Saric will only play for Celtics or Lakers

[Casperian]

Saric has been scouted by NBA teams since he was a mid-teenager.

Yeah, I think it's worth pointing out that Saric isn't really comparable to somebody like Vesely, for example. Vesely came out of nowhere, Saric has been scouted since he was 15.

Vesely's most intriguing strength was his superior athleticism compared to the competition. It was always obvious he wouldn't be able to do what he did versus NBA competition. Saric, on the other hand, is intriguing because of his skills and vision, which compare favourably to most NBA players his height.

[hpantazo]

The bias against European players here is astounding. He's a legit, highly touted and highly scouted prospect, yet here most people dump on him. How is he any different or more risky than Exum? Exum is even more unknown IMO.

For you guys who hate euro players, Dirk , Pau , Dragic. Marc Gasol, and technically even Manu and Tony Parker among a few, say hello.

Being foreign is only part of the knock on him, and that knock has nothing to do with his ethnicity, but rather his level of competition.  He's never been tested in a top European league (the Adriatic league is the 9th best league in Europe, and the Croatian league is lower than that), or the Euroleague.  At the highest level of competition he played -- the Eurocup, a second-tier league -- he was mediocre. 

The other criticisms of him are at least as serious, though:  he's not particularly athletic, and he doesn't seem all that strong.  His defense is considered weak in Europe, and that's without playing NBA-quality players.  He's presumed too slow to defend SFs, and not strong enough to defend PFs.  His shot is a work in progress. 

Here's nbadraft.net's description of his weaknesses:

Saric would have a much better NBA outlook if not for his lack of foot speed and athleticism ... His quickness and elevation might be enough to finish in Europe, but without the ability to finish above the rim, things will likely prove more difficult for him in the NBA ... He is quick and mobile for a player his height but clearly lacks the foot speed to stay in front of NBA wing forwards ... In addition he lacks ideal strength to battle NBA PFs on the block ... He projects as a 4, despite his excellent face the basket skills, due to his size and lack of foot speed. Sort of a stretch 4 without great shooting ability ... The best way to describe Saric's game is a jack of all trades, master of nothing type ... His lack of quickness will not allow him to beat anybody off the dribble 1 on 1, and the inconsistent shooting will not help in creating offense ... In transition he will still be able to create but despite a good use of both ends his lack of explosiveness above the rim makes every lay-up very blockable ... 3 turnovers per game are way too much for a player like him and it shows his lack of good decision making on a consistent base. In the NBA facing better athletes, it will be harder and harder for him to be effective in offense ... Things get worse if we take a look at his shooting percentages. The mechanics are not one of a pure shooter, and he is making only 30% of his 3 pointers right now ... With a longer NBA 3 point line it is safe to assume those percentages will not go up, though to his credit when he is in rhythm and his feet are set he can make around 40% at FIBA level ... Defensively as we said, he struggles to defend both the 3 and the 4 positions. His wingspan is just 6?10 so he will be much harder for him to recover from his lack of foot speed ... He does play really hard, and seems to have an aggressive mentality on every play but he will have to overcome many weaknesses and really develop as a player and as an athlete in the next couple of years to have a legitimate impact in the NBA ...

That's what concerns me.

You made a similar point about him on another thread.  Would you turn down trading Exum if he fell to 6th for the same reason?  If not, why not?  He plays in a far less competitive league than Saric.

Exactly, it's baffling how people would even trade up for Exum but would be upset if we took Saric at 6. A report from nbadraft.net, one of the more unreliable of the draft websites, from a year ago, is not good evidence.

[kozlodoev]

Exactly, it's baffling how people would even trade up for Exum but would be upset if we took Saric at 6. A report from nbadraft.net, one of the more unreliable of the draft websites, from a year ago, is not good evidence.

I haven't seen many (if any) people who want to trade up for Exum. I'm certainly not one of them.

[Donoghus]

Exactly, it's baffling how people would even trade up for Exum but would be upset if we took Saric at 6. A report from nbadraft.net, one of the more unreliable of the draft websites, from a year ago, is not good evidence.

