Official 2015 Draft Thread

[TreyMachine 398]

GMs spotted at the #championsclassic: Larry Bird, Rob Hennigan, Masai Ujiri, Tim Connely, Jeff Bower

 

I'm glad we have a GM now who is doing his due-dilligence with his scouting for draft night, rather than having a GM who likely had a bunch of faces drawn on board and blindly threw a dart at it in search of our next 1st round pick.

[CTMagicUK 1,483]

GMs spotted at the #championsclassic: Larry Bird, Rob Hennigan, Masai Ujiri, Tim Connely, Jeff Bower

 

Considering the teams at the champions classic It's incredible to me that there were this few GMs there. Glad Rob was one of them.

[The Neighborhood Bully 266]

“Yes,” one veteran NBA scout in attendance said of the Duncan/Okafor comparison. “He has an old-school game. He really knows how to play around the basket. Sets his man up leaning one way, then goes the other.”

 

“Okafor’s got some pretty good size and he doesn’t know how big he is yet,” ESPN college basketball analyst Shane Battier, a two-time NBA champion, told SNY.tv. “But he’s got tremendous skill…He does a great job of passing out of the post, which is a lost art. He reminds me of Tim Duncan, who I think is the best post passer in the NBA right now.”

 

Both Mike DeCourcy of The Sporting News and Jon Rothstein of CBSSports.com have made the Okafor/Duncan comparison before and now Battier, the former Duke star, is also buying in.

 

“I can’t remember a player in the Duke system like Jahlil,” Battier said. “He has amazing touch for a big guy. You don’t see big guys in college basketball anymore. You don’t see centers who can catch the ball on the block and make a post move and score. And Okafor has an amazing array of moves. He’s got a right hand, he’s got a left hand, he’s got a spin move, but I think his best attribute right now is his ability to pass.”

 

Okafor should have little trouble adapting offensively to the NBA, but will need to work on his defense, especially as a rim protector.

http://zagsblog.com/...sses-nba-folks/

[Fultz4thewin 2,464]

“I can’t remember a player in the Duke system like Jahlil,”

 

 

Elton Brand

[CTMagicUK 1,483]

Jahlil is an absolute beast in the post but his defence and rebounding aren't on Duncan's level.

[TreyMachine 398]

Jahlil is an absolute beast in the post but his defence and rebounding aren't on Duncan's level.

 

Does anyone envision a team of Vuc and Okafor? Would they compliment each other or do you think that they would clog the lane? Do you think their lack of defensive capabilities would be poor or would their size make up for a lot?

 

I realize it's unlikely to happen, but a man can always dream... Plus I'm full expecting Rob to pull something out of a hat on draft night, as he seems to always do.

[Fultz4thewin 2,464]

Does anyone envision a team of Vuc and Okafor? Would they compliment each other or do you think that they would clog the lane? Do you think their lack of defensive capabilities would be poor or would their size make up for a lot?

 

I realize it's unlikely to happen, but a man can always dream... Plus I'm full expecting Rob to pull something out of a hat on draft night, as he seems to always do.

 

Vuc is very good at that 18 foot shot. So I think they can play together

[Mauro Pedrosa 1,032]

Memphis makes it work

[CTMagicUK 1,483]

My early call for potential bust among the top guys is Kelly Oubre. Guy is barely seeing the court and he's being talked about as a top 5 pick because "potential". Potential is all well and good but until I see him actually play for an extended time I wouldn't touch him.

[CTMagicUK 1,483]

I've heard some things about his laziness and attitude in the past which are a big knock on him (and are why we probably won't draft him) but Chris McCullough seems like a guy whose skill set would be pretty good for this team. He's 6'10 and averaging 2.5 blocks and nearly 2 steals a game. He's not an elite rebounder but he has a jump shot and some perimeter skill to go along with his length and athleticism on the defensive end.

[LaVar 108]

Does anyone envision a team of Vuc and Okafor? Would they compliment each other or do you think that they would clog the lane? Do you think their lack of defensive capabilities would be poor or would their size make up for a lot?

 

I realize it's unlikely to happen, but a man can always dream... Plus I'm full expecting Rob to pull something out of a hat on draft night, as he seems to always do.

we will not be bad enough to pick okaford.

[The Neighborhood Bully 266]

My early call for potential bust among the top guys is Kelly Oubre. Guy is barely seeing the court and he's being talked about as a top 5 pick because "potential". Potential is all well and good but until I see him actually play for an extended time I wouldn't touch him.

I think it's just the way Self acclimates his players. Give him a couple months.

 

"Mario Chalmers didn't play till Christmas [of his freshman year], Julian Wright didn't play till Christmas, Joel [Embiid] didn't start until like the eighth game of the season," Self said. "So there's a process everybody has to go through, and we have a couple of guys -- obviously Kelly but also Cliff [Alexander] -- who are going through it.

 

"They're going to be terrific players," Self added. "But they're not terrific players yet."

 

This, by the way, is the only thing Self concerns himself with.

 

He doesn't care about recruiting rankings or mock drafts, and he actually thinks they do more harm than good because, he believes, "they put unfair expectations" on prospects like Oubre and Alexander, the latter of whom is another projected lottery pick averaging just 16.3 minutes per game. All Self does each year is assemble a roster, develop it and, every single game, use the players he thinks best give him a chance to win that particular game, and it's hard to argue with his strategy given that he's won 10 straight Big 12 titles.

http://www.cbssports...nutes-at-kansas