Tag Archives: Dante Exum

Summer League Scouting: The Rest

20 Sunday Jul 2014

Posted by in NCAA

≈ 8 Comments

Tags

, , , , , ,

I already wrote my detailed scouting reports on Andrew Wiggins, Jabari Parker, Doug McDermott, and TJ Warren as those were the players I felt I got to know the most intimately in Las Vegas. But I watched enough of other players to have observations I’d like to share.

Zach LaVine

Of all the players I was bearish on, Zach LaVine appears to be the strongest bet to prove me wrong. He was a mystery box that I assumed contained nothing substantial, but now that we got to see him run an offense and play man to man defense, he demonstrated much more ability than I anticipated.

In the first game, it stood out that Gal Mekel tried to drive past LaVine on 3 occasions and couldn’t get by once. I wasn’t sure whether to be sad for Mekel or happy for LaVine, but then Mekel blew by Glenn Robinson and got to the rim 3 times in a row. Even though Robinson is a SF, he’s not athletically challenged. Then Mekel tried to go at LaVine one last time, put a nice crossover on him and tried to shift directions a couple of times, but LaVine diligently shuffled his feet and forced him into a tough fadeaway jumper that badly missed.

I expected LaVine to be clueless on defense due to bad high school and college steal rates. He finished with 4 steals in 5 games, and 2 of them showed quick hands to strip the ball that you never see from McDermott or Randle types. I don’t think his defensive instincts are that bad, he just didn’t get many steals because he doesn’t have long arms and he is rail thin (I am starting to believe strength plays a significant role in steals). He still can’t fight through a screen to save his life and doesn’t always seem certain of where he’s supposed to be on defense, but he definitely showed enough potential to make me believe he can possibly become a positive on this end.

Offensively, we finally got to see LaVine run an offense and it wasn’t too bad. He doesn’t seem like a natural PG, and in the first game he appeared uncomfortable whenever Dee Bost applied pressure. He also isn’t the best passer, as he doesn’t see the floor all that well and he didn’t appear to be particularly accurate with his passes. But once he settled in his handle didn’t look too shabby, as it was good enough to get him wherever he wanted to go with his elite explosiveness and quicks. The issue was that it’s difficult for him to get off passes in the post because of his short arms, and he struggles to finish due to his lack of strength, so he was fairly reliant on his jumper and free throws. But he did a couple of shots to go at the rim when he found daylight, including some highlight dunks. His feel for the game didn’t look great, but at the same time it was much better than expected for a guy who hasn’t run an offense above the high school level. It will be interesting to see how much he can improve with hard work and repetitions. His final counting stats weren’t too shabby for such a raw prospect: 15.7 pts 2.8 asts 3.3 tovs in 6 games– his turnover rate is especially mild given all of the slashing, passing, and scoring LaVine was asked to do given his age and experience.

LaVine is pretty much Nik Stauskas if you traded a healthy portion of skill and feel for elite quickness and explosiveness. Stauskas was a lower RSCI recruit than LaVine who rose due to working diligently on his skills and body. I now understand why LaVine wasn’t top 50 RSCI: there’s a bias toward players who dominate high school due to physically developing sooner such as Jabari Parker, Shabazz Muhammad, and Julius Randle. LaVine’s rail thin frame is still a concern, as he is uniquely underweight and may never add enough muscle to accomplish much inside. But I get the impression that he is taking his NBA career seriously and is going to work hard and listen to his coach (if only his coach wasn’t Flip Saunders). I don’t know how high he’ll peak or if he’ll even necessarily become good, but he inspired a ton of hope in Las Vegas and he shot up my rankings. I feel he justified his lottery selection.

Dante Exum

Exum looked awesome the first game, as he was getting to his spots offensively, dishing beautiful passes to his teammates, and protecting the ball with just one turnover. I don’t know if he was feeding off of the crazy pro-Utah energy (the crowd was going crazy over every tiny pro-Jazz event) or if he faced a horrible defense, because he completely disappointed in the following games.

He still showed good quickness, good vision and passing ability, and playmaking instincts defensively to suggest that he has plenty of upside. He is young and toolsy enough such that he didn’t need to have a great summer league. Frankly he looked uncomfortable adjusting to the higher level of competition after not playing above Australian HS level for the past year. It would have been nice to see him show some progress toward the end, but maybe he just needs to get repetitions and work on dribbling with his left hand. Also it appears his conditioning may be a bigger issue than expected, which explains why he conserved so much energy on defense in high school.

His defense looked as bad as anticipated and he couldn’t buy a bucket in the paint over length. He had some sexy finishes in FIBA, but it’s possible that he can’t consistently finish at the rim off the dribble in the NBA.

Altogether there is nothing about his summer league that suggests irreparable flaw or makes his upside unattainable. But he could have shown more and we do need to brace for the possibility that this mystery box does not contain a boat. I don’t drop him heavily though, he’s still top 5 to me.

Julius Randle

I like the way the Lakers were using Randle. He often slashed from the perimeter, where I felt he was at his best in college. And unlike Jabari and Wiggins, he doesn’t attack exclusively for himself, as he makes a conscious effort to create to teammates. I don’t think he sees the floor all that well, but he is mindful of where his teammates are hanging out and he tries to dish to them when he can. He had one excellent pass where he threaded the needle inside and created FT’s.

