Why is everyone so down on Fab Melo?

[Clench123]

Because he sucks.  There's no dressing it, there's no way of putting it.  He sucks all kinds of round balls.  The guy is just terrible

[Boris Badenov]

Of those 30 players, 25 played more NBA minutes than Fab last year. More qualitatively I would rank at least 15 of those guys as having clearly better seasons than Fab. It's still early but right now he is looking like the 40th-50th best plater taken in the draft - maybe worse if some of those Euros pan out.

I think it's understood that Melo is a project who wasn't expected to contribute as a rookie.

Here is an incomplete list of big men who played less than 100 minutes as a rookie in this century: Amir Johnson, Ian Mahinmi, Louis Amundson, Marcin Gortat, Kendrick Perkins, Kyrylo Fesenko. 

While the vast majority of players who fit that description turned out to be scrubs, not everyone did.  Maybe Melo ends up with the career of someone like two-time world champion DJ Mbenga.

You're right, your list is incomplete. It's also incredibly selective.

Here's the full list:

http://bkref.com/tiny/Mv3E1

There are 120 guys on the full list of frontcourt players who fit your criteria: started in 2000, played <100 minutes in their first year.

I count 3-5 legit NBA players, a couple of whom are apples-to-oranges because they came right out of HS (e.g., Perkins and Amir Johnson). There are maybe 10 other 12th-man types but no one who is anything close to a valuable NBA player.

Beyond that you have...nothing. Of the 120 guys fitting the Melo profile you have maybe 10 NBA players (defined loosely) and another 110 who are total scrubs.

Edit: I just re-pasted the link sorted by WS/48. You can see that even in the small sample of minutes, nearly all of the guys who turned out to be good are in the top 20 of that list, meaning they showed promising early signs of productivity.

Melo is 47th, and there really isn't a single decent NBA player below him.

[timobusa]

Because he sucks.  There's no dressing it, there's no way of putting it.  He sucks all kinds of round balls.  The guy is just terrible

I back this 100 percent.

[aporel#18]

Because of expectations. We expect a first round pick to be capable of playing in the NBA, and Fab isn't ready... yet.

I didn't like the pick, Ezeli or PJ3 were the kids I liked, but McDonough and Danny probably saw something in him, and didn't mind to wait for 2 or 3 years in his development.

Right now, I think the best option is sticking with the plan, waiting for those 2 or 3 years and help him to grow as a player. Playing in Turkey may be the best option for Colton Iverson: he'll get minutes, he'll play against quality big men, and he can come back next summer. And the Cs keep his rights without using a roster spot or paying his salary. We need to be patient.

[mmmmm]

Of those 30 players, 25 played more NBA minutes than Fab last year. More qualitatively I would rank at least 15 of those guys as having clearly better seasons than Fab. It's still early but right now he is looking like the 40th-50th best plater taken in the draft - maybe worse if some of those Euros pan out.

I think it's understood that Melo is a project who wasn't expected to contribute as a rookie.

Here is an incomplete list of big men who played less than 100 minutes as a rookie in this century: Amir Johnson, Ian Mahinmi, Louis Amundson, Marcin Gortat, Kendrick Perkins, Kyrylo Fesenko. 

While the vast majority of players who fit that description turned out to be scrubs, not everyone did.  Maybe Melo ends up with the career of someone like two-time world champion DJ Mbenga.

You're right, your list is incomplete. It's also incredibly selective.

Here's the full list:

http://bkref.com/tiny/Mv3E1

There are 120 guys on the full list of frontcourt players who fit your criteria: started in 2000, played <100 minutes in their first year.

I count 3-5 legit NBA players, a couple of whom are apples-to-oranges because they came right out of HS (e.g., Perkins and Amir Johnson). There are maybe 10 other 12th-man types but no one who is anything close to a valuable NBA player.

Beyond that you have...nothing. Of the 120 guys fitting the Melo profile you have maybe 10 NBA players (defined loosely) and another 110 who are total scrubs.

