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2024 NBA Draft Thread
- Thread in 'Sports & Training' Thread starter Started by addict4sneakers,
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Terrible break for Whitehead.
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Emoni going crazy.
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While I don’t agree with him, some dude from the ringer trying to Drake my brothers Brandon miller at 2 take. Copied his whole flow. Bar for bar.
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How Brandon Miller, Alabama basketball’s star freshman, is mixing promise, production
Practice runs along — and we do mean run because, at Alabama, there is not much idling in two hours of a January afternoon work session — and nothing extraordinary happens. It’s almost easy to lose Brandon Miller in the red blur of action and effort.
Until.
Until during an otherwise innocuous drill, the freshman gets the ball at the top of the key. Crosses over to his right, crosses over to his left with a little head bob and zips to the rim, leaving defenders flat-footed in his wake.
Until during defensive work against the scout team that is not going terribly well for the red team, Miller forces a turnover with quick hands, follows it up with a block at the rim, and then forces another turnover in the lane.
Until a few minutes later, he dribbles and fakes a stepback for a 3. No one bites on the move. So he does it again with a little more sizzle, and this time, there’s just a fraction of a nibble, a brief enough hesitation that allows Miller to find a few inches of clarity. Swish.
Until, on the very next possession, after a scout team turnover, Miller flies down again and squares up for a transition 3.
As he launches, someone in the gym yells, “Here comes another one,” and a manager sitting courtside mutters, “Boom,” calling the make with the same arrogance Jay Wright used on Kris Jenkins’ national championship-winner in 2016.
Because, as it turns out, everyone in the gym is that certain when it comes to Brandon Miller.
There still are not a lot of sure things in this college basketball season. Five teams that started in the top 10 in the preseason (North Carolina, Kentucky, Duke, Arkansas and Creighton) are no longer ranked, and one that wasn’t in the top 25 (Purdue) has held the No. 1 spot for a combined five weeks. Traditional bluebloods are bleeding, and understudies are soaring. John Calipari is on the hot seat, and Chris Collins is not. Up is down, that sort of thing.
Miller is a sure thing. Not in the same way that the immovable force known as Zach Edey is a sure thing. More like in the can’t-miss, obvious-talent, sure-thing way. As in he is a pro masquerading as a college athlete, one whose visit to Tuscaloosa will be brief. “He’s already established himself as the third or fourth best player in this draft,’’ says one NBA scout who spoke anonymously since NBA personnel cannot comment on college athletes. “There’s just so much potential to what he can become — a 6-9 wing that can shoot makes him pretty unique. It’s kind of in his hands. He can become as good as he wants to become.”
Which is funny because he was not that sure of a thing three months ago. “Kind of got no hype early,’’ the scout says. He always was going to be a big thing here, at Alabama. His commitment to the Crimson Tide only added to the other certainty associated with Alabama basketball — that in three years, Nate Oats has changed everything.
On this particular Tuesday, students are moving back in for spring semester. Classes start midweek as always because, as an admissions counselor explained at a freshman orientation weekend a few years ago, “the national championship game is on Monday, and we want to give everyone time to get back.’’ That is how people think around Tuscaloosa.
But in keeping with the up-is-down theory of this year, the basketball version of the Tide currently rank higher (second) than the football team (which finished fifth), and are aiming for a championship that the pigskin fellas haven’t claimed since 2020 — which in the grand scheme of things isn’t that long, but they measure football championship gaps here in dog years. It is taking some getting used to, folks still coming around to this idea of Alabama being a combo football/basketball school.
Oats, for instance, walks in for practice toting three dry mops in his hands and disburses them to his managers. The night before, a bunch of high school cheerleaders used the practice court for some sort of competition, and no one thought to clean up the pom-pom detritus and glitter on the floor. Nick Saban, you can be assured, has never followed around a mop-pushing manager pointing out the glitter spots. Apartment dwellers whose balconies overlook the Tide’s football practice field have to sign waivers, promising not to spy. At Coleman Coliseum, a simple placard reading, “Closed practice,” will do.