And even though he’s bad on defense, it’s not because he doesn’t care. He shows competitiveness on this end, he just is naturally bad at it due to short arms, lack of burst, and slow reactions. I think this is just a killer triumvirate of weaknesses, but he works hard and he can at least become good man to man with his quick feet and great strength.

Randle is definitely less talented than Wiggins and Parker but it feels like he’s on a better developmental path than either of them. I’ve always had the impression that he really does want to be good at as many things as possible to win, and he will sacrifice touches and shots for the good of the team. He still doesn’t naturally play efficiently, and he struggled to finish some of his postups which involved a bit too much dribbling. But he still is so good at finishing circus shots that his shooting percentages didn’t look horrible at the end of the day.

I think he has an uphill climb to become great and I will always perceive him as an underdog in spite of his recruiting ranking and draft slot. I could see him overachieving my expectations for him through hard work and adaptability. It will be interesting to monitor Randle vs. Parker– I feel that Parker has naturally sharper instincts, but Randle is more in tune with the overall health of the team, but they are otherwise largely similar players.

Tyler Ennis

Ennis was a disappointment for me. I didn’t watch a ton but from what I can tell he’s too slow to get to the rim and could only get close enough to get off floaters. He made some sharp passes and showed quick hands that suggest he might have had a good steal rate even without the zone. Also he might be much better in the NBA since he was awful against bad teams his first few college games before everything clicked. But I might just have been too much of a sucker for cerebral PG’s and need to upgrade the value of athleticism + quicks for the position. I can still see him as a Mark Jackson type.

Rodney Hood

I didn’t like Hood as a prospect at all, but he had a solid showing in Vegas. His offensive package isn’t shabby: he makes 3’s, he sees the floor, he passes well, he can exploit mismatches to get to the rim with his decent athleticism and handle, and he doesn’t force the issue and make mistakes. That’s a solid supporting role player, and 11 assists vs 5 turnovers is nice. If he could even be neutral defensively I’d say that’s a solid pick in the late 1st. Unfortunately given his poor strength, short arms, and bad instincts defensively I still think he’ll offset the good but not great offensive skill set. But who knows, maybe he’ll overachieve enough on both ends to become an alright role player.

Kyle Anderson

I am big time disappointed in Kyle. He couldn’t get to the rim and finish, he couldn’t get to the line, he didn’t rebound, and he didn’t get many assists because he couldn’t get to his spots offensively. Further when he played Utah, Rodney Hood absolutely abused him and was able to blow by him at will. Against New Orleans there were 2 occasions on which Kyle was near the rim but didn’t rotate to help, although on one occasion he reached in to commit a weak foul and got pulled. I have heard that he did well defensively against some of the other top players, but whenever I happened to notice he was not getting to the rim and not doing anything of value on defense.

The slomo nickname is all fun and games until Kyle actually needs to match up against NBA athletes. He’s the smartest player in the draft, but smarts won’t be enough when he’s weak and slow and going up against elite athletes. He was drafted to the best possible situation to succeed, but I’m starting to fear he’s just a bit too slow and lazy.

Bruno Caboclo

Caboclo’s rawness was on fully display with his 2 assists and 18 turnovers. He didn’t seem to be that sure of where he was supposed to be defensively when I watched either. His rawness is a thing, his feel for the game is a work in progress. But it’s still easy to see why he was such a tantalizing prospect: just look at those arms and his shooting touch. He had one possession where he splashed a stepback 3 and it looked especially nice. Near the end of a half he was standing covered in the corner and caught the ball, fired, and hit at the buzzer. It’s such a broken weapon if he can get off corner 3’s whenever he wants– there was no off ball movement necessary to create that shot. He might not be good at all, but his upside is obvious so I can’t hate on the selection.

Advertisement

How Good Is This International Class? Part 1

21 Saturday Jun 2014

Posted by in International

≈ 26 Comments

Tags

, ,

The most challenging aspect of the draft for me is evaluating the international crop.  NCAA players are easy for me to work with since I’m intimately familiar with all of the players, coaches, and systems.  On the other hand, I am lacking in expertise in overseas leagues so solving the internationals involves quite a bit of thin slicing and guesswork.  But as I have tried to piece together the value of the respective internationals in this class, I have become increasingly high on the crop being especially strong.  This was reinforced when Kevin Pelton released his WARP ranking with 4 of his top 5 prospects being internationals.  Further, Dario Saric, Damien Inglis, and Walter Tavares rank as late 1st rounders and Vasilije Micic is an early 2nd according to WARP.  This not only aligns with my suspicion that the class is strong, but suggests that it is historically good.  That said his WARP formula also ranks Jordan Adams ahead of Joel Embiid, which is a friendly reminder that stats do not tell the entire story.  So let’s dive in to each player and discuss how scouting narratives may affect their value implied by statistical performances.

Dante Exum
I have already raved about Exum’s FIBA performance, where his statistics ranked him 4th according to WARP.  This seems correct to me, and WARP may even underrate his performance.  Most of the players used for translation analysis played in USA’s pressing defense, where they posted high steal rates which weighs heavily into the WARP formula.  Aaron Gordon looks significantly better according to his FIBA stats than he did playing in Arizona’s non-gambly shot prevention defense.  He had significantly better steal rate in the press (and suggests that he is underrated by his NCAA stats).  On the other hand, Tyler Ennis’s statistical performance was much weaker than his at Syracuse.  This is the most apples to apples comparison as he had to carry team Canada the same way Exum was forced to carry Australia.

