Following Potential 2025 Draftees
- Thread starter Elizah Huge
- Start date
Even though this is about Fland I can't like it as it signals the beginning of my least favorite part of the draft cycle, "empty gym workout video" season.
This is put way nicer than what I would say, which is that this **** means absolutely nothing.
I still remember the Kanter video where he was dunking from, "the free throw line" (It wasn't the free throw line) and people were all excited about how athletic he was, lol.
kcgar
Well-Known Member
Why are you listing his college numbers and not his NBA numbers. I said that "Jabari Smith in his current state would absolutely be picked in the lottery in this draft." Maybe, I wasn't clear, but Ace's floor is not lower than CURRENT Jabari. I believe that current Jabari would be picked in the lottery for this year's draft. He has him listed at #23. There is no way on any planet that Ace will ever be ranked as the 23rd pick in a re-draft (unless he is injured).Randomly I was just looking at Jabari Smith's draft profile and it is fairly similar to Ace. I would argue that Jabari's numbers are significantly better though.
Jabari Smith 2022 Draft Profile | Tankathon
Jabari Smith - PF - Auburn - 2022 NBA Draft Profile and Statswww.tankathon.com
I was just commenting on the fact that I just so happened to be looking at Jabari's college numbers, so it was kind of a coincidence.
What makes you so confident that Ace is going to be at least as good as current Jabari Smith? You say that like it is a given, when it's clearly not.
kcgar
Well-Known Member
That's how drafting any player works. You develop them and either they work out and you pay them or they don't and you don't pay them. Do you think we are going to pay Cody Williams?
Randomly I was just looking at Jabari Smith's draft profile and it is fairly similar to Ace. I would argue that Jabari's numbers are significantly better though.
Jabari Smith 2022 Draft Profile | Tankathon
Jabari Smith - PF - Auburn - 2022 NBA Draft Profile and Stats
Yeah, Jabari is an interesting case study. The thing about Jabari is that his shooting didn't translate, but I would still bet on a guy with his shooting indicators over and over again. But it is a reminder that even guys with good indicators sometimes don't shoot it as well as you'd expect. I'm not on the Ace can 100% shoot bandwagon even if I think he's better than his numbers show.
The things that worry me about Jabari that also worry me about Ace are the BBIQ/Feel and the inability to get to the basket.
Basketball Novice
Well-Known Member
You know evaluations are not that black and white. A good example of this is Jalen Green, who got paid 35 million a year in the hopes that he develops into the player everyone hoped he would be. He's certainly not being paid based on his performance in his rookie contract. Andrew Wiggins, after his rookie contract, got paid by the Wolves in the hopes he would turn into a star. Wiggins was and is an effective player, but its a far cry from where he was drafted. And I can't say that Wiggins worked out for the Wolves all that well.
Teams are incentivized to hold onto players because even a mildly bad contract is an asset that can be used to wheel and deal for other pieces. And teams also like to hold out hope on those tantalizing, high upside, super athletic, all potential players. That is what Ace is to me. He might very well work out and I will have egg on my face. But, half of the guys in the first round probably won't work out. If I am picking out which guys won't work out, I honestly would bet the under on Ace.
I don't get the Jabari Smith and Ace comp. Jabari Smith is/was a good spot-up shooter and switchable defensive player that can guard the rim. Ace is a an ace at shots with a hand in his face that doesn't pass and has some nice defensive tools. Being more specific, Jabari had/has no juice on the ball while Ace is all juice on the ball, they could not be more different in that regard.
Ace has a higher ceiling due to the fact that his offensive game isn't strictly reliant on having the table set for him. Smith has a higher floor because of his defensive ability.