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Following potential 2014 draftees

I thought some would like this info:

"@DaveTelep: R'cvd message from NBA scout who watched Jabari Parker and KD. Said KD went hard and Parker held his own."

"@DaveTelep: NBA scout on Jabari Parker: "I realize that he is not the upper echelon athlete, but he is upper echelon in every thing else." @KDTrey5"
 
I was just a little bit bored and decided to browse around the college recruitment pages. Obviously there's 3 big portals which had different estimations and length of available history. But they all 3 had 1 thing in common. They miss out kind a bit to evaluate the long term success of a prospect in too many cases. So I'd be thrilled if you tell me which one you prefer when interested into a comparison of a highschool prospects?Any why of course...
 
No offense, BTP, but I call BS on all that. What are these "3 portals?" What 'history' did you search? Which players did you search?
Nope, not buying it. I still like you though.
 
PKM said:
At the Kevin Durant Skills Academy players were measured (height/weight/wingspan).

Poythress grew another inch and has slimmed down a bit... also one of the few guys there with a 7' wingspan.
6'9 231lbs

He has perimeter skills (40% from 3).
If he improves his handles and become for fiery he could shoot back uo the draft boards.
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That whole 40% from 3 stat is incredibly misleading. He shot around 1 3-pointer per game...which means that he really only shot when he was wide open. I would hesitate to use that stat to say that he has perimeter skills.
 
My2Cents said:
Didn't see this stuff posted. The race to the bottom is going to be very competitive. And I like "tank-a polooza"

From Chad Ford:
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Somebody here was saying that there were going to be a lot of really bad teams this year...hmm...wonder who that genius could have been.
 
orangello said:
I thought some would like this info:

"@DaveTelep: R'cvd message from NBA scout who watched Jabari Parker and KD. Said KD went hard and Parker held his own."

"@DaveTelep: NBA scout on Jabari Parker: "I realize that he is not the upper echelon athlete, but he is upper echelon in every thing else." @KDTrey5"
Click to expand...

That's impressive. Then again, we heard the same thing about Harrison Barnes and he'll certainly never be anywhere near Durant's level.
 
PKM said:
No offense, BTP, but I call BS on all that. What are these "3 portals?" What 'history' did you search? Which players did you search?
Nope, not buying it. I still like you though.
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Rivals, Scout and ESPN ofc. I just was curious about evaluation of players and wanted to compare these to how they perform today. I know the NBA guys and recognize a lot of others who I have watched at some point travelling through Europe. I started off with the recruitment classes close to NBA drafts which I followed at the given time. In 2003 that new "LeBron dude" was kinda hyped after a period of horrible recruitment quality and classes and media exposure overseas sinking post Jordan. In Germany for example In the 90's there was 30 or 60 min NBA on TV each day that summarized a selected game from 2 nights ago(Mostly Bulls or Sonics for Jordan and Schrempf). You know with Internet in pioneer stages it all was delayed, but there was interest and up to this date I sometimes think back with buddies over a bottle of beer how we watched "Inside the NBA" back then as kids. Then when the LeBron class came there was this DSL thingy and flatrates, giving me a completely different access on basketball. Just as a introduction. Its offseason, and as nothing's really happening which only urges me to look rumors 3 times a day at breakfast, lunch and before going to bed with. Maybe it entertains one or two of you.

So in 2003 Rivals(R) ranked a certain "Paul Millsap" on #130 as 3 star. He didn't make it into Scout's(S) top 100 and there is only ESPN(E) evaluations from 2008 onwards available for free. I'll use the abbreviations in brackets from here on.
Next I spotted Renaldo Balkman(R#92;S#91). I always liked his play and with the energy he was giving every single night I was like? 3 star? That's not too hard to predict that he has good chances to succeed, even with limited talent. I can't imagine Balkman playing hero ball, low intensity D in highschool.
Skipping a few there is this guy Chris Paul(R#14;S#9). In his range are Outlaw(R#13;S#17), Bass(R#11;S#14), Leon Powe(R#10;S#8) Add to that a couple guys I have never heard of and Brian Butch(R#9;S#11), Mustafa Shakur(R12;S10), who both have very mediocre overseas careers to be not too insulting to them. A couple worse NBA player were over him, but in their cases I can see the "potential" the scouts may have seen(Villanueva, Perkins, Shannon Brown). But that's hell of a weird evaluation of a potential future hall of famer.

