The thing disappoints me most about Thorpe is he's supposed to be a really knowledgeable analyst. Narratives aren't supposed to be the basis for his ratings.
Yet, when someone tells me Brad Beal is a "great" shooter, what else other than the general narrative that Beal is a great shooter could form the basis of that opinion? While his form is good and it's easy to believe he will soon be a great shooter, there isn't a statistic you can point to that shows that he's currently great. Below 40% from 3, below 80% from the line, 41% from the field, an eFG well below 50%.
When compared to say, Klay Thompson's second year, Beal is a clear class below. Now, Beal is much younger than Thompson, but again Thorpe's argument isn't that Beal is going to be a great shooter. It's that he's a great shooter today.
No, he's not. And you know what? The fact that two years in a row he's shot 78% from the line...that's concerning. Generally guys who are going to be truly great shooters, in the mold of Ray Allen (the general comparison for Beal coming out of college) or Reggie Miller, are going to shoot well from the line right away. That's a pretty good indicator to just how good of a shooter a guy will be later in his career. I mean look at the best shooters in the league right now. Durant, Curry, and Thompson I'd say are in most people's top 5. All of them were well over 80% from the line right away.
Just making a point that Brad Beal was called a great shooter coming out of college and that analysis has stuck with him, even though up to this point, he has not been one. And David Thorpe is supposed to be telling me how these players are performing today, not relying on the player profiles out of college.
