I saw this article making the rounds today. It talks about the different ways you can find an "edge" in the the draft. It cites a 10 year old Jazzfanz post made by @idiot 10 years ago where he interviews the OG Layne "VJL" Vashro who proceeds to give great insight and takes on prospects that did not age well at all lol.
![]()
I think on ball defense was not super relevant back in 2014 and is basically a prerequiste for being able to play at all in the NBA now.
If you watch old tape, Kobe basically doesn't play any defense in the 2008 Finals as an example. He just stands vaguely next to his man, doing nothing and paying attention to nothing. SVG doesn't even try to exploit this.
In 2025, every star is constantly doing a billion things on defense. If you're a weak link, your team just starts hemorrhaging points outside of if you play to funnel to your center (and this stops working against superstars as the Jazz found out... over and over and over and over again). You will be put in ball screen after ball screen until you're guarding their star player and then your team will give up an open shot.
Coaching and player strategy is just too good to get away with bad individual defense now.
I’m up in the air here but isn’t he going to have the same issues Gobert had in the playoffs? He wasn’t as affective in post season play.I will never understand the obsession with trading Kessler. We should want to pay him.
Wasn’t Kawhi Leonard kind of a mid major college and upperclassman?I’m a big believer that prospects are often held back by role/coaching. But 3rd year player at a mid major does make that a bit harder to believe.
This is precisely why on ball defense is less important in 2025 than 2014.
Kasparas Jakucionis is someone I feel like is high feel when I think about it.Out of all the different twitter philosophies that people are definitely too confident in, I find "draft high feel" to be the most convincing. The only issue I take with that is that we don't really have a great way to measure feel. AST/TOV is mostly fine and what is often cited....but idk if that's the best way to measure this. I feel like there are some smart/high feel players that turn the ball over a lot and players who don't turn the ball over a lot just on the basis of shooting it every time. I think the high assist, high turnover guys tend to have better feel than the low assist, low turnover guys. Maybe something like AST *1.5-2.0 / TOV would be better.
I feel like future myself wrote that article, lol. I loved it because a lot of the conclusions were thoughts I've had or were working towards. So in a way I feel self agrandizing by liking this article.I saw this article making the rounds today. It talks about the different ways you can find an "edge" in the the draft. It cites a 10 year old Jazzfanz post made by @idiot 10 years ago where he interviews the OG Layne "VJL" Vashro who proceeds to give great insight and takes on prospects that did not age well at all lol.
![]()
In terms of being a great defender? Sure.
In terms of being a bad/unplayable defender? Not really. 2/10 on-ball defenders could be hidden in 2014 and will kill you in 2025.
I feel like future myself wrote that article, lol. I loved it because a lot of the conclusions were thoughts I've had or were working towards. So in a way I feel self agrandizing by liking this article.
The reality is that the draft is probably just random enough it's almost impossible to be "good" at it. If you take yourself too seriously then you'll be stressed for nothing.
Why is anyone looking at a 10-year old Jazzfanz post for insight on drafting/ranking philosophy?I saw this article making the rounds today. It talks about the different ways you can find an "edge" in the the draft. It cites a 10 year old Jazzfanz post made by @idiot 10 years ago where he interviews the OG Layne "VJL" Vashro who proceeds to give great insight and takes on prospects that did not age well at all lol.
![]()
Funny -- I think draft confidence has a way of biting people in the long run.interviews the OG Layne "VJL" Vashro who proceeds to give great insight and takes on prospects that did not age well at all lol.
![]()
Big respect for looking all the way to the footnotes to find this.It was a trip to see a Jazzfanz post from 2015 cited!
He looks way better than Cody WilliamsFleming was so limited by his role, I wonder if he has some hidden off the dribble game.
The jumper looking super clean for a guy his length