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Following Potential 2026 Draftees

Maybe I bought into Boozer too early

I only watched the first half of the game last night, but I though Boozer looked good. Everything Kansas did on defense was to try and stop Boozer and he generally made good decisions and was able to break through a couple double/triple teams and get some points.
 
I only watched the first half of the game last night, but I though Boozer looked good. Everything Kansas did on defense was to try and stop Boozer and he generally made good decisions and was able to break through a couple double/triple teams and get some points.
Just kind of underestimated how hard his life would be around the rim. Maybe he's better in better spacing, but I'm a bit hesitant to call him Top 3. Might be Peterson-Wilson-Carr
 
For the amount of glaze draft twitter gave Boozer, I must admit he does look underwhelming. If he was dominating the games I could get over the aesthetics and translation question…but while he’s very good he’s not dominating the better competition.

Pete is #1. Boozer/AJ still 2/3 in some order but Wilson is knocking on the door for sure.
 
For the amount of glaze draft twitter gave Boozer, I must admit he does look underwhelming. If he was dominating the games I could get over the aesthetics and translation question…but while he’s very good he’s not dominating the better competition.

Pete is #1. Boozer/AJ still 2/3 in some order but Wilson is knocking on the door for sure.

I guess it's about expectations and small sample size right now. I don't think anybody in this draft class is as good of a prospect as Flagg was last year, but you have people thinking otherwise and then they are going to be disappointed. And then small sample size, at about this time last year people were down on Flagg because he had a bad turnover or something in a big game.

I'm happy to let things play out. Wilson looks amazing, but I wouldn't put him above any of the top 3 yet.
 
So here's my scouting report on Caleb Wilson from last night:

- His wingspan looks enormous. His athleticism and fluidity at his size jumps off the screen.
- He took two non dunks all game. He didn't look bad on those looks, but it's not something he looks super comfortable with right now. His free throws looked good and I think he has potential as a shooter, but it's probably not any time soon. He can handle a little, but isn't a great passer right now and doesn't have great offensive awareness.
- His ability to dunk from anywhere is impressive. He made one play where he jumped from a couple feet away from the basket and any normal human being would have been in floater territory, but he improbably reached out his crazy long alien arms and was able to dunk it.
- He can truly guard 1-5 at the college level. There was one play where he switched on to basically every player in the same possession and they all had no chance. Eventually someone put a shot up and he just grabbed it. He has good defensive awareness and positioning. He has crazy high defensive potential. Only negative is he got in early foul trouble with some dumb reaching in stuff.
- Offensively he is almost unstoppable in transition. In the half court he just wants to post people up. It's going to be hard to know what he is actually capable of while he is playing in college.
- As far as his attitude goes: On the positive side he aggressively wants to be part of every play. On the negative side he is visibly pouty when he doesn't get the ball on every play. There were some obvious things that will improve with maturity.
- He is not a super high motor guy. Not to sat there is anything wrong with his motor, but he's not out hustling people, he does it through length and athleticism.

I think he's clearly #4 in the class right now with a potential to be higher depending on what the top 3 do, or a potential to be lower if he struggles against better competition.

I'm super bad at comps, so take this for what it's worth. I put out Kevin Garnett yesterday, but the more modern comp would be Evan Mobley. He's shorter than both, so maybe not good comps, but he makes up for it with his giant arms.
 
Maybe I bought into Boozer too early
I was coming on to say i was not impressed with Boozer last night. He has no lift on his shot and just seems like it is going to get blocked a lot in the NBA. He is smart and makes good cuts and reads but he is not very athletic.

I was super impressed with Bidunga last night. the kid is raw but wow he is athletic.
 
I was coming on to say i was not impressed with Boozer last night. He has no lift on his shot and just seems like it is going to get blocked a lot in the NBA. He is smart and makes good cuts and reads but he is not very athletic.

I was super impressed with Bidunga last night. the kid is raw but wow he is athletic.

The NBA is a unique playstyle. It's super fast and super spread. The ball keeps moving. Everyone shoots 3s ideally, and everyone has to be able to hold up on defensive switches. The normal roster design now is to look for a highly skilled on-ball guard/wing, an inside-outside presence at center, and then everyone else more or less looks like some version of the Paul George, do-it-all wing archetype.

Guys like Sabonis, Sengun, Towns, Horford, Queen, etc. can definitely have an impact. Just space the floor around them and let them go to work from the high post. The issue is that teams now want ~50% of their shot attempts to be 3PAs, and that play-through-the-big approach doesn't yield as many 3s. So these bigs are expected to do the same things that the wings do. Then they can add the bonus of being almost unstoppable in the paint.
 
Caleb Wilson obviously has elite athleticism and a very good BBIQ, but there just doesn't seem to be much of anything there skill-wise. Kind of has to be the rollman PF on a team with a stretch 5 that doesn't roll to the paint?
 
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