On the other hand, Dario Saric was forced to carry team Croatia and performed on Exum’s level whereas he is ranked far lower according to his translated Adriatic stats.  This is a reminder that FIBA stats are only a 9 game sample, which is far too small to take at face value.  But Exum nevertheless posted a significantly better assist:turnover ratio (34:21 vs 44:43) in spite of having a bad game vs team USA, who Saric never faced.  His ability to carry the offense while protecting the ball so well at such a young age is both highly impressive and less prone to sample size variance than shooting percentages, for instance.  If nothing else, his vision and ability to protect the ball while creating loads of offense offer enough promise in tandem with his physical profile to justify the top 4 hype.

What the stats don’t show is that Exum hardly moves off the ball.  I don’t know if this is because he lacks stamina, competitiveness, or simply hasn’t been pushed to develop this aspect of his game yet.  It’s not a fatal flaw since he clearly has enough offensive upside to become an all-star even if he subscribes to the James Harden school of defense.  And with his tools and personality, it wouldn’t be shocking to see him eventually develop into a good defender anyway.  But this does give me enough pause to not instantly elevate him to #1 now that Joel Embiid’s injury concern has been heightened, and it does open the door for an argument that Marcus Smart is a superior prospect since Smart is such a safe commodity on defense.  I still have Exum locked in as a top 3 prospect and am considering him as the #1 prospect in the draft, but if there is a subtle reason to be skeptical of him this would be it.

Jusuf Nurkic
I wrote about Nurkic’s impressive Adriatic stats earlier in the season, and now that is supported by Pelton ranking him #3 in terms of WARP.  Nate Duncan (who seems to have a good eye test) recently shared a great scouting report on Nurkic, which I find encouraging for his prospect value beyond the stats for 2 reasons:

1) Duncan claims that Nurkic passes well out of double teams.  This bodes well for his ability to score efficiently against higher levels of competitions and not be a black hole of turnovers.
2) His quick feet allowed him to stop Dario Saric in their 1 on 1 matchups on multiple occasions.  The concern with Nurkic is that he doesn’t have the length or athleticism to be a traditional shot blocking rim protector.  But given his quick feet, strength, and size, it sounds like he can certainly be a defensive presence in his own rite.

Between his stats, physical profile, and scouting reports, I feel comfortable locking Nurkic in as a top 5 prospect.  There aren’t any scouting narratives that cast doubt on his potential outside of his poor leaping ability, which doesn’t seem particularly debilitating given his strengths.

Clint Capela
Capela ranks as the top international in the class according to WARP, ranking #2 behind only Marcus Smart.  Every statistical model I have seen ranks Capela exceptionally high, and he often appears ahead of Nurkic.  Further, he has good tools to translate his abilities to the NBA as he offers good length, athleticism, and quicks.  His weak tool physically is strength as he only weighs 222, but that shouldn’t preclude him from being a top end defensive center.  How his pre-draft measurements compare to those of other players who have recently served as good defensive centers:

Player Height Length Weight
Chris Bosh 6’11.5″ 7’3.5″ 225
Tyson Chandler 7’0.5″ 7’3″ 224
Joakim Noah 7’0″ 7’1.25″ 223
Clint Capela 6’11” 7’4.5″ 222
Kevin Garnett 6’11 ? 217

The fact of the matter is that once you have great height, length, athleticism, and mobility, you don’t need a world of strength to make a big impact defensively. After all, there aren’t any Shaq level bullies at center that must be stopped in order to win a title these days.  DX and ESPN list him as a PF, and I vehemently disagree: Capela is a center all the way.

Capela thrives as a shot blocker, rebounder, and finisher, as his skill set seems similar to that of Tyson Chandler.  Further, he posted 2.2 assists vs 2.6 turnovers pace adjusted per 40 this past season in French play (it was only 0.6 vs 2.9 in the smaller Eurocup sample where he had an excuse to not pass w/ his whopping 71.8% FG%), which is excellent for a center of his age and implies that he may be able to develop into a Joakim Noah level playmaker.  If nothing else he should be able to move the ball within the offense as opposed to being a Bismack Biyombo who never touches it.  Assist to turnover also correlates with feel for the game, and in tandem with his finishing ability it seems like he offers enough offensively to make it worth getting his defense and rebounding on the floor.

Based on his stats and tools Capela seems to offer a world of upside.  If scouts loved him and ESPN/DX were clamoring for him to go #1 overall, I don’t think I’d take a strong stance against that sentiment.  But in reality the sentiment is quite the opposite, DX ranks him 17th, ESPN 27th, and Nate Duncan thinks he belongs in round 2 after watching him at the Nike Hoop Summit (I like Duncan’s scouting reports but he is drastically underselling Capela’s strengths with that conclusion).

The common scouting narratives are that Capela has poor basketball IQ, poor feel for the game, and is lazy.  It is hard for me to reconcile how these narratives may be completely true in spite of the stats he posted, but they likely aren’t completely made up either.  So let’s start by examining Duncan’s critiques.  He starts by mentioning Capela’s poor jump shot (which is a viable flaw) and goes on to note:

He looks like his skill level is always going to be more center than power forward, and that is a problem given how thin he is.

I agree that his skill set mandates that he plays center. Do not agree it’s a significant problem given his weight with so many thin players succeeding as defensive centers.

Most concerning is Capela’s lack of feel overall. He was the most likely World player to make mental errors, although there may have been a bit of a language barrier involved there as well. During the game, he picked up four fouls in the first half with some silly over the backs. Throughout the week he did not prove particularly adept at finding creases for guards to give him dumpoffs, and his few postups invariably resulted in wild misses or turnovers.

