Category Archives: NBA Draft
While his decision making can be very shaky at times, due to attempting to throw difficult passes or forcing up contested shots, he’s adapting pretty well to his role this season, particularly as the year has moved on. Coach John Beilein has had no choice but to show the utmost confidence in Morris and his ability to run the team, altering his half-court philosophy dramatically from a stagnant motion offense to one centered around pick and rolls and isolation plays. This appears to have improved his team’s offense—Michigan was just narrowly defeated by two of the top teams in the NCAA in Michigan State and Kansas this past week—and has allowed Morris to emerge as an interesting draft prospect in turn.
Morris can become even a much more dangerous player if he can continue to improve as a perimeter shooter. His 3-point shooting is up slightly to 27.9% this season, from a miserable 18% as a freshman, and his free throw shooting has risen from 63% to 77%. Clearly he put in some work shooting the ball over the summer. With that said, he still has plenty of room for improvement. He isn’t particularly effective as a shooter with his feet set, and while he’s more comfortable shooting off the dribble, he still takes some bad shots and doesn’t have great range. If he can become a reliable shooter from 3-point range, it should really open up his slashing game and make him an even tougher matchup for opposing point guards.
Morris’ comparison is Andre Miller, but with more athleticism. I’m hesitant to go that far, but he is near the top of the list in terms of facilitating, pure point guards. More so than the likes of Charles Jenkins and Josh Selby and on par with Reggie Jackson in my opinion.
Our spies have informed us that Celts exec Danny Ainge is so impressed with BC point guard Reggie Jackson that he’s already guaranteed the Celts will take him with the 25th pick in this year’s draft. Ainge personally was on hand for a number of Jackson’s game, and is a tremendous fan. The problem for the C’s is that Jackson’s stock is soaring and the thoughts from scouts everywhere is that he will be long gone by then meaning that Boston will have to trade up to select him.
“Danny’s already guaranteed him,” a source close to Jackson’s camp told TKB. “He saw a ton of games at BC this year.”
Interesting.
What does this mean for the Knicks, who will be seeing the BC point guard tomorrow at the showcase they are sharing with the Nets and Rockets in New Jersey? Good question. Some feel that the Knicks need through the draft is the best big available, while others are torn that PG may be the way to go. They most certainly need defense ahead of scoring, but from all the people I’ve talked to who have been watching Jackson, and what I’ve seen myself, he’s right up there with the top second tier PGs in this draft.
I’m a huge fan.
Here’s the list of players working out this weekend.
SATURDAY
Olu Ashaolu, F, 6-7, 220, Louisiana Tech
Deangelo Casto, F, 6-8, 231, Washington State
Mamadou Diarra, C, 7-0, 240, USC
Kim English, G/F, 6-6, 200, Missouri
Diante Garrett, G, 6-4, 190, Iowa State
Ashton Gibbs, G, 6-2, 190, Pittsburgh
Troy Gillenwater, F, 6-7, 225, New Mexico State
Josh Harrellson, C, 6-10, 275, Kentucky
Tu Holloway, G, 6-0, 185, Xavier
Scotty Hopson, G/F, 6-6, 195, Tennessee
Reggie Jackson, G, 6-3, 208, Boston College
Terrence Jennings, F, 6-9, 220, Louisville
Orlando Johnson, G, 6-5, 205, UC Santa Barbara
Reggie Johnson, C, 6-10, 303, Miami
Cory Joseph, G, 6-3, 170, Texas
DeAndre Liggins, G, 6-6, 180 Kentucky
Guy-Marc Michel, C, 7-0, 270 Indiana
Jamine Peterson, F, 6-6, 230, Providence/ New Mexico (D-League)
Carleton Scott, F, 6-8, 218, Notre Dame
John Shurna, F, 6-8, 210, Northwestern
Hollis Thompson, F, 6-7, 205, Georgetown
Mychel Thompson, F, 6-8, 200, Pepperdine
SUNDAY
Jeff Allen, F, 6-7, 258, Virginia Tech
Jon Diebler, G, 6-6, 200, Ohio State
Lacedarius Dunn, G, 6-4, 200, Baylor
Mustapha Farrakhan, G, 6-4, 181, Virginia
Gary Flowers, F, 6-8, 214, Southern Mississippi
Austin Freeman, G, 6-4, 195, Georgetown
Andrew Goudelock, G, 6-2, 200, College of Charleston
Jerai Grant, F, 6-8, 220, Clemson
Cory Higgins, G, 6-5, 185, Colorado
Justin Holiday, F, 6-6 185, Washington
Rick Jackson, F, 6-9, 240, Syracuse
Delroy James, F, 6-8, 220, Rhode Island
Ravern Johnson, F, 6-7, 205, Mississippi State
Kevin Jones, F, 6-8, 248, West Virginia
Ralph Sampson III, C, 6-11, 241, Minnesota
Damian Saunders, F, 6-7, 205, Duquesne
Xavier Silas, G, 6-5, 200, Northern Illinois
Greg Smith, F/C, 6-10, 250, Fresno State
Julyan Stone, G, 6-7, 200, UTEP
Malcolm Thomas, F, 6-8, 220, San Diego State
Isaiah Thomas, G, 5-8, 180, Washington
Chris Wright, G, 6-1, 180, Georgetown
A player of note who’s progression may be worth keeping an eye on is Ralph Sampson III, who improved light years this season at Minnesota. He’s gone from undraftable to flying on to radars. I had the chance to see both Rick Jackson of Syracuse and College of Charleston’s Andrew Goudelock at Portsmouth and both were impressive players who may have moved themselves into the 2nd round.
