Following Potential 2025 Draftees

[stitches]

With Ace you have to talk yourself into him being Ant (not his game but with the red flags) or like Tatum had a lot of that Mamba Mentality that had to be weeded out. Ant had some weird interviews... some flaws in his game... and played for an unserious team. Ant was a much better prospect but you are hoping some of this is just immaturity and the other stuff can be redirected. If they are actually coachable (like interviews I can see drawing some wild stuff out of an 18-19 yo) and a hard worker... that is will be what matters most.

I think the way its trending there is like a 30-50% chance its Ace that is available at 5. I can see a team trading up for him and jumping us (Wizards would be the first candidate)... if he landed at 5 I'd be fine making that bet or taking him and sliding back for someone else we believe in... if there is a nice premium.

I get what you mean about having to talk yourself into Ace... but I think that was mainly when talking about #2 or #3 pick... I have expressed my doubts in the past about whether he plays winning brand of basketball... but at 5... I think it would be a no brainer to just take that shot. The upside is way too high for us pass on. I think at the top you need to aim high. You want a franchise player and as much as I like Kon or as tantalizing as Fears is... I feel like Ace has the closest profile of physical and athletic traits married with skill to becoming a franchise player in due time. I think you would need something extraordinarily bad in his interviews or background for you to pass on him at 5.

 

[KqWIN]

The NBA players with a rim rate or FTr of 30% aren't the guys who had 20-25% in college. It's usually the guys who had 40-50% in college. Exceptions happen. Ace and Tre can absolutely be those exceptions. But I think there's just this assumption that this part of the game gets easier in the NBA, but it's not. The trend is that these rim pressure metrics go down.

 

[Handlogten's Heros]

I get what you mean about having to talk yourself into Ace... but I think that was mainly when talking about #2 or #3 pick... I have expressed my doubts in the past about whether he plays winning brand of basketball... but at 5... I think it would be a no brainer to just take that shot. The upside is way too high for us pass on. I think at the top you need to aim high. You want a franchise player and as much as I like Kon or as tantalizing as Fears is... I feel like Ace has the closest profile of physical and athletic traits married with skill to becoming a franchise player in due time. I think you would need something extraordinarily bad in his interviews or background for you to pass on him at 5.

The brain may be the hardest thing to fix... which is the biggest red flag on Ace. If he is a worker and coachable I think you can work around it.

 

[Tremendous Upside]

The NBA is harder, it's just a straight up fact. I talked about this before, but if you really think it's easier to get more shots at the rim and FT line in the NBA, show me when it happens. It rarely ever does, and when it does happens it's usually because a guy was limited in his role.

On the whole, college teams put a MUCH bigger emphasis on clogging up the interior. Defenders are slower, smaller and dumber, so it makes more sense to rely on a brainless wall of meat around the paint instead of NBA-style 1-on-1 matchups and lightning quick help rotations. Outside shooters are so much worse in college ball that conceding 3's now and then isn't such a huge problem.

Super athletic, rim-attacking perimeter players can absolutely have an easier time in the NBA.

 

[stitches]

The brain may be the hardest thing to fix... which is the biggest red flag on Ace. If he is a worker and coachable I think you can work around it.

Yeah... agreed... quirkiness, strange personality... a good coach can work around, or hell, even use those things for positive effect. How hard of a worker he is, how self-motivated he is and what his determination to improve is, are the real questions that need to be answered in the positive here.

 

[KqWIN]

On the whole, college teams put a MUCH bigger emphasis on clogging up the interior. Defenders are slower, smaller and dumber, so it makes more sense to rely on a brainless wall of meat around the paint instead of NBA-style 1-on-1 matchups and lightning quick help rotations. Outside shooters are so much worse in college ball that conceding 3's now and then isn't such a huge problem.

Super athletic, rim-attacking perimeter players can absolutely have an easier time in the NBA.

They shoot way more at the rim and from the FT line in college than the NBA. That's a fact. Whether a guy is good or bad at getting to the rim in college, expect the rim rate and free throw rate to get lower.

 

[Tremendous Upside]

They shoot way more at the rim and from the FT line in college than the NBA. That's a fact.

Yeah, because most college teams still have a very inefficient post-up / midrange centric offense despite the fact that the perimeter defenses are weak. That's why college ball is so dumb and hard to watch. Everything happens inside the perimeter and there's zero space.

For your average college team, the comfort zone is forcing the ball inside, crashing the offensive boards and proceeding to miss 3 gimmies in a row right at the rim. The crowds love it and my eyes bleed.