I would have found this disconcerting if his lack of feel resulted in a number of defensive lapses. Let’s tackle each critique point by point:

-A few over the back fouls for a young big hardly sound indicting.
-DX noted in their situational stats that Capela finished an amazing 73.8% of his shot attempts off of cuts. Perhaps this is a minor indictment for his feel, but a larger indictment on the lack of structure of a hastily whipped together all-star team.
-He’s bad at posting up: who cares? It’s not part of his repertoire and he likely should never be used as a post-up player in the NBA.

Duncan then mentions that his strength is lacking and he struggled to even post up guards in 2 on 2 drills. It is unclear whether this is a greater indictment on his lack of strength or post up skill, but I assume it’s a bit of both.

And that’s all Duncan has to offer.  There’s nothing there that strongly pokes holes in my hypothesis that he may be Tyson Chandler 2.0.  I believe the worst than can be concluded is that Capela is a deeply dependent scorer, and he will suffer if he plays in a poorly coached offense with poor ball movement.  French teams typically have good ball movement (which is why the Spurs always draft French players) so it is likely that playing in France accentuated his offensive production.  His 2 point scoring stats are not that different from those of Joel Embiid.  But in terms of footwork, shooting touch, and offensive upside Embiid completely blows him away.  Stat models cannot fully detect the disparity in footwork and overall skill level, so this is one reason to take his stats at less than face value.

DX shares similar critiques with his feel for the game and also notes that he has questionable intangibles and defensive fundamentals.  I’d say there are enough red flag narratives from people who are competent at scouting to throw some cold water on his upside implied by tools and stats.

Overall, scouting narratives strike me as less discouraging than his positives are encouraging.  If there is one position where skill and intelligence flaws can be overcome to produce at an elite level, it’s center.  Nobody ever accused Dwight Howard of having good basketball IQ or feel for the game, but he was the 2nd most valuable player in the league when he had Stan Van Gundy coaching him. Everybody questioned Andre Drummond’s passion and basketball IQ and he slid too far and instantly smashed expectations as a rookie.  I have no idea how DeAndre Jordan slid to the 2nd round with his physical tools, but he didn’t even have good stats in college and he’s become a useful NBA player anyway.  Even Javale McGee convinced Masai Ujiri to gamble on him at 4/44, and he is responsible for some of the most inexplicably dumb plays in NBA history.  Athletic bigs are capable of such a significant defensive impact that they have quite a bit of margin for error in their skill and basketball IQ in order to still be productive.

My closing caveat is that I have compared Capela to two groups of athletic bigs: skinny and smart (KG, Bosh, Noah, Chandler) and strong and not smart/skilled (DAJ, Dwight, Drummond, Javale).  There are not many examples of skinny and not smart/skilled, so it’s possible that he simply does not become good at all.  But his French stats suggest that he has some “je ne sais quoi” that gives him his own form of unique upside (it wouldn’t be surprising if he’s smarter than scouts think he is), and I believe that’s worth gambling on in the 6-10 range.

Capela is a truly fascinating prospect given his polarizing features, and it makes me a bit sad that I’m closing by citing his “je ne sais quoi,” because that was a really long writeup to conclude with “I don’t know” in French.

That’s all for part 1.  I’m going to split this up into 2 or 3 pieces in order to address the international class in its entirety.

Reactions From The Combine

17 Saturday May 2014

Posted by in NCAA

≈ 7 Comments

Tags

, , , , , , , , , , ,

Now that the combine is underway, we get all sorts of cool new information to process and update our perception of each prospect.  Unfortunately, the information is largely flawed and worthless.  For instance: Doug McDermott topped Blake Griffin’s max vert (35.5″) with 36.5″.  While it is encouraging that he may be more athletic than expected, it shows how deeply flawed some of these tests are since Griffin is a far superior athlete.  But the official measurements are of value, and even though everything else should be ignored I will selectively choose to pay attention to it when I have a point to make.

Reach For The Stars

One aspect of the draft that does not make sense to me is how much more attention height gets than standing reach.  Perhaps this is because height is easier to measure with a high level of accuracy, but height only approximates where a players line of vision falls.  Players make plays with their hands, and reach is necessary to contest shots on defense and shoot over defenders on offense.  Intuitively, the latter seems far more important.  As a disclaimer, I am unsure how much a player can vary his reach by stretching as far as he can vs. casually reaching upward, so these measurements come with a grain of salt.  But I don’t believe it’s nearly as flukey as the athletic testing, so it may be worth paying some regard to.

Losers

The biggest loser on measurements is Gary Harris.  He measured slightly shorter than expected at 6’2.5″ without shoes, 6’4.5″ with shoes, and a 6’6.75 wingspan.  But the ugly figure for him is his 8’0″ reach.  The only players who measured with worse reach are small PG’s Russ Smith (7’11”), Aaron Craft (7’10.5″), Shabazz Napier (7’9″), and Jahii Carson (7’9″).  Bigger PG’s such as Deonte Burton (8’1.5″), Tyler Ennis (8’2″), Elfrid Payton (8’2.5″), Marcus Smart (8’3″), Semaj Christon (8’3″), and Dante Exum (8’7″!!!) comfortably reached higher than him.