Since Oats arrived in 2019 from Buffalo, the Tide have won their first SEC regular-season title in two decades, their first league tourney title in 30-plus years, reached the Sweet 16 and produced four NBA Draft picks. Students have learned to line up early for home games, or risk being shut out of a free seat, and top recruits now regularly find their way to T-Town. Miller is the third five-star to choose Alabama under Oats, but he came to campus in maybe the most critical time of Oats’ early career here. A hot 8-1 start last season spiraled into a 19-14 finish and a first-round bounce, and the way college basketball works, it doesn’t take long for the same people who fell in love with a shiny new team to question if it’s built on smoke and mirrors.
So came the cynics to Alabama, sure they’d seen this all before, especially in the SEC, where someone always is threatening to overtake Kentucky. They questioned Bama’s sustainability and sustenance, wanting more proof that 2021-22 was the outlier, and not the 26-7 finish the year before. With three of his top four scorers gone, Oats went heavy in the portal to bolster the returns of Jahvon Quinerly and Charles Bediako, adding Noah Gurley (Furman), Mark Sears (Ohio) and Dom Welch (St. Bonaventure). He also signed Noah Clowney and Jaden Bradley along with Miller to create a top-10 recruiting class. Still in the preseason SEC polls, the media selected Alabama fifth and tabbed the much ballyhooed Arkansas’ Nick Smith Jr. freshman of the year. Miller was named to the second team.
As much as a five-star prospect can sneak in under the radar, Miller kind of did. And then he dropped 24 points and nine rebounds in a win against Michigan State, 24 and eight against Memphis, an eye-popping 36 points in a loss to Gonzaga and 19 and seven in an evisceration of Kentucky. After losing to the Crimson Tide, Tom Izzo was asked how to stop Miller. “Tackle him,’’ he suggested. Miller averages 19.8 points, 8.3 rebounds and shoots 45.7 percent from the arc. He’s the highest-scoring freshman in the country, the only player in the SEC who already has scored more than 280 points and yanked down plus-125 rebounds. The league that didn’t deem him its preseason rookie favorite has instead given him rookie of the week five times.
Yet Oats credits Alabama’s turnaround to Miller’s approach to the game as much as his ability. Oats believes last year got away from the Tide because they lacked leadership and cohesiveness, and even more because a few players worried more about their own stock than the team’s.
Miller is blissfully disinterested in all of it. He admits he’s dreamed about the draft, but is decidedly not tunnel-visioned about it. Asked how he’d spend his first paycheck, he hems and haws. He already bought his dream car with an NIL deal. A big fan of muscle cars, he tools around campus in a souped-up 2022 Dodge Charger, purple, tricked out with speakers and lights. It’s maybe the only time Miller begs to be noticed. “I mean I’ll sign autographs, or whatever,’’ he says, “but I’d rather just talk to someone. Be me, you know?” Me in this case being the player who drove the hour to Birmingham uninvited to hang out with the managers at a TopGolf outing, and who likes to snap a selfie with Saban every time he sees him.
But he also comes from a family that values competitiveness over statistics. His dad, Darrell, played football for Gene Stallings at Alabama, and Miller spent a few Saturdays in Bryant-Denny Stadium. But that’s not entirely why he chose Alabama. He was raised in a family of athletes, all of whom valued competition over trophy collecting. His mother, Yolanda, ran track, and his older brother, Darrell Jr., played basketball at Fisk University and overseas. Older sister Britany is currently the second-leading scorer at Cumberland University. Driveway pickup games spilled into dining room trash talk and rematches in a never-ending quest to be declared a winner.
Miller knew he had a shot at the NBA before he came to college, and considered the Overtime Elite/G League route. But he wanted to be coached hard, and saw in the demanding Oats someone who would make him better. “It’s all about the work,’’ he says. “You watch NBA players, that’s what they do. They work. That’s the only way you get better.’’ He also wanted to chase a trophy that mattered.
As a high schooler Miller twice earned Tennessee Gatorade Player of the Year and was named to the McDonald’s All-American team, but his Cane Ridge team lost in the state title game in his junior year and was knocked out in the quarters in his senior season. “As good as Brandon is playing, he’s not here to showcase himself,’’ Oats says. “He’s here to win games and have a good time in college. Now he is showcasing himself because of how good he is, but when you get process-oriented, when you dive in to make the team as good as it can be, you also showcase your abilities. That’s how Brandon thinks, and when the best player on your team is here to win games and fully indoctrinates himself in being a college athlete, it 100 percent trickles down.”
