It’s a weak draft, but I’m not sure a middle of the road B10 starter is going to rate even in this draft.
All about future potential not present production.
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Yeaaahhhh but they’re not in the habit of drafting mediocre players who weren’t top 100 recruits.
Correct me if I’m wrong, but DJ Wilson’s Big 10 tournament and NCAA performance increased his stock tremendously. Going into that Big 10 tournament I remember Michigan being a bubble team expecting everyone back.
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Also, a brand new ESPN mock draft came out on ESPN Insider yesterday from Jonathan Givnoy and Mike Schmitz. There was one Michigan player listed: Charles Matthews at #60. The final spot.
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Hard to say exactly. The media types were NEVER onto DJ Wilson. He wasn’t even really on a mock draft until April, and even then only in the second. I believe really late in the process it came out that he was going to be a first round pick and it was still very surprising when he got taken as high as he did. And he didn’t really play dramatically better than his season average at the end of the year. His usage was a little higher but he also had some stinker offensive games and his rebounding plummeted.
I think DJ’s situation is just more evidence that the media types are not always in lock-step with NBA front offices and most situations that people think of as “they had a couple great games in the tournament and rushed up the draft boards”, is really more of the media being behind on guys or NBA teams months later deciding they like the physical tools a guy has.
Another point to this: Mo legitimately exploded at the end of his sophomore year, to the point where people who ascribe to the thought process that NCAA tournament games dramatically change the scout probably would have thought he would rush up draft boards. But when he searched for feedback, no one was interested in him in the first and he was considered a late second to undrafted by NBA front offices.
NBA teams just aren’t that dumb
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DJ averaged 16.5 ppg over his last 7 games, 11 ppg for the year. He also had huge games against Louisville and Purdue in the B1G Finals, two games a lot of people watched.
-A problem with you argument is that it sweeps contrary evidence away without providing any evidence at all. Someone gives you an example of a player not appearing on draft radars and you say actually, he must’ve been, we just didn’t know it, but I have no proof of it, it just must be true…
-Of course, draft prognosticators don’t know what GMs are thinking, but some of those guys are talking to scouts and GMs and probably have a better idea than we do.
-What reason would there have been that DJ Wilson, for instance, was on scout’s radars? He wasn’t playing secret games attended by scouts that we didn’t see.
-NCAA games are also ones that many scouts and GMs watch.
-Recency bias will lead NCAA games to factor into decisions more.
-If a scout saw Poole shoot 5-5 against UNC, 3-7 @MSU, then go crazy in the tourney, those games are going to resonate more than a couple stretched where Poole shot 1-8 or 1-11 against Minny and PSU.
-It’s not that one great game will make a nondraftable prospect a lottery pick - Spike Albrecht wasn’t shooting up draft boards. So if Poole really “isn’t a draftable prospect” that’s one thing. But if he’s on the radar as a guy with potential, a great tournament can make all the difference in becoming a middle/late first round pick.
-NBA teams do dumb things all the time.
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I realize I’m being simplistic, but it’s always felt to me that DJ had about a half dozen really good games, then went pro.
DJ is a great example of what the NBA and the Bucks are looking for in potential. I will admit I didn’t see DJ as a legitimate pro when he declared and certainly thought he should have stayed. In hind sight it was a great decision and he will have an awesome NBA career if not with the Bucks, another team. I don’t know how it translates to other’s but 6’-10” three ballers are rare and DJ can compete athletically on Defense. Very happy his decision worked out for him. He’s gaurenteed $7.6M over 3 years and a 5 year projected contract at $18.6M…that’s a damn good contract.
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Hoping Charles plays like he did during the Wisc, Penn St, Maryland stretch. That could move him up and into the NBA combine.
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Respectfully, I’m going to disagree here. Mo did not legitimately explode at the end of his sophomore year, unless by the end of his sophomore year, you mean the 1 game against Louisville in the NCAA tournament. Even including that game, Mo scored 7 points or less in 5 of the 7 post-season games–the only exceptions were Louisville (26) and Minnesota (17). The Louisville game thrust him into the limelight, maybe to the point where he garnered an invitation to the combine where, by all accounts, he was bad, especially on the defensive end, but also from the longer 3 point line. He had a chance to be a first rounder when he declared without an agent–he then played his way out of draft status (and then back in last year).