Edit: I just re-pasted the link sorted by WS/48. You can see that even in the small sample of minutes, nearly all of the guys who turned out to be good are in the top 20 of that list, meaning they showed promising early signs of productivity.

Melo is 47th, and there really isn't a single decent NBA player below him.

Um ... WS/48 ... based on less than 100 minutes of play?

Is that supposed to be useful for anything?

Did Jackie Butler turn out to be the greatest player ever?

I'm not going to claim Fab will turn out to be anything.

But this mode of assessment seems a bit wanting.   My suspicion is that Danny and his scouts might use a different methodology for assessing Fab's progress.

Folks should keep in mind that Fab and others from his class are in a whole different development paradigm.

As of last season, teams have a lot more ability to send players back & forth to the D-League than they used to.

In the past, whether a marginal rookie player who still needed development got any time at all depended primarily on whether his team was terrible (in which case he often did get minutes) or a playoff contender (in which case he usually didn't).

A lot of rookies who used to sit in a suit & tie in the stands during NBA games now will instead be spending time in the D-League getting minutes and working on their game.

That doesn't mean Fab won't still turn out to be a bust.  But the development paradigm is different now.

[ScoobyDoo]

That's good post Boris, TP.

Also a TP for this:
so far i think melo has done everything he's supposed to do at this point. he was drafted late and was meant to be a long term project. he saw no real playin time in preseason or summer league, but was sent to the d-league where he was one of the best rookie centers in that league.

he was great defensively, and his offense improved a bit. the next season he goes to summer league, and put up a decent stat line of 6.2 points, 3.4 rebounds, and 1.2 blocks, shooting 54.5% in 18.2 minutes. thats close to 12 points and 6 boards per 36 not great, but not bad either.

its all about improvements though. i think he's right where he's supposed to be.

This is where I fall. The guy could be a bust  - maybe he is already.

I actually see some promising improvements year over year for the kid. Again, I'm interested to see what Stevens can do with him.

If he can learn to hold his ground in the lane, lay that big body on people and play lane D with his hands up and active, he can have an impact on the boards and defensively.

I don't have high hopes but I haven't given up on him yet either.   

[Boris Badenov]

Of those 30 players, 25 played more NBA minutes than Fab last year. More qualitatively I would rank at least 15 of those guys as having clearly better seasons than Fab. It's still early but right now he is looking like the 40th-50th best plater taken in the draft - maybe worse if some of those Euros pan out.

I think it's understood that Melo is a project who wasn't expected to contribute as a rookie.

Here is an incomplete list of big men who played less than 100 minutes as a rookie in this century: Amir Johnson, Ian Mahinmi, Louis Amundson, Marcin Gortat, Kendrick Perkins, Kyrylo Fesenko. 

While the vast majority of players who fit that description turned out to be scrubs, not everyone did.  Maybe Melo ends up with the career of someone like two-time world champion DJ Mbenga.

You're right, your list is incomplete. It's also incredibly selective.

Here's the full list:

http://bkref.com/tiny/Mv3E1

There are 120 guys on the full list of frontcourt players who fit your criteria: started in 2000, played <100 minutes in their first year.

I count 3-5 legit NBA players, a couple of whom are apples-to-oranges because they came right out of HS (e.g., Perkins and Amir Johnson). There are maybe 10 other 12th-man types but no one who is anything close to a valuable NBA player.

Beyond that you have...nothing. Of the 120 guys fitting the Melo profile you have maybe 10 NBA players (defined loosely) and another 110 who are total scrubs.

Edit: I just re-pasted the link sorted by WS/48. You can see that even in the small sample of minutes, nearly all of the guys who turned out to be good are in the top 20 of that list, meaning they showed promising early signs of productivity.

Melo is 47th, and there really isn't a single decent NBA player below him.

Um ... WS/48 ... based on less than 100 minutes of play?

