The Hoops Junkie

 
I didn’t do the full 24 hour marathon of college hoops on ESPN yesterday, but I did manage to watch quite a bit. And while it is way too early to come to conclusions about teams or players, I did have a few observations from yesterday.

 
• Somehow San Diego State beating Gonzaga last night and now getting hyped as the best team on the west coast is a surprise. I had them at #14 in my preseason rankings and didn’t understand why they weren’t getting more love nationally. They have everybody back from what was a solid team last season, and they even added some perimeter shooting that they needed from transfer James Rahon. The Aztecs strength is their frontcourt though, where they cause matchups problems by basically playing 3 athletic combo forwards across the frontline in Kawhi Leonard, Billy White, and Malcolm Thomas. They could be vulnerable against a team with a good big man who could hurt them in the post, but they take can advantage on the other end with their speed and quickness advantages. The Mountain West looks to be strong again this season with San Diego State, BYU, UNLV, and New Mexico, so it will be interesting to see how things play out there. continue reading »

As I begin breaking down the 2010 NCAA Tournament bracket, I’m starting with the West Regional. It seems that the consensus is that the South Region (Duke’s bracket) is the weakest, but I think this one is even softer. Syracuse will probably be playing at least the first weekend without starting center, Arinze Onuaku, but if they can get through that and play well the second weekend, then I think they’re easily the best team here. Anything can happen in March Madness, but Syracuse, along with Kentucky and Kansas, have been the best teams in the country all season long. Here’s a closer look at what the Cuse will face as they try to make their way to the Final Four in Indianapolis. continue reading »

 
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 »

• After last year I still didn’t have a good read on Al-Farouq Aminu, but after watching a few more games of his this season I am a big fan of his NBA potential. Most of the stuff I read about him says that he needs to do a lot of work on his perimeter skills, because he is going to have to be a 3 man in the NBA. While I agree that working on his ball handling, outside shot, and ability to face up and make plays off the dribble will be beneficial to him to become a more effective NBA player, I disagree that he needs to be playing the 3 position. I think he projects to be a beast of a 4 man in the mold of guys like Josh Smith, David Lee, and Tyrus Thomas who can fly down the floor and almost always have a quickness advantage on the guy guarding them. He’s listed at 6′8″, but I’ve read that he has a 7′4″ wingspan, and in every game I’ve seen him play this year, he plays like he’s the biggest guy on floor while blocking shots, getting rebounds, and attacking the rim. His ability to grab defensive rebounds and take off with it and start a break himself is very intriguing, and he can give it up to a guard, run the floor and get it back to finish as well. He’s still a little raw in terms of perimeter skills and post moves, but he’s better than last year, which is a good sign, and he’s still only 20 years old. His handle is a little shaky, but I think he can really improve there, and he makes some really good passes on occasion too that show that he does have a good feel for the game. I’m still working on my first edition of my weekly 2010 nba draft rankings, but Aminu is a guy that I feel comfortable with saying that he’ll probably be in my top 5. continue reading »

• I really like Gonzaga’s team this year. They’re similar to Syracuse in that they lost some major talent from last year, (Daye, Pargo, Downs, and Heytvelt) but they may actually be a better team. They absolutely stunk against Duke in MSG, but Matt Bouldin still didn’t seem like himself after suffering a concussion 10 days earlier, and I think in general they just had a bad day. They looked much better to me in their win against Oklahoma on Thursday than they did when they won the Maui Invitational a month earlier though. Demetri Goodson hasn’t been great at the point, but they have the luxury of going bigger and playing Bouldin there and bringing in Bol Kong off the bench, who is starting to play better and earning more minutes. The biggest key though has been the emergence of Elias Harris, the 6-7 freshman from Germany who has a game similar to Shawn Marion. He seemed like the 4th option on offense early in the season, and now he’s really asserting himself. I’m going to come out with my weekly NBA Draft prospect rankings after I see a couple weeks of conference play, and Harris is guy that I’ll have ranked pretty high. He’s one of those combo forwards that we’re seeing much more of now as the NBA is becoming smaller and faster and there is more of a premium on spacing the floor.
• Purdue’s victory over West Virginia on New Year’s Day was very impressive. Their ball pressure really exposed the Mountaineer’s point guard issues, and JaJuan Johnson was too much for West Virginia to handle inside. I’d be really interested to see Purdue play Texas or Kentucky. The Boilers don’t come close in talent, but they play with more maturity and take care of the ball better than either the Longhorns or the Wildcats, and their defense is as good as anybody’s. I think the development of Kelsey Barlow as the season goes on will be a big factor in how good they can be come tourney time in March. Barlow is their best athlete, he can guard multiple positions, has a nice handle, and can really get to the basket (he just missed a couple finishes after explosive drives to the hoop against WVU). If he continues to grow, he’ll give Purdue a chance to be a Final 4 caliber team. continue reading »

• Avery Bradley at Texas reminds me some of Russell Westbrook in his last year at UCLA – an elite athlete playing the 2 position who will probably need to prove he can play mostly as a point guard in the NBA. Westbrook started the 2007-2008 season not really on the NBA radar and ended up as the 4th pick in the draft. Bradley came into his freshman year as a highly rated prospect but isn’t super high on the mock drafts I’ve seen. I don’t think he’ll have a chance to play much point guard this season with Balbay and Lucas getting all the minutes there, but if he declares for the draft and can display he can play the point in workouts, he could end up as a pretty high pick too.
• Jordan Hamilton is another nice freshman prospect for the Longhorns. He’s not even playing 20 minutes per game, and he still needs to learn how to play, but like Bradley, his upside is too high for him to slip too far if he decides to enter the draft. He just looks like an NBA wing when you see him on the court. He’s 6-7, a solid athlete, has a nice handle, and he shoots the 3 well. continue reading »