Thon Maker. That's it.
This
Maker will probably be there in the 2nd round. Most teams don't like gambling on guys who aren't good at basketball, even though they do sometimes learn.
I'm curious, but why do you keep saying he "isn't good at basketball"? On what are you basing that assertion? Have you seen him play recently? Did you scout any of his AI Prep games this season? Or have you found video that is recent of him in games? Have you seen him at one of his workouts?
The last, most comprehensive video I've seen of him is the City League Hoops video from the Nike Hoop Summit last year -- it at least is a lot more comprehensive and objective than the rather abbreviated and slanted one DraftExpress put together for the same event. He certainly looked like he at least was decent at basketball in the CLH vid. But even that is, of course, 9 month old data. I expect he has changed somewhat since then, since most young players do. But all I've found more recently are the random tweeted snippets of him in workouts. No actual footage of him playing in real games.
His stats for this last season give the appearance that he was at least fairly dominant in his AI prep season, for whatever that is worth.
I'm asking legitimately. I'm not going to assert that Maker is 'great at basketball' until I've seen more recent evidence. But I don't see how one could assert flatly that he isn't any good without more recent evidence.
My take is that I'll leave it up to Danny and his staff to vet whether he is worth taking at any given pick that we have. They will undoubtedly have access to a lot more information and will have the benefit of seeing him in a real workout. However, I suspect that, given his physicals, if he has even one decent workout with any team, he will not make it past the middle of the first round.
If we don't take Bender with pick #3, I certainly hope Danny gives a lot of thought to picking either Skal or Maker or another long, 7 footer who can shoot and that has defensive potential with one of our other picks. I'm sick of us being so much shorter than the other teams!
I haven't actually watched any of his HS games, no. I'm pretty sure he was bad at the hoop summit last year, and it sounds like he was extremely bad in terms of his feel for the game.
I agree that we should trust Danny on this one (arguably we should trust Danny on everyone, but even more so for Maker). I actually feel that guys in Maker's mold-- tall, athletic with underdeveloped instincts or skill levels-- are usually drafted too low. Sometimes they take longer to develop because it just takes time for them to figure out how to use their bodies. The latest example is probably Clint Capela. Maker I'm a little more skeptical about because he's gotten so much hype, and he isn't quite as much of a physical freak as Capela or like Deandre Jordan.
Well, when you use words like, "I am pretty sure he was ..." and "it sounds like he was", this implies to me that you are relying on someone else's take on how he played. What, exactly is your source?
In my opinion, there is a lot of misinformation about Maker's performance at the Hoop Summit event. Yes, Labissiere beat him out for the starting spot on the World Team. That is not the same as saying Maker played badly. Maker, coming off the bench, actually lead the game in rebounds grabbing 10 in just 14 minutes. He didn't score well on his few shots and he struggled on offense in general, but it's not like he played poorly in all respects.
It seems to me that there were two equally erroneous overreactions to that Nike Hoop Summit a year ago: (1) Skal leapt to the very top of every 2016 mock draft and (2) Maker dropped on every 2017 mock draft.
As time has gone by, with everyone getting a lot longer look at him through the year, Skal has drifted down on every board, indicative that his hyped ranking based on just the one event was most certainly an over-reaction and that he was not really deserving of the #1 ranking.
Unfortunately for Maker, he has NOT been playing within the eyesight of everyone so there has been no real correction to the overreaction that downgraded him so heavily after the event until very recently as he has surfaced by declaring for the 2016 draft and attending some workouts. The truth is probably that the negativity on him after the Hoop Summit was probably just as much an overreaction as the positivity on Skal was.
Most folks on CelticsBlog seem to have formed their opinions based on the DraftExpress video, "Skal vs Maker" that basically focused only on only on their one-vs-one drill, and seemed oriented to show how Skal won the starting spot.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T_OlIxqaobMThe City League Hoops edit of the same comparison seems a little more balanced. Yes, Skal beat out Maker at the event, but it also presents good plays by both players. It also shows a much broader set of plays from the event, besides just the 1-on-1.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J236hoslYdcEven so, all that information is a year old.
I would encourage fans to acknowledge that they don't really have a lot of good, recent information with which to form either a positive OR negative assessment of Maker.
I'm going to trust that Danny will work from a more fully-informed perspective if he decides to take a chance on Maker or not.
