The 2015 NBA Draft Thread: Draft Day Is Here

[Vincent Van Goat]

So many mixed feelings on this kid

He came back out of the blue to play in the playoffs

Could tell he was out of rhythm (random turnovers and out of control at times) but still produced

The actual skill and physical tools on display were surely solid. Wasn't awe inspiring but the expectations shouldn't have been as such

Apparently his free throw shooting had been horrendous in his 12 games in China, almost Rondo level

It's going to be really interesting to see the opinions on taking Russell or Mudiay if you're looking for a guard

 

[pmatic]

Ford & Pelton:

How will Mudiay translate to NBA?

Question: How does Emmanuel Mudiay's performance in China translate to the NBA?

Chad Ford: This week ESPN Insider unleashed a major Emmanuel Mudiay package that included my feature story on Mudiay's draft stock from high school to China, a Fran Fraschilla film session on Mudiay's performance at the Nike Hoop Summit and Jeff Goodman's look at what several of Mudiay's opponents in China thought of his NBA future.

But that story wouldn't be complete without a Ford-Pelton file on the subject. I went on for 3,000 words on what scouts and GMs thinks about Mudiay's draft stock. I won't repeat all of that here. But in summary, they believe he's a top-four prospect in the draft with elite size (6-foot-5, 200 pounds) and athleticism for his position (point guard).

What I think everyone really wants to know, however, is what do the numbers say?

Kevin Pelton: More so than any other international league, the Chinese Basketball Association tends to produce eye-popping numbers. Teams are allowed just two imports, who tend to play nearly all of the games and create an enormous percentage of the offense. So per-game stats from the CBA can't be taken at face value.

Looking at how players who have gone from the NBA to the CBA over the last four seasons (or vice versa) have fared, it becomes clear that the level of competition in China is not nearly as high as the European leagues I've studied. In particular, usage rates and rebound rates tend to drop dramatically in the conversion process. Shooting percentages, because of the tradeoff between usage and efficiency, actually convert about the same as they do from Europe.

Let's take Andray Blatche as an example. This season, he averaged 31.1 points, 14.6 rebounds and 5.1 assists per game in the CBA. But when that performance is translated to its NBA equivalent, Blatche was really performing at the level of a player with 16.5 points, 10.2 rebounds and 3.7 assists per 36 minutes -- not dissimilar to his NBA numbers last season with the Brooklyn Nets (18.3 points, 8.7 rebounds and 2.5 assists per 36).

Applying the same translations to Mudiay turns his averages of 18.0 points, 6.3 rebounds and 5.9 assists per game to 11.6 points, 5.5 rebounds and 5.2 assists per 36 minutes in the NBA. Among rookies, Marcus Smart of the Boston Celtics (10.5 points, 4.9 assists and 4.4 rebounds per 36 minutes) would be the best match for Mudiay.

Question: How does Mudiay rate compared to other top prospects?

Ford: Some teams have Mudiay as high as No. 2 on their internal big boards. A few teams have him ranked at No. 5. A small handful of GMs still believe, with strong workouts and the lottery balls falling the right way (toward a team like Philadelphia, for example), he could be the No. 1 pick.

The draft is really devoid of elite point guard prospects, which helps Mudiay as well. His only real competition among guards is Ohio State's D'Angelo Russell, and they are totally different players. Mudiay is about power and athleticism. Russell is a smooth athlete with a killer jump shot. Most scouts believe Mudiay is more of a full-time point guard than Russell, however, which is another point in his favor. There isn't another elite point guard prospect in the lottery.

Where would Mudiay fall on your statistical big board? How does he compare to Russell? And how much can we learn from the 12 games Mudiay played in the CBA this season?

Pelton: Mudiay's 2.4 WARP projection would put him ninth on my board at this point. But among top-10 prospects, he's fourth behind Russell (3.1), Myles Turner (2. and Karl-Anthony Towns (2.7). So he improves to fourth in the consensus ratings I introduced in last week's Ford-Pelton column that also consider the scouting perspective, behind Russell, Towns and Jahlil Okafor. In sum, Mudiay appears to belong in the discussion of the top-four prospects in this year's draft.

Obviously, the more information we had the better I'd feel about Mudiay's projection. But because of the way volatile stats are regressed to the mean while more consistent ones are credited to the individual, my experience is that translated statistics can pick out the top prospects surprisingly quickly. So I wouldn't be especially concerned that his projection is a fluke.