There is, of course, a time and place for selflessness in college basketball, and occasionally Miller needs to be reminded how good he is. He had no points in the first half as the Tide struggled to separate early from Arkansas earlier this month, for example, and can disappear for stretches. But the potential for what Miller can draws him regular comparisons to Paul George. “But he’s ahead of where Paul was as a freshman,’’ the scout says. “Not even close.’’
Miller is the first to admit that he needs to get stronger and work on getting to the rim. More than half (138 of 256) of his field goals attempted come from behind the arc, and his 2-point percentage (46.6) only recently passed his 3-point percentage. “Coming into college, I couldn’t really take bumps, at least not SEC bumps,’’ he says. “I know building muscle mass is key.’’ NBA scouts agree, anxious to see how he will learn to dictate what shot he wants, rather than simply take the one presented to him.
He’ll need the heft defensively as well. His length helps now, but in the pros, it will mean he’ll be guarding an assortment of players — shooters, drivers, bigger, smaller.
Yet the thing that intrigues scouts the most goes back to where this story began: in a complicated season, Brandon Miller is not complicated. He stayed the traditional college route. And he’s playing, every day, every game. Not everyone else in his situation is. A thumb injury kept Villanova’s Cam Whitmore out of the lineup, and Duke’s Dariq Whitehead went down Monday with what could be a major injury. Then there’s Smith, who has been in and out of the lineup with a knee problem, left Fayetteville for treatment, and whose return to the court remains in question.
The NBA is not afraid to draft on potential — Shaedon Sharpe never played a minute for Kentucky and went seventh — and will get plenty of opportunity to evaluate injured players on its own time. But there is something to be said for knowing what you’re getting. “You’re naturally inclined to be biased to the guy that’s out there, putting it on the line, good and bad, rather than the guy where it’s kind of gray,’’ the scout says. “It’s a competitive league and you have to win. Maybe somebody who isn’t playing ends up the better pick, but I think your natural inclination is to be drawn to the guy that’s out there every night, not trying to hide anything, the guy who’s just playing.’’
A sure thing, if you will.
Practice runs along — and we do mean run because, at Alabama, there is not much idling in two hours of a January afternoon work session — and nothing extraordinary happens. It’s almost easy to lose Brandon Miller in the red blur of action and effort.
Until.
Until during an otherwise innocuous drill, the freshman gets the ball at the top of the key. Crosses over to his right, crosses over to his left with a little head bob and zips to the rim, leaving defenders flat-footed in his wake.
Until during defensive work against the scout team that is not going terribly well for the red team, Miller forces a turnover with quick hands, follows it up with a block at the rim, and then forces another turnover in the lane.
Until a few minutes later, he dribbles and fakes a stepback for a 3. No one bites on the move. So he does it again with a little more sizzle, and this time, there’s just a fraction of a nibble, a brief enough hesitation that allows Miller to find a few inches of clarity. Swish.
Until, on the very next possession, after a scout team turnover, Miller flies down again and squares up for a transition 3.
As he launches, someone in the gym yells, “Here comes another one,” and a manager sitting courtside mutters, “Boom,” calling the make with the same arrogance Jay Wright used on Kris Jenkins’ national championship-winner in 2016.
Because, as it turns out, everyone in the gym is that certain when it comes to Brandon Miller.
There still are not a lot of sure things in this college basketball season. Five teams that started in the top 10 in the preseason (North Carolina, Kentucky, Duke, Arkansas and Creighton) are no longer ranked, and one that wasn’t in the top 25 (Purdue) has held the No. 1 spot for a combined five weeks. Traditional bluebloods are bleeding, and understudies are soaring. John Calipari is on the hot seat, and Chris Collins is not. Up is down, that sort of thing.
Miller is a sure thing. Not in the same way that the immovable force known as Zach Edey is a sure thing. More like in the can’t-miss, obvious-talent, sure-thing way. As in he is a pro masquerading as a college athlete, one whose visit to Tuscaloosa will be brief. “He’s already established himself as the third or fourth best player in this draft,’’ says one NBA scout who spoke anonymously since NBA personnel cannot comment on college athletes. “There’s just so much potential to what he can become — a 6-9 wing that can shoot makes him pretty unique. It’s kind of in his hands. He can become as good as he wants to become.”