Is that supposed to be useful for anything?

Did Jackie Butler turn out to be the greatest player ever?

I agree that the result is surprising, but you can't argue with the pattern in the data: even based on a very low number of minutes played for these guys, nearly all of the players on that list who ended up being good were from the top 20 by WS/48. I haven't tested formally whether the result is statistically significant, but that is something one could do.

It's worth noting that while these minutes numbers would be a small (tiny) sample for evaluating the play of any one player, from a statistical perspective, the sample here is 120 such "draws" of up to 100 minutes each, for 120 different players.

That seems to yield more information than would any one player's performance over such a small number of minutes.

As an illustration, no, Jackie Butler is not the best player on that list - but to argue such a thing would be relying on a single observation from the list.

What I think the data do say is that the top 20 on that list are significantly better than the guys in any other group of 20. That is a comparison with more statistical power.

I may have more time later, and could actually run the numbers to test formally whether those in the top 20 have had better careers than those in the other brackets, if anyone is curious.

[Fan from VT]

I think the player who is a "long term project," and is still a "long term project" despite SUCKING in his rookie season, is a total myth. The long term projects who end up being good show SOMETHING early on. Perk had incredible PER and rebounding numbers his rookie year. On the flip side, the "NBA ready guy" is a myth too, in a way. If he's "NBA ready" and actually GOOD "nba ready," he stays as a contributer in the league for a long time (think Granger, the no-upside nba ready guy vs gerald green, the superstart project).


What the posted list shows is that having good ws/48 does not guarantee success...obviously. But the flipside is that players who have sucky ws/48 have a zero percent hit rate. And Fab is one of those.



Also we can forget the Jermaine Oneal argument. He was good early but blocked by very good players. And he was 17; fab was 22.

[hardlyyardley]

No instinct for rebounding; low IQ

[D.o.s.]

Because they've seen him play?

Took the words right off my keyboard.
TP.

[slamtheking]

Because they've seen him play?

Took the words right off my keyboard.
TP.

yup, that sums it up

[Yogi]

Because they've seen him play?

1.  He was a good player in high school.  He was a top defensive player in the league.
2.  He was a good player at Syracuse where he played for two years.  He was a top defensive player in the league.
3.  He was a good player in the D league where he played last year.  He was a top defensive player in the league. 
4.  He played a grand total of 36 min in the NBA last year, none of those of any significance.  While he only managed to gather 3 rebounds and only made 1/4 free throws, he also managed to get two steals, two blocks and shot 50% from the field. 
5.  Despite not playing any organized basketball for months, he put up 6.2 points, 3.4 rebounds and 1.2 blocks shooting 54.5% from the field in only 18 min per game.  Again those are not great, but good production.

I have no idea where "they" have seen him play.  Perhaps "they" refers to some amateur with no qualifications passing judgement on something he has no knowledge about. 

[hpantazo]

People need to be patient with Fab. He's very raw, he hasn't been playing basketball all that long. He has the physical tools to be a good player, the celtics coaching and training staff need to give him the experience and knowledge to achieve that. They can do it, but it will take a few years. Ainge knew this when he drafted him, he didn't expect Fab to come in and be a solid contributor right away. Just look how bad Avery Bradley looked his first year and a half.

[nickagneta]

Because he sucks.  There's no dressing it, there's no way of putting it.  He sucks all kinds of round balls.  The guy is just terrible

TP...beat me to it.

[thirstyboots18]

People need to be patient with Fab. He's very raw, he hasn't been playing basketball all that long. He has the physical tools to be a good player, the celtics coaching and training staff need to give him the experience and knowledge to achieve that. They can do it, but it will take a few years. Ainge knew this when he drafted him, he didn't expect Fab to come in and be a solid contributor right away. Just look how bad Avery Bradley looked his first year and a half.

Given a choice of opinions, this is the one I would like to believe.  So.....TP.