I dunno man, 2008 Davidson without Curry was way way worse than 2007 Texas without Durant. And 2008 Davidson did a lot better in the tourney than 2007 Texas. Of course Curry wasn't all that highly regarded in the draft but, uh, that was not a correct assessment of his talent.

well, oden was an even better prospect than durant and they couldnt win either. and they had another super high pick in conley too.

Durant, Curry, Duncan, Glen Robinson, Fab 5, Chris Paul and many others suggest its not as easy as some here suggest. These were all out of the box hugely NBA ready players who couldn’t get it done.

Using current NBAers and saying they didn't get it done when they were in college but were NBA ready is silly. Durant, Paul, etc. are far superior now. Put that kind of player on any 8 seed and they cruise to a ship. Men playing in a boys game.

Ya

And most of those guys were on mediocre college teams

Fab 5 not winning is tough era + variance

Pretty much every single star would make a college team a huge favorite. Plenty of NBA starters wouldn’t though. I mean, how much better is Lauri Markannen now than he was a year ago when they were a two seed and lost in the sweet sixteen on a team that would have been pretty good without him? And that’s to say nothing of the pre-injury Andre Roberson types who simply don’t bring enough shot creation to help out a mediocre team, which 12-13 seeds are

A college team that was already in the tourney? Don't know about huge favorite, but sure. Curry or Labron turn a 10 seed into a contender for sure. But a kenpom 300 team? No way.

Related: how many seeds would a non-Giannis Milwaukee Bucks first rounder drop Villanova?

Also related: imagine Giannis in the Patriot League tournament.

My point being there are many many examples of NBA-ready guys who on Day 1 in the NBA were top 100 if not top 50 or higher. So a lot of the “any NBA player takes a 16 seed and makes them the favorite” takes seem really off to me

yeah exactly. 2008 Davidson without Curry was maybe a little better than a typical 16 seed. 2008 Curry is a top 50 NBA player as is imo.

You guys are kind of conflating them being super talented as rookies with them being good as rookies

While many good NBA players might not have an amazing impact, specifically the athletically elite playmakers would absolutely crush. Their combination of size and IQ would be unstoppable.


Lebron, Giannis, Jokic, CP3, Steph, and Gobert might have fairly similar value in the NBA, but the 1st 3 would have a much bigger edge in the NCAA

itt lolUSAians overestimate how good NCAA sports are. que sera sera

So 2008 Davidson with 2018 curry would be unstoppable?

how good is that Syracuse team w/out Melo? they steamrolled the tournament

college Melo gotta be better than current Melo though

no people are overrating the nba players. there are starters worse than some college guys right now. stuff about how any starter could make a random team the best is ridiculous

karl anthony towns started every game averaging over 18-10 his rookie season. the year before he got punked by frank kaminsky while surrounded by nba level talent.

Tim Duncan was ****ing Tim Duncan his senior year, with a legit great college PG.

And Tim ****ing Duncan couldn't dribble the ball nor shoot.

His skillset is being able to match up with Shaq and contribute selflessly in a team environment at an elite level, not singlehandedly winning basketball games against college level players.

damian lillard rookie year: 82 starts. average 19/7. roty. can dribble and shoot.

damian lillard senior year: lost to montana in conference tournament

Dame is small. He can't block every single player at the college level, nor soar above every player while deciding whether to dunk it or find an open 20 footer for 3 points. The top players who are elite athletically could easily shut down the opposition's best player, demand quadruple teams and are able to pass to everyone in all situations.

No one is debating what Lebron can do maaaaaaan.

labron didn't do **** in college tho

literally no one is arguing that labron/durant wouldnt crush college right now. there are a lot of other posts in the thread you might want to read in order to keep up

I'm just saying if, instead of sorting by great NBA players/prospects, you sort by guys most capable of putting up 50 point quintuple doubles against inferior competition, you'll find there are a bunch of players capable of mopping the ncaas with scrubs who hustle and shoot

Trae Young is, conservatively, the 5th best PG in the world and his college team is only 16-7 right now. They were a bad major conference team last year (11-20 and 5-13 in conference) and then got Trae and a decent freshman piece in Manek. They'd have been the caliber of a 14 seed or so last year and now are a ~4 seed. They're capable of winning a title, but are a decent distance away from being a favorite.

If they had an NBA starting wing/big man they are probably a 1 seed so it seems like the answer is 1 good and 1 average NBA starter for a bad tourney team to become one of the favorites. Give them 3 average ones and they clearly become the favorite if the skill sets are at all complementary. I'd also argue that the difference between the average 16 seed and average 15 seed is about as significant as the difference between an average 7 seed an an average 2 seed. Sure the 7 seed wins some of those games, but they're pretty big dogs. 16 seeds are just so bad most of the time and have huge talent holes.