the unique cmet on Dean's post (which I actually really enjoyed )

Patton is interesting. Like him as 1st rounder, although am slightly worried that his D is AIDS. Creighton replaced Groselle w/ him + kept everybody else and has worse kenpom rank.

Collins has a lot of things to like. Way young, lotsa points and rebs, pretty good FT%. But non-passing REALLY turns me off-- 8 assists vs 34 tovs is gross and he's undersized for center. He has a chance of making NBA as bench garbageman, but he's like a poor man's Ante Zizic who went #23 last year. I don't see him going 1st round.

It's the dream. Especially if they get Monk too. Their spacing and efficiency would be off the charts.

Pretty much. I don't think his injury is THAT serious though. And IMO you gotta take him first bc he's only 19 and has supersick tools, if somehow some way he figures out how to not be AIDS on offense you are super happy to have him on the roster.

Wade has a 6'11" wingspan. DSJ's is like 6'4". People really underappreciate how t-rexy he is.

Thanks! Glad you like the work and Lonzo

lol. thanks for fixing the broken link.

DSJ: good or great?

Honestly think this is the best thing i have written.

Pretty ****ing harsh for a kid that admittedly isn't 100% back from his ACL injury, no?

You criticize his defense and although it's a raw number he leads the ACC in steals. He'll never be a shut down guy but he's clearly opportunistic in his defense like a Curry. I do believe you underestimate his athleticism as well and he's merely just scratching the surface of that potential.

My personal criticisms of him this far is shot selection, taking too long to get the offense going and free throws. That stuff can be addressed and as you said he checks all the initial boxes you want to check. Appreciate you taking the time, good read but not sure the timing is right. I think this kid might really take off the second half of the season cementing that draft stock.

A follow up when the time comes would be pretty cool too.

Draft lottery for the American guys seems like its already rounded into shape

4 elite PG prospects who should go high
Smith jr, Ball, Fox, Fultz

3 intriguing prospects who fit on the wing somewhere
Isaac, Jackson, Bridges

A 7 footer who shoots and plays like Dirk
Markkanen

Two ultra talented dumb chuckers with low basketball IQ
Malik monk who is basically Nick Young
Jayson tatum who is basically Evan Turner

Then the leftover bigs
Giles, Bam, Williams, (maybe Rabb? )

Anyone else even capable of sneaking into the lottery at this point? Seems like its these guys and comes down to how you rank that group of 14

Great piece and I thought you did a good job outlining why it is you think his ceiling is lower. The only issue Id take is when you said UCLA and NC State have similar rosters in talent. If you took Ball and Smith away and had those teams play each other on a neutral court, UCLA would be double digit favorites. So that felt like a reach, but it was a good read!

I probably should have addressed the ACL narrative bc everybody talks about it a ton: I just don't buy it as a big deal. He was 15+ months removed from his ACL tear before his first college game, and young kids recover from that stuff super fast. Kyle Lowry tores his ACL before his freshman year and returned to the floor in like 4 months.

Sure maybe some effects are lingering and it is making him play like 2% worse than he would otherwise, but it's not hurting him to the extent that my opinion would be fundamentally different with an extra year of recovery.

He will surely have plenty of good games in the 2nd half, and he can definitely raise my opinion of him. But Duke and Va Tech games are already examples of what his best looks like, and I didn't feel like I was watching a future NBA star in either game.

And I would shove my entire bankroll on NC State +10

TJ Leaf has a shot bc his offensive package is so nice for a PF. But really the draft isn't too interesting once the superstud freshmen are off the board.

Good read. One thing i could add is that Smith gets a lot of bailout calls which he wont get in the nba.

Personally my top 8 is Ball, Fultz, Isaac, Markkanen, Nkilinta, Fox, Monk and Jackson. Jacksons ft shooting is worrisome (hack a shaq on a sf?) So drops to 8th on my list. Nkilinta looks like Kris Dunn with a perfect shot.

Yup-- I didn't really even get to talk about my qualms with his scoring bc I wanted to focus on other points. But he is by far the least smooth and worst at finding space of the elite PG prospects. He relies on brute strength on bulldozes, and this may cause some translation issues in the NBA when he cannot outmuscle his opponents for FT's as often.

I definitely agree with the T-Rex, length notion. Seen way too many shots this year where he has the corner but the defender catches up on his hip and for whatever reason he can't finish around the rim. Should be an easy layup over an outstretched arm but too many times he seems to have to take a weird angle and it rolls off the rim. Almost looks as if he's rushing the shot.

dean, if ACL injuries aren't a huge issue then why does Giles suck so much? Was EVERYONE just wrong on him? Is he somehow going to be the one superhyped freshman who completely sucks in college then is a beast in the pros?

