2017-2018 Draft Prospects watch.

[pokerface]

Also, Bagley has more physical tools but is also more likely to get injured. Plus he relies more on athletism while Doncic uses more smarts and skill.

 

[Ouchie-Z-Clown]

Interesting note, Nash shot 34% in his senior season in college and that was the short college three (TBF he was quite good in his other three college seasons).

As for overall efficiency Doncic's shooting splits this year are 47%/32%/81% and Nash's in his senior year were 43%/34%/89%. I would say that is pretty close to even overall.

Oh burn on JCSunsfan!

 

[Ouchie-Z-Clown]

That is too many heaves. I could see it effecting his percentage by 1% at the absolute most, not a 5% difference. Just for comparison, Booker has only had 7, Warren has 6, and Eric Bledsoe has 13 heave attempts throughout their entire careers. That's a total of 911 games. If you removed 26 attempts from Doncic's 3's it wouldn't raise his percentage 5%.

You can view heave attempts at Basketball-Reference. Here is a link to Warren's page.
https://www.basketball-reference.com/players/w/warretj01.html

How many Euroleague games did he play? If there’s 50 and someone said he attempts around 5 threes per game removing 26 heaves would move his three point shooting percentage from 30% to 33.5%. That’s a marked difference.

 

[elindholm]

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This is an example of what he was looking up. There are a lot of these types of attempts from him. Also the 2nd one in the video wouldn't count as a heave per BBRef, but is a shot that is almost certainly not going to go in either.

It does make you wonder why his team finds itself so frequently in that situation. That is a lot of heaving, and this is from someone who already gets queasy thinking about Doncic.

 

[Chaplin]

I know we are talking a lot about our first pick, but wanted to ask some of the guys that know more NCAA basketball than I do about Jalen Brunson. He's player of the year and yet most mock drafts don't have him as a first rounder. NBADraft.net only has him as #28. For all intents and purposes, other than defensively, he almost has no weaknesses from what I see. And he's a natural born leader on the best collegiate offense in the country. Add to that how durable he is, he's been compared a lot to his teammate Mikal Bridges, but doesn't get any of Bridges love in the draft. He's only 6'3", but that's how tall Steve Nash was, so I'm not sure that's a negative.

Any opinions? He may be available with our first 2nd rounder, would be IMO a TERRIFIC value pick.

 

[JCSunsfan]

Oh burn on JCSunsfan!

Ha!

 

[ColdPickleNachos]

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[Cheesebeef]

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I actually see us being more Super Reggie Miller/David Robinson/Slightly smaller Scottie Pippen... and dominating for YEARS.

 

[CardsSunsDbacks]

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Man if we end up with the 2nd or 3rd pick I hope McD can convince this guy not to work out for who is in front of us. Worked for Jackson, but I don't know if it would work for Ayton.

 

[SirStefan32]

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Ha! I like this kid even more now!

 

[JCSunsfan]

They all want to play for us. Ayton, Bagley, and Young have said positive things about the Suns. There was some positive talk from people associated with Doncic too.

Players look at Booker, Jackson and TJ and see opportunity.

 

[Cheesebeef]

They all want to play for us. Ayton, Bagley, and Young have said positive things about the Suns. There was some positive talk from people associated with Doncic too.

Players look at Booker, Jackson and TJ and see opportunity.

I doubt many of them are looking at TJ as anything.

It’s all Booker and Jackson.

 

[SirStefan32]

They all want to play for us. Ayton, Bagley, and Young have said positive things about the Suns. There was some positive talk from people associated with Doncic too.

Players look at Booker, Jackson and TJ and see opportunity.

Well, Dragic is his mentor and a long-time family friend, so that could go either way. I know Sarver and Dragic have a great relationship, but Dragic and McD do not. I know that officially they mended some fences, but who know.

 

[JCSunsfan]

Well, Dragic is his mentor and a long-time family friend, so that could go either way. I know Sarver and Dragic have a great relationship, but Dragic and McD do not. I know that officially they mended some fences, but who know.

McD and Dragic supposedly patched things up this year and are fine now.

 

[Mainstreet]

I do not see why Bagley cannot play the 5. More mobile centers is the way the NBA is going anyway.

A front line of Jackson, Bagley, and then one of TJ, Bender, Chriss, Williams, or a FA big man. That would be interesting.

