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2020 NBA Draft

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Deni is an interesting player. I know Schmidt loves him and he's one of the best just pure scouting evaluators IMO.

What is his natural NBA position? My gut reaction to his film was stretch 4.

It seems like he'd be a slightly + athlete at the 4 but at the 3, I'd be mildly concerned he'd get overwhelmed.....based on his movement and explosion.

I know he's long, so maybe it is deceiving but I'd be really curious to see if he participates in the combine and gets athletic testing.
 
Deni is an interesting player. I know Schmidt loves him and he's one of the best just pure scouting evaluators IMO.

What is his natural NBA position? My gut reaction to his film was stretch 4.

It seems like he'd be a slightly + athlete at the 4 but at the 3, I'd be mildly concerned he'd get overwhelmed.....based on his movement and explosion.

I know he's long, so maybe it is deceiving but I'd be really curious to see if he participates in the combine and gets athletic testing.

Overwhelmed at the 3? In what way? He's pretty smart and light on his feet from what I've seen, which are the usual points of concern defensively if you're talking about playing a 3/4 tweener at the 3.
 
Overwhelmed at the 3? In what way? He's pretty smart and light on his feet from what I've seen, which are the usual points of concern defensively if you're talking about playing a 3/4 tweener at the 3.

Deni's probably best long term position would be the 2 actually.
 
Deni's probably best long term position would be the 2 actually.

Maybe? Whatever his nominal position is, it's his potential to switch 1-4 with relative ease that makes him an attractive prospect defensively. On offense is where his positional future is less certain, as he probably won't reliably break down defenses at the NBA level, and he's at best an adequate floor spacer. Needs the right players around him to be successful.
 
"Ridiculously streaky" is the only way to describe Anthony Edwards.
 
Maybe? Whatever his nominal position is, it's his potential to switch 1-4 with relative ease that makes him an attractive prospect defensively. On offense is where his positional future is less certain, as he probably won't reliably break down defenses at the NBA level, and he's at best an adequate floor spacer. Needs the right players around him to be successful.

I have no real content to add, just want to say that I’m on the Avdija train. He seems like the easy fit on this team, which I know is far less important than talent, but it sure looks like he has that as well.
 
If we have any second round picks we should really look at Lamar Stevens from Penn State. He can shoot at a decent clip, he has a high motor on defense, he’s a solid rebounder, and I’d say for a college PF he’s a good passer (that probably won’t translate to the NBA very well but oh well). The main downside to him is he’s a senior so he’s “old”
 
What does he do well?

He's actually seen some rather significant positive improvement in the per 100 calculation I run on prospects.

In the past few weeks, he's moved out of the below average category in:

Total Rebounds
Defensive Rebounds
Turnovers
Player Fouls

And he's seen a scoring increase on fewer shots. His PPFGA still leaves a little to be desired but it has trended upward and it is right on the verge of entering average territory as well. And the reduction in his fouls has also seen his hustle stats / PF move out of the below average category and it is plus for a volume scoring player. He also generates FT's at a plus rate and has seen an upswing to 75+% on his percentage. That mix of FT% and 3PT volume also tags him as a shooting improvement candidate.

I'm not really an Edwards fan at all, it is just food for thought. Over this stretch of few weeks, he has also gone from a below average impact player, safely in to the average zone.....average meaning, the impact of an average NBA prospect. For example, Klay Thompson was in that group, so it is actually meaningful over the last 10 years of prospect data. Guys above the threshold Edwards has passed in to have a significantly higher success rate.

If he can improve his FG% even marginally, he suddenly becomes a really interesting player to me......because volume scorers with assist potential (and positive AST/TO potential) are incredibly rare player types, especially at the 2. Even more so if they aren't complete zeros on defense, which Edwards does not seem to be.

Again, I am not his biggest fan but his recent play has shifted the perception of his prospect profile a bit (in my calculation). We'll see if he can build on that.
 
He's actually seen some rather significant positive improvement in the per 100 calculation I run on prospects.

In the past few weeks, he's moved out of the below average category in:

Total Rebounds
Defensive Rebounds
Turnovers
Player Fouls

And he's seen a scoring increase on fewer shots. His PPFGA still leaves a little to be desired but it has trended upward and it is right on the verge of entering average territory as well. And the reduction in his fouls has also seen his hustle stats / PF move out of the below average category and it is plus for a volume scoring player. He also generates FT's at a plus rate and has seen an upswing to 75+% on his percentage. That mix of FT% and 3PT volume also tags him as a shooting improvement candidate.

I'm not really an Edwards fan at all, it is just food for thought. Over this stretch of few weeks, he has also gone from a below average impact player, safely in to the average zone.....average meaning, the impact of an average NBA prospect. For example, Klay Thompson was in that group, so it is actually meaningful over the last 10 years of prospect data. Guys above the threshold Edwards has passed in to have a significantly higher success rate.

