Yeah, that was too harsh of me. Some SEC fans on the nbadraft.net forum called him dumb and said he had zero defense, but that was harsh of me to repeat without really knowing what I was talking about. But here's some possible evidence of some of the flaws I probably over-exaggerated earlier. In addition, he called out his MSU team pretty bad during a 5 game losing streak. Upon further examination of the incident, it seems like the MSU fanbase agreed with his sentiments. There are rumors of attitude at MSU and UTEP before that, transferring sometimes being a sign of trouble. His UTEP coach wouldn't even say his name in an interview about him, but Moultrie had good words for his former coach, and it appears their dispute was about Moultrie declaring for the draft way too early a few years ago.
So in conclusion, there's some smoke, but no fire that I know of. I was enamored with Moultrie's post skills earlier in the season, but after watching Nicholson play, it's no contest skills-wise. Nicholson's only been playing 6 years, but that doesn't mean Moultrie's lack of mastery is a result of laziness:
"soft"
When he first looks to get position, he does a good job sealing off the defender, though he could use his lower body a bit more to create some space. However, once the defender starts getting physical, he gives up the spot too quickly. He needs to make sure
he fights for that space.
He also does a very good job keeping
balls alive that he know he may not be able to get to right away. However, assuming he does get stronger, he still needs to work on using his body to box out and create space, instead of
just going after the ball.
"dumb" (too harsh a term, agreed)
Another area of concern is his lack of court awareness on the defensive end. He needs to get much better at seeing
everything around him, including cutters and screens, and be able to guide his teammates. Moultrie’s lack of defensive awareness also affects his ability to be a good help defender around
the basket. He seems to always get to the help spot, but a step or two late.
The large majority of the impact he has on a game is due to his
length and athleticism, not his skill. At the college level, that may work. It won’t happen in the NBA. He really needs to become much more skilled in many areas – shooting, post offense
and defense, court awareness – to have any kind of real impact at the NBA level. He may certainly get there someday, but it’s not going to happen soon. He would best develop somewhere where he can be a solid 7th or 8th man for a year or two, and work on bringing his skill levels up.
http://www.nbadraftblog.com/pdf/2012-articles/may/scouting-report-arnett-moultrie.pdf
Topic: What's Your Draft Wishlist? Top 5 (updated 6/27) (Read 31084 times)