Milwaukee Bucks pick DJ Wilson at No. 17

I pretty much agree with Jay. Players either have the talent or they don/t. Coaches can help unlock the barriers to them fulfilling their potential. JB is just a great talent identifier and he gets many of his players to be the best they can be. The argument of produce v develop becomes semantics at some point.

But in a way, JB is one of the best recruiters in the entire country.

So Junior year Livers, Senior year Matthews, and sophomore year whatever 4 we get in 2018 will definitely all still be bad? Hell, even Duncan can be a good 4 with another defensive improvement like last season.

I agree with Jay for the most part, but coaching philosophies/schemes can highlight a player’s strengths and mask their weaknesses.

I get what Jay is trying to say but I don’t necessarily agree with it. For example, I really doubt Trey would be a lottery pick if he stuck with Penn State. His physical limitations in the pro game would have been scrutinized much more. I think Beilein’s system and surrounding Burke with pro talent (and going to the championship game didn’t hurt either) allowed Trey to flourish and rise up the draft boards.

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And your points, which are valid and accurate, don’t mean that JB produced an NBA player. Trey always had the ability or potential for the ability. JB put him in a position to succeed and flourish. But he didn’t produce Trey. Trey did that. But it’s really an argument on semantics IMO. Change the verb from produce to something else and it doesn’t really change perception or reality.

To me it’s a distinction without a difference when you get past the top ranked kids. The essential elements of any product require someone to shape them. Belein didn’t create Trey’s innate abilities but he certainly helped shape them in a way I’m not sure the large majority of coaches would have.

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Sure, but some players have talent and simply never get any better. I would say most of Amaker’s recruits fit that description. Let’s put it this way - JB is among the very best at helping already talented players reach their maximum potential. It’s certainly a skill. Bilas makes it sound like, as a coach, all you do is roll the balls out and let the guys play. Hardly.

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I think Jay Bilas’ attempt to be clever failed.

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I think he’s mostly just speaking out against too much credit going to coaches and not enough emphasis on what the players did themselves to get into their position. Which fits in line with his criticisms on the NCAA for profiting off players and not letting them make money off their names.

Way too simplistic. The way a coach develops the talent does have an impact on their professional outlook. Beilein deserves a ton of credit for identifying the raw talent, tuning their fundamentals, and putting them in positions to showcase their talent.

The kids themselves deserve most of the credit - I’ll agree with that. But you can’t possibly lump what Beilein does for his recruits with Calipari, Coach K, or the coaches that more obviously “rent” top talent.

By the way, I’ll give Jon Sanderson as much credit as anyone I’ve listed above.

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Not denying him credit. But he doesn’t create NBA players. He identifies, utilizes and develops them. And gets paid handsomely for it. Meanwhile, the athletes partaking in an organization where the president makes over a million dollars and coaches make more than that can’t profit off their abilities without getting banned. That’s the crux of what Jay is getting at IMO

Hmm I don’t disagree with what you’re saying, but I definitely didn’t see that as the point from the two Bilas tweets that were embedded above.

Let’s say that the NCAA did pay players. Would he still still have the same opinion? Probably, because it doesn’t really have anything do do with his opinions on amateurism. Some coaches develop talent, other coaches really do just recruit and showcase it.

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And neither developing or showcasing talent is producing it. Producing it makes it seem like the coach is give a bunch of useless parts and makes something of it. Coaches are more like teachers. The students have the ability, they just need some pointers and a work ethic and be put in the right situation.

OK, well said. I agree with you.

I also agree with you that his recruiting is underrated. Whereas he deserves credit for the talent he’s identified and helped to develop - he’s also identified and missed on other current pros who were not "sure things. Gordon Hayward, Klay Thompson, Denzel Valentine, and Larry Nance come to mind.

I disagree with Bilas very much when he said coaches unlock things, they don’t make them. I think skill wise a good coach can make naturally bad ball handlers, shooters, etc. into decent ones. I think the difference between “unlock” and “produce” in that situation is just samantics.

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Not trying to barge in here, but I think anyone who thought Chatman was going to contribute in year one was not on point. I had concerns about him from the very first video I saw of him - I didn’t like his body type - he looked heavy legged and very far from physically ready. In the end, that’s pretty much how things went. I’m a little worried about Poole’s lower half (it doesn’t seem very explosive to me), and he’s also very far from physically ready. He can shoot it, though, of course. If you just showed me a still photo of D’Angelo Russell, I probably wouldn’t have spotted him as a star, though, so I’m hoping either Sanderson can work a real transformation on Poole or he will exhibit Russell’s magic ability to slither and shimmy into any place he wanted to be on the floor.

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But the point is, in terms of his ranking, Chatman is a guy most people (including those doing the rankings) did expect to contribute right away. And in fact, early in his freshman year he had back to back 11 point, 8 rebound and 10 point, 9 rebound games (the latter coming against Syracuse), he just kinda fell apart after that. His biggest problem seemed to be just making jump shots. But then we threw Dawkins in there and he was good for awhile.

In any event, in the whole “should we have recruited Wilson” discussion, it’s not like we turned down better players for Wilson. In the whole “offer him, or not” analysis, the guy ended up being a starter and valuable contributor on a team that won the Big Ten tourney and made the S16. Easy call IMO.

Yeah, I’m not getting in on this DJ thing. I’d have to side with your reasoning, if forced to participate. I remember those games - I mean, one was Nicholls State and the other was a 4-11, where basically, he was still flying on hype enough to feel confident enough to let 11 fly. I desperately wanted to believe in his ranking, but the game just didn’t seem fluid enough, strong enough, athletic enough to my eye. He was fairly coordinated for his height, which is a start, but if you’re not a dead eye shooter and you’re not athletic or strong enough to finish at the rim, and you’re not particularly fast or explosive… I hate downing him, because he always seemed like a truly nice kid, but I just never saw it.