Going through DraftExpress’s database, I cannot find an example of a full-time NBA SG who measured this poorly.  The worst measurements I can find are Jerryd Bayless and Randy Foye at 8’1″, who are both undersized and horrible defensively.  After that JJ Redick (8’1.5″), Monta Ellis (8’2″), Dion Waiters (8’2″), and Jodie Meeks (8’2″) are the next lowest measurements among full-time SG’s, and keep with the theme of bad defense.  The worst reach in DX’s database among SG’s who are considered to be good defensively is Avery Bradley (8’2.5″).  Even if we give Harris the benefit of the doubt and tack on an extra inch to his measurement, it appears to remain problematic.  I would not be surprised if he slides on draft night, as his main appeal had been a lack of glaring warts, and now that is no longer true.  He may need to be paired with a big PG who can cross match defensively.  I do not want to read too much into this, but I will likely drop him a few slots down on my board.

The other disappointing reaches were Patric Young and Jarnell Stokes, who shared a 8’7.5″ reach.  This is surprising given their height and wingspan combinations, but they were also the two strongest players at the combine which likely hurts their reach.  I believe this hurts Young more than Stokes since he has a lower skill level, with rim protection being his primary value in college.  His reach puts a damper on his defensive upside, and he is so limited on offense I doubt he’s worth drafting.  On the other hand, Stokes was known to lack rim protection skills and may have the skill level to contribute as an undersized PF, so this does not hurt him as much.  But it still calls into question his ability to contest shots in the paint, as it is difficult to find any full time NBA PF’s with a pre-draft reach < 8’9″.

Winners

Dante Exum measured with a staggering 8’7″ reach.  That is the same as Doug McDermott and Rodney Hood, and just half an inch worse than Stokes and Young.  That is incredible for a point guard, as he may be able to cross match onto SF’s as he gains strength.

Kyle Anderson measured to have a 7’2.75″ wingspan and 8’11.5″ reach, better than a number of PF prospects in the draft such as Julius Randle (8’9.5″), Cory Jefferson (8’9″), Dwight Powell (8’9″), and Johnny O’Bryant (8’9″).  He definitely has the length and reach to play PF and only needs to add strength to fit in at the position.  This is important for him as the impact of his lack of speed and quicks is mitigated at PF.

Jordan Adams measured just 6’4.75″ in shoes, but more than atoned with a 6’10” wingspan and 8’6″ reach.  Further, he trimmed down to 209 pounds after being listed at 220 pounds this past season.  He posted stellar statistics as a 19 year old sophomore, and it is a bit tantalizing to imagine how good they may have been if he had spent the season in peak condition.

Nik Stauskas measured slightly taller and longer than expected with a respectable 8’6″ reach.  This bodes well for him since his tools are otherwise weak and he projects to be bad defensively.  Having NBA SF size presents the option for him to match up with the slowest opposing wing and mitigate his lack of mobility on defense.

Tyler Ennis measured longer than expected at 6’7.25″, with an 8’2″ reach that barely trails some of the taller PG’s in the class such as Elfrid Payton (8’2.5″) and Marcus Smart (8’3″).  For a player who does not have any distinct strengths athletically, it is encouraging that he at least has above average size for a PG.

Isaiah Austin measured 7’0.5″ in shoes, 7’4.5″ wingspan, and a 9’4.5″ reach.  His reach exceeds that of some of the best defensive centers in the NBA, such as Larry Sanders (9’4″), Dwight Howard (9’3.5″), Andrew Bogut (9’2.5″), Tyson Chandler (9’2″), and Joakim Noah (8’10.5″– Noah is the best counterexample for the importance of reach measurements).  Converse to Young and Stokes, his reach may have been aided by his lack of strength, but his combination of size, mobility, and shooting cannot be overlooked.

Adreian Payne measured with a surprising 7’4″ wingspan and 9’1″ reach, which means he may be able to play both PF and C.  Further, it came to light that he has been dealing with mono since January so he may be underrated by his on court performance this past season.  The mono would explain his decline in steal and block rates, which were especially bad in conference play.  His age may inhibit his upside, but his combination of size and shooting makes him a solid bet to become a useful player.

Markel Brown appeared to be undersized for a SG as he was listed at 6’3″, but he measured favorably at 6’3.5″ in shoes, 6’8.75″ wingspan, and a 8’4″ reach.  Along with his elite leaping ability (he tied Jahii Carson for best max vertical at 43.5 inches), he has the tools to guard NBA SG’s even if his instincts are in doubt.  He carries intrigue as a round 2 flier as he combines excellent athleticism with solid passing and shooting.

Athletic Testing

The results from vertical, shuttle, and sprint drills should all be ignored.  Doug McDermott’s vertical leap and Nik Stauskas’s score on the shuttle and sprint may be encouraging for those who are high on their skills, but in reality they are likely meaningless noise.  For reference: Jimmer Fredette completed the shuttle drill in 10.42 seconds, which would have tied him with Zach LaVine for the best score in this year’s class.  Yet he has been completely overmatched physically by NBA competition, as he cannot stay in front of anybody defensively.  If his score made the Kings feel better about using a lottery pick on him, I doubt they still feel good about it now.  Paying regard to any surprising outcomes is more likely to lead away from the truth than toward it, so we’ll just pretend these tests never happened and move on.

Interviews

Again this qualifies as information that largely will be misleading, as a player’s performance on the court is far more important than speaking well in interviews.  But I would like to take a moment to discuss my favorite interviewee: Spencer Dinwiddie.

