Poll: Was Zizic over Skal Labissiere a mistake

[KG Living Legend]

 Can't believe we took Zizic over the #1 rated prospect. I remember hearing about Skal Labissiere a year before he went to Kentucky.

 He slides to #23 and we pass on him for this Euro Bum Zizic. Skal is the new NBA big man, shoots the three blocks shots, long athletic.



 Calipari is a great recruiter not a genius Coach IMO. Coach Steven's would have worked wonders with a kid with this type of size and talent.

 

[KG Living Legend]

https://youtu.be/PSLm-imDZTw

 Imagine him next to Horford?

[Beat LA]

Zizic over Pascal Siakam was a yuge mistake, imo, but to answer your question, yes, especially with what Skal showed once he actually got on the court this year.  Sigh.

[CelticsElite]

No because zizic agreed to be stashed. Not an option with skal, and  I believe that zubac didn't want to be stashed.

We had to stash because we had 8 draft picks

[Dannys Chipotle Guy]

 Can't believe we took Zizic over the #1 rated prospect. I remember hearing about Skal Labissiere a year before he went to Kentucky.

 He slides to #23 and we pass on him for this Euro Bum Zizic. Skal is the new NBA big man, shoots the three blocks shots, long athletic.



 Calipari is a great recruiter not a genius Coach IMO. Coach Steven's would have worked wonders with a kid with this type of size and talent.

Calling him this #1 prospect is pretty disingenuous.

He wasn't the #1 prospect by the time the draft rolled around and that's why he fell to the 20s or 30s or whenever he got picked.

Zizic was a highly rated big man who was willing to be stashed. It was a no-brainer pick.

The Yabu pick came a bit out of left field.

[Mr October]

How about option 3: too early to tell.

Non superstar centers take a few years to adapt to the NBA.

Zizic sounds a lot like a young Perkins. Let's see what Brad can do with him during the next few years.

[gouki88]

Maybe revisit this in 5 years?

I forgot how much I love overreactions to Summer League 

[KG Living Legend]

 Can't believe we took Zizic over the #1 rated prospect. I remember hearing about Skal Labissiere a year before he went to Kentucky.

 He slides to #23 and we pass on him for this Euro Bum Zizic. Skal is the new NBA big man, shoots the three blocks shots, long athletic.



 Calipari is a great recruiter not a genius Coach IMO. Coach Steven's would have worked wonders with a kid with this type of size and talent.

Calling him this #1 prospect is pretty disingenuous.

He wasn't the #1 prospect by the time the draft rolled around and that's why he fell to the 20s or 30s or whenever he got picked.

Zizic was a highly rated big man who was willing to be stashed. It was a no-brainer pick.

The Yabu pick came a bit out of left field.

 He was the #1rated prospect just like Harry Giles was. If your ranked #1 anytime the seventeen to eighteen time frame. That means you have star upside.

 Even Avery Bradley was ranked #1 buy at least one publication, and Bradley is not on the level of Skal and Giles when healthy.

[BostonClamCrowdah]

No because zizic agreed to be stashed. Not an option with skal, and  I believe that zubac didn't want to be stashed.

We had to stash because we had 8 draft picks

****

[Mr October]

Skal was a top 5 recruit going into Kentucky. And then he was terrible there. He looked lost and played passively.

[knuckleballer]

This reminds me of Al Jefferson early in his career.  Not skill wise, but how slow they look.  Jefferson looked so slow his first couple of seasons that I didn't think he would ever make it in the NBA.  Then during his third season, he began figuring things out and improved dramatically during the course of the season.  He didn't get faster, he just began to understand where he needed to be and what he needed to do.  And suddenly he looked much quicker.  It wasn't physical, it was mental.

The same may be the case with Zizic.  The NBA SL plays much faster than Europe and is very hectic.  Once Zizic gets some experience in the NBA and gets used to the speed, he might begin to look much quicker by positioning himself better.  I'm not predicting this, but I'm not ready to write him off either.  The summer league is awful way to evaluate big guys. 

[Beat LA]

No because zizic agreed to be stashed. Not an option with skal, and  I believe that zubac didn't want to be stashed.

We had to stash because we had 8 draft picks

Or we could have opted to use the picks and not re-sign Zeller and Jerebko, not to mention Gerald Green, for example, but Ainge was all about dat cap space last summer, lol.

[Beat LA]

This reminds me of Al Jefferson early in his career.  Not skill wise, but how slow they look.  Jefferson looked so slow his first couple of seasons that I didn't think he would ever make it in the NBA.  Then during his third season, he began figuring things out and improved dramatically during the course of the season.  He didn't get faster, he just began to understand where he needed to be and what he needed to do.  And suddenly he looked much quicker.  It wasn't physical, it was mental.

The same may be the case with Zizic.  The NBA SL plays much faster than Europe and is very hectic.  Once Zizic gets some experience in the NBA and gets used to the speed, he might begin to look much quicker by positioning himself better.  I'm not predicting this, but I'm not ready to write him off either.  The summer league is awful way to evaluate big guys.

Even in the playoffs during his rookie year when he played really well, at times, iirc, against Jermaine O'Neal?

[IDreamCeltics]

This reminds me of Al Jefferson early in his career.  Not skill wise, but how slow they look.  Jefferson looked so slow his first couple of seasons that I didn't think he would ever make it in the NBA.  Then during his third season, he began figuring things out and improved dramatically during the course of the season.  He didn't get faster, he just began to understand where he needed to be and what he needed to do.  And suddenly he looked much quicker.  It wasn't physical, it was mental.

The same may be the case with Zizic.  The NBA SL plays much faster than Europe and is very hectic.  Once Zizic gets some experience in the NBA and gets used to the speed, he might begin to look much quicker by positioning himself better.  I'm not predicting this, but I'm not ready to write him off either.  The summer league is awful way to evaluate big guys.

Jefferson always always ALWAYS had an NBA postgame... not sure what games you watched, but it was clear from the beginning that he was going to be able to score in the NBA.  I don't think you'll find a single article from that era that discusses Jefferson and doesn't reference his McHale-like post skills.   

[IDreamCeltics]

No because zizic agreed to be stashed. Not an option with skal, and  I believe that zubac didn't want to be stashed.

We had to stash because we had 8 draft picks

This was a common refrain but was always untrue.  We easily could have cut or traded some of the proven bums on the roster to clear a spot (this is not a revolutionary move in the NBA as it's done every year)  people act like clearing 800k -1.5 million in cap space to sign an NBA level talent was an impossibility.  James Young, Jordan Mickey, Tyler Zeller, Demetrius Jackson, Abdel Nader, RJ Hunter, were all guys that had less than 5% chance of contributing in any meaningful way... All could have and should have been moved/cut to make way to fill an actual position of need.