Walsh, who’s working on a new contract, wants size for the roster, preferably center, but none of quality will likely be there at 17. Amar’e Stoudemire is not a great boardman and the undersized Knicks became a poor rebounding team. Faried is slightly undersized even for a power forward, but scouts rave about his motor, hustle and tenacity for loose balls.
I’m interested to see Faried’s specifics when the combines list height and length. I think he’s undersized even for a 4. Think about this. Lebron James has him by 25 pounds.
But you can’t deny the motor and tenacity, definite Knicks needs. Plus he has plenty of reps having played 4 years in college. Definitely a name to keep an eye on as we get closer to the draft.
Just as an aside, I wanted to point out that I’ve created a tab up top for all the draft content that we will be covering over the next few months. We’ll highlight prospects as well as point to more content surrounding another critical draft for the Knicks.
Here are the reports from both HoopsWorld and from the Portsmouth Invitational.
Read Full Article.
Reports say that the Knicks have had discussions with Davidson guard Stephen Curry even though Curry’s camp has denied them. I was down on Curry as an option for the Knicks, but I think I was caught up in the hype of a kid who couldn’t lead his team back to the big stage of the NCAA Tournament. The more I study tapes on the kid, the more I realize that he has a perfect skillset for Mike D’Antoni’s offense.
Turns out we shouldn’t have expected a return to glory from Davidson because Curry’s performance, with his surrounding talent, was probably a once-in-a-lifetime achievement. But now I realize that that should not to take anything away from the kid’s NBA future.
It appears that the Knicks feel that Curry, a high-IQ guard from a decision-making standpoint, can play both point guard and shooting guard, which would give the team some added depth and give them another young pure shooter to add to last year’s top pick, Danilo Gallinari. In D’Antoni’s spread offensive system that thrives on space, having two players who can rip the twine is a pretty solid foundation moving forward. Curry can create for teammates and himself off of the dribble as the lead guard, and D’Antoni would be wise to run him off screens in way that has made Richard Hamilton one of the league’s most effective guards.
Curry’s game appears to have similarities to Steve Nash, whom the Suns picked 15th overall in 1996. Nash was a relative unknown talent who, after a few years of development at a small school, has gone on to become a future Hall-of-Fame guard. People questioned Nash’s strength and defensive capabilities right out of college, and Curry has had similar doubters.
Curry has shown the ability to be a capable pick-and-roll player, which Nash has mastered, and Curry is also an above-average passer. Come to think of it, wouldn’t it be something if Nash came here as a free agent and mentored the kid? Nash could bolt Phoenix if the economically conscious Suns decide that Nash is no longer worth his expensive price tag.
What Curry would bring to the Knicks is a guard who has been developed in college and has a great feel for how a coach wants the game played. From Stephon Marbury, who was at odds with every coach in his tenure with the Knicks, to Jamal Crawford, who sadly was never groomed into a complete player, the team has lacked consistent, smart basketball from the guard position. Mike D’Antoni craves someone who can kickstart his high-octane offense his way. And he should; he’s proven that it can work with the right players. More.
In fairness, Frank Isola thinks that selecting Curry is a bit premature, and wonders if he’s really a point guard.
Curry is the one who compared himself to Nash. I believe Curry has the fundamentals to be a very solid pick and roll player and he does have similarities to Nash at Santa Clara. They can shoot, handle, are well- above average passers, they have the exact same frame and they both dominated at small schools. Also, they had their share of doubters.
