Okpala is a solid and safe pick if he's there at #23. I think Bazley's explosiveness and footspeed gives him more upside, but Okpala could step in as that third or fourth starter who complements others on the floor similar to a Nic Batum. He's probably just a year away from that kind of role, imo. That's a good pick in the late first round. He has more passing ability than he showed at Stanford, in part because they had limited offensive options worth passing to.
LMAO, yeah even to my surprise. I knew Okpala was the best prospect on that team preseason, there were sooo many ppl thinking Oscar Da Silva was a much better pro, which looking back, is hilarious, this was really divided between the international crowd and the domestic too when u look at it... PPL dont understand the way the rankings really work,. They look at the list and see it in order, static, but you've gotta understand which way the numbers are heading, that is just a snapshot,, things are really in motion, always....
KZ is a good player to make this point about tho, his motion in the rankings was ez to predict and falls in line with many other 1st rders i've pointed out years in advance.. He's a prototype type of late-bloomer, 10-inch growth spurt, whos gonna get a major re-adjustment up near the 5-star territory, and then pretty much he's gonna keep trending up..
From the time he 'blew up the rankings' 3 summers ago, his stock has only steadily increased..
What a bizarre year for west coast basketball, i'm quite sure we'll never see anything quite like that again...