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COLOMBIANO

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Posts posted by COLOMBIANO

  8. Posted · Report reply

    It's been a while since I have posted on here, but I thought I'd throw a couple of things out there, because I feel strongly about a couple of players in the upcoming draft.

     

    For one, I think there is only one guaranteed All-Star in this draft: Jabari Parker. Embiid must stay healthy and develop offensively; Wiggins must show he can dribble, shoot somewhat consistently, pass, think, basically anything more than jump and have the hand-eye coordination to not miss the rim on a dunk. Don't get me wrong. I think both are fairly safe picks to be decent players; they're too physically gifted not to be. But both of them have major things to work on (Kansas just doesn't develop players well for the NBA anymore). Parker needs to be a better passer, but everything else he does offensively is stellar for his position. Defensively, he needs as much work as Wiggins' and Embiid's offensive games combined, but I don't think you even care about that when a guy is as gifted as he is offensively. You can hide bad defense, a la Larry Bird or, more recently, Kevin Love. There are ten wings not starting in the league who are better defenders than Wiggins will ever be, and likely ten bigs who will never sniff an All-Star game who are as good on D as Embiid projects to be. There might be ten guys in the whole league with what Parker can bring you offensively. He projects to be that good - he's already a top twenty offensive player in the league. Offensively, no one really has any clue what either of the Kansas guys will be. Embiid could be the next Olajuwon, so they say, but he could just as easily be Darko Milicic. Wiggins' offensive ceiling, to me, is something like Ricky Davis, while his basement is more like Corey Brewer.

     

    But moving on to players Orlando might actually draft:

     

    I'm not a huge fan of Dante Exum. If Orlando drafts him, I'll try to hope that Hennigan knows what he's doing; but I'll be skeptical. At this point, it seems like he is all athletic ability. We have no idea of his mentality, Ball IQ, consistent effort on D, anything. He could be Penny, he could be Derrick Rose; he could also be Shaun Livingston (note the trend with all of those players?). If he ends up like Penny or Rose, we then have to hope he doesn't get hurt like those guys did/have. If he ends up like Shaun Livingston, it really won't matter (even before the injury, Livingston was never going to be worth the fourth pick in a stacked draft like this one). I actually think he has more upside than Wiggins, as Wiggins can't dribble, which is a large part of basketball, when you think about it; he also has a lower basement. He could be worse than Livingston. We might be overestimating his Ball IQ considerably, as no one - not the GM's or the scouts or his own father - has seen him against enough elite talent to get a good handle on this. He could be a total flake. We simply don't know, and neither does anyone else. He hasn't been exposed to anything like what he's about to be exposed to, and that scares me.

     

    If Orlando drafts Noah Vonleh, I will probably stomp around in a rage for a few days before realizing that I'm going to root for the team no matter what, so let's just hope I'm totally wrong about the guy. I've watched a lot of tape on the guy (I'll admit I haven't watched him play a full game), and even his highlight reels are unimpressive. I hear so many ridiculous comparisons with this guy that I want to scream. NBAdraft.net compares him to Wayman Tisdale/Jamal Mashburn. Jamal Mashburn! Seriously! Someone here compared him to Rashard Lewis! After seeing him shoot a whole 30 college 3-pointers, we're comparing him to Shard? I said I found his highlights unimpressive. Here's why: he can't pass (at all - it's like he doesn't know he's allowed to and wouldn't know what to do if he did). He doesn't have any post moves. Having long arms does not count as a post move, and NBA defenders will keep him off-balance so that his "jump" hook will be all but useless. He is completely un-athletic. In the post, he plays as much under the rim as Randle, despite his size advantage. His "handles" seem incredibly sloppy. I've yet to see a clip of those "handles" doing him any real good. I've seen a few examples of him facing the basket with a couple of between-the-legs, hesitation dribbles, but nothing to suggest anything useful; lateral quickness is necessary to utilize dribbling skills, and I've seen none of that. All I've seen is him following up those fancy moves with a bull-rush to the rim and a lob off the glass against smaller, less talented guys. His 3-pointer is nice-looking. Maybe he could be as good as Rasheed Wallace one day (if he develops heretofore unseen post moves), but that is his offensive ceiling, as far as I've seen. Defensively, he could be great. One-on-one. His team D is nearly as bad as Parker's. His Ball IQ just seems very low overall. There's a rule I have with all players: If they can't pass, they can't play. Even big men have to be able to see the floor and understand what's going on around them, or they will never beat the double-teams. Vonleh seems to know about as much about basketball as my 5-year-old son: the ball goes in the basket, you stay between your man and the basket, you grab the ball after someone shoots. He looks lost every time he has to help on D or move without the ball on O.