In his interview, he discusses the adjustment to defending NBA players by noting his Colorado team wanted to close out late on 3’s, but that he wouldn’t want to closeout late on a Steph Curry 3. He also mentions James Harden as a player he compares to given Harden’s high volume of 3 pointers and free throws while also being a playmaker who makes the right pass “outside of the playoffs when he was shooting a lot.”  This comports with a past interview where he noted that he wanted to improve his efficiency as a junior.  And then he did so in part due to cutting the percentage of his mid-range from 33.3% to 14.5%, as he finished with an elite 66.7% TS.

He is clearly interested in a statistical understanding of the game, and he discusses it in a way that is rare to hear from a prospect.  He would fit in well with an analytics driven team, as he would likely soak up the advanced information they have to offer.  The possibility that he may be able to follow complex instructions offers a bit of hidden value that should be attractive to teams who are eager to maximize their analytic knowledge.  There was nothing sharp about Colorado’s scheme on either side of the ball, and I wonder if he was trying to dissociate himself from their lack of regard for 3 point defense with his commentary regarding late closeouts.

Aside from conveying intelligence in his interview, Dinwiddie also measured well.  His body is similar to that of Dante Exum’s, as they are both 6’6″ in shoes with a 8’7″ reach.  His wingspan is 1.25″ inches shorter than Exum’s at 6’8.25″, but he is also 9 pounds heavier at 205 with less body fat (5.4% vs 6.4%).  He has the size to guard either wing position, and the quicks to likely stay in front of most NBA wings as well.  He is not much of a leaper and tearing his ACL this past January is not going to help, but he has the tools and intelligence to become an average or better defender.  Offensively he can space the floor with his 3 point shooting, and he also has some PG skills as he can handle and create for himself and others.

Dinwiddie is 21 and doesn’t have the athleticism to be a traditional high upside type, but his combination of skills, body, and intelligence give him sneaky potential.  He could become a B+ player on both ends, which is quite valuable considering the current lack of wing depth in the NBA and how easily he fits into most lineups.  He fits the mold for a prototypical role playing SG in the modern NBA.  He is currently ranked 36th at DX and 38th at ESPN, but I wouldn’t be surprised if he wins a few teams over in interviews and rises into the 1st round.

Video

The Exum Factor: How High is Dante’s Peak?

05 Wednesday Feb 2014

Posted by in International

≈ 6 Comments

Tags

, , , ,

Now that Dante Exum has officially declared for the draft, I figured it’s time to put him under the microscope to see whether his hype is justified.  I analyzed his performance vs Spain in the FIBA u19 games this summer to try to get a feel for what he brings to the table as a prospective NBA player.  Note that this game occurred the week before he turned 18:

This was Exum’s best scoring game, so perhaps not all of his weaknesses were fully exposed.  I looked at DraftExpress’s scouting report to see if they listed any weaknesses that may not have been on display.  Their list:

-Perimeter shooting- this is the one that everybody acknowledges
-TO Prone/PG Skills- this took my by surprise- I’ll touch on this below
-Shot selection- easy to see why, although I don’t think it is a significant weakness.
-Strength- this is the other obvious one on top of shooting.

With respect to turnovers, they claimed that he sometimes plays out of control which is true to an extent- one or two of his turnovers this game could have been qualified as such.  Also against the US he was benched due to playing out of control after committing 4 turnovers in 11 minutes, as Australia went on to lose 94-51.  But he still only had 21 total turnovers in 9 games over the tournament, which is excellent.

Let’s compare his FIBA stats to those of Tyler Ennis.  Ennis played for Canada which was a similar caliber team (Canada finished 6th, Australia finished 4th, the teams shared a 4-5 record, and Australia had a slightly better PD +1.8 vs +0.6).  Differences of note are that Australia played a tougher schedule (both teams played the US once, but Australia played the second best team in Serbia twice while Canada didn’t play them at all), and Ennis had Trey Lyles on his team as a second big time scorer to draw defensive attention.  Ennis led the u19 games scoring 20.9 points per game, Lyles was third with 20.3.  Australia’s second leading scorer was Dane Pineau who averaged 11.8 pts/game.  Also Australia was slightly better defensively (97.2 D-Rating vs 98.2) so it’s not like Exum had the benefit of a hugely pro-offense team construction that Ennis did not:

Mins FG FGA FT FTA Ast TOVs Pts
Ennis 279 74 159 36 51 25 24 188
Exum 266 54 121 39 64 34 21 164

As a freshman at Syracuse, Ennis is averaging 34.4 mpg 12.1 ppg 5.6 apg 1.5 topg playing as more of a distributor than scorer.  That is an excellent turnover rate for any point guard, let alone a college freshman and it will be a large reason why he is likely a lottery pick.  Yet at the FIBAs, Exum had more assists and fewer turnovers against a tougher schedule with just a slightly larger scoring load, and DraftExpress gleaned that turnovers and PG skills is a weakness!

On one hand they are doing their due diligence to list everything that can be perceived as inadequate for an unproven player vying for such a high draft slot.  And it’s possible that he got lucky to have a low number, as 9 games is a small sample and I noted in the video that the scorekeeper miscredited one of his turnovers vs Spain.  But even after you add up the out of control possessions and the lazy low leverage passes that went awry, his bottom line result was excellent.  He clearly is doing something correct to avoid them, and I believe it is a testament to his ball handling, passing, and basketball IQ.  Against Spain he repeatedly got into the lane and made beautiful passes to his teammates, but of his pile of turnovers only one of them came on a drive and kick when his pass was deflected.

