Following potential 2014 draftees
- Thread starter Dr. Jones
- Start date
Archie can be a very very good defender. Let me also say this.. to begin the season last year he was on fire, hit everything, and I was here saying the kid could go as high as #1 if he kept it up... then his shot stopped falling, completely, and he started to really force everything..and looked beyond awful. Fans wanted him benched but Cal supporter him saying he does everything asked of him, goes all out on every play, and has the heart of a lion..
I guess my point is I truly hope his shot keeps falling.
No player was... the lack of a serviceable PG was apparent with Archie, Poythress, Noel.. everyone.
I've mentioned it here before, but Calipari has said it was a HUGE mistake on his part to assume Teague would be back.. when he had the monster run to the national title he felt it was time to enter the draft... as he should have.... but it really screwed up the team last year not having even a decent PG..
I always felt Archies game was much more suited for the pros then college and even though hes extremely raw that with his potential he was definitely worth taking somewhere in the first round..
The college game has now become a micro managed grind it out slow it down ugly game where the coaches dont let the players have any freedom at all
The fact that Phoenix is the only team trying to win in Las Vegas might be helping him also. They have 3 third players out there (all who have been starters), a 2nd year player, and himself starting every game. Their talent level is way higher than every other team just because everyone else has already pulled their guys out.
I just think MKG needed a certain kind of system to be good.
Charlotte is not moving toward that kind of system at all. He needs to be a small ball PF on an up tempo team. The only problem is that most teams who want small ball also want players who can shoot, so MKG is kind of screwed.
Archie is also shooting a blazing 78% from 3 during SL. So a huge part of me is feeling that his performance is somewhat flukey, especially since his ****ting FT shooting is still happening.
I have faith that he will be good though, like a Burks kind of guy.
I have faith that he will be good though, like a Burks kind of guy.
Basically none of the UK guys have been able to turn a team around at all. None are super-stars. The one who is actually really great (Cousins) is a giant child.
Wall is pretty good, but is a notch below the upper-tier PG's.
Davis might be really good, but signs early say he is going to have injury problems.
MKG is average. Teague is a backup.
Terrance Jones might prove to be a good starter this year.
None of them are going to be All-Stars anytime soon unless Cousins matures or Derrick Rose gets injured again.
Can't say I disagree. Wall might get there, but I see him as a 5th/6th best PG in the league type guy than a #1/#2. What you said about Cousins..
Calipari didn't recruit like he is until getting to UK.. so we only have a couple years of players in the league right now. At Memphis he had Rose and Tyreke.. but not a lot more than that.
Pre-Calipari (in the Tubby years) our recruiting was abysmal.. Patterson was the only top 25 player we got in like the final 5 years of him being head coach.
It's not a Kentucky thing, though... I'm talking about Archie or MKG the same whether they went to UK or elsewhere.. I do of course pull for their success more.
His ceiling was Shawn Marion if Shawn Marion never played with Steve Nash.
That's very disrespectful to Trix, as he changed his game in Dallas and became a good player there at a high age. I think Marion is a smart and funny guy who's severely underrated over the course of his whole career.
lol!
Im just not a fan of wing players who cant shoot at all and let teams clog the paint on you
What I never got about the newest Kentucky system...I mean Cal is a guy with an awesome track record and his players speak very highly of him. I think he could get ANY recruit out there if he promised them 30+% usage. Why doesn't he balance his roster? I mean he could get 4-5 guys with the potential to become overseas players or lifelong D-League chuckers and add to that 3-4 really high freshmen recruits. The way he's got it right now he'll always hit or miss depending on quality of the highschool class and amount of quality-guys he can convince to take a lower role in his system.
If I compare what he did in Memphis, which I think is more of a mid-major program if you look at C-USA and amount of high profile recruits and what he does now in Kentucky it strikes that he had more success back then. At least imo!
Not necessarily true. I think it more goes like this;
It takes a couple years in order to have a couple guys stay (duh.. can't have that in year one).
Then in his 3rd year he won a championship.. I can see a mass exodus each time that happens and it starts things back over again.
Last year we returned less than 9% of the total points, rebounds, and assists from the championship team. This year we bring in another great class and are returning 1/3 of the scoring etc. from last year. Again, if we win the championship again this year you will likely see everyone leave and next year is another freshman-only team.
Calipari is okay with this. He wants to rack up the best possible recruiting class and keep one or two to add to the next year's team.. knowing he will likely have a down year after each championship. Flawed? Sure, but it's also impossible to replicate. Most blue-chip teams can do what you suggested and they can be pretty consistently top 10 teams.. but rarely will be favored to win it all, at worst, every three years.
That's true but i also agree that alot of times the strength of the team will rely on the strength of each class a whole..
Last years class was one of the weakest in years so it was impossible to have a great team full of mostly freshmen..This years class is ome of the best in years so a class full of top 10 recruits from this class can get you a great team..
So knowing that last year's class was weak what would you have done differently than Cal did the year before. Remember he won the championship.
Again, I'm not saying it isn't flawed.. but I'll take my chances with Cal's way, gladly, for the next 5 years... and I bet we win at least one more championship in that time. Not many teams win multiples in a 5 or 6 year period.. hell there's only a handful of teams that have more one championship, ever.
Agreed x2
So to create no misunderstanding as I'm not familiar with the term "blue-chip" team and google suggested blue-chips are high profile recruits. But Kentucky is totally crowded by these prospects. So I guess google tricked me as it doesn't make any sense. And Kentucky has a long basketball tradition if I'm not mistaken. I find it hard to believe that Cal would have problems establishing a project that combines collegiate athletes and sure fire NBA prospects. Imo the reason why he has to rebuild every 2nd or 3rd year is because the "worst" player he recruits are borderline NBA players. And those will take their chances after a chip of course. Replace those with hungry "real" student athletes, who actually want to graduate and have a "smaller" pro career the next 10 years and I think he'd be way more successful. But that's of course a question of team philosophy. Maybe he is even more happy to overrecruit the top prospects to not let Smart/Sullinger situations happen more often as he seems to be genuinely more invested in his players than the organisation he represents.