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Following Potential 2025 Draftees

dude averages 6 ppg. guy literally only makes 2 shots a game. gross.

reminds me of the kid out Texas Tech (traded for Mikal Bridges on draft day, IIRC) who could jump out of the gym and had excellent efficiency numbers, was drafted in the lottery and is out of the league now. people get excited because they are athletic and can hit the three - they ignore the fact they aren't creating anything on their own and only taking their 2 or 3 attempts when they are wide open. you're going to have nice percentages when everything is assisted and wide open.
 
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seattlejazzfan said:
dude averages 6 ppg. guy literally only makes 2 shots a game. gross.

reminds me of the kid out Texas Tech (traded for Mikal Bridges on draft day, IIRC) who could jump out of the gym and had excellent efficiency numbers, was drafted in the lottery and is out of the league now. people get excited because they are athletic and can hit the three - they ignore the fact they aren't creating anything on their own and only taking their 2 or 3 attempts when they are wide open. you're going to have nice percentages when everything is assisted and wide open.
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Unless you think Bryant is going to break his foot and almost die from eating Thai food that's a terrible comparison. Now, as far as freshman who scored 6 points and made 2 baskets of game, Mikal Bridges is an interesting comparison and probably the upside for Bryant.
 
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KqWIN said:
Unless you think Bryant is going to break his foot and almost die from eating Thai food that's a terrible comparison. Now, as far as freshman who scored 6 points and made 2 baskets of game, Mikal Bridges is an interesting comparison and probably the upside for Bryant.
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if you want another cody williams who is going to stand around doing nothing, be my guest. i was on an island regarding the mistake it would be to draft williams before the draft too. go ahead and make the same mistake a year later with bryant.
 
I might be jumping back on to the idea that Traore is one of the top prospect in this draft. I just looked at his last 10 games which are all of his games since January. This was probably the most difficult stretch of the season as well since he was playing in both a French and European tournament. Here are his numbers per 36 minutes:

20pts, 4 reb, 7ast, 50%fg%, 36% 3pt%

This includes a few wins or tight games against much better teams than the one he plays on. The film that is available during this time shows that his off ball defense, which I once said was the worst I had ever seen, has improved dramatically.

From what I remember the French league will be playing well after the NCAAB season is over. If he keeps up his current production I could see him get back in to a top 5 consideration.
 
seattlejazzfan said:
dude averages 6 ppg. guy literally only makes 2 shots a game. gross.

reminds me of the kid out Texas Tech (traded for Mikal Bridges on draft day, IIRC) who could jump out of the gym and had excellent efficiency numbers, was drafted in the lottery and is out of the league now. people get excited because they are athletic and can hit the three - they ignore the fact they aren't creating anything on their own and only taking their 2 or 3 attempts when they are wide open. you're going to have nice percentages when everything is assisted and wide open.
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You mean the guy who had a near death peanut allergy and lost like 60 lbs because of it? He could have been great. He just had a really bad thing happen to him that set his career way back.

Bryant is a raw ball of clay. Yeah, you can compare him to Cody in that regard, but he's got 35-45 lbs on Cody and his shot looks much more projectable.

I would say Bryant is more comparable to Mikal Bridges. If you drafted Bridges in the first round after his Freshman year, that would have been a surprise to a lot of people. Sometimes you have to take risk on raw players and hope they can develop. He certainly isnt a "do nothing" guy on the court. He's got higher stock% than Hendricks had his Freshman year. He's an active defender and rebounder.
 
seattlejazzfan said:
if you want another cody williams who is going to stand around doing nothing, be my guest. i was on an island regarding the mistake it would be to draft williams before the draft too. go ahead and make the same mistake a year later with bryant.
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What you’re doing is moving the goal post. All I did was point out why your example with Zhaire Smith was terrible because that guy literally had a dance with death from illness. There is a point to be made with guys who don’t have much skill yet, but I wouldn’t point to that guy as some kind of gotcha while mentioning Bridges (a guy who averaged 6 ppg and 2 FGM as a freshman) in the same sentence lol.