So here is a recent highlight vid of Ntilikina

https://youtu.be/YmY9z_ekjVw

7' wingspan and be a senior in high school if American.

Giles is battling much more negative momentum from injuries than DSJ.

He tore his ACL 12 months before the season, and it was the second time he tore it in HS. Then when it seemed like he was healthy he had to undergo another surgical procedure and missed the beginning of the season.

So not only did he join the team midseason when he was over a full year removed from game action, he may also be battling confidence issues from getting injured over and over again.

Meanwhile DSJ already appeared to be back at full strength this summer at Adidas Nations and he was fully healthy for all of NC State's practices, exhibitions, non-conference, etc.

That said, Giles also might suck. His instincts look pretty bad out there. But he is such a physical beast maybe he does become really good in the NBA if he fully heals and gets his confidence back. It's really hard to know what to expect from him as a pro. He's a mystery box.

Surprised you have Monk at 4. He seems like a one dimensional shooter who is terrible defensively.

he is! but his shooting dimension is amazing. could be second best of all time next to curry and he is a sneaky good passer, avoids TOVs, and his athleticism + quick trigger enables him to get his shot whenever he wants wherever he wants. i see him as a bonafide offensive weapon.

but his rebounding and D could be pathetic so it is plausible i am overrating him a bit.

He quit running hot on step back contested threes and hes starting to get exposed. His last three games hes a combined 7 of 23 from 3 with 14 total turnovers(meanwhile if you added his rebs+blks+stls in those 3 games combined its the same number of turnovers he committed - 14) Hes a bad combo of both selfish and dumb. The more you watch him, the more apparent it is that he shoukd be avoided altogether in the lottery.

I think a GM could draft him hoping he runs forever good on guaranteed poor shot selection and somehow turns into a star, but a large % of the time hes getting Nick Young 2.0.

Dean, I really enjoy reading your pieces - I don't watch any college ball and they are very informative, an excellent entry point for helping to understand the draft prospects - or at least the ones in the USA. Obviously, some of your views will pan out better over time than others, but that's unavoidable and doesn't detract from their value.

The one I recently enjoyed the most was the previous one - your "mid-season big board"-thing. On this particular post: I don't have the knowledge to be able to judge your evaluation of DSJ, but your enthusiasm is good.

I also appreciate you want to have a lively/spontaneous/discursive style.

However - and please take this as constructive comment rather than a snide put-down - you really can sharpen what you write with some editing to make the prose have less repetition, fewer cliches and more zap.

First sentence:

"Dennis Smith Jr. is receiving hype as a possible top 3 pick in this year’s draft, and he recently greased the wheels of his hype train with a 32 point performance in a road win at Duke."

'hype' twice is bad, 'greasing the wheels .. train' .. meh-cliche (but you might convince me it's ok-ish, e.g., if there is something train-like about DSJ - yes, the train is the hype around him, but the phrase works better if he's train-like as well, otherwise it's just an isolated cliche, and you could probably refactor the sentence to exploit both if DSJ=train is true), and the overall effect is weak - apart from those stumbles, 'is receiving' is too passive.

I'm not going to bang on but you get the idea. The bball stuff is good, but I'm sure you are completely capable of combing through, rearranging, condensing & so on, and so making even better actual posts.

They added Marcus Foster (18.7 ppg) too.

tchaz- i appreciate the feedback. honestly i will never take any criticism negatively, i know my writing style is imperfect and rife with flaws and i'm always trying to improve.

that sentence you highlighted i actually wrote after the meat of the article, and i knew i was bad when i wrote it, but kinda just wanted to get it over with and post it. the part i was excited about was the structure and presentation of my logic.

The recent turnovers are a buzzkill, but you cannot compare him to Nick Young bc his talent is multiple notches better:

As an 18 year old freshman, Monk is posting 123 ORtg on 26 usg
As a 21 year old junior, Swaggy P posted 111 ortg on 25 usg

Monk may have similar flaws to Young and he may not be drastically better, but I think compared him to Nick Young is unfairly harsh. A more reasonable floor is like Kevin Martin where he scores efficiently but is so painfully one dimensional that he's not worth much anyway.

& I appreciate that

Really splitting hairs there tchaz.

Ive watched some more film and would like to modify my top 8:

1. Ball
2. Fultz
3. Isaac
4. Ntlikina
5. Markkanen
6. Tatum
7. Fox
8. Smith Jr

To be honest if i was drafting right now i would select the french guard first. (Due to injury concerns of ball)