I haven't seen many (if any) people who want to trade up for Exum. I'm certainly not one of them.

Yeah, can't recall many talking about trading up for Exum. 

People had talked about drafting him before the draft order was set. 

[D.o.s.]

[jambr380]

Exactly, it's baffling how people would even trade up for Exum but would be upset if we took Saric at 6. A report from nbadraft.net, one of the more unreliable of the draft websites, from a year ago, is not good evidence.

I haven't seen many (if any) people who want to trade up for Exum. I'm certainly not one of them.

Yeah, can't recall many talking about trading up for Exum. 

People had talked about drafting him before the draft order was set.

The past couple of days there was another thread talking about trading #6 and #17 to Orl for Exum. Since Orl is apparently very high on Smart, this was thought to be a possibility. I think I personally would go for it, as well...and put me down as having no interest in Saric with our #6.

[JSD]

It'd be great if he fell to #17

[Nef-Oracle]

Even at #17 i won't take him. He lacks of speed, not big enough to plays pf, not faster enough to play sf. I'd rather take TJ Warren.

[NorthernLightning]

Yeah, 17 would be perfect if the he came over. Just perfect.

[mmmmm]

I think Europe has pretty much surpassed the US in youth development in many regards.

Our young players would be better served by playing professional basketball with grown men at age 15-17 rather than playing AAU ball and being coddled so much in HS and college.

And somehow, the system doesn't produce more players capable to function in the NBA than the NCAA. Arguably, it probably produces less, given that the large majority of high European draft picks since, say, 2005, have been flops.

LOL - obviously, such an assertion cries out for test!

Let's stick with lottery picks (top 14).

2005  Fran Vasquez(11) & Yaoslav Korolev(12).   Vasquez proved to be a 'bad pick' by Orlando mainly in that he decided after the draft to stay in Europe, p---ing off Magic fans.  But not, technically a flop due to being a bad player.  Korolev was a Donald Sterling special.  There are some weird circumstances around the way the Clippers handled him, but let's just call him a flop.   1 of 2 *

2006 Andrea Bargnani(1), Mouhamed Sene(10) & Thabo Sefolosha (13).  Bargnani has certainly not played up to #1 billing, but he has at least been an 'adequate' NBA player.   He had a couple of really good years with Toronto.  His problem has mainly been staying healthy, not ability.   Thabo has been solid.   Sene qualifies as a flop.  1 of 3

2007 Yi Jianlian (6).    Flop.    (Note - Bellini was picked at #18, outside our range).   1 of 1

2008 Danilo Gallinari(6).  Not a flop.   0 of 1

2009  Ricky Rubio (5).   Hmmm... very debatable ... let's go with 'flop'.  Some will disagree.  1 of 1

2010  No non-NCAAs in the top 14.  Udoh and Aminu played in the NCAA.  0 of 0

2011  Enes Kanter (3), Valanciunas (5), Vesely (6), Biyombo (7).   I know some will more aggressively label more or all of these guys busts, but in reality, compared to their draft slots, by games, minutes played & win shares, Vesely is the only one who is in the 'flop' territory.  And even his production hasn't been a complete disaster.    1 of 4

2012  No non-NCAAs in the top 14.  Fournier was taken #20.   0 of 0

2013  No non-NCAAs in the top 14.  Giannis (15), Nogueira (16) & Shroder (17) all taken just outside.     0 of 0

So since 2005 that is 5 of 12 non-NCAA players taken that were flops.   Some might argue against Rubio and Vesely as flops yet, which would drop that to 3 of 12, but lets go with 5 or 42% (with some large error bars around that).

