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Following Potential 2025 Draftees

Question: How meaningful is it when a player finishes the season much/better worse than he started? Do you weight the end season performance more, or is it just better to look at everything?

Conference play is often more difficult and happens at the end, so let’s just say we also control for the relative SOS.
 
KqWIN said:
Question: How meaningful is it when a player finishes the season much/better worse than he started? Do you weight the end season performance more, or is it just better to look at everything?

Conference play is often more difficult and happens at the end, so let’s just say we also control for the relative SOS.
Click to expand...

I would weigh the later parts of the season more than the early parts, especially for younger players, For the following reasons

1.) Tougher competition, I'm not overly familiar with College Basketball but it seems that teams schedule a bunch of cupcake schools at the beginning of the year to rack up a few wins.

2.) Freshmen get better as they play and get used to the level of competition. How they play at the end is more indicative of what kind of player they will be more than the earlier games where they are still getting used to the step up in competition. Also, gives a chance to see prospects get game planned against if they dominated the first half of the season; It's nice to see how they respond to that kind of thing.

3.) Big game situations with tournament implications happen later on in the year. Might show who has the ability to rise to the occasion, if you believe in that sort of thing.

4.) Teams have settled their rotations a bit and who they play shows who they trust to play.
 
KqWIN said:
Question: How meaningful is it when a player finishes the season much/better worse than he started? Do you weight the end season performance more, or is it just better to look at everything?

Conference play is often more difficult and happens at the end, so let’s just say we also control for the relative SOS.
Click to expand...
I don’t think a player should get a ton of props for not sucking as the season progressed. It’s great they started playing better but that doesn’t fully excuse the first part of the season.
 
KqWIN said:
Question: How meaningful is it when a player finishes the season much/better worse than he started? Do you weight the end season performance more, or is it just better to look at everything?

Conference play is often more difficult and happens at the end, so let’s just say we also control for the relative SOS.
Click to expand...
I feel like the sample is already way too small for us to start prioritizing even smaller portion of it. I'd take the whole thing without much concern for when the better/lesser play happened. I might watch specific matchups against players who are NBA level prospects to see how the guy deals with size/length/skill at high level.
 
stitches said:
I feel like the sample is already way too small for us to start prioritizing even smaller portion of it. I'd take the whole thing without much concern for when the better/lesser play happened. I might watch specific matchups against players who are NBA level prospects to see how the guy deals with size/length/skill at high level.
Click to expand...

This is a problem I have whenever splitting up into different categories. Even if subcategory (or however you decide to split up the sample) makes more sense in theory, you're opening yourself up to more variation every time you cut it up. I still think you can gain some insights by focusing in on certain things, but it's good to be cautious.
 
The reason why I brought it up was because I saw people cutting up the season with before/after some arbitrary date. Probably just a way to make their favorite player look better, but the one every points back to is Shai. Shai really took off at the end of his freshman season and started showing signs. But maybe that's just a one off case. One counterpoint that comes to mind is that Dalton Knecht averaged a ridiculous 26/5 in less than 33 MPG to finish the season. He's early on in his NBA career, but that incredible finish is probably something we will just never think about again. Or maybe we should and try to trade for him?

Anyways, it kind of depends on when you set the arbitrary line, but both Kon and Jase had great finishes to the season and in increased roles. Kas is the obvious one who stunk it up at the end, he was not great after returning from injury.

Fears and Demin are guys who showed up at the very end of the season and left a great last impression. I think those last impressions have made people forget about their mid season struggles a bit.
 
I think it's fair to give a bit more weight to recent performance. You obviously have to account for injuries, pathways back from injuries, if other key players are missing, etc.
 
The one guy where I do think it means something is Jase. He didn't get the chance to be a starter until the end, but once he did he delivered and it seemed like he should be getting even more opportunity. When I look at Michigan St's roster and how they split up the minutes, it's screaming "he was held back". Their four highest minute players are all small guards, and of course the coach is going to give priority to his upperclassmen. That's just how it works. It's not a guarantee that Jase would dominate if he had been given a larger opportunity, but all the signs point to the fact that he definitely deserved more and he probably would have done well.
 
The answer to this question is probably just "who can shoot?", but I don't feel like any of them have a leg up on the other in that area. IMO:

Penda seems like the smartest/highest feel guy.

Thiero is the best athlete and has some offensive potential as a scorer.

Powell, you're kind banking on his performance not representing who he is as a player....but there's good reason to think it didn't.
 
Basketball Novice said:
Yea, I think there is something there offensively; Which combined with his athleticism, makes him high potential despite being a junior. Only just turned 21.
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It’s not a skillset that nicely fits into a smaller NBA role, but I still think it’s worth something. Also, Coach Cal guy which could be seen as a positive indicator for him.
 
KqWIN said:
Question: How meaningful is it when a player finishes the season much/better worse than he started? Do you weight the end season performance more, or is it just better to look at everything?

Conference play is often more difficult and happens at the end, so let’s just say we also control for the relative SOS.
Click to expand...
I think it's all just contextual so you have to understand what's going on. I remember two years ago people were down on Cason Wallace because his conference numbers were not great, but when I dug deeper he had like 3 or 4 really bad games that tanked his numbers that happened right around injuries.
 
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