Can you imagine a front line of Jackson, TJ and Bagley? There would be no lack of movement, that's for sure. Yes, three point shooting would be an issue.

JJ, Bagley, and an improved Bender would be very interesting. Bender's d and three point shooting with Bagley's active interior game and JJ' slashing.

Don't let them burn you JC.

Draft Bagley to play PF. Then when the Suns go small, Bagley can play center in small ball lineups. Bagley can switch between forward and the center position to give the Suns more depth upfront.

The PG position will need to be addressed somewhere in the draft.

I still like Ayton and Bagley as 1 and 2 respectively.

 

[Ouchie-Z-Clown]

I know we are talking a lot about our first pick, but wanted to ask some of the guys that know more NCAA basketball than I do about Jalen Brunson. He's player of the year and yet most mock drafts don't have him as a first rounder. NBADraft.net only has him as #28. For all intents and purposes, other than defensively, he almost has no weaknesses from what I see. And he's a natural born leader on the best collegiate offense in the country. Add to that how durable he is, he's been compared a lot to his teammate Mikal Bridges, but doesn't get any of Bridges love in the draft. He's only 6'3", but that's how tall Steve Nash was, so I'm not sure that's a negative.

Any opinions? He may be available with our first 2nd rounder, would be IMO a TERRIFIC value pick.

Limited athletically but should be a long time nba role player imo. A good glue guy and leader. I’ve seen us taking him with the first pick in the 2nd round.

 

[bwgood77]

People want to talk his "numbers going down" because he's played three years in the euro league while Bagley gets a pass for playing one year in college? Then it's thrown around that Doncic has more bust potential??

Bagley is playing on one of the most stacked teams in the history of college basketball with 5 guys likely to go in the first round or shortly thereafter, so all of his attempts are wide open.

As for Doncic, it's because of what has been talked about...now spending time as the primary ball handler so when clock is running out throwing it up AND because as he has become the best player in Europe, he demands way more defensive attention, just like Trae Young when he was such a big threat.

Someone made an interesting post on another forum about comparing people just by looking at the % and not the context (it's long but I'll post it all)..

"
As to this argument from some here that you judge a player's shooting ability solely by their shooting percentage, and that the NBA 3 point line being further than the one in EuroLeague, automatically means a player will shoot a lower percentage in the NBA....
About 3 years ago, they did a survey in Europe, where they asked the coaches in EuroLeague and EuroCup, and also major national leagues, who was the best shooter in Europe.
The result was Navarro and Spanoulis, and I can't remember who was first and second, but they got together something like 88% of the entire vote, with all other players getting 12% combined.
If you were to look at just percentages, and base everything about shooting, solely on a percentage, with zero context, then neither of them would even have gotten a single vote. But yeah, amazingly, head coaches actually understand that raw stats with zero context can be rather useless.
I never take posts seriously, when they rate a player's shooting ability solely on their shooting percentages. It's ridiculous, because it assumes the shots of every player happen in an equal kind of vacuum or something, with all shots being of exact same type and circumstance, which is just ridiculous.
For a good EuroLeague example (since Doncic is in EuroLeague), take Nick Calathes, a horrible shooter (maybe the worst guard in Europe in terms of shooting), and he is shooting almost every single 3 pointer being left wide open by the defense. Because he can't shoot, so they leave him wide open. His nickname through most of Europe is even "Nick The Brick".
But then take someone like Spanoulis, who is trapped and doubled the whole game, and almost never gets an open look, or catch and shoot. By percentages strictly, they would look not much different as shooters, when in reality, it's one of the best shooters in Europe, versus one of the worst shooters in Europe.
A person judging solely by percentages, would claim they were not much different, in terms of shooting.
Same with NBA comparisons....someone could claim Rubio or Giannis wasn't that much of a worse 3 point shooter than Kobe, going simply by percentage. When in reality, Kobe was light years a better shooter, but he could be framed as being a bad shooter, simply with this "shooting ability is based only on percentages".
You simply can't argue with someone that doesn't understand something like that, and that simply looks at shooting percentage to judge.
The same with the 3 point line distance. It's a totally illogical argument, that simply because the top of the key distance is further in NBA, that it means a lower percentage of shots will be made. First, the distance is virtually the same on the sides of the court. It's really only at the top of the key that there is a difference.
Second, that further distance at the top of the key, allows for more floor spacing, making offense and screen roll easier in the NBA. And it also makes it harder for the defense to recover and to close out to shooters, which means the looks are more open, with the shooters having more time and space to shoot. These factors easily mitigate a difference of 15 inches, which is basically just slightly more than one step of distance anyway.
In reality, it's easier to have the further 3 point line. It gives more spacing for offense, and it gives more space and time to the shooter. And again, the distance is basically the same at the sides. Never mind it's about a step of distance anyway, which is almost a non-factor for professional level players anyway.
So to argue that somehow the difference in the 3 point line, means Doncic will shoot worse in the NBA, is really 100% pure speculation and personal conjecture. There is nothing factual in such comments - it's just pure personal opinion.
That would only matter if the players were just practice shooting in the gym, or it was a 3 point contest or something like that, or if the leagues had exactly the same rules and defense, which they don't."