Ironically, Cody was a good scorer in college. Completely different prospect than Bryant. Bryant doesn’t score, but he does everything else. Cody only scores in college and didn’t do anything else. Cody was drafted to score, and since he can’t, you’re left with nothing. Bryant is someone who can impact the game without scoring.

But regardless, having a role player that doesn’t create much is often just fine as long as they are good at those things. Most players in the NBA aren’t responsible for creating and need to produce without having the ball. Bryant isn’t doomed to never developing some kind of on ball skillset, but even if he was there is absolute a role for guys like that in the NBA. In fact, I’d say it is most common. Very large majority of NBA players are role players.
 
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SoberasHotRod said:
I might be jumping back on to the idea that Traore is one of the top prospect in this draft. I just looked at his last 10 games which are all of his games since January. This was probably the most difficult stretch of the season as well since he was playing in both a French and European tournament. Here are his numbers per 36 minutes:

20pts, 4 reb, 7ast, 50%fg%, 36% 3pt%

This includes a few wins or tight games against much better teams than the one he plays on. The film that is available during this time shows that his off ball defense, which I once said was the worst I had ever seen, has improved dramatically.

From what I remember the French league will be playing well after the NCAAB season is over. If he keeps up his current production I could see him get back in to a top 5 consideration.
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It’s interesting to think about what he would look like in the NCAA. Kas is dominating, but Nolan was always considered better. When people say “he would be dominating college” it’s an argument that can’t really be argued with, so I try to stay away from that. But in his case I do think he would be quite good in the NCAA (at least non-terrible efficiency) or would be more efficient in the French league if he was just a normal usage guy and not the most high usage guy in the league.
 
Total number of 20-point games from the top prospects in the 2025 NBA Draft:

Dylan Harper - 14
Cooper Flagg - 12
Ace Bailey - 10
Tre Johnson - 10
Kasparas Jakucionis - 10
Derik Queen - 9
VJ Edgecombe - 5

What stands out to you?
 
With our second round booty, why not Tyson Degenhardt of Boise State a 6'8" 245 lbs senior. Last night 32 points 7 boards on national television. This is his 4th year of college so is older.
 
KqWIN said:
It’s interesting to think about what he would look like in the NCAA. Kas is dominating, but Nolan was always considered better. When people say “he would be dominating college” it’s an argument that can’t really be argued with, so I try to stay away from that. But in his case I do think he would be quite good in the NCAA (at least non-terrible efficiency) or would be more efficient in the French league if he was just a normal usage guy and not the most high usage guy in the league.
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When I first started following Traore after the Nike Hoops Summit it was saying he was going to play for Gonzaga. I was really disappointed when he chose to stay in France just because it is so difficult to compare international guys to NCAA guys.

After following his career this year and leaning more about the European and specifically the French league I'm even more confused on how to compare him to NCAA guys. One thing I've noticed is that the European teams are filled with quick and talented, but very small guards, usually Americans that were too small for the NBA. There is a huge gap on bigs from team to team. Some of the bigs are really big and skilled and then there are the bigs that Traore plays with which are just terrible, like worse than community college level bigs.
 
SoberasHotRod said:
When I first started following Traore after the Nike Hoops Summit it was saying he was going to play for Gonzaga. I was really disappointed when he chose to stay in France just because it is so difficult to compare international guys to NCAA guys.

After following his career this year and leaning more about the European and specifically the French league I'm even more confused on how to compare him to NCAA guys. One thing I've noticed is that the European teams are filled with quick and talented, but very small guards, usually Americans that were too small for the NBA. There is a huge gap on bigs from team to team. Some of the bigs are really big and skilled and then there are the bigs that Traore plays with which are just terrible, like worse than community college level bigs.
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Yeah…I’ve watched the French league a lot over the past couple of years and it’s dominated by very short guards. These guys are too small for the NBA but very talented.

It’s really hard to predict how someone might play in college because it also feels like a different sport sometimes. On one hand you have Kas who is dominating, but then you have Egor who just completely crumbs against non-horrible competition. I wouldn’t say Traore’s skillset is necessarily the best to dominate in college but I think he’d do well.

Prospects go up and down all the time of course, but I think there’s something to be said for the fact that whenever Traore has been with his peers he’s been considered the best.
 
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