From 2004 I have only Rivals for some reason available. But I like it for the fact that this was before the first time I really got interested in the draft-process and realized rookies as a serperate group.
Plus it contains player I know from playing overseas.
First there is Demarre Carroll on #148.
Listed #131 is Rodney Stuckey.
Following on #94 Anthony Morrow, who has kind of a servicable career. 3 star also.
On #75 there is Joakim Noah, while on #68 I find a guy named Drew Neitzel, who played 3 bad seasons in Germany. Both 4 star prospects.
Ranked #50 is Bryce Taylor and #38 is Robert Vaden. I mention both of them because I have seen them play a full season for my hometeam in Germany. Vaden played this season and Taylor was more successful previous seasons but moved on to better German teams since then. I can understand Vaden that high, because he's a minor Josh Howard head case having problems to manage the requirements of professional basketball(Too much meet & greet on police stations while on college, cut for smoking weed over here while being injured). But I find it extremely entertaining that they both were ranked higher than Noah back then.
Al Horford is on #36, Rondo on #25 and LaMarcus Aldridge on #16
In contrast Marvin was ranked #11, Sebastian Telfair #6. As a bonus Al Jefferson was #4, but his statsheet are legit(while his actual play is questionable).

After that my interest lacked a little bit until 2007. But 2005 was hella weird retrospective.
In 2005 there are Josh McRoberts(R#2;S#1) and Gerald Green(R#1;S#2).
Their trailers were Andrew Bynum(R#6;S#9), Monta Ellis(both ranked him#3), Lou Williams(R#7;S#5) and Wilson Chandler(R#44;S#53) <- I like that dude a lot.
Wes Matthews(R#85;S#95) was also a real late bloomer apparently.

2006 there's nothing that's way out of order. Kinda disappointed in the pretty accurate scouting that year.

Now there is my 2007 recruitment class that I could first watch in the 2008 NCAA tournament. There's a couple headscratcher in this either,spotting DeJuan Blair(R#59;S#19;E#30) on very different spots. Jeff Teague(R#57;S#46;E#67) is also generally low and very wide spread.
While spotting quite a couple overseas player scrolling up to the top 20, I spot Blake Griffin(R#23;S#16;E#18), Chandler Parsons(R#19;S#32;E#44) and James Harden(R#11;S#23;E#21) undervalued.
In context there are some players that I've never heard of above them and some NBA player who had a way worse development.
In the elite group we got Singler(R#5;S#6;E#4) next to players like Rose, Love, OJ Mayo,Beasley, Eric Gordon, who are top 6 in different orders on all 3 pages. But 1 hard mistake is okay given these kids are between 17 and 19 at that point.

The 2008 recruitment class is a little different. With BJ Mullens(R#1;S#3;E#5) it starts good. But Samardo Samuels(R#9;S#2;E#2) is where the fun really begins. Having a guy named Scotty Hopson(R#5;S#7;E#9), that I've never heard of is overkill. But research shows he's having a decent Euro career in Israel. Greg Monroe(R#8;S#8;E#20) who might be an allstar reserve in 2 years depending on individual and team development isn't making it better.
Klay Thompson(R#51;S#45;E#53) is kind of the sleeper of this generally weak class.

Moving on to 2009 first thing catching my eye is Kawhi Leonard(R#48;S#71;E#56), Derrick Williams(R-unranked;S#95;E#72)and Eric Bledsoe(R#23;S#37;unranked on ESPN). But as this was another weak recruitment class, I don't want to compare all the players that I could. Top 4 were all good NBA player. After that only rotation guys.

I don't want to judge the kids retrospective before they have a real chance to make it in the NBA the 2010 highschool seniors are the last group that I present a couple players.
In the top group there's that kid Josh Selby(R#1;S#5;E#5) who looks like he's dropping out of the league soon. After that not that much except Tristan Thompson underestimated (R#17;S#10;E#10) compared to these in front.
Dion Waiters is the first sleeper I can find(R#29;S#27;E#15). But at least 1 evaluated him strong as he seems to be,even though it's a little early with only his rookie year under his belt.
Last but not least there's Oladipo at #144 on Rivals and unranked by the others. But he has yet to prove he's a good NBA player.

After writing this I have to admit, the shockingly bad predictions between 2003 and 2005 and the way the newest 2011 and 2012 classes look at this point, even though it's way too early to look back and grade it, have seemingly overwhelmed my brain me so much that the mostly solid scouting in between didn't get spotted at first sight.
But after going a 2nd time through the lists I think Rivals make more risky predictions and are more often really wrong about prospects, but sometimes way better than Scout and ESPN, who are very similar most of the time.
This was long. But it's offseason, so nothing is happening anyways. Except Al Jefferson trying to convince the GM of a really bad team who's fearing for his job to raid a bank and split money with him(I hope Dallas doesn't take that trap. Would feel sorry for Dirk for not being able to finish where he started).
 