For NCAA players, I'm not going to illustrate the details, but based on comparative games, mp, & br WS totals, a quick scan gives me flop numbers:

2005  McCants, May, Dioqu.   3 of 10 *
2006  Armstrong, O'Bryant, Williams, Morrison.  4 of 11
2007  Thornton, Wright, Law, Oden.   4 of 12
2008  Randolph, Rush, Alexander, Beasley.  4 of 13
2009  Clark, Williams, Hill, Flynn, Thabeet.  5 of 12
2010  Henry, Aldrich, Udoh, Johnson.  Tempted to list Aminu and Turner but will resist.  Make it 4 of 14.
2011  Fredette.  Knight (yeah, I did that).  Probably should include Marcus Morris, but I'll give him a pass.  2 of 10
2012  Marshall, Rivers, Robinson.   Waiters (imho) probably belongs but again, I'll let it pass.   Royce White slips by, chosen at #16.  3 of 14
2013  Muhammad, Len?, Porter? McCollum?   Too early to tell on some of these guys.  Noel?  I'm betting that at lease two of the 4 question marks busts, so call it 3 of 14 again.

So, for NCAA-produced players, some 32 of 110 were flops, or 29%.

*Note - Webster and Bynum were high-school draftees and not counted in either total for 2005.  They were not NCAA products, so the temptation is to add them to the 'non-NCAA' total, but they don't meet the spirit of 'mysterious unknown foreign player', either. 

So, by this simple subjective scan, yeah, lottery picks from the NCAA have flopped less often than non-NCAA selections, ~29% to ~42%

But the error bars on those numbers are pretty huge and clearly overlapping.    If you include Webster and Bynum as 'non-NCAA' players, and argue that the jury is still out on Rubio and Vesely, then the non-NCAA number could be dropped as low as 14%.

Similarly, I very clearly left out several names from the 'NCAA' list that some might consider flops.

I think that over time, given more samples, the 'flop' percentage for non-NCAA picks would likely drop down from 42% to be closer to the 29% of the NCAA picks.  I would not be surprised if the 'non-NCAA' rate stayed a little above the NCAA rate, though since the simple fact is that there IS in general less information behind scouting internationals and less information should reduce the efficiency of those picks.

For all intents and purposes, the numbers aren't really all that different.   Altogether, I'd characterize lottery picks in general to have about a 1 in 3 chance of flopping.   And hey, that's pretty much what this study (1998-2008) kinda shows:

http://www.82games.com/nbadraftpicks.htm

[NorthernLightning]

If James Young and the Harrison twins came over to Kentucky from Europe, it wouldn't have taken them 20+ games to learn how to play as a team.

[fitzhickey]

What doesn't really make sense to me is how you nearly list Waiters as a flop, yet Biyombo isn't one.

[BigAlTheFuture]

How is Rubio a flop and Biyombo is not?

[mmmmm]

It's all very clearly subjective, and folks could argue all day over whether individual players are flops or not.

I personally think that relative to his draft slot, Rubio, despite getting lots of minutes, has proven to be a flop.  His shooting (career eFG .401) and his turnovers are just awful and his above-average passing ability isn't making up for it.   He's also a bleh defender.   He is a 5th pick who has been playing pro ball for a while, is going to be 24 years old and he isn't showing any evidence of getting better.

Byombo is definitely not a big success for 7th pick, but it's still too early to call him a flop.  He's only had three seasons and big men take longer to 'show' in the NBA.  He will only be 22 this coming year.   He's also managed to record 4713 minutes in the NBA and has respectable per-36 rates of 10.1 rebounds and 2.6 blocks.  And those numbers were up to 12.3 & 9 in his most recent season.  His DRB% this last season was an excellent 27.6%.   So unlike Rubio, he has shown definite signs of progress each year.   He may still flop, but it's still too early to say so.

Waiters --- again, matter of opinion.  I left him off the flop list so you gots nuttin' to complain about.

In the end, individual players don't matter.   We could argue putting one guy on the flop list while taking another one off it.  The overall point is that over time, we are looking at around a 1 in three flop rate.   Probably a little above that for non-NCAA selections and probably a little lower for NCAA selections.

[PickNRoll]

Agree with almost every one of those flop choices.  A 29-42 outcome seems perfectly reasonable.  I might've expected a flop rate over 50 for Euro's, which makes Saric really scary for me.