Question: What are Mudiay's strengths and weaknesses? Who are NBA comparisons for him?

Ford: While he's not a great shooter yet and can play with tunnel vision at times, Mudiay shows potential to be a point guard who can find balance between running a team and scoring the basketball. He can score from anywhere on the floor yet can also be unselfish when he needs to be. I think his ability to get to and finish at the rim has teams excited. Perhaps his best attributes right now besides his size and athleticism are his ability to defend both positions in the backcourt and the high level of maturity he showed while playing (and often sitting on the bench) in China.

The scouts I've spoken with, along with SMU coach Larry Brown (whom I interviewed for the article I wrote), typically use three comps for him: Derrick Rose, Russell Westbrook and John Wall. For those less enamored with his skill set, the Tyreke Evans comp comes up a lot.

Pelton: The big thing that stands out as a strength is Mudiay's rebounding. His projected defensive rebound rate would be average for an NBA shooting guard and is very good for a point guard. As I've noted in the past, rebounding guards tend to translate better to the NBA than their poor-rebounding counterparts. Mudiay's 2-point percentage is also solid. The biggest knock on his game right now is a lack of free-throw attempts. At the same time, given he shot just 57.4 percent from the line in China, that might not be the worst thing.

The comps you mention match up well with what SCHOENE finds in terms of similarity. Rose is the closest match for Mudiay at the same age, with Wall also in the top three (along with Jrue Holiday). And Westbrook and Evans are among Mudiay's top-10 comps.

Question: Who's your sleeper this week?

Ford: Nigel Hayes, F, So., Wisconsin
Two Wisconsin players, center Frank Kaminsky and forward Sam Dekker, have been on our Big Board all year. Kaminsky looks like a potential late lottery pick while Dekker looks like he could be a first-round pick. But over the course of the past six weeks or so, another Badger, Hayes, is getting tremendous buzz from scouts. He cracked our Top 100 a few weeks ago, and the more research I do on Hayes the more it appears he's making a push into the late first to early second round.

While he lacks ideal size (he's listed at 6-7, 250) for his most obvious position in the pros, power forward, he has excellent length (a 7-2 wingspan), is a terrific athlete, has an NBA body and has shown the ability to stretch the floor with his jumper. He's not a great rebounder, however, and I'm curious what the stats say about him.

Pelton: They certainly confirm that. Hayes' projected rebound rate would be on the low side for a power forward. On the plus side, his steal and assist percentages are both strong for a power forward, and at 20 years old he's got room to grow into his game. Hayes will probably end up somewhere in the early second round in terms of projected WARP if he declares for this year's draft.


My sleeper: Zhou Qi, F/C, Xinjiang

Introducing a revolutionary thought: What if Mudiay isn't the most interesting prospect in China this year? Zhou is a 7-1 19-year-old seeing CBA action for the first time, and his numbers are off the charts. Zhou's 72.2 percent shooting is tops in the league, and his block rate (10.8 percent of opponents' 2-point attempts) is nearly double anyone else. His stats translate to 14.1 points, 7.0 rebounds and 5.3 blocks per 36 minutes in the NBA. That kind of production would make Zhou a surefire lottery pick, and probably more. Is there any chance he can actually be this good?

Ford: I think if there's an international player not named Kristaps Porzingis or Mario Hezonja who sneaks into the first round, it will be Zhou. He's got great size, is very athletic and is extremely skilled. The only question, and it's a big one, concerns his frame. He's rail thin. Zhou is going to need to add a lot of strength to keep from getting pushed all over the place in the NBA. If he had a better body, I think he would be a lottery pick. Teams are that enamored. But most think he'll spend at least one more year in China working on his strength. Still, as it stands, Zhou might be the perfect draft-and-stash candidate in the NBA. Give him a few years and he could be special.

Pelton: Paging Sam Hinkie?

http://insider.espn.go.com/nba/draf...te-nba?ex_cid=InsiderTwitter_FordPeltonMudiay

 

[Vincent Van Goat]

I just don't see the easy "Rose, Wall, Westbrook" comparison in Mudiay. It's the easy comparison to make due to the size but honestly the athleticism that Rose and Wall displayed at the same age just don't compare

Think Mudiay is definitely a blend of different players

 

[pmatic]

I definitely think Mudiay is a level below those three athletically (probably several ).

I think his game is very similar to Wall though.

