If you think Smart has a chance to be Wade, just Wade, not even Wade-lite or a poor man's Wade and you still have him in the 6-10 range, what do you think of the prospects rated above him. Is Wiggins going to be Lebron? Who knows? Embiid going to be Bill Russell. People weren't kidding in touting this draft I guess.
Sure, let's play the projected ceiling game with some of the other prospects. No matter what this is difficult and risky to do with freshmen. Players make so many improvements... Or get stuck in bad habits, as they progress from teenagers to young twenty something pros.
Embiid - i am going to give him a young player ceiling of Demarcus cousins. They both have great 7 foot bodies that look like they were built in a lab for the NBA. Both players showed some sophisticated offense and agility for centers that were so young. I refuse to compare Embiid to Olajuwon until Embiid learns how to be an effective shot blocker, and shot changer. Olajuwon didnt pick up the finesse moves until later in his career. They are very different.
I would take a player like that number one though. I also have hope that cousins will become an all star year after year. He has the talent. I think he just needs a better environment.
Wiggins - if you showed me only footage of Mcgrady right out of high school on the raptors, and footage of wiggins right out of high school on the jayhawks, i would have guessed that wiggins would be the better player in their futures. Both could drift, get lost. Both are supreme athletes. Wiggins already has a great looking outside shot. But does wiggins have the inner fire to become one of the best wings in the nba? I have no idea. I still feel safe projecting him as being similar to Mcgrady in the end, i would be shocked if he didn't make at least a couple all star games.
Parker - he is kind of like a Carmelo Anthony, in size, rebounding ability, competitiveness, and to some degree scoring. Anthony was a much better scorer coming out of Syracuse though. I dont see the same shooting touch with Parker. Both players dont do much on defense. Parker might not be as good as Anthony. But i expect him to be better than the next tier of small forwards: Leonard, batum and deng.
Exum is a total unknown. People talk about him as a big hybrid guard like penny hardway. Maybe he is more carter-Williams or devin Harris. I haven't seen any of his games, only the highlights.
Julius Randle - he is hard to nail down. But the one skill has has that is elite is rebounding. In the very least i would think he could rebound like Horace grant or Charles Oakley, maybe have some Anthony mason, Antoine Walker sprinkled in, and give you at least some scoring. If he really wants to score 20 a night he will need to work on his right hand and show some outside shooting.
Noah vonleh looks like a poor man's al horford or Chris bosh. The biggest difference i have seen is that he doesn't run the floor like those 2.
Aaron Gordon - the poor mans Kirilenko. He has a ways to go to bring his scoring ability up to andrei's level.
Topic: 2014 NBA Draft Discussion Thread (Read 128292 times)