If he can improve his FG% even marginally, he suddenly becomes a really interesting player to me......because volume scorers with assist potential (and positive AST/TO potential) are incredibly rare player types, especially at the 2. Even more so if they aren't complete zeros on defense, which Edwards does not seem to be.

Again, I am not his biggest fan but his recent play has shifted the perception of his prospect profile a bit (in my calculation). We'll see if he can build on that.

Not sure I buy the "assist potential"...he's managed 5 assists in just 1 out of 24 games this season, against formidable Delaware State (may literally be the worst team in all of D1). Sexton for comparison had 5 assists in 10 games his freshman season. It's to his credit that he doesn't turn it over too much, but he seems like a chucker through and through.
 
Not sure I buy the "assist potential"...he's managed 5 assists in just 1 out of 24 games this season, against formidable Delaware State (may literally be the worst team in all of D1). Sexton for comparison had 5 assists in 10 games his freshman season. It's to his credit that he doesn't turn it over too much, but he seems like a chucker through and through.

On a per 100 basis, he's at 5.0 AST.

Sexton was at 6.9 but on higher TO output.

So it is probably that Georgia plays a far slower pace......re: the lack of 5 AST games. But I could be wrong there.

AST/TO rate:

Edwards: 1.136
Sexton: 1.302

Edwards still grades out as a much better bet to be a good NBA player though. He has significantly better metrics in Rebounds, Steals, Blocks, PF's. Collin was seen as a complete zero when you subtracted his scoring. Edwards is an above average impact player less scoring, which again, leads me to believe he's being undervalued a bit based on his shooting stats. Edwards also has a better mix of shooting splits, just trying to project him forward.

The biggest evaluation point does tend to be to what degree you can improve his shot selection. If a team thinks it can be improved even a bit, I think he's slowly entering the territory in which you have to gamble on him. If a team thinks they can improve it to a meaningful degree, he's suddenly one of the more intriguing players in the entire draft.

Tjarks had an article talking about how much better he has been playing off the ball as well.....which potentially makes him a really nice fit with Garland.

I've been so anti Edwards but have softened on him over this last stretch of games. I see the mix of shot making, athleticism, effort that is tough to find. This draft is pretty bad.....so I'm far more bullish on Edwards if he can keep it up, as Georgia likely stops having anything to play for. We'll see.
 
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On a per 100 basis, he's at 5.0 AST.

Sexton was at 6.9 but on higher TO output.

So it is probably that Georgia plays a far slower pace......re: the lack of 5 AST games. But I could be wrong there.

AST/TO rate:

Edwards: 1.136
Sexton: 1.302

Edwards still grades out as a much better bet to be a good NBA player though. He has significantly better metrics in Rebounds, Steals, Blocks, PF's. Collin was seen as a complete zero when you subtracted his scoring. Edwards is an above average impact player less scoring, which again, leads me to believe he's being undervalued a bit based on his shooting stats. Edwards also has a better mix of shooting splits, just trying to project him forward.

The biggest evaluation point does tend to be to what degree you can improve his shot selection. If a team thinks it can be improved even a bit, I think he's slowly entering the territory in which you have to gamble on him. If a team thinks they can improve it to a meaningful degree, he's suddenly one of the more intriguing players in the entire draft.

Tjarks had an article talking about how much better he has been playing off the ball as well.....which potentially makes him a really nice fit with Garland.

I've been so anti Edwards but have softened on him over this last stretch of games. I see the mix of shot making, athleticism, effort that is tough to find. This draft is pretty bad.....so I'm far more bullish on Edwards if he can keep it up, as Georgia likely stops having anything to play for. We'll see.

I buy that he's a (significantly) better defensive prospect than Sexton. But he seems worse across the board on offense. With Sexton playing well...does it really make sense to spend a top-5 pick on that kind of prospect?

I also can't get over the fact that Georgia is just *so* bad. I'm sure I'm forgetting some obvious ones, but what are some examples of good NBA players who played for terrible college teams?
 
I buy that he's a (significantly) better defensive prospect than Sexton. But he seems worse across the board on offense. With Sexton playing well...does it really make sense to spend a top-5 pick on that kind of prospect?

I also can't get over the fact that Georgia is just *so* bad. I'm sure I'm forgetting some obvious ones, but what are some examples of good NBA players who played for terrible college teams?

LSU wasn't great with Simmons....and that 15/16 LSU class was insane from a ranking perspective.

They were 19-14 and lost to the College of Charleston. :chuckle:

Indiana was horrendous when Oladipo was a frosh.....and while he didn't have the same role, he was playing nearly 20 minutes a game.

Georgia Tech wasn't good with Bosh.

I'm sure there are other examples, I just remembered those off the top of my head.
 

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