Every player looks good in youtube videoclips. I'm afraid that, currently, Claver is not nearly as good as these mixes make him look.
Claver was a hot prospect last summer, after an insane production in the spanish league playoffs. In my opinion, he regressed during the last season; probably he was not that good in the first place. He has considerable potential, no doubts about that, but he's still completely unproven. I was expecting him to have a breakthrough season, but it didn't happen. Far from it.
Here are a couple of negatives you may like to know:
- He has no position. Right now, Claver is a combo forward who's not strong enough to play the 4 and isn't quick enough to play the 3. He played most of his minutes as a PF last season, but he doesn't have a post game, nor the strength to bang in the paint (in the much less physical ACB). As a consequence, he plays a lot in the perimeter, although his long range jump-shot is very streaky (he only scores from two spots - near the rim or beyond the 3 pt line; there's no mid-range shot in his game). He shot 2pts at 57% (2.8 attempts per game) and 38% from the line (2 attempts per game). Not bad - but far from good for european standards - but the numbers are somehow skewed, because;
- his inconsistency is outstanding. From times to times, he made really great and highly productive games. Others were so-so. But frequently he was a non-factor or a major liability in the floor.
- He's a good slasher (at least when he's trying to attack the rim, unfortunately that's something who doesn't happen in a regular basis), but only when he is being guarded by PFs or slower SFs, as he can beat most of them off the dribble, and has a good finish around the rim, frequently dunking on bigger players. He struggled almost every time I saw him being guarded by quicker players or when he was facing good zones. His footwork is underwhelming and frequently he messes up his first step and is called for travellings (I saw this happening all season, and every single time I watched him he show no signs of improvement. Btw, DX's Luis Fernandez is, IMO, a very good scouter and talent evaluator. Well, at least I agree with him oftenly on what he writes about players I also know. And I'm just a fan. But Claver's first step maybe excellent, as he writes, but it's also highly unreliable).
- Sometimes he looks that kind of player who has little confidence in himself, passing open shots and making dumb decisions. When his first shots don't fall, he shows some sort of mental weakness.
- Due to his poor footwork, he's not more than an average defender. He's fine defending inside (unless he's matching up against much bigger and heavier players - as he would be playing PF in the NBA), but he suffers when he has to face smaller, quicker players who play from outside. Radmanovic could do to Claver what Pierce is doing to Radmanovic. He has to improve a lot in this part of his game if he wants to play in the NBA.
- As you can imagine, all these issues affected his playing time. He started the season as a starter, playing major minutes. He ended it as a non-factor in the playoffs, playing 12 mpg (3 pts, 2 r, 1 a). For some months in between, he was a bench warmer.
- Pamesa's fanbase frequently questions his work ethic and his thoughness and desire to play the game. It doesn't help that, according to the local press, he (or his entourage in his behalf) has demanded to play as a SF next season (because it's the only position he can play in the NBA) and threatened to leave the club if they were hiring a new SF (something they already did). I'm not sure how much truth there is in these reports, anyway.
Of course, there are also positive things to say about Claver. He has lenght and a huge standing reach, he can rebound, good vertical leap, he's a very good finisher, he displays a lot of defensive awareness and effort, etc. etc. He already had some very good games in the best league in the world after the NBA. But he needs to be consistent and to improve his weaknesses; and during the last season, he didn't accomplished any.
To conclude:
- I believe he's just testing the waters and that eventually will drop out of the draft.
- He's not ready for the NBA.
- I wouldn't draft him with the 30th pick (if we keep it). We would need to stash him here, and in the best case scenario (living up to his potential), he'd go Splitter on us. But in Ainge I trust. (I'll try to find out if he's going to work out for the Celtics).