D.J. did play better in the post-season (17 pig), and vaulted onto mock drafts after the Oklahoma State and Louisville games–indeed, the same stories heralding Mo after the Louisville game also mentioned D.J. The difference was that D.J. showed out in team workouts (and then skipped the combine wth a minor injury after he had allegedly been told by a team that it would pick him in the first round if he was still there). Jonathan Givony, then at draft express, now at ESPN, who is as plugged in to actual NBA GMs as anyone out there doing mocks and draft predictions, had D.J. going in the first round weeks before he said he wasn’t coming back.
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Mo and Poole are similar as NBA prospects after their sophomore seasons in the sense that we all see several things that they do that NBA teams are going to value. Mo went through the evaluation, was told what to work on and actually improved those things enough to become a first round pick. I think Poole can do the same.
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Matthews was told to improve his shooting; Mo his rebounding. Poole would have much more to work on. JMO there’s an argument in favor of coming out early, which is to deprive scouts of the ability to determine whether he can be the kind of player that works on his game and can smooth out the rough edges.
DJ’s last 7 games:
15.6 ppg
5.0 rpg
1 apg
2 bpg
1.4 TOpg
64% 2, 35% 3
DJ Season:
11 ppg
5.3 rpg
1.3 apg
1.5 bpg
1.1 TOpg
63% 2, 37% 3
His usage jumped up a little bit, but the rest of his numbers (besides blocks) all dropped a little. As a whole, it wasn’t some amazing revelation. It was a slight improvement at best.
I’d argue that the statement “NBA teams give outsized weighting to NCAA tournament performance” is what needs to be proven, and thus I am giving a bunch of contradictory evidence to the theory. Some prospects who “move up” performed well in the NCAA tournament. Some didn’t. Some prospects who perform in the NCAA tournament don’t move up. So I’m saying there isn’t really any strong evidence of a correlation.
Thus, I am saying that it is more likely that the perception that this exists is more likely caused by the media. They are more likely to be swayed by NCAA tournament games since there are more media watching it. But NBA teams watch everything. I can guarantee that the Milkwaukee Bucks watched every second of DJ Wilson’s junior season, I doubt that the vast majority of NBA draft media members watched more than a couple.
If you want to bring this around to Poole, all the guys who we’ve brought up as examples had MUCH better seasons than Poole up to this bout as far as pure production. JP’s combination of ORating and Usage would be by far the worst of anyone mentioned in this discussion. I sincerely doubt an NBA team is gonna watch his entire tape and feel safe drafting him. Maybe if he goes Derrick Walton in the tournament, but that’s not in the reasonable range of outcomes.
I think its easier for bigs to surge up the draft board based on the tournament than guards, especially the athletic ones who are hard to find at that height. McDyess is the famous example of that. I hope this year’s candidate is Xavier Tillman.
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I’ll trust you on the math, but 15.6 is significantly more than 11, and that number would be lower taking out those last 7, and like I said he had a few particularly big games in big spots…
For anyone interested in further reading, here’s an article a quick google search turned up - seems to suggest for some teams it’s true that NCAA performance matters more, for others not as much, but it also might be somewhat true based on the NBA calendar:
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I mean NBA teams have scouting departments whose job is to do this, independent of the NBA calendar. Except the Bulls.
Do any posters have a subscription to any of the sites that have super specific shooting info? I’m curious what Poole’s catch and shoot three point percentage is. Sure, he only shot 35% in Kenpom tier A games, but that sure seems like it’s more indicative of shot difficulty than shooting ability. I’m not remotely buying the “he can’t actually shoot” hot takes.
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Agree 100% wolverheel. He most definitely can shoot!
He has a great shot. I bet Beilein knows exactly why his shooting percentage doesn’t reflect that. He’s mentioned things like launching from 25 and not bothering to spot up closer to the line. Dylan on the podcast has mentioned how he doesn’t look quite comfortable coming off screens. Or, at least, he doesn’t look like he knows he’s gonna shoot off that action. More uncertain.