 

[osh kosh bosh]

On Kristaps Porzingis, I remember another 7-1 shooter with good mobility and athleticism but poor court awarness and basketball IQ.

His name was Andrea Bargnani and it didn't go well.


Well it went well for Bargnani who made 60+ mill in the league but it didn't go well for the teams that employed his services.

 

[pmatic]

Sharp:
Karl-Anthony and Cauley-Stein: Kentucky’s Two-Headed Monster Is the Future of the NBA

Spoiler: Warning: Spoiler!

On Tuesday night, a senior forward for Georgia named Nemanja Djurisic was playing the biggest game of his career, carving up an undefeated Kentucky team. He was scoring inside, he was scoring outside, and the toughest frontline in the country had no real answer. He had 18 points after a layup with 6:04 left. Then Willie Cauley-Stein switched onto him for the final six minutes.

Djurisic didn’t score again. A four-point Georgia lead turned into an eight-point win for a Kentucky team that looks as unbeatable as ever.

Of course, while Cauley-Stein was erasing Georgia’s star on one end, Karl-Anthony Towns was doing whatever he wanted on the other. That helped. He was almost a one-man offense down the stretch — 11 points in the final eight minutes — and the Georgia frontline was as helpless as everyone else has been all year. Towns is Godzilla and college basketball is Tokyo.

Do you realize how unfair it is to put these two together on the same team? As I hovered over my laptop Wednesday afternoon watching a replay of Georgia-Kentucky, I physically winced when I imagined college kids trying to do anything against these guys. And this was one of their worst games of the season!

This is the biggest reason Kentucky is undefeated. In addition to talent all over the roster, they have built-in trump cards on offense AND defense whenever a game gets tight. Earlier this year, Ricky O’Donnell compared them to Al Horford and Joakim Noah, and that sounds about right. But that’s in college.

Let’s talk NBA. Danny Chau is writing about foreign prodigies, which means it’s officially time to start thinking about the draft. As Chris Ryan said to me yesterday, “When someone starts talking about release points, then you know it is truly spring.” Here we are. It’s March, and the draft conversation begins in Lexington this year.

Karl-Anthony Towns

College basketball has had a rough year, entertainment-wise, so I feel like we’re underplaying how great Karl-Anthony Towns can be. He can do pretty much anything you could ever want from a big man, and this year at Kentucky he’s only scratching the surface. His frame is stronger and sturdier than most people his size, especially at his age, but he’s also more explosive than just about any big man in college. He’s got touch around the rim, good footwork, and can hit a jumper.

When I start talking about Towns, I feel like I run into the same problem talking about Anthony Davis this year — there can be only so much hyperbole. It all starts to feel a little ridiculous. Then you watch Davis and Towns play, and the cycle starts all over again. Did you see that Davis had 39, 13, and eight blocks on Wednesday?

Well, Godzilla is doing this:

His stats from this year don’t really matter — 9.6 ppg, 6.5 rpg, 2.3 bpg. All his numbers are deflated by playing fewer minutes (20.5 mpg) while surrounded by an embarrassment of riches on the Kentucky roster. He’ll be measured against Jahlil Okafor (17.8 ppg, 9.4 rpg, 1.4 bpg) come June, but the numbers are misleading.

For one thing, stretch those stats out across 40 minutes:

•Okafor: 23.1 ppg, 12.2 rpg, 1.8 bpg
•Towns: 18.8 ppg, 12.8 rpg, 4.4 bpg

It’s pretty much dead even. What you lose in scoring with Towns you get back on the defensive side. And Towns’s offense is improving as the year goes. He’s shooting nearly 80 effing percent from the field in his last four games, and whether it’s a close win against LSU or surviving in Athens, he’s got a knack for coming up big when things get tight. But where the Okafor-Towns comparison really gets lopsided is when you remove college basketball from the equation.

Towns fits perfectly with where the NBA is going. Post-up power forwards have turned into the NBA’s version of running backs. They will never disappear, and a potentially great one (like Okafor) will always help. But you can get by without one, and honestly, you might be better off.

That’s what makes this draft interesting. Fifteen years ago, Okafor-Towns would have made for a great draft debate. In 2015, it just won’t. Or at least it shouldn’t.

