don't even know if this is possible to fully capture but i'd love to read a deep dive on how Jerami Grant's tenure with the process sixers helped him develop parts of his game that he might not have been able to in other situations
Thrilled to announce the addition of Tom Primosch, one of the best young scouts in the industry, to the
@EliteHSscouting
team!
As VP of Scouting for the West Coast region, Tom will be a crucial piece of our expanded national coverage. Tap in with
@Tom_Primosch
for updates!
whatever the G League's plans are they need to get the hilarious dudes who were on the broadcast for the Moravian Prep-Combine Academy game last month to do all the games for this new squad
I don't usually tweet that many actual takes on prospects but with the draft (finally) coming up this week I wanted to share six quotes from draft twitter people and others, that are kinda like my guiding principles when it comes to doing evals...happy
#draftszn
everyone's shitting on the "3&D" label these days and rightfully so but if the two words didn't rhyme we probably (maybe?) would've come up with a better way to articulate "can play defense and make an open jumper" without pigeonholing every non primary wing under one umbrella
Getting Koren Johnson and Myles Bird in the same class is a sick haul for the Aztecs. Should give SDSU two cornerstones to build around with Birdโs versatility and Johnsonโs handling and facilitation.
Really like what Oklahomaโs done so far with their 2022 class...Milos Uzan has the smoothness, creativity, and pass/score balance to run an offense and Otega Oweh has some serious juice as a slasher playing off the catch...Two guys who should contribute sooner rather than later.
Plenty of Brett Brown takes will be fired off but my main feeling is that only a certain type of person can go through constant roster reconstruction, a ton of losing, repeated questions about his standing with the FO, and still adamantly take the blame after a 1st round sweep
FINAL
@DuncanvilleBB
67
@MVABasketball
66
Nip-and-tuck battle between two of nationโs top teams ends on a game-winner from โ23 Aric Demings.
Demings, 5โญ๏ธ โ23 Ron Holland + โ23 Ashton Hardaway anchored DโVille.
5โญ๏ธ Dariq Whitehead (Duke) + Dillon Mitchell (Texas) led MVA.
dude went from taking only 20 threes combined frosh+soph years to 4.1 3PA per 36 as a rookie and being encouraged to take every open three that came his way
One of the hills Iโll die on is that leaving your feet to make a pass is nowhere near as bad as most coaches make it out to be and it should actually be drilled instead of shunned
given the interesting results that baseball and golf dudes have had using force plates and high speed cameras to train for optimal mechanics I wonder when we'll start to see similar tools being used in the bball world
obv not saying thatโs the move if youโre trying to do a thorough eval (itโs not lol) but I think the larger point is that our first impressions often carry more weight than we might think
required reading...my main thought prompted by this was that, on the defensive side of things the goal of a closeout isn't just about contesting a shot or containing a drive but rather doing everything possible to make the player who is being closed out on become indecisive
this also applies to scouting...if youโre a scout for a specific sport itโs foolish to only watch that sport...athleticism is a spectrum and itโs multifaceted; watching as many sports as possible allows you to broaden your imagination in terms of how a player can develop
shot versatility/diversity + range is always fun to watch but this dude is a legit 6โ9 as well...contested OTD shots, 1-2 step off a curl, C&S half turn in midair, backpedal into C&S, transition slowdown pull-up, stupid gravity well beyond the arc at that size is nutty
FIUโs Osasumwen Osaghae has one of the more wild statistical profiles in college basketball. 6โ7 with a 13.7 block rate last year, 60% on two pointers, 13.8 OReb rate but also didnโt make a single 3 and had a 2.5 assist rate
wish he was taller than 6'1 but Coastal Carolina soph DeVante Jones is putting together an interesting season statistically...70% on shots at the rim, .543 FTr and shooting 89% at the line, 62% on two-pointers, 36.2 AST%, 46.2% of 3PA are unassisted
Been thinking a lot about Pascal Siakamโs development into an all-star and all-NBA caliber player and what indicators of this upside that heโs reached were present in his statistical profile after his soph season at NMSUโฆ
Came away impressed with Jaylen Thompson and Omarion Bodrickโs activity on the defensive end this weekend. Thompson made a real impact as an off ball defender and Bodrick showed some impressive shot-blocking instincts for a wing.
However, he did take a ton of 2P jumpers (60.4% of all his shots were 2P jumpers) and he shot 126-291 (43%) on far 2P jumpers...That combined with the efficiency around the rim and the indication of positive impact in other areas = upside that could have been missed...
