i dont really understand the bagley hype after watching that video, seems like most of his off-ball action was lethargic and largely built around looking for post-ups. don't really anticipate that to translate when you're going against NBA athleticism. will obv keep an eye as he continues to get better.

porter jr as a simmons type with a jumper seems most intriguing atm barring my incredible doncic slurp

ayton looks like a DAJ/Capela esque stud on offense, didnt get an idea of his defense tho

Ayton has a way more diverse offensive game than DAJ/Capela.

yeah on ayton's offensive game, none of the shots went in those highlights but the fact that he seems to hit fts and actually has the confidence to take jumpers is a positive. that's a clear item to monitor over the season obviously because having some semblance of a faceup game and ability to space is massively helpful

in general he seems to have pretty good moves offensively, and seems quite willing/able to pass. a couple of times already in highlights he's been doubled on the entry pass, and immediately recognised it and touch-passed it back out on the catch, pretty high-level recognition that plenty of nba dudes don't have imo. his hands seem really good. maybe he doesn't have quite the mobility and leaping ability of daj/capela, but that's going to be hard to tell in lolcollege with no spacing and ****ty guard play

also totally hoovers rebounds, they keep calling him 7'1 so i guess we'll go with that - i believe it. he's a total specimen in terms of looking like a grown man already, strength etc not going to be a problem for him

idk where the mo bamba highlights are from today's game, but i see that texas apparently played an exhibition vs a professional australian league team (i.e. the league where terrence ferguson stunk it up last year) a cpl months ago, and bamba looked pretty good in that. appears to be able to shoot competently which is big, dx has him with a career ft% of 69%

18 Pts, 9 Rebs, 5 Blks

Deandre Ayton is 7'1 260 with a 7'0 wingspan and a 43.5 " vertical leap

alligator arms then, insane vert to make up for it

#11 for yellow is listed at 6'7 lol
he looks like a child trying to contest

Ayton’s hands were kinda awful against UMBC today; he fumbled like 6 passes.

bamba looks like a franchise changer.

9'7" standing reach and he can apparently shoot?

the plot thickens

Duke vs MSU tonight.

Jaren Jackson Jr vs Marvin Bagley - both top 6 prospects right now.

Other potential lottery picks in the game include Gary Trent, Miles Bridges, Wendell Carter, and Trevon Duval.

Then a couple more potential first round guys in Nick Ward and Grayson Allen.


Game is loaded.

jaren jackson is awesome

Just started watching game and Jackson just made two very high level passes for a big on consecutive possessions.

Yeah Jackson looks legit. Hes got some nba genes as well. To bad hes a sparty and not a wolverine so i could root for him outside of when hes playing duke.

Jacksons length+athleticism combo shows up very well on defense - had 8 blocks in the exhibition, 4 in the first game and 2 in the first half vs Duke. Might be top 5 defender in college basketball already.

Bagley doesn’t seem to have touch but I definitely disagree that his shot looks broken. If anything the form is there, it’s just missing some touch. Same with his other moves, he seems to have the fundamental motions down, just slightly jagged. And as a guy who is 6 foot 11,,, he’s probably grown into that body fairly recently.

This is to say, there’s no reason he can’t develop a bit more feel to his game. The athletic motions are there. That kind of development isn’t unheard of (examples Im not bringing to mind right away), but it would seem odd to dismiss him at this point. And because he seems to have all the pieces that would allow for a complete game, I think the potential for that improved fluidity is reason to be excited.

As a prospect, he falls below Ayton for me. Not trying to imply he looks better. Just that I understand why getting hype for bagley is a thing.

speaking for myself, my bagley pushback is in the context of the hype that already existed for him. it seems a pretty frequently expressed sentiment that he was an auto #1 pick kind of prospect and that him reclassifying to tgis year would just shift everyone else down a slot (like in some posts early in this thread). so i'm just arguing against his superstar potential. to bring it back to reality, i still would be pretty surprised if he didn't go top 5 and consider him a good chance to be a strong nba starter, and if he goes #5 he'll likely be one of the best value #5 picks you could possibly hope for

honestly the best way to rank guys would be to devise some kind of rating system where you basically end up with a cpl of metrics that enable cross-year comparisons. trying to rank guys by prospect quality where say labron is a 95/100, and anthony bennet is like a 50/100, and targuy ngombo is a 1/100

as an exercise; punching in the top 5 as ayton/doncic/porter/bamba/bagley, ensuring a bit of scientific rigour by basing their value on my current gut feel, and then comparing to previous drafts. honestly for the last 3 years i'd say the only guys who crack that list for me are: towns (1-3), simmons (2-4), and maybe fultz (who i personally liked quite a bit even though he now has aids). they are all better than anyone in the wiggins/bennett drafts too imo - ignoring embiid who's too hard to compare as a prospect due to the weird risk profile (that said, i think absent injuries he was one of the best prospects ever)

i think that's actually how strong his draft might be, i could see the prospect quality grading out like this over the last 6 years:

1	anthony davis	90
2	towns	88
3	ayton	87
4	doncic	86
5	simmons	82
6	porter	80
7	bamba	80
8	fultz	79
9	bagley	78

Love the shoulders on Ayton. His overall build has me a little concerned about lower body injuries. If he can stay healthy is a clear stud.

I'm feeling Bamba too. Sick class.

Ayton looks to be in the Ibaka/Maker class, but Bahamas seems ok to keep track of real age

This is the kind of prospect that should be in NBA or in Europe right now, his body is ready, there's no match for him in lolNCAA.

Let him play agains this kind of player to see what he's worth



After this draft there will be so many more bigs on cheap contracts, all the Mozgov, Noah, Mahinmi, Kanter .... contracts are going to look even worse than now

Bamba vs Ayton debate should be a fun one all year

what the hell kind of megascrub school is that, i've never heard of it and their whole team is short whites. anyway kinda good that bamba generally seems to stay his lane offensively, he has not much potential as a serious post scorer or go-to offensive guy in general imo. too slight and instincts aren't good. but with some shooting touch all things are possible, and he can certainly be a good offensive guy if the spacing ability is legit (which it seems to stand a good chance of being)


one thing about bagley that's good imo is that while i don't think he'll be a good post scorer in the nba, his strong inside finishing is a good sign for his instincts/agility/body control in genera. him being strong in that area gives me a bit of confidence that those general strengths can be re-purposed when he's forced to do other stuff to succeed in the nba

to me bamba doesn't really have that x-factor, he has to be able to actually prove his skills imo. luckily for him, his tools are good enough that you don't really need to rely on latent skill development. if he just keeps developing the basic strengths he already has (being tall and shooting), he'll be a good nba player