Towns can be the centerpiece of an offense one day, but he’ll also anchor a defense. He’s good enough at the rim to let a coach go small to space the floor around him with shooters. He doesn’t have the freakish guard skills of Anthony Davis, but that’s the wrong comparison. Think of the Orlando version of Dwight Howard, but with better free throw shooting and the ability to hit a face-up jumper.

Building your team around a low-post scorer with defensive questions is fine, but it requires an all-in investment. It consumes the identity of your offense, and you still have to find help down low on defense. And most of the best teams in the NBA are going in the other direction. This is the problem that’s been vexing the Kings for as long as they’ve had Boogie Cousins. This problem would not exist with Towns.

The other big man in Lexington is just as interesting.

Willie Cauley-Stein

Cauley-Stein is the superstar who exists to debunk all the most obvious Kentucky myths. He was not a McDonald’s All American. He was not a top-25 recruit. He was never a one-and-done candidate. When he was pegged as a potential lottery pick after last year’s tournament run, he decided to come back for his junior year.

In some ways, he’s the anti-Towns. Where Towns’s superstardom was preordained since he was 16 years old, Cauley-Stein was a question mark. To plenty of people around the NBA, he probably still is. To people around college basketball, he is something else: the best example in years of why it sometimes pays to come back to school.

Watching him last year was like seeing JaVale McGee’s Looper.





He had zero offensive polish, not much more poise, and there may not be official stats to support this, but it felt like he fouled someone every five seconds.

He was still really good, of course. His length alone made him great on defense. And he was athletic, and he could dunk. Cauley-Stein was a big reason Kentucky made that tournament run until he got hurt. Had he gone to the NBA last season, there was a chance he would have developed into a dependable pro starter. Someone in the lottery would’ve taken that bet.

But it would’ve been a long shot. Big men like Cauley-Stein disappoint all the time. Most NBA teams — especially lottery teams — don’t have the patience or practice time to weed out players’ worst habits, so those problems fester and keep them from hitting the next level. Eventually, one team gives up trying to get the most out of all that potential, the player moves on to another team, and the cycle repeats itself.

Cauley-Stein flipped the script. He came back to school, he’s playing under control, and he has transformed from a decent but misfired weapon into a finely tuned instrument of torture.

“His growth from last year to this year is amazing,” Calipari told The Advocate-Messenger recently. “And a lot of it becomes that confidence and his mentality — his mental toughness, his ability to push through when it’s not going great, his ability to push through comfort levels, to practice and go hard when he doesn’t feel like doing those things.”

Fellow coach Frank Martin added: “He broke my heart when he didn’t come to Kansas State. It’s unfortunate, I take the job at South Carolina and I have to play against him every year. It’s unbelievable how confident he has become, a multi-dimensional player … We all forget he’s a junior already. Some of his ups and downs as a freshman are in the rear view mirror. You’re starting to see the grown man Willie go out there and play.”

Celebrating maturity and the virtues of college basketball makes me feel like Billy Packer, but in Cauley-Stein’s case, it seems true. It’s not that he’s a different player, he’s just a much smarter version of the player everyone hoped he could be. Now it makes more sense to dream about what will happen in the NBA.

That is DeAndre Jordan’s shot chart for the season. In other words, aside from end-of-quarter 3s, he has taken one shot outside the paint. For the entire season.

This could be Cauley-Stein’s future. Jordan is dominating for the Clippers, and I’m not sure he has a single offensive skill beyond setting screens and rolling to the hoop for massive finishes. The full description of his game could be boiled down to five words: “Dunks, defense, rebounds, and DUNKS.” He is great at exactly three things, and that’s good enough to make him valuable to any team in the NBA.

Cauley-Stein is great at the same three things. He can finish lobs, he can rebound, and he’s so quick and long that strength is irrelevant. He can guard anyone, and he helps the whole defense. Watch him challenge this first jumper, then recover to destroy this kid’s hopes and dreams:

There are signs that he might be developing a face-up jumper too. That’s a wrinkle Jordan has never had. If the jumper comes together, it would obviously make Cauley-Stein even more attractive in June. But whether the jumper develops or not, just watch Jordan, or look at someone like Tyson Chander, and it’s hard to bother worrying about the offense.

The most serious questions facing Cauley-Stein were related to maturity and basketball IQ, and both of those questions have been answered this year. Once it’s time to start freaking out about the draft, Cauley-Stein’s value will tell you a lot about what the NBA prioritizes right now. DeAndre Jordan fell to the 35th pick in 2008. Cauley-Stein won’t get past 10, and may not get past five.