DX’s qualm with his PG skills is that sometimes he misses teammates and forces shots, which is a perspective I understand after seeing some of his forced shots in the paint vs Spain.  But in that game, he did much more finding teammates than he did missing them.  I’m not sure if it was an above average distribution game where his teammates did a below average job of converting.  But he was credited with 4 assists and averaged 3.8 for the tournament, and it’s inevitable that his teammates failed to convert some significant amount of quality looks created by Exum in other games.

With respect to shot selection, I again do not think he was particularly bad.  He should inevitably attempt some bad shots with such a great disparity between his talent and that of his teammates, and his intelligence inspires confidence that he will learn to improve his shot selection with better NBA teammates.  Also DX takes exception to his volume of 3 point attempts, but he shot 33.3% for the tournament so again the bottom line does not look bad.  It would be more upsetting if he instead insisted on launching long 2 pointers.

Taken altogether, I’d qualify all things efficiency and basketball IQ related (turnovers, PG skills, shot selection) to be a distinct positive.  The fact that DraftExpress listed this as a weakness is a testament to the fact that there’s so little to dislike about Exum.   His actual weaknesses are his shot and strength, and he is reportedly investing significant effort to improve both.  My next biggest qualm is that while he is a fluid athlete, he is not particularly explosive.

Even without great strength or explosiveness, his tools are decidedly positive as he brings elite speed, quicks, height, and length to the PG position.  Even without a great shot, his combination of ball handling, passing, and touch around the rim offer promise as a future offensive centerpiece, especially if surround by good shooting.  He projects to be a positive defensively as well.  The only thing that could prevent him from becoming good is poor development, but he reputedly has an excellent work ethic.

Exum idolizes Derrick Rose, which is sensible as the players offer similar value.  They both have a great combination of size and speed for the PG position.  Rose is stronger and more explosive, but Exum is taller and longer as he is 6’6 with a 6’9 wingspan vs Rose’s 6’2.5 with a 6’8 wingspan.  They share questionable shooting as their weakness, as Rose’s shooting improvement played a large role in his winning MVP in his 3rd season in the league.  While Rose’s freshman season was good, his ability to grow was what made him such an appealing prospect and successful NBA player until derailed by injury.  While Exum’s future growth rate is a mystery, his work ethic and intelligence are two strong points in favor of it being good.  Even his college stats parallel closely to Exum’s FIBA stats:

MPG PPG APG TOPG SPG 2p% 3p% FT%
Rose 29.2 14.9 4.7 2.7 1.2 52.1% 33.7% 71.2%
Exum 29.6 18.2 3.8 2.3 1.7 52.9% 33.3% 60.9%

This is not an apples to apples comparison by any stretch, but you can see the similarities in their mold.  It’s possible that Exum would have been worse than Rose with a season in college, but he also may have been better and I don’t think he would be at risk of being as bad as Andrew Harrison.  Also Exum will be a year younger on draft night than Rose was.  It’s fair to give Rose the edge as an overall prospect due to his edge in athleticism and his excellent performance in the NCAA tournament, but I do not believe Exum is particularly far behind.

Exum’s value largely hinges on his performance in workouts. If he is as working as hard on his shot and body as people around him indicate, he will likely boost his stock and vault into the top 3.  Exum is perceived as the mystery box of the draft, but with Andrew Wiggins’ underwhelming freshman performance he is no longer a can’t miss star.  Even if you assign a Marvin Williams level floor to Wiggins, that’s hardly much consolation for a top 3 pick.  I doubt that Williams becoming a semi-useful pro makes Billy Knight feel particularly better about selecting him over Chris Paul.  Especially at the top of the lottery, a player’s value is almost entirely driven by his upside and his odds of achieving it.  While Wiggins has shown better outside touch and more potential as a complementary piece on offense, Exum’s upside as an offensive centerpiece is more attractive.  I don’t think Wiggins has a significant enough (if any) defensive edge to offset this.  As of right now, I rate Exum as the 2nd best prospect overall in this draft, with Jabari Parker having the best shot of supplanting him with a strong finish to his season.

The worst thing that can be said about Exum is that he is young and needs to spend time developing before making a large impact as a pro.  But I believe in his upside, and I believe that he is unlikely to flop completely.  Indications are that this mystery box just might contain a boat after all, and you know how much we wanted one of those.

Richard Sherman Is Awesome And We Can Learn From Him

02 Sunday Feb 2014

Posted by in Personalities and Intangibles

≈ 4 Comments

Tags

, , , , , , ,

Recently Richard Sherman has garnered much attention, as he frightened Erin Andrews when he angrily declared himsef the best corner in the game and called Michael Crabtree a “sorry receiver” after Sherman’s Seahawks defeated Crabtree’s 49ers in the NFC championship game.

As a casual NFL fan, this was my first exposure to Sherman.  While people had varying reactions to his postgame mini-rant, I had an inkling that he was one of the more awesome human beings on this planet and did some digging.  Last year he went on ESPN’s First Take and told Skip Bayless “I’m better at life than you,” which is painfully true.  He also demonstrated commendable word choice when he called Bayless an “ignorant, pompous, egotistical cretin.”

