisputed conference championship in the Big 12. Things began to go south in 2010, when a team that started the season 17-0 and was ranked No. 1 in the country wound up collapsing down the stretch and losing in the first round of the NCAA Tournament. The program bottomed out in 2013, when they finished below .500 and missed the Tourney for the first time under Barnes.

Barnes was able to save his job in 2014, squeezing Texas back into the field of 68 on the backs of an unheralded freshman class led by Isaiah Taylor, who emerged from obscurity as a three-star recruit to become an NBA prospect after being given the keys to the offense by Barnes. With Taylor leading a strong core of returning talent that would be augmented by Turner, the Longhorns entered the season as a preseason Top 10 team, with many predicting they would finally end Self’s decade-long streak of Big 12 titles.

Instead, just about everything that could have went wrong did for Texas, who are now on the outside of the NCAA Tournament bubble with less than a week left in the regular season. With an 18-12 overall record and a 7-10 mark in conference play, the Longhorns will probably need to win at least two games in the Big 12 Tournament to be a play-in team, a humbling fall for a program with as much as NBA talent as anyone in the conference, including Kansas.

Myles Turner was in the wrong place at the wrong time, an unwitting victim of the slow-motion collapse of Rick Barnes program, one that has been years in the making. For as much success as the Longhorns have had in Barnes' 18-year tenure in Austin, he has had trouble adjusting to the modern game and the growing importance of spread offenses, which you can see in his far more talented team losing two games to Fred Hoiberg’s Iowa State program this season.

Barnes philosophy has always been to recruit as many elite athletes as possible, yell at them within an inch of their lives to get them to play high-level defense and then score going from defense to offense. Spacing the floor and running crisp offensive sets has never been a huge part of his identity as a coach. But while he has one of the biggest and most athletic teams in the country this season, their inability to generate consistent offense in the half-court has been their downfall in conference season, when opposing coaches intimately know all of your strengths and weaknesses.

The Longhorns never really recovered from the wrist injury Taylor suffered in the first few weeks of the season, which kept him out for most of non-conference play and forced them to create a new offensive identity without their main shot creator. He was a shell of himself when he returned and he wasn’t a great jump-shooter even before breaking his wrist. Despite having the ball in his hands for most of the game, Taylor takes only 1.8 3’s a game and shoots them at a 30.6% clip.

It’s the same story with the rest of the Texas guards. DeMarcus Holland takes only 1.4 3’s a game. Javan Felix takes 4.4 a game, but he’s coming off a season where he shot 37% from the field on 11.4 FGA’s a game, so no one really respects him from the perimeter. Kendal Yancy, a sophomore guard who could barely get off the bench to start the season, has found his stroke in recent weeks, but he’s still shooting only 32.4% from 3 on the season.

Compounding the problem of a bunch of small guards who can’t shoot 3’s on the perimeter is a group of 5 big men who get in each other’s way around the rim. Texas has too many talented big men for their own good, as Barnes has tried to start three at a time for most of the season, even though the sport on the whole is moving towards a world where only one big man plays at a time. The Longhorns have almost zero floor spacing for the vast majority of the game, which makes it fairly easy for the other team to defend them.

Turner could not be in a worst position to succeed. He doesn’t start because he is playing behind three 6’8+ upperclassmen - Cam Ridley, Connor Lammert and Jonathan Holmes - who all have an outside shot at the NBA. When he gets in the game, he is generally sharing the floor with two big men who can’t stretch the floor and clog up the lane and two guards who can’t shoot 3’s and who have no idea how to control tempo, run half-court sets and get the ball into the paint.

The amazing thing isn’t that he has been relatively unproductive for such a highly-touted big man but that he has managed to do anything at all at Texas. Unlike Towns and Okafor, Turner almost never gets the space to go 1-on-1 on smaller players on the block. He has been forced to play all the way out to the three-point line to get any shots at all and while his range shows potential (16-56 for the season) it’s not something you necessarily want your 7’0 freshman All-American to be doing.

In an ideal world, Turner would be the only big man on the floor, in a role similar to Jameel McKay at Iowa State. Turner is an stupendously large 18-year old who can anchor a defense, score out of the post and stretch the floor. A coach running a program with a coherent offensive identity would have been able to get more out of Turner than what Barnes has done this season. It’s hard to say what he would have done in Towns and Okafor’s shoes, but an 18-year old LeBron James might not have been able to fix what is ailing the Longhorns. Barring an unlikely run in the NCAA Tournament, it’s looking increasingly that Barnes will be fired at the season.

So what does this mean for Turner? According to the latest mock drafts, he is a fringe lottery prospect, a steep fall from the Top 5 selection he looked like he would be after facing off with Okafor and Towns in Chicago. He’s still a young player with a lot of holes in his game, but it’s important to remember that someone playing for Rick Barnes is going to put up far worse numbers than someone playing for John Calipari or Coach K. The latter two are future Hall of Famers. Barnes is not.

If you were to draw up a situation where you wanted to bury a young big man and depress his statistics, you couldn’t do much worse than what Barnes has done to Turner in his one season in Austin. It’s not the end of the world, as Barnes would literally have to put Turner in a wheelchair to seriously jeopardize his financial future. The point is that a savvy NBA team at the end of the lottery may be able to squeeze a lot of value out of their pick because of the incompetence of Myles Turner’s college coach.
http://basketball.realgm.com/article/236934/How-Picking-The-Wrong-Coach-Hurts-Draft-Stock

There's concerns with his physical make up, but 7'0 with his shooting range and shot blocking skills? Quite the combination.
 

Yeah I'm struggling with this one.

Myles Turner is a really intresting confounding prospect evaluation, the physical tools in terms of height wingspan are there and the production from an analytic stand point are there but when you watch it never quite comes together.

I've seen him at Texas and in FIBA competition and I still don't like him, despite the sort of eye popping numbers.

-His hips are stiff, I really don't like the way he runs, seems like a guy who will be injured a lot.
-isn't explosive or athletic. really doesn't move well for someone who is very light
-has a narrow frame, doesn't look like he's going to be able to on all that much weight.
-he's extremely soft, easily pushed around. can get off balance easily,
-seems to shrinks against anyone who's even close to his size. struggled against teams with legit size.


on the plus side, he's smart, he knows where to be and can really is a great instinctual shot blocker. oh and he has a nice looking jumper.

I see that analytic projections like him but I just can't get on board.

This is unfair and isn't a projection by any means but he kind of reminds me of loren woods. Can't shake that feeling.


He deserves to be a top 10 pick, I just wouldn't want to be the one drafting him.
 
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