A future hall if famer who leads the NBA in 3 pointers made ever... That's a lot to live up to
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One potential pitfall in assessing Draft guys is letting your & others' expectations of them coming out of High School affect your assessment of them.
For example Shabazz (FWIW) hasn't come close to meeting mine, I thought he was a better athlete ... I think he'll struggle to guard the athletic wings in this league. That fact alone has me souring on him. He's still a good player, just not as good as I was expecting.
Conversely Noel is much better ... he's so active on D and gets plenty of steals and rebounds to go along with all the blocks; not to mention his Assist to Turnover ratio is about 1:1. I am highly impressed with him and think he has the athleticism and ability to guard 4s & 5s in this league ... just not the strength (yet?).
My worry with McLemore is that he has the look of a complementary offensive player ... he thrives when set up so by his teammates and isn't yet that adept at creating his own shot. Now he's very, very good in catch-and-shoot situations but he needs to show more versatility in his offensive repertoire.
Plenty of people seem to have fallen for Bennett and offensively I can see why. He has such a well rounded attacking game for his age. It's his effort level on defence that bothers me. He simply doesn't put the same energy in and this has me worried. I'm sure some of it has to do with conditioning, but I'm nervous of drafting a 4 who plays like he wants to be a 3 and hasn't shown a genuine desire to defend.
There's plenty of time for these guys to develop further but from what I have seen thus far Noel, McLemore, Shabazz & Bennett have separated themselves from the pack ... in that order.
The more I watch college ball this year, the more I think we HAVE to pick Nerlens Noel. The guy does just about everything. Everything but score, but that will come in time.
If we could just work a trade for Jeremy Lamb and pick Noel in the draft, we would be getting pretty close.
Nerlens is looking like the ideal player for us. We can work with this kid.
Players I'm interested in right now:
Nerlens Noel: people act like he's been a disappointment when he's been extremely good actually. His numbers are eerily similar to Patrick Ewing's freshman numbers.
Shabazz Muhammad: showing signs of star potential, will be interesting to see how he finishes the season.
Ben McLemore: Like others have said, reminds me of Ray Allen but maybe a better passer.
Otto Porter: raw, but potential to be the best player out of this class
The top 3 are the ones I'm really zeroing in on right now. Something is telling me to stay away from Cody Zeller, dont like Alex Len either.
Only reason people are hating on Nerlens is b/c of the AD comparison.