 

[SirStefan32]

That's an interesting take, and I tend to agree with the basic premise that not all three point shots are created equal, but I don't agree with the details. Booker is guarded pretty tightly, and I am sure his percentage would be better if the Suns had better spacing and additional shooters/ scorers on the floor, but he is still shooting a good percentage. That's a part of someone's development. Virtually every good, young player ends up having to make a couple of major adjustments as teams start to pay attention to them and devise strategies to stop them. While I agree that looking at percentage alone is not wise thing to do, but it is an objective measure that gives us a part of the picture.

As to the distance, it is absolutely logical to assume that the shooter is going to have a more difficult time from the NBA three point line. At least initially. There are numerous examples of good college shooters struggling in their first year or two. Without looking it up, I want to say that Durant was one example. It is an adjustment because you are shooting from further away. You have to adjust. Take Bender as an example. I would say we can all agree that he is a good three-point shooter. Before his slump, he was between 37% and 38% for months. In his first season and early in this season, you could see that his shot was fine, but was consistently a little too short and flat. It took him a while to figure it out.

 

[JCSunsfan]

OK. Where to start. I have never seen so much explaining away of stats as there is with Doncic. Playing time is a legit argument. I will grant that. But I am not willing to give him his /per 36 numbers as a comparison. Those numbers are less valid the bigger the discrepancy in minutes of actual minutes played.

But his game logs show quite a bit of outside shooting futility.

About the distance difference of the three point line in the nba. I have not argued that one regarding Doncic because it looks to me that he, like Trae Young and others, tends to shoot well beyond the line. Maybe he is not as efficient the further out he goes, I don't know. I cannot find any relevant shot charts to make the argument, so I let that one sit.

 

[pokerface]

OK. Where to start. I have never seen so much explaining away of stats as there is with Doncic. Playing time is a legit argument. I will grant that. But I am not willing to give him his /per 36 numbers as a comparison. Those numbers are less valid the bigger the discrepancy in minutes of actual minutes played.

But his game logs show quite a bit of outside shooting futility.

About the distance difference of the three point line in the nba. I have not argued that one regarding Doncic because it looks to me that he, like Trae Young and others, tends to shoot well beyond the line. Maybe he is not as efficient the further out he goes, I don't know. I cannot find any relevant shot charts to make the argument, so I let that one sit.

I think you have to concede too that Doncic is the focal point for team defenses while Bagley had more of a free run in comparison. I think that is a very significant difference.

 

[elindholm]

Someone made an interesting post on another forum about comparing people just by looking at the % and not the context (it's long but I'll post it all)

Let's put it this way. If you have a great three-point shooter who for some reason makes only 31% of his in-game attempts, then he isn't helping his team win with those attempts. So it doesn't matter how good a shooter he is in some theoretical sense; it's not good enough to positively impact the game.

Who was that journeyman stretch four that Steve Kerr brought to the Suns, who Kerr said was the best shooter in the league, or something ridiculous like that? Was it Sean Marks?

 

[Mainstreet]

Oh no. Not the Sean Marks or Dan Langhi cards.

 

[CardsSunsDbacks]

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Looks like you guys that don't like Doncic high in this draft can breath a sigh of relief I suppose.

 

[Errntknght]

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Looks like you guys that don't like Doncic high in this draft can breath a sigh of relief I suppose.

Sounds like April Fool's to me...

 

[pokerface]

Sounds like April Fool's to me...

Well nowhere else is reporting it as far as I can tell.