Young improved on D?

[Csfan1984]

I never saw a mock that had him going in the top 3 except in pre-college season mocks.

[clover]

For the comparison of Young and Pierce, I think the big difference is that when drafted, Pierce was 21 years old and had played 3 seasons at Kansas.  Young is 18 and has one year at Kentucky.

Young is an upside risk pick, almost like picking a guy out of high school.  Pierce had a solid established resume but maybe the teams that passed on him thought he had less ceiling.

This just shows that there is luck and chance involved in drafting, maybe as much as 50% vs. science.  If Pierce had been taken earlier, we easily could have ended up with one of the busts of the draft.

As for Young, we will just have to wait and see.  I don't expect an 18 year old to do much his first year or two.  It is nice to hear he is picking up defensive philosophies and seems to understand how important it is.  That can be half the battle.

I don't believe Pierce turned 21 until October of the year he was drafted. Young turned 19 in August.  Also, Young played one year of college, while Pierce played two. So the difference is two years in age and one year in college experience.

Expectations were definitely higher for Pierce, but they were both in pretty good drafts.

[BballTim]

I never saw a mock that had him going in the top 3 except in pre-college season mocks.

  I just googled for mock drafts in his year, the first couple of ones I saw had him top 3. Nick seems to remember it as well. PP really slipped in the draft to get to us.

[SHAQATTACK]

He can fill out  and put on some additional muscle would be nice .

It's all about work ethic .  He has made it to the NBA , has talent gifts ,   The next part is motivation, or the drive to want a ring and like many former and current stars live in the gym and live basketBall 24/7 .

KO impresses me with his determination to MAKE IT BIG .....be a somebody more than a average player picking up a paycheck.

Will he be satisfied just to be a good NBA player ..like Jeff Green or will he get the Pierce , Allen , MJ etc attitude of relentless effort to get where your going.

[hwangjini_1]

Young may be the Paul Pierce of this draft. Pierce had love and hate from day one. A lot of people didn't think Pierce was on the level of a lot of the guys drafted ahead of him. Pierce improved and was killer for this team. An all time great top 150 player for sure. Young could do the same things as an over judged scorer who has all the tools to dominate games in the future. Just like Pierce did in the past.

Kandi, Bibby, Raef, Tractor, Carter, Hughes, Dirk, Jamison, and Williams all went ahead of him.

or this version of history...

http://www2.kusports.com/weblogs/tale-tait/2014/jun/20/16-years-later-paul-pierce-falling-to-no/

To this day, many people (myself included) are still trying to figure out how in the heck the Boston Celtics ended up getting Paul Pierce with the No. 10 pick in the 1998 NBA Draft.

Pierce, then a junior who lit up the Big 12 at KU and was one of the best scorers in the nation, was pencilled in as high as No. 2 or 3 in many mock drafts and seemed to be made for the NBA, where size, the ability to fill it up from the outside and versatility stand as most important above all.
   I don't remember that about PP at all. He was top 2-3 in most draft projections, was considered the most nba ready in the class and was a stud on the Celts from pretty much day 1.

[Csfan1984]

I never saw a mock that had him going in the top 3 except in pre-college season mocks.

  I just googled for mock drafts in his year, the first couple of ones I saw had him top 3. Nick seems to remember it as well. PP really slipped in the draft to get to us.

I googled it and all I get are revisionist/do-over mocks.
Technically you are right that he slipped because his talent proved he should have gone higher.  But the mocks I saw days before draft I do remember they predicted the draft very well. Kandi, Dirk, Jason Williams, Hughes, Wells, all had their stock explode. Mocks then had him slidding. I guess it all depends on last mocks. Regardless of the mock you saw Pierce was taken 10th so Gms and scouts didn't like Pierce too much. You can also remember the pre 07 years. Media and a lot of fans didn't believe in him then even with his early accomplishments. It was love and hate for many early on. 07 solidified him.

[nickagneta]

I never saw a mock that had him going in the top 3 except in pre-college season mocks.

  I just googled for mock drafts in his year, the first couple of ones I saw had him top 3. Nick seems to remember it as well. PP really slipped in the draft to get to us.

I googled it and all I get are revisionist/do-over mocks.
Technically you are right that he slipped because his talent proved he should have gone higher.  But the mocks I saw days before draft I do remember they predicted the draft very well. Kandi, Dirk, Jason Williams, Hughes, Wells, all had their stock explode. Mocks then had him slidding. I guess it all depends on last mocks. Regardless of the mock you saw Pierce was taken 10th so Gms and scouts didn't like Pierce too much. You can also remember the pre 07 years. Media and a lot of fans didn't believe in him then even with his early accomplishments. It was love and hate for many early on. 07 solidified him.