But Richard Sherman is more than just an elite troll.  After his 2nd NFL season, he was voted by the AP to the NFL All-Pro 1st team.  Now in his 3rd NFL season, he is widely considered a top 2 NFL cornerback.  He’s on the fast track to become an all-time great, yet in the 2011 NFL Draft he was chosen in the 5th round, 154th overall.  His draft stock was deflated because he started off his college career as a wide receiver, and only had two years experience as a cornerback entering the draft.  He was considered raw, which was something that Sherman himself acknowledged.  But he has good tools and is insanely smart and driven to succeed, so it shouldn’t be surprising that he achieved the heights that he did.  Check out how cerebral his approach to the game is:

And much like Paul George, he had his sights set on extreme goals.  Per an SB Nation interview:

“Doesn’t matter where I play I just want to be a great player.  I don’t want to be a guy that’s in the league a few years, makes a ton of money and has nothing else.  I want to go down as one of the best.I want to prove other NFL Draft websites wrong that say I am the 52nd ranked CB prospect in their eyes.”

The fact that there was a player with the tools to be great and had such an intelligent and dedicated approach to the game yet was passing up multiple times by every team is amazing to me.  Richard Sherman is the archetype of player that both NFL and NBA GM’s should be pursuing, and the fact that he slipped to the 154th overall shows the inefficiencies of the NFL Draft that I believe remain present in the NBA Draft as well.

The NBA player who stands out as the most Richard Sherman like personality is Chris Paul.  He went 4th overall, as he was a polished NCAA superstar, but he neverthless made the GM’s who drafted Andrew Bogut, Marvin Williams, and Deron Williams ahead of him look foolish.  He thrives off of his otherworldly basketball IQ, and there was concern that he was too competitive as he punched Julius Hodge in the crotch during an ACC game.  I feel that he was one of the all-time underrated draft prospects in spite of going at a high slot, as his lack of an extra inch of height got too much attention and his intelligence received far too little.

Players like Richard Sherman and Chris Paul are one of a kind, and most draft classes will not have anybody who compares.  But these personality types are so underrated, part of the prospect evaluation process should be to identify players who show similar characteristics.  It is built from thin slices from afar, but here’s my early list of players to monitor who have shown signs of possible elite drive, confidence, and intelligence.

6) Joel Embiid-  His personality is slippery to assess, as he is still learning the English language and the game of basketball which makes it difficult to fully convey his intelligence.  On the other hand it also makes it difficult to grasp for his mental limitations since there’s an excuse for most of his mistakes. But his massive overperformance when he wasn’t expected to make an impact, and also his demonstration of a basic ability to learn are positive signs early.   Also noteworthy with Embiid is that he seems to have a fiery passion to his game as he already has 3 technical fouls on the season. Some may view this as a negative, but prefer it to his teammate Andrew Wiggins’s passive approach by a comfortable margin.

5) Tyler Ennis- He has an insanely low turnover rate for a freshman PG, and he has been at his best against good competition as some of his worst games have come against the dregs of Syracuse’s schedule.  Further, his stats in the final 5 minutes of games are better than sooner.

4) Dante Exum- he’s outwardly quiet but reputed to be confident and an extremely hard worker.  Derrick Rose is his role model and they seem to have similar deameanors.  He won me over a little bit with an incredibly sharp assessment regarding the pressure of being a high draft pick:

“Being told that you’re going to be a franchise player doesn’t mean anything, honestly they can say what they’d like and it’s just an opinion and it doesn’t mean it’s going to come true…Dealing with I guess that pressure, it doesn’t really matter to me because I know I’m just going to do what I can to get to that.”

That’s an impressive perception for an 18 year old kid, and it should inch NBA teams toward taking the mystery box over the boat.

3) Spencer Dinwiddie- He may not declare for the draft after his ACL tear, but he is an obviously intelligent person in interviews.  In a DX interivew, he cited that he wanted to improve his efficiency last offseason, and demonstrated a solid vocabulary when touched on his capacity to be an “auxiliary scorer.”  He also expressed an inclination to be a franchise point guard but accepted the possibility of a supporting role.  To me, he reminisces of Shane Battier with PG skills.

2) Marcus Smart- he occasionally makes a bad decision on the floor as he is prone to force bad shots, which may be a sign that he does not have elite intelligence.  But overall he demonstrates good feel for the game, especially defensively.  And from watching interviews he seems to back up his name with above average intelligence.  Moreover he demonstrates uniquely good intangibles and leadership skills as I noted in my Embiid breakdown.  He recently had a mini-meltdown where he outwardly demonstrated frustration during a poor game, and had a good apology afterward where he expressed desire to avoid similar behavior in the future. Willingness to accept feedback and learn from mistakes is how people grow, so it’s encouraging to see the reaction from him even though the meltdown wasn’t particularly bad.

1) Nik Stauskas- He strikes me as the complete package in terms of intangibles.  He is a highly intelligent player, and his work ethic must be incredible given the offseason work he put in on both his body and his skills.  He has a confident demeanor as he does things like blow kisses to the Michigan State crowd after a crucial road win.  His coach also acknowledged that Stauskas showed leadership by holding him back from the refs after a missed call.  His physical limitations place a ceiling on his upside, but that ceiling might be higher than common wisdom would suggest.

Note that the list is not comprehensive, and I hope to identify other attractive personalities as the season progresses.  My analysis of on court performance and statistics certainly carries more weight, but personalities can’t be excluded from prospect assessment altogether so this is a subject I will touch on sporadically.  Consider the assessment of the personality underlying each player to be a skill that I am developing as a side project.  In the interim, I will be rooting for Richard Sherman and the Seattle Seahawks to win that football game that is apparently happening tonight.