The Hoops Junkie

 
Since I’ve now seen enough college basketball this season to start to form opinions on who I believe are the best prospects for the 2010 NBA Draft, I thought I’d take a look at how my rankings stack up with some of the other sites who cover the NBA Draft. DraftExpress and the NBA Draft page on ESPN are the sites I read and respect the most when it comes to draft coverage. Both are very thorough and have insider access to scouts, NBA GM’s, and game tape that I’m not privy to. This certainly makes them a more respected source for measuring a player’s NBA Draft stock, but I still trust my own evaluations and form my own opinions on players. I would be stubborn not to at least take their scouting reports into consideration, but I’m confident enough in myself to still think independently. Here is my current big board of the top NBA Draft prospects currently playing college basketball.

 
While my rankings are fluid, and there is still plenty of time left in the season for my opinion on player to change quite a bit, I’m going to take a look at some guys who I seem to like quite a bit more than the trusted scouting sites, using their top 100 prospect lists. Here are the links to ESPN top 100 by Chad Ford, and the DraftExpress Top 100. And while we’re at it, here are top 100’s from 2 other sites – nbadraft.net, which is also a good site and has been around for a long time, and NBA Draft Insider, which is a new site that I don’t really know anything about, but I threw in since they have a big board to compare with.

 
I’m sure I’ll end up wrong on some of these players, but it will be interesting to look back and see what I or they may have overlooked when evaluating some of these guys.

Players who I think are underrated:

• Klay Thompson: 10 (DX: 50, ESPN: 56, draft.net: NR, insider: 58) – I’m going off a small sample size here, but I really like this kid… and obviously way more than most do. Here’s what I wrote about him in my first edition of this years’s rankings on January, 11th when I had him at 14 – “I have him here based on limited viewing, but I really liked what I saw of him. Not a super athlete and needs to get stronger, but he can really shoot it, and his feel for the game and use of fakes enable him to still be able to create his own shot and make plays.”  I don’t really have a whole let to add to that. He is only a sophomore and I’ve heard speculation that he probably won’t declare this year, but I’m ranking all of the college players as prospects if they were all eligible for this draft. Thompson is still skinny and isn’t a great athlete, but I just think he has that special thing about him where he just really knows how to play basketball. It’s easy to get caught up in physical profile and athletcism, as they’re very important for how a player will translate to the NBA, but I think sometimes a player’s feel and understanding of the game can be overlooked. Thompson is on a crappy team, so he doesn’t get much exposure, and he has to try and do too much for them offensively, but he’s a scorer and a great shooter, and his craftiness and feel make him an excellent 2 guard prospect in my eyes. Maybe I haven’t seen him enough, since I seem to be way off the common perception of him, but I like what I’ve seen so far. continue reading »

1. John Wall (Kentucky) 6′4″ Freshman, PG (1)
2. Evan Turner (Ohio St.) 6′7″ Junior, SG/SF (2)
3. DeMarcus Cousins (Kentucky) 6′10″ Freshman, C/PF (10)
4. Al-Farouq Aminu (Wake Forest) 6′9″ Sophomore, PF (3)
5. Wesley Johnson (Syracuse) 6′7″ Junior, SF/some PF (5) continue reading »

1. John Wall (Kentucky) 6′4″ Freshman, PG (1)

2. Evan Turner (Ohio St.) 6′7″ Junior, SG/SF (2)

3. Al-Farouq Aminu (Wake Forest) 6′9″ Sophomore, PF (3) continue reading »

I didn’t get to watch a ton of hoops this week, but here are my updated rankings of the top 30 prospects for the 2010 NBA Draft. New to the rankings are Eric Bledsoe, Trevor Booker, and James Anderson. I had Bledsoe on my list of guys who just missed the cut  last week, and I wrote about him earlier in the week being a guy that I think we’ll hear more about  as the season goes on in terms of 2010 draft stock. Booker and Anderson were on my list of guys I needed to see more of last week, so after getting to watch them play another time I bumped them both in. I wrote about Booker being a strong, athletic, undersized 4 man with a great motor who can make some plays off the dribble. Anderson is a guy who can really score and has the potential to play a role as a catch and shoot guy in the NBA. He’s got good size for a 2 guard, and although he’s not a great athlete, and he’s not going to be a big time playmaker, his size and shooting ability should be enough to land him a role as a rotation guy in the league.

1. John Wall (Kentucky) 6′4″ Freshman, PG (1)

2. Evan Turner (Ohio St.) 6′7″ Junior, SG/SF (2)

3. Al-Farouq Aminu (Wake Forest) 6′9″ Sophomore, PF (3) continue reading »

Of all the hoops topics I take the time to write about, nothing gets me more excited than evaluating the college prospects for the upcoming NBA Draft. I don’t have any insider info from scouts, and I don’t have game tapes to scour through and see every player I’d like to see, but I have been putting in some serious time watching as many college basketball games as time permits to try and get a read on which players are best suited to make the jump to the NBA. There are some great draft sites out there such as DraftExpress and the draft page on espn.com that have more access than I do, and a bit more manpower to sort through all of the prospects, but I’ve been giving my DVR quite the workout to try and evaluate the players with my own eyes. I’m going to make this a weekly thing and update my top 30 prospects (30 because there are 30 teams in the NBA, thus making it a list of the players I see as 1st round picks). I’m going on a limited sample size with most of the players right now, because it’s so early in the season, and I haven’t gotten to see some of them play more than once or twice. There are also some guys that I haven’t seen play at all, so I’m going to leave them off the list until I get a chance to watch and evaluate them myself. This may make for some drastic week to week changes of where I have some of the guys ranked, but hopefully by the end of the college season I’ll have seen most of the players enough that I’ll feel pretty comfortable with where I have them ranked. Anyway, here’s my 1st edition of my top 30 prospects for the 2010 NBA Draft (without the foreign players who I don’t get a chance to see). Make a comment or shoot me an email if you have thoughts on guys that maybe I’m missing on. It’s still early January, so there’s plenty of time to get it right.

1. John Wall (Kentucky) 6′4″ Freshman, PG – I’ve raved about him before, and I feel confident that he’ll stick in this spot all season. His outside shot and turnovers are weaknesses now, but he should improve on those in time.

2. Evan Turner (Ohio St.) 6′7″ Junior, SG/SF - Good size and athleticism for NBA wing with nice dribble game and ability to facilitate and make plays. Needs to work on perimeter shot but should be able to improve.

3. Al-Farouq Aminu (Wake Forest) 6′9″ Sophomore, PF – I just wrote about him the other day and see him as 4 man who can cause mismatches with his quickness and ability to run the court. continue reading »