Udoh is never going to be a leader and a difference maker. His ticket to NBA is ability to block shots and be someone like Ratliff. That's pretty good, but before he is at Ratliff's level, there are many questions to be answered. Why did he only have 1 good year in NCAA - at 23 years of age no less (playing against 20 year old guys in average)? He was a pathetic scrub before, when he played for Michigan. He is a great shot blocker at College level, but just under 6-10, is he going to be able to be a shot blocking presence in NBA? Because if not, he is not even good enough to come off the bench. He may turn out to be a good shot blocking defensive player, but there are just too many question marks, not the smallest one of which is his age (23) and the fact he only had one good year in NCAA. Is he better prospect than Hayward? Hayward is 3 years younger to begin with. When Udoh was that age he stunk like a horse manure. That statement is also true when Udoh was a year older, and when he was 2 years older than Hayward is now. I like my chances with Hayward.
Food for thought: why didn't KOC trade up to 6 with Golden State?
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Udoh is never going to be a leader and a difference maker. His ticket to NBA is ability to block shots and be someone like Ratliff. That's pretty good, but before he is at Ratliff's level, there are many questions to be answered. Why did he only have 1 good year in NCAA - at 23 years of age no less (playing against 20 year old guys in average)? He was a pathetic scrub before, when he played for Michigan. He is a great shot blocker at College level, but just under 6-10, is he going to be able to be a shot blocking presence in NBA? Because if not, he is not even good enough to come off the bench. He may turn out to be a good shot blocking defensive player, but there are just too many question marks, not the smallest one of which is his age (23) and the fact he only had one good year in NCAA. Is he better prospect than Hayward? Hayward is 3 years younger to begin with. When Udoh was that age he stunk like a horse manure. That statement is also true when Udoh was a year older, and when he was 2 years older than Hayward is now. I like my chances with Hayward.
Shaggy
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Udoh was drafted by a...........poo poo team while Hayward was drafted by a Top 4 team in the western conference. I'm not that smart but doesn't that skew the odds in his favor, regardless if he is a better player or not. If Udoh was drafted by the Jazz do you really think he'd start? IMHO I'd say no.
InGameStrategy
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Shotblockers are typically not difference makers or leaders. The key to whether Udoh is more than that is whether he can become a scorer.I don't think that Hayward will be a "leader" any more than Harpring was.
To answer your question about why he had only one year in the NCAA is that he transferred. I don't know why he started college at age 19 instead of 18. He didn't have much production at Michigan partly because the offense didn't feature him. In any case, he was a huge contributor at Baylor and seemed to have good workouts. If you're gonna diss Udoh for just one season, then you could do the same for Hayward, who shot just 30% from the 3 this last year.
The older age doesn't matter much because he'll be 32 at the end of his second contract--still a reasonable age if he stays healthy (just like any other player). [BTW, Okur was already slowing down, and it was stupid of the Jazz FO to re-sign him last year.]
IMHO, Utah needed Udoh more. Now they're probably going to re-sign Boozer and his inability to carry the team against the Lakers. At least Udoh had more athleteicism and defense which would hopefully be complemented with offense (if he were on the Jazz that is). I'm still skeptical about Hayward's D. I don't think that he can defend NBA starting wings. I think that Udoh will be able to handle NBA bigs soon.
InGameStrategy
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Fair point--except that GSW has two PFs ahead of him, so unless Boozer came back also or GSW trades somebody, Udoh had at least as good a chance at Utah. Udoh might be able to handle some NBA centers, too; we'll see. Of course Jerry has had a long-standing bias against young players not named CJ Miles, so the likelihood that Udoh would start this year on Utah would be low, but that has as much to do with coaching preferences as relative ability.
Shaggy
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Nice of you to leave off Matthews,Millsap,Brewer and Maynor. They sorta refute your point, eh?
Udoh wouldn't start over Millsap. I would bet someones life on it other than my own.
And I will agree GSW have no clue what they are doing. They have 6 PF's on the team.
InGameStrategy
Well-Known Member
I wouldn't start Udoh over the four-year veteran Millsap--at least right away. But I probably would start him over the first-year Millsap, even with the paperboy-like hustle.
Matthews did start in his rookie year but I don't give much credit to the Jazz for developing him. He got playing time and he had work ethic and smarts. The biggest thing that Utah did for Matthews was to put him on the floor, which is my underlying mantra.
Brewer started only 14 games as a first-year players. I'll give the Jazz credit for trying to get him to have a jump shot. I think that the assistants worked a lot with him. I don't think that they enforced the defense; when he was dogging it, he wasn't usually benched until his robotic substitution time came up.
Maynor was a backup anyway, and I don't think that Utah played him enough even when Deron was dogging it or in foul trouble.
Shaggy
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The argument was that Jerry has a bias against young playesr which is not true , you said nothing to prove that.
Shaggy 1 - IGS 0
I disagree that it's a given that Hayward will never be a leader or a difference maker. I think he has potential to be one. After all, he just lead a team, where he is really the only star, to a title game and 25 game winning streak. And he also was the best player on under 19 World Champion US team. So, he has proven he can be a leader, and there is certainly hope he can be one in NBA one day. Such hope is simply not there for Udoh, hence advantage Hayward.
I agree he was a huge contributor for Baylor, but as I mentioned before, this was after he stunk for several years. The fact offense did not feature him much just does not explain why he stunk. No matter what the reason was though, there is definitely a huge question mark here. And more importantly, he was 23 years old playing against much younger competition when he was good. He would not even be allowed on that under 19 world championship, the one Hayward led to victory, by 3 years no less, and there is a reason for it.
When we are looking at young propsects in the draft, the key word is young. 23 year old in NCAA (playing against 20 year olds) is not really that young. And the key point here is that when you are young - you have huge potential for improvement. You really make huge strides year after year - if you have that talent. Then around 23-25 you improve less and less and then only marginally until late twenties or so, at which point you start to takes step backwards, as you correctly noticed with Memo. This is just course of nature. Udoh has very short window of opportunity to make huge strides because he is already 23. Hayward's one is much higher as he has 3 extra years to make huge strides forward as compared to Udoh. It is not about him coming off contract at 32. It's the fact a guy with talent at 20 should be MUCH MUCH better at 23. They guy at 23 does not have anywhere near the same potential to make the same strides in the next 3 years as a 20 year old, simply because of natural physiological development. And Hayward already at 20 accomplished more than Udoh at 23. Hayward's ceiling is simply much higher - and he is better already.
NotDeadYet
Well-Known Member
Whether we all think Udoh would've been there at #9 or not is irrelavent; the question should be: did GS know this for a fact? How would they KNOW we wouldn't have picked Udoh instead of Monroe anyway?
Yeah, I heard this too from Ford. If only FA signings were before the draft & the Nyts couldnt have signed any big FAs, then we couldved enticed them to trade #3 for AK, #9, & future 1st !!!