Which is funny because he was not that sure of a thing three months ago. “Kind of got no hype early,’’ the scout says. He always was going to be a big thing here, at Alabama. His commitment to the Crimson Tide only added to the other certainty associated with Alabama basketball — that in three years, Nate Oats has changed everything.
On this particular Tuesday, students are moving back in for spring semester. Classes start midweek as always because, as an admissions counselor explained at a freshman orientation weekend a few years ago, “the national championship game is on Monday, and we want to give everyone time to get back.’’ That is how people think around Tuscaloosa.
But in keeping with the up-is-down theory of this year, the basketball version of the Tide currently rank higher (second) than the football team (which finished fifth), and are aiming for a championship that the pigskin fellas haven’t claimed since 2020 — which in the grand scheme of things isn’t that long, but they measure football championship gaps here in dog years. It is taking some getting used to, folks still coming around to this idea of Alabama being a combo football/basketball school.
Oats, for instance, walks in for practice toting three dry mops in his hands and disburses them to his managers. The night before, a bunch of high school cheerleaders used the practice court for some sort of competition, and no one thought to clean up the pom-pom detritus and glitter on the floor. Nick Saban, you can be assured, has never followed around a mop-pushing manager pointing out the glitter spots. Apartment dwellers whose balconies overlook the Tide’s football practice field have to sign waivers, promising not to spy. At Coleman Coliseum, a simple placard reading, “Closed practice,” will do.
Since Oats arrived in 2019 from Buffalo, the Tide have won their first SEC regular-season title in two decades, their first league tourney title in 30-plus years, reached the Sweet 16 and produced four NBA Draft picks. Students have learned to line up early for home games, or risk being shut out of a free seat, and top recruits now regularly find their way to T-Town. Miller is the third five-star to choose Alabama under Oats, but he came to campus in maybe the most critical time of Oats’ early career here. A hot 8-1 start last season spiraled into a 19-14 finish and a first-round bounce, and the way college basketball works, it doesn’t take long for the same people who fell in love with a shiny new team to question if it’s built on smoke and mirrors.
So came the cynics to Alabama, sure they’d seen this all before, especially in the SEC, where someone always is threatening to overtake Kentucky. They questioned Bama’s sustainability and sustenance, wanting more proof that 2021-22 was the outlier, and not the 26-7 finish the year before. With three of his top four scorers gone, Oats went heavy in the portal to bolster the returns of Jahvon Quinerly and Charles Bediako, adding Noah Gurley (Furman), Mark Sears (Ohio) and Dom Welch (St. Bonaventure). He also signed Noah Clowney and Jaden Bradley along with Miller to create a top-10 recruiting class. Still in the preseason SEC polls, the media selected Alabama fifth and tabbed the much ballyhooed Arkansas’ Nick Smith Jr. freshman of the year. Miller was named to the second team.
As much as a five-star prospect can sneak in under the radar, Miller kind of did. And then he dropped 24 points and nine rebounds in a win against Michigan State, 24 and eight against Memphis, an eye-popping 36 points in a loss to Gonzaga and 19 and seven in an evisceration of Kentucky. After losing to the Crimson Tide, Tom Izzo was asked how to stop Miller. “Tackle him,’’ he suggested. Miller averages 19.8 points, 8.3 rebounds and shoots 45.7 percent from the arc. He’s the highest-scoring freshman in the country, the only player in the SEC who already has scored more than 280 points and yanked down plus-125 rebounds. The league that didn’t deem him its preseason rookie favorite has instead given him rookie of the week five times.
Yet Oats credits Alabama’s turnaround to Miller’s approach to the game as much as his ability. Oats believes last year got away from the Tide because they lacked leadership and cohesiveness, and even more because a few players worried more about their own stock than the team’s.