The NBA’s Big New Buzzword

Wingspan. Upside. Motor. These are our older members of the draft cliché family. Right now, in 2015, we are witnessing the birth of another.





…

…

…

…

RIM PROTECTOR.

Rim protector. You have probably heard this term casually thrown around with increasing frequency over the past few years, but it’s about to hit upside territory in June.

Most buzzwords are at least 60 percent ******** — lookin’ at you, motor – but rim protector makes sense. Look at what Jordan has been doing for the Clippers. Look at Chandler’s career. Look at the article Kirk Goldsberry wrote on Rudy Gobert earlier this week. Gobert is averaging seven points per game and he’s been one of the breakout players of the season.

When Cleveland gave up two first-round picks for Timofey Mozgov, it looked like a last act of desperation in a lost season. Now it looks like the smartest trade of the year.

Rim protectors are becoming the must-have accessory. If you have a center who can protect the paint all by himself, that gives a coach and GM twice as much flexibility with the rest of the lineup. Maybe they go big with a second low-post scorer (like Zach Randolph next to Marc Gasol in Memphis); maybe they go small, to play faster and space the hell out of everyone (like Draymond Green next to Andrew Bogut in Golden State). Either way, this means a job that used to belong to two players can be done with one … if you have the right one.

Kentucky has two.

If you want to know why Calipari’s team looks so impossible, there’s at least one very simple answer: This is a college basketball team anchored by two big men who will one day anchor NBA defenses all by themselves.

Yes, the rise in rim protector obsession will absolutely lead to all kinds of teams drafting their very own JaVale McGees or talking themselves into younger players who aren’t quite that good. This would be the Larry Sanders problem. But all that is beside the point today. Both of Kentucky’s big men are for real, and hyphenated, and spectacular.

Cauley-Stein is quick enough to cover insane amounts of ground on defense and stick with college players half his size, and he’s long enough to bother every shot within 10 feet. Karl-Anthony is big enough to ruin shots at the rim, and his offense is somehow dominant and raw at the same time. Seven-footers always have value, but given where the NBA is going, guys like these will be priceless. That’s what’s coming in June.

Until then, they’re college basketball’s problem.

http://grantland.com/the-triangle/k...-two-headed-monster-is-the-future-of-the-nba/

 

[CP1708]

P, Laker thread, please. Thank you.

 

[pmatic]

You will not use me as your pawn!

 

[CP1708]

You will not use me as your pawn!

Whaaaaaaaaaaaa? I would never.


Actually, while I have you here, I have a request, I need your Dwight/Kobe superman pic, but could you adjust the names for me? I need Mitch to be Kobe, and the one with the cape, I need you to uh, ya know........


Ok, thanks.

 

[frshstunna]

I definitely think Mudiay is a level below those three athletically (probably several ).

I think his game is very similar to Wall though.

Yea Mudiay is a level below those guys in terms of athleticism, still a great athlete tho ...the similarities I see is in style of play, they all got that attacking , full speed style

 

[Vincent Van Goat]

Wondering which prospect(s) jumps up 5-10 spots because of an outstanding Tournament run 

 

[dacomeup]

 
Wondering which prospect(s) jumps up 5-10 spots because of an outstanding Tournament run 

Under the Cleanthony Early Act. 

 

[osh kosh bosh]

Under the Cleanthony Early Act. 

in conjunction with the Shabazz Napier statute.

 

[johnnyredstorm]

what about the renaldo balkman bill?

 

[pmatic]

Towns, WCS and Kentucky are playing vs Florida on your local CBS channel.

 

[pmatic]

Towns invites everyone to his block party.

 

[johnnyredstorm]

towns has it all

 

[nick.]

towns has it all

need him to be a Knick

 

[pmatic]

TOWNS. :x

 

[pmatic]

I don't think I'm a prisoner of the moment when I say Towns may have just solidified himself as the #1 pick.

 

[osh kosh bosh]

I'm trynig to not let recency bias effect me but I think I've seen enough.


Adjust your big boards accordingly. It's Towns #1 with a bullet.

 

[nick.]

11 pts 9 rebs 7 blks.... :x :x :x

 

[dacomeup]

Let me start the I wouldn't take Okafor over Towns or Russell train up right now.

 

[pmatic]

View media item 1436638
Jahs time.

 

[Maximus Meridius]

wrong thread