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What I wanted to say with all of this is there is kind of a high probability each year that multiple and sometimes even the majority of top10 and top20 talents are dropping very low. Some lose their label as a future star when they enter college and get exposed. Others won't make the transition to the NBA and out of the few that made it, there's always a couple that lose their rotation spots after the first few years. Others are late bloomer or somehow got overlooked in high school. The predictions are inaccurate and we probably will have kids from this class, whose stock will be in free fall at some point next year and others that enter the discussion to be legit players. I'm excited for the college season to start and plan to watch more regular season games especially on weekends as tipoff times are more Euro friendly. Maybe I'll be even in a position in a year to perform a "Cyber Enes Enlargement" and brag about a certain player: "I called it"
 
Here's what you may be missing, BTP. Those services are not predicting these players into the NBA. They aren't even projecting how they'll do in college, necessarily.. they're mostly ranking how these players stack up as High Schoolers.

Every year there are tons of kids projected high into college that people don't believe willl make good pros... after following all of these thin gs as closely as I have, for as long as I have, and understand all the context and nuances.. you make judgement calls based on many factors.. not just a given services rankings.

I also think you cherry picked a bit. Needless to say we could make a looong list of those they got right and I doubt there's a single person that expects them to get it right everytime.
 
That's why most of us that follow high school recruiting don't go based off of ratings, but rather off of tape.

For example, there will be guys that get ranked higher than they should because of who they sign with. Happens to big programs quite often (especially Duke). Watch the tape, that will tell you all you need to know.

Now if you watch the tape of Wiggins, Parker, and Randle and still think they won't do anything in the NBA...then I guess I don't know what to tell you other than that you're missing something. Also, keep in mind that these rankings aren't necessarily with the NBA in mind. They're high school rankings, pretty irrelevant to the NBA really.
 
^^^Agree with that, BTP. There are always players who drop and players who rise in any sport. Trying to project the development curve of someone who is 17 is an inexact science. These kids are still growing physically and mentally. Desire plays a big part, as do the people they have around them. But the one thing about the 2014 class is that coming in, there are more players projected to be superstars or all-stars than at any other time in recent history. So if the early mocks change a bit, it probably won't be all that drastic. Up and down the lottery, solid starters will be available, with the top-5 likely to be stellar.
 
Oh thx, I didn't know that these rankings were solely on highschool performance, and not containing potential, work ethic, character and continuity to project the success on the next level as these websites are always quoted when you read articles about college recruitment. This makes most of my argument invalid :eek:
I just wanted to emphasize what I meant with the lack of reliability when PKM called BS on that.
Of course the eye test and contact on a personal level are way more accurate measures to predict. And I don't claim I know much about the incoming class yet as the availability of highschool basketball is close to 0 over here, and college basketball is also rare. So all I know is a couple of highlight tapes of intriguing kids in grown men bodies, who dunk on 5'5" midgets or complete fastbreaks. But I plan on watching selected games next year and analyze them maybe with video excerpts to get a solid unique opinion on them.
I don't even doubt that all of these top prospects will pan out being spectacular in the NBA, but I wouldn't be surprised if college scouts got fooled about the real demeanor and love of the game by a couple of these young men as it happened often before. And that's the statistician in me talking. And statistics is nearly always right.
Go hard or go home! On TV beginning next fall.
 
Jako said:
to many letters and white spaces. made my brain hurt. some one paraphrase what btp said.
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Don't pay attention to it unless you want to. I misunderstood the concept of Rivals, Scout and ESPN. I criticized their quality retrospective and PKM called me out on it which made me write this long post to underline my point just to find out after that it's just a review of highschool performance and not preview on future performance.


Btw: I watched some footage about Dante Exum. He seems legit to me. Just not sure if he's coming 2014 or 2015. He himself probably isn't either. If he keeps improving, he has a chance to become scary. Definately a guy I'd ask to make a play on an inbound with 10 sec to go! And no, I don't know his free throw percentage in case it's bad.
 
BTP said:
Don't pay attention to it unless you want to. I misunderstood the concept of Rivals, Scout and ESPN. I criticized their quality retrospective and PKM called me out on it which made me write this long post to underline my point just to find out after that it's just a review of highschool performance and not preview on future performance.


Btw: I watched some footage about Dante Exum. He seems legit to me. Just not sure if he's coming 2014 or 2015. He himself probably isn't either. If he keeps improving, he has a chance to become scary. Definately a guy I'd ask to make a play on an inbound with 10 sec to go! And no, I don't know his free throw percentage in case it's bad.
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You did a nice job, BTP.. I didn't call you out as much as simply help you understand the context of things.

I agree re: Exum. He's going to be a special player. I'm getting some nice intel because Calipari is speaking with him. You are correct that he is undecided on his future plans/timing. Cal is trying to talk him into coming to UK.. but it seems he's going to go straight pro once he decides... which no one could blame him.
 
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