Sorry but you are wrong. Pierce was projected top 2 or 3 all the way up til draft night. Watching the draft that night the surprise that Pierce didn't go right after Olowakandi was immense. As he fell that was the story of the early part of the draft. Again, its the main reason Pierce always had anger and said he would make people regret not taking him higher, because he was expected to go top 3.

http://www2.kusports.com/weblogs/tale-tait/2014/jun/20/16-years-later-paul-pierce-falling-to-no/

To this day, many people (myself included) are still trying to figure out how in the heck the Boston Celtics ended up getting Paul Pierce with the No. 10 pick in the 1998 NBA Draft.

Pierce, then a junior who lit up the Big 12 at KU and was one of the best scorers in the nation, was pencilled in as high as No. 2 or 3 in many mock drafts and seemed to be made for the NBA, where size, the ability to fill it up from the outside and versatility stand as most important above all.

[DarkAzcura]

Yep, yep. Pierce was considered a top 3 pick all the way to the draft. To this day, no one really understands why he dropped. I remember people mentioning his conditioning, but I really don't think that's a good enough reason to have a top 3 prospect drop to 10 with no injury history. At the time of the draft, his drop was as mysterious as Gerald Green's (which was a huge, huge, huuuge drop in 2005). Obviously it became obvious why Green dropped so far within months, but it's never become clear why Pierce dropped so far in scouts' minds literally days before the draft.

[clover]

Yep, yep. Pierce was considered a top 3 pick all the way to the draft. To this day, no one really understands why he dropped. I remember people mentioning his conditioning, but I really don't think that's a good enough reason to have a top 3 prospect drop to 10 with no injury history. At the time of the draft, his drop was as mysterious as Gerald Green's (which was a huge, huge, huuuge drop in 2005). Obviously it became obvious why Green dropped so far within months, but it's never become clear why Pierce dropped so far in scouts' minds literally days before the draft.

Sometimes teams offer misdirection on their ranking of players, to try to throw competitors off the trail of especially good prospects. (Dirk, anyone?) It's possible that there was a bit of that in play to go along with his maybe dropping with some conditioning concerns. We know he's managed even in his latter years to look a bit flabby when he's really been quite strong. And, I think he was seen as a possibility to go as high as #3, not in any way a lock at that level.

[loco_91]

The PP and Len Bias comparisons are off the mark. Young has nothing like the skill that PP was already showing at the time, nor the athleticism of Bias. I hope that he, like PP, will exceed expectations; but many, many other guys have exceeded expectations, too.

Young is an upside pick with a wide range of outcomes, but none of them resemble Paul Pierce. To me, his dream outcome is more like a slightly less productive Ray, a phenomenal shooter who can also do everything else. However, there's no reason at this point to be so optimistic; he was very good but not exceptional from 3 for Duke, and he won't match Ray's ability to get just barely open and pull the trigger before his man gets to him. Question marks include his right hand and his defensive acumen. If he puts the latter question mark to rest, I'll be enthusiastic about the kid-- but I still won't be holding my breath for him to make an all-star appearance.

[BballTim]

I never saw a mock that had him going in the top 3 except in pre-college season mocks.

  I just googled for mock drafts in his year, the first couple of ones I saw had him top 3. Nick seems to remember it as well. PP really slipped in the draft to get to us.

I googled it and all I get are revisionist/do-over mocks.
Technically you are right that he slipped because his talent proved he should have gone higher.  But the mocks I saw days before draft I do remember they predicted the draft very well. Kandi, Dirk, Jason Williams, Hughes, Wells, all had their stock explode. Mocks then had him slidding. I guess it all depends on last mocks. Regardless of the mock you saw Pierce was taken 10th so Gms and scouts didn't like Pierce too much. You can also remember the pre 07 years. Media and a lot of fans didn't believe in him then even with his early accomplishments. It was love and hate for many early on. 07 solidified him.

  There's a video somewhere of Larry Brown talking about how they had PP rated top 2-3 but didn't draft him because they'd made a promise to Hughes. I can remember reading stories years ago about PP's agent trying to dissuade teams from drafting him so he'd get to where he landed. I don't think it's that hard to find evidence on the internet that backs up what I'm saying, and there are people posting who's recollection is the same as mine. I'm pretty confident in my claim.

[Csfan1984]

I don't doubt you because there are 20 or so scout/mock sources. I know you just doubt me lol

[nickagneta]

I am almost 100% positive that 16 years ago there were not 20 or more reliable NBA draftnik sites on the internet, if that is what you are claiming. The best were ESPN, NBC Sports, CBS Sports, Fox Sports, DX and NBADraft.net. Other than that the only other decent, reliable draft info came from websites of local large newspapers like the Globe, NYTimes, Chicago Trib, etc.

The draftnik landscape on the internet of reliable mock draft sites for both football and basketball has grown exponentially since that time but at that time most draft mock draft sites were blogger sites with little to no real insight. It was just a different world on the internet back then.

[Csfan1984]

20 or so was for all media.  Was a nice time back then. Now it like 100 sources + twitter and seems there is less reliability then ever.

[Celtics18]

I know why Paul Pierce dropped:

Cat Mobley and his URI Rams. 

Thanks for the memories of that '98 season, Rhody, and thanks for helping us land Paul Pierce.