In relation to improving their draft stock, I would say no. I think all those guys became better basketball players, and MSU fans should be thrilled they all stayed in school so long, but I think Gary Harris’ draft stock actually dipped after two years and Payne should have been a lottery pick before he turned 22.
2 Likes
So Adriean Payne showed up on campus and was really bad, improved every year and then was a lottery pick. Because he was highly ranked that doesn’t qualify as player development?
Reaching way back, Morris Peterson was a really good development for Izzo
In the words of every recruiting analyst… “No surprise here”
I guess it all depends how you define player development but usually in these conversations people use the recruiting rankings as a baseline. Let’s say Payne was ranked 20th in the country, is being a lotto pick after 4 years better or worse than average?
I’ll re-phrase this, Adreian Payne absolutely improved in college. I’m not sure I would say he was really bad his freshman year. By his sophomore year, he was averaging per 40 minutes:
15.7 PPG, 9.7 RPG, 2.4 BPG, 57% from the floor and 70% from the line.
He played 17 MPG, and got less time on the floor than Derrick Nix. That happened again his junior year. Payne was better than Nix in every single efficiency-based offensive, defensive, or rebounding advanced metric there is. We all saw what happened his senior year when Payne didn’t split minutes 40/60 with a player half as talented as him.
That did not help his draft stock.
1 Like
Sure, but if you are just going to go by that standard then you are always going to punish coaches who recruit higher-rated talent.
Adreian Payne was certainly not a lottery pick when he arrived at Michigan State. He wasn’t good as a freshman. I just am trying to understand how player development isn’t taking players who aren’t very good and making them better. (Or taking players who are good and helping them get even better.)
That’s before getting into the idea of evaluating player development based on rankings is really more about talent identification (or mis-identification) than development.
The loyalty thing is what it is. If he’s a snake oil salesman, he’s far from the only one. Regardless of what it ought to be, it just is what it is and it’s not a surprise anymore.
Payne is an interesting one and I guess you could use him to tell a variety of different narratives around Izzo’s player development:
- He was a top-25 recruit and ended up getting drafted #15. So that’s about what you’d expect.
- But he stayed in school four years to build him up to that after started very slowly.
- He was underperforming all expectations for a couple of years and perhaps not playing as much as you’d expect until he thrived as an upper classman. Does Izzo get credit for the resurgance? Blame for the struggles?
- Someone like DJ Wilson was significantly lower ranked as a recruit, also started slow, but developed into an early-exit guy with a similar draft result.
Winston is a great development story like Simpson is. Neither are likely to demonstrate their coach’s ability to develop NBA talent.
Forbes, Costello, and Goins went undrafted. Harris and Bridges saw their draft stock drop while at MSU. Jackson’s stock stayed neutral…but he was one of the only 1-year guys for Izzo and he played about 22mpg while being benched for a walk-on.
Izzo has a lot of things to brag about - maximizing NBA potential isn’t one of them.
I just got in a long argument on reddit with OSU fan who said Craft absolutely deserved a spot. He ended his last post by saying Craft was a dynamic facilitator 
I’m sure his dump off passes to Sullinger were incredibly dynamic
3 Likes
I just don’t see how you can tout Beilein’s development of Duncan Robinson (rightfully) and not give Izzo credit for Bryn Forbes developing into a legitimate NBA player.
Costello, Goins are examples of player development not NBA development. Just like Jon Teske, Jordan Morgan or MAAR.
It’s interesting me that an OSU fan would be so behind Craft. If I was an OSU fan I’d be confused as to how Craft got a nod when clearly better players like KBD and Deshaun Thomas didn’t.
If you did a word map of names mentioned on BTN studio shows over the last decade I’m willing to bet Murphy and Craft would make the list. So it does feel very on brand for a BTN list.
5 Likes
He actually specifically mentioned that he doesn’t think KBD should have made it over Craft.
I think it’s a volume game. You can point to a few players Izzo has had over the years, but Beilein was here for about half that period and built fringe-100 recruits and some well below that ranking into a stocked pipeline of early-entry draft picks. Burke, Hardaway, Stauskas, LeVert, Wilson is some serious output in a four-year cycle. And then you get to Robinson, or turning an off-the-radar guy like MAAR into a valuable conference player. I don’t think there can be any questioning that.
But player development isn’t the same as winning games, and Izzo is pretty darn good at that.
I guess there’s a reason they support OSU. Don’t even know how to identify their best players.
2 Likes
6 Likes
It’s qwhite strange
7 Likes
Yeah, no one is saying Beilein wasn’t great at identifying, evaluating and developing talent.
I’m just pointing out that there are plenty of examples of Michigan State doing the same thing. I don’t understand why that takes away from what Beilein did.