     

    I did not like Marcus Smart last year, and I was very glad he backed out. I thought he was a good defensive player who looked too slow to be effective offensively in the NBA without a vastly improved jump shot. Damn that speed is deceptive! I kept thinking, "How is he getting to the rim? Just stay in front of his hefty ass." I think I'm the only person who likes him more this year than last. He's not a great shooter. He probably never will be. But he shoots a high percentage inside the 3-point line, and he gets to the foul line. He's a ferocious defender who we know is consistent at that end. His mentality is hard-nosed, pit-bull. He's a fighter, which means he can learn to be a winner. He's a good passer, especially considering he didn't play point guard in high school. He's a very good rebounder for a guard, which is always a great sign of transcendent athleticism. Everyone says his work-ethic is elite. I honestly think this kid has as much upside as anyone in the draft. What's the knock on him? NBAdraft.net said he can't shoot, isn't athletic, and has a bad attitude. 1) he shot 29% from distance at 19-years-old. So did LeBron James. I'm not saying he's going to improve as much as LeBron has, but why is it out of the question? His mechanics aren't terrible; in fact, his main problem is the same as LeBron's: a tendency to start slowly from a low stance rather than just rise up quickly. Even if he doesn't improve much, his other talents will translate to scoring anyway. Derrick Rose is still barely a 30% 3-point shooter, but when he's healthy he's a monster because he gets to the rim and scores or gets to the line. Same with Russell Westbrook. Same with John Wall. Those guys are super-athletic, though. 2) Apparently the scouts at NBAdraft.net were as fooled as I was when they questioned his speed and athleticism. While he doesn't have John Wall's hops, by three inches, all of his other measurables are very comparable. He has length (as good as Wall's and Exum's at 6' 9.25''), speed (3/4 Court at 3.26 to Wall's 3.14), and agility (10.62 Lane Agility to Wall's 10.83). By the way, that 36-inch max vert is a full inch better than D-Wade's out of college; his speed measured better than Steph Curry's or Damian Lillard's; his lane agility measured better than Chris Freaking Paul's! And he outweighs all of the above by twenty pounds of muscle (Wade by 15). So he has elite athleticism for an NBA PG, with an NFL Linebacker's body. 3) His attitude is basically Chris Paul's. LeBron used to act like a baby when he lost (he still kinda does). Elite winners hate to lose, and at 20 they throw **** and kick chairs when it happens. I will absolutely not knock the guy for fighting with some dumb-ass fan spouting racial slurs. Charles Barkley spit on a little girl and threw a guy through a window. Attitude is common among elite athletes, and Marcus Smart kicked one chair. If anything he doesn't have enough attitude. I think Smart's ceiling is D-Wade playing point guard. I honestly don't know anyone to compare to his basement. Eric Bledsoe, maybe.

     

    I'll post thoughts on a few others later.

     

    You say this is a "stacked draft" but the you trashed the top players. SMH

  15. Posted · Report reply

    If Oden is in the shape that he is saying that he is in then the Heat made a solid deal but it seems, like said before, that he is trying to negate the claims of being "done." Oden is definitely jeopardizing his health just to prove people wrong which could possibly put him in a situation similar to Roy. I personally think that he should have chose the Pelicans for the simple fact that he could've been a great mentor for possible all star Anthony Davis and other young prospects while showcasing his rehab progress in a situation where he wouldn't have much lime light and backlash.

     

    Oden being a mentor??? Mentor on how to get injured?

  17. Posted · Report reply

    Joke Qoute of the interview: Dwight - "I was the leader in Orlando"

     

    Yea, I remember all of those summer get togethers that he didnt organized outside the team with other Magic players.

     

    I mean what an awesome leader to recognize that he played on a team with a bunch of people nobody wanted.

     

    Explitive

     

    To be fair, many people don't know the meaning of the word leader. For example, many people here say price, our new back up PG is a leader simply because he's a veteran.

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