Kinda funny that the new floor/bench layout for the bubble has inadvertently fixed the issues of camera people being way too close on the baselines and the players being unnecessarily cramped on the bench
Oscar Robertson doesnโt get enough credit for being one of the single most important NBA players of all time...the NBA would not operate the way it does now if it werenโt for him
Today is Oscar Robertson's bday. Big O facts:
๐ 30-point triple-double avg for first 6 seasons
๐ Only player in top 20 PPG (10th) & APG (3rd)
๐ Part of '64 ASG strike threat that won pension plan
๐ Lawsuit led to free agency
He's like if LeBron & Curt Flood were one person.
Fun with arbitrary cutoffs: Who is the only NCAA player to achieve/surpass these numbers so far this year: 4.0 BLK%, 25 AST%, and at least 70% from the FT line?
let's say Trent Forrest the past two years shot 35% from 3 on 3.5 attempts per 40, 90% coming off c&s, minimal movement maybe some flashes of 1-2 step off curls but mostly straight c&s, FT% career arc stays the same....where are you taking him in this draft?
I think the takeaway here would be that betting on guys with positional size (Siakamโs a legit 6โ9 with long arms), who show the ability to be efficient on strong volume, and have other statistical outliers in their profiles is a good move
Lukaโs tape from today is just on a different level...the versatility on offense, touch, lower half deceleration, balance, and coordination all pop off the screen...and heโs scoring in such a variety of ways while still making reads a second before anyone else on the floor
@Gnatballenberg
@nickyp_007
"solving a more complicated matrix of possibilities" is it...why the Currys and the Iversons of the world have really good floater/midrange games and can do shit like this
@mneff3710
@mikegrib8
@Cosmis
@j_pesquis
the efficiency around the basket is obv great and his footwork is good...no J + lame athleticism and meh physical tools is hard to overlook tho...his game fits the Patriot league very well but I don't see him making a huge impact if he ends up overseas
this is sick cause if you try to just straight switch and have the big manโs defender take the guard as he curls from the weak side, itโs an easy pocket pass for a dunk.
- In 34 games his sophomore season, 36.7% of his shots came at the rim, and more than half (51.8%) were unassistedโฆ
- Shot 73.3% at the rim
- 65 putbacks his soph year (More than Ayton, JJJ, Jarrett Allen, Bam, Richaun Holmes, Myles Turner, AD)
- Efficiency + volume on 2P shotsโฆ54.9% on 16.8 2P shot attempts per 40 minutes
- Low turnover rate (10.0%) despite a 29.1% usage rate
- 23.6 DReb% (Higher than Drummond, Steven Adams, Adebayo, Tristan Thompson, almost identical to Whiteside)
@abovethebreak3
vividly remember this dude throwing down a vicious putback off an August Mahoney miss at slam dunk to the beach back in 2018...asked where he was headed next year and found out he was only a fucking sophomore at the time lol
this ties into a larger discussion that someone (sorry I forget who) touched on earlier this week which revolves around the idea that watching every single second of tape for a player isnโt really a productive use of time if youโre trying to project their pro outlook
@mneff3710
little bit of a KPJ aesthetic on the J, not much scoring OTD, 3P volume isn't there yet, good at the rim volume for a non primary and he shot 71.3% there but more than half attempts were assisted, smart cutter which is prob a big reason for those numbers, meh vertical athleticism
It wouldnโt have looked foolish to bet against Siakam ever shooting 37% from three on 6 attempts per game like he is this year since he only took 15 threes his soph year and had an uninspiring FT% in college (71%)....
e.g have a player take 100 jumpers from the same spot, use force plates to see how consistent their load is, how much force is applied in the loading phase, consistency of landing mechanics (1 leg vs 2)...would also help assess injury risk
given the interesting results that baseball and golf dudes have had using force plates and high speed cameras to train for optimal mechanics I wonder when we'll start to see similar tools being used in the bball world
@caine_purnell
Seriously, like I get the creation concerns and the fact the heโs a one position defender but heโs missed three free throws all year lol
two frosh returning bigs Iโm excited to see more of next year are Joshua Morgan and Manny Bates...Morgan only frosh in any conference to win DPOY and Bates had a 16% blk rate (lol)
Skylar Mays isn't getting any top 50 buzz because he's already 22 but for his career so far he has an 84.1 FT%, 3.1 steal rate, has shot 51% on two pointers, last year took 89.2% of his shots from 3 or at the rim and only had a 9.5 turnover rate