The 2009 NBA Draft Predictions are already being made.
And the most noted of all NBA Draft sites, NBADaft.Net, has Ohio State freshman B.J. Mullens going 3rd and 2007-2008 National Player of the Year Tyler Hansbrough going 22nd!
This is hard to swallow.
I watched a few minutes of a recent Ohio State game against Miami (FL) and Mullens was completely overmatched by an athletic and aggressive Hurricane team. He was not even on the court in the final minutes of a close game. Currently, he is averaging less than seven points per game.
How can this guy, who looks athletic and admittedly has a nice stroke on his jump shot but is currently unaggressive and confused, be ranked so far ahead of a guy that looks to my eyes like a another solid pro from the University of North Carolina?
The UNC senior forward is probably about 6 - 8, certainly not the ideal height for a #4 man in the NBA, but he is built like a bull and quick and strong. This summer, he appears to have worked hard on his range out to 20 feet, and coach Roy Williams appears to be giving him the green light to shoot out that far while Deon Thompson and Ed Davis remain close to the basket doing the dirty work.
I look at Hansbrough a lot like ex-Xavier National Player of the Year and current New Orleans Hornet star forward David West. West was drafted 18th overall in the 2003 Draft. The reason he was picked so low was because he was a senior and scouts thought his "upside" was lower than other younger players. There were three big men selected before West that year picked entirely because their upside seemed to be higher than the POY's: the infamous Darko Milicic (complete bust and waste of lottery money by the usually reliable Pistons), Georgetown underclassman and fat-ass nonathlete power forward Michael Sweetney, and the benchwarming Zarko Cabarkapa. None of these three guys had anywhere the resume that college star West had. And that may have been the reason they were picked ahead of him. The thinking in the NBA is: how good can this guy be in the future?
Well, it turns out that West would get better and better, as even 21 year old All Americans can and will do. And I believe that the same thing can happen with Hansbrough. He has shown this young season an increased ability to score from the perimeter. One thing he needs to do is handle the ball better. I have never known his to be a creative passer, so that may be another thing he may try to improve on.
But in the 2009 NBA Draft there are few better bets than Tyler Hansbrough.
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Of course this is the same blog that said that Spenser Hawes and Darren Collison were going to be better pros than Kevin Durant. Though there is a small chance that that prediction may come true, as I think Durant is an empty scorer with no peripheral skills besides shooting the ball, clearly Kevin Durant is a seasoned pro and Hawes and Collison (still in college at UCLA) are works in progress. So it goes.
This is hard to swallow.
I watched a few minutes of a recent Ohio State game against Miami (FL) and Mullens was completely overmatched by an athletic and aggressive Hurricane team. He was not even on the court in the final minutes of a close game. Currently, he is averaging less than seven points per game.
How can this guy, who looks athletic and admittedly has a nice stroke on his jump shot but is currently unaggressive and confused, be ranked so far ahead of a guy that looks to my eyes like a another solid pro from the University of North Carolina?
The UNC senior forward is probably about 6 - 8, certainly not the ideal height for a #4 man in the NBA, but he is built like a bull and quick and strong. This summer, he appears to have worked hard on his range out to 20 feet, and coach Roy Williams appears to be giving him the green light to shoot out that far while Deon Thompson and Ed Davis remain close to the basket doing the dirty work.
I look at Hansbrough a lot like ex-Xavier National Player of the Year and current New Orleans Hornet star forward David West. West was drafted 18th overall in the 2003 Draft. The reason he was picked so low was because he was a senior and scouts thought his "upside" was lower than other younger players. There were three big men selected before West that year picked entirely because their upside seemed to be higher than the POY's: the infamous Darko Milicic (complete bust and waste of lottery money by the usually reliable Pistons), Georgetown underclassman and fat-ass nonathlete power forward Michael Sweetney, and the benchwarming Zarko Cabarkapa. None of these three guys had anywhere the resume that college star West had. And that may have been the reason they were picked ahead of him. The thinking in the NBA is: how good can this guy be in the future?
Well, it turns out that West would get better and better, as even 21 year old All Americans can and will do. And I believe that the same thing can happen with Hansbrough. He has shown this young season an increased ability to score from the perimeter. One thing he needs to do is handle the ball better. I have never known his to be a creative passer, so that may be another thing he may try to improve on.
But in the 2009 NBA Draft there are few better bets than Tyler Hansbrough.
----------------------------
Of course this is the same blog that said that Spenser Hawes and Darren Collison were going to be better pros than Kevin Durant. Though there is a small chance that that prediction may come true, as I think Durant is an empty scorer with no peripheral skills besides shooting the ball, clearly Kevin Durant is a seasoned pro and Hawes and Collison (still in college at UCLA) are works in progress. So it goes.
posted by joe sweeney at 7:20 AM
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