Miller is blissfully disinterested in all of it. He admits he’s dreamed about the draft, but is decidedly not tunnel-visioned about it. Asked how he’d spend his first paycheck, he hems and haws. He already bought his dream car with an NIL deal. A big fan of muscle cars, he tools around campus in a souped-up 2022 Dodge Charger, purple, tricked out with speakers and lights. It’s maybe the only time Miller begs to be noticed. “I mean I’ll sign autographs, or whatever,’’ he says, “but I’d rather just talk to someone. Be me, you know?” Me in this case being the player who drove the hour to Birmingham uninvited to hang out with the managers at a TopGolf outing, and who likes to snap a selfie with Saban every time he sees him.
But he also comes from a family that values competitiveness over statistics. His dad, Darrell, played football for Gene Stallings at Alabama, and Miller spent a few Saturdays in Bryant-Denny Stadium. But that’s not entirely why he chose Alabama. He was raised in a family of athletes, all of whom valued competition over trophy collecting. His mother, Yolanda, ran track, and his older brother, Darrell Jr., played basketball at Fisk University and overseas. Older sister Britany is currently the second-leading scorer at Cumberland University. Driveway pickup games spilled into dining room trash talk and rematches in a never-ending quest to be declared a winner.
Miller knew he had a shot at the NBA before he came to college, and considered the Overtime Elite/G League route. But he wanted to be coached hard, and saw in the demanding Oats someone who would make him better. “It’s all about the work,’’ he says. “You watch NBA players, that’s what they do. They work. That’s the only way you get better.’’ He also wanted to chase a trophy that mattered.
As a high schooler Miller twice earned Tennessee Gatorade Player of the Year and was named to the McDonald’s All-American team, but his Cane Ridge team lost in the state title game in his junior year and was knocked out in the quarters in his senior season. “As good as Brandon is playing, he’s not here to showcase himself,’’ Oats says. “He’s here to win games and have a good time in college. Now he is showcasing himself because of how good he is, but when you get process-oriented, when you dive in to make the team as good as it can be, you also showcase your abilities. That’s how Brandon thinks, and when the best player on your team is here to win games and fully indoctrinates himself in being a college athlete, it 100 percent trickles down.”
There is, of course, a time and place for selflessness in college basketball, and occasionally Miller needs to be reminded how good he is. He had no points in the first half as the Tide struggled to separate early from Arkansas earlier this month, for example, and can disappear for stretches. But the potential for what Miller can draws him regular comparisons to Paul George. “But he’s ahead of where Paul was as a freshman,’’ the scout says. “Not even close.’’
Miller is the first to admit that he needs to get stronger and work on getting to the rim. More than half (138 of 256) of his field goals attempted come from behind the arc, and his 2-point percentage (46.6) only recently passed his 3-point percentage. “Coming into college, I couldn’t really take bumps, at least not SEC bumps,’’ he says. “I know building muscle mass is key.’’ NBA scouts agree, anxious to see how he will learn to dictate what shot he wants, rather than simply take the one presented to him.
He’ll need the heft defensively as well. His length helps now, but in the pros, it will mean he’ll be guarding an assortment of players — shooters, drivers, bigger, smaller.
Yet the thing that intrigues scouts the most goes back to where this story began: in a complicated season, Brandon Miller is not complicated. He stayed the traditional college route. And he’s playing, every day, every game. Not everyone else in his situation is. A thumb injury kept Villanova’s Cam Whitmore out of the lineup, and Duke’s Dariq Whitehead went down Monday with what could be a major injury. Then there’s Smith, who has been in and out of the lineup with a knee problem, left Fayetteville for treatment, and whose return to the court remains in question.
The NBA is not afraid to draft on potential — Shaedon Sharpe never played a minute for Kentucky and went seventh — and will get plenty of opportunity to evaluate injured players on its own time. But there is something to be said for knowing what you’re getting. “You’re naturally inclined to be biased to the guy that’s out there, putting it on the line, good and bad, rather than the guy where it’s kind of gray,’’ the scout says. “It’s a competitive league and you have to win. Maybe somebody who isn’t playing ends up the better pick, but I think your natural inclination is to be drawn to the guy that’s out there every night, not trying to hide anything, the guy who’s just playing.’’
A sure thing, if you will.
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All of this is like those pics of Kareem or Dr. J at the Rucker. Legendary stuff in the making.
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wemby 