And if the Knicks stay at 8 and don’t take Curry, I’ll gladly take Gerald Henderson or Ty Lawson. But I’d have to think that Curry is on top of the list at this point. I even think they’d deal up to get him.
I wrote about this last year, but it was before this site obtained as much 
traffic as we’ve been getting recently. So, I wanted to bring it up again because it’s relevant. Essentially, I am one of many people who believe the NBA’s lottery system is illogical and backwards. So, I developed a system which would give the first pick in the draft to the non-playoff team with the best record, and the non-playoff teams would be ranked in order of their record 1-14, and then picks 15-30 would be in the traditional order of postseason teams.
At first glance it sounds crazy, but in a paper I wrote for one of my classes last year I feel that I covered all of the potential counter-arguments, which there certainly are a lot of.
In 2007, the Celtics totally tanked the last 15 games of the season in an effort to get more ping-pong balls for Greg Oden or Kevin Durant. Then, at the lottery when Doc Rivers put his head in his hands when he was told that they would have the 5th pick despite finishing with the 2nd-worst record, I knew that something was wrong with this system. While on the other hand, some teams play hard all season only to fall one game short of the playoffs and get stuck in the limbo of the mid-first round.
Basically, I think “rewarding” teams who fold up their season goes against all that competition is about. I know that some teams get the injury bug and do play hard and may need that top three pick in order to stay competitive with the rest of the league, but to that I say these teams should try to obtain success through more astute scouting, better coaching, or more creative trades rather than simply falling back on the pillow of “well, we’ll just get lucky at the draft.”
If every team had an incentive to win, rather than just the upper half of the league, I think you’d see more parity from start to finish, and you’d see better games later in the season. Imagine if the Knicks had to win these games to get Blake Griffin? I just think it would be a unique way to give all teams something to play for through Game 82. I’m not here saying that the Wizards, Clippers, Kings, and Knicks aren’t playing hard, they are all professionals and have pride. But, I think it’s just a strange situation when the players give it 100 % every time they step on the court and the organization they play for might be better suited for them to lose the game.
And to the teams that win 15 games and complain that they have the 14th pick I say… win more games.
I have a lot more information on this topic, but I want to hear what you guys have to say on this, should the Commish be listening?
Real pumped for this game and it’s almost halftime, just some quick thoughts.jpg "Id take a pass on Thabeet. He has never impressed me as a great NBA prospect.")
because it boasts two of the nation’s notable big men in Hasheem Thabeet and Greg Monroe.
Monroe is an NBA star in the making on the defensive end. I had a question about what I thought his prospects were and I really believe that if he follows the G-Town tradition of staying 4 years and developing, he’ll be an All-Star year after year. He’s that good.
Sadly that won’t happen, I think should he declare and the Knicks ultimately make the lottery and pick in that 5-9 range they should really think about Monroe if he choses to come out. His potential is unlimited. Figure that both Ricky Rubio and Brandon Jennings will be long gone by then.
I have the exact opposite feeling about Thabeet. His problem is he can’t be the focal point of an offense, which is impossible to believe at 7’3. Granted, Calhoun hasn’t done him any favors by surrounding him with chuckers, and very talented and fast chuckers at that, but there still has to be a way to get the guy more touches.
I’ve seen draft outlets that have the Knicks high on him.
Please ignore them as the Knicks are not interested. How could they be? He can’t play in D’Antoni’s system and there’s no reason to have him stand under the basket on the defensive end.
To me Monroe has the higher ceiling and fits Donnie Walsh’s need (and mine) for a hoop protector. He’s simply a far better prospect that Thabeet.
And it isn’t close.
Although he needs more time, sign me up to have another Georgetown big man suit up for us next season.
Andy Katz of ESPN highlights the impact of several college players who have declared for the NBA draft but have failed to sign with agents, meaning they can still head back to campus.
Names like Chase Budinger of Arizona, Ronald Steele of Alabama, Marreese Speights of Florida, Darrell Arthur of Kansas, Donte Greene of Syracuse and Bill Walker of KSU will rely on good pre-draft camps in order to maximize their status in June.
Meanwhile, Chad Ford discusses just which players who have made the ultimate leap of faith, actually may have made the right decision.
The draft is easily my favorite event of the summer and we are working towards posting from both the NBA lottery and the NBA draft, but we will provide in-depth coverage including our own team-by-team mock draft in the weeks to come.