 

[Handlogten's Heros]

Locke is funny with his scouting. Claims to be a numbers guy... but sees one moment and is like "I'm good... I've seen it... even though it didn't work". But Kon who had great success there... "yeah that will get swallowed up in the NBA".

Just say you like one guy over the other and it might be based on vibes, feel, whatevs.

 

[Schrödinger's Gerbil]

I think Philly is stuck with Embiid, and I think they're probably stuck with Paul George. The cost to the Sixers to try to get off those contracts is prohibitively high. They've got their younger guards that they believe in, though they might want to bring one off the bench just so they have more size defensively. They can add a top-3 pick this year, so now they can have a young core developing behind Embiid/PG. I think they just draft their favorite player among the Ace/Tre/VJ tier and keep him to develop.

If the Jazz offered Lauri and 5 for PG and 3, I think the Sixers would take that deal and run for the exit, but the Jazz won't do it. I don't see the Jazz moving Lauri and taking Paul George back just to move up two spots.

The last time a player fell to the Jazz due to just horrible interviews, it was 2023 when Cam Whitmore fell to the Jazz at 16.

... And then the Jazz passed on him for Keyonte because Keyonte interviewed so much better.

Keyonte is viewed as a better prospect than Whitmore and both are pretty marginal prospects so it was obviously fine.

Cam and Ace are obviously very different in that Whitmore basically gave one to two word answers to every question and seemed nearly asleep every time he did interviews, whereas Ace thinks he's the greatest basketball player to ever live. Very different types of bad interviewer so we don't know if the Jazz mind these bad answers from Ace.

The Jazz also picked Cody in large part due to how well he interviewed so we'll see if they change their approach after Cody was horrendous.

Interviewers have an unearned and irrational confidence in their ability to discern character, performance, etc. from personal interviews. Anyone who thinks s/he can accurately and consistently "read" people in interviews is self-deluded.

Here's one source on the topic https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/...dictors-job-interviews-are-useless-and-unfair. (I haven't done anything remotely close to an exhaustive lit search on the topic, this link is meant as food for thought, not proof.) I've personally done a lot of interviewing, and I rarely feel confident at the end that one candidate is THAT much better than others. The decision often hinges subjective feel, never a good indicator of accuracy, and boy did I/we make some doozy mistakes as a result.

I don't know if these interviews are unstructured or structured, the latter is preferred as per the linked article. They are probably more structured. But, I strongly suspect they involve a non-trivial level of irrational self-confidence in one's interviewing and discernment skills. Frankly, I put little stock in them.

 

[KqWIN]

Yeah, because most college teams still have a very inefficient post-up / midrange centric offense despite the fact that the perimeter defenses are weak. That's why college ball is so dumb and hard to watch. Everything happens inside the perimeter and there's zero space.

For your average college team, the comfort zone is forcing the ball inside, crashing the offensive boards and proceeding to miss 3 gimmies in a row right at the rim. The crowds love it and my eyes bleed.

I'm not disagreeing with anything you're saying, but what you're saying doesn't change the fact that NBA prospects shoot more at the rim and FT line in college than they do in the NBA.

 

[KqWIN]

Locke is funny with his scouting. Claims to be a numbers guy... but sees one moment and is like "I'm good... I've seen it... even though it didn't work". But Kon who had great success there... "yeah that will get swallowed up in the NBA".

Just say you like one guy over the other and it might be based on vibes, feel, whatevs.

He's afraid of Kon's thickness.

 

[HadAnEffectHere]

Interviewers have an unearned and irrational confidence in their ability to discern character, performance, etc. from personal interviews. Anyone who thinks s/he can accurately and consistently "read" people in interviews is self-deluded.

Here's one source on the topic https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/...dictors-job-interviews-are-useless-and-unfair. (I haven't done anything remotely close to an exhaustive lit search on the topic, this link is meant as food for thought, not proof.) I've personally done a lot of interviewing, and I rarely feel confident at the end that one candidate is THAT much better than others. The decision often hinges subjective feel, never a good indicator of accuracy, and boy did I/we make some doozy mistakes as a result.

I don't know if these interviews are unstructured or structured, the latter is preferred as per the linked article. They are probably more structured. But, I strongly suspect they involve a non-trivial level of irrational self-confidence in one's interviewing and discernment skills. Frankly, I put little stock in them.

I mean, I have no idea how much they actually matter, but the Jazz picked Cody Williams and Keyonte George in large part due to how much they crushed the interview part and just how intelligent they are off the court in general. That was the only thing the Jazz would talk about with Keyonte for like a solid year, just how smart he was off the court. And Hollinger said Whitmore dropped (according to his sources) because he had the worst interviews anyone had seen in many years and seemed stoned/half asleep when trying to answer questions.