Not a good year for PFs. The best I can say about this group is there are a lot of players out there who are good candidates to become inside energy players in the NBA. For that reason it should be interesting seeing what happens in round two and where some of the UFAs end up. Here are the numbers:
|
PF Prospects |
2PP |
3PP |
P40 |
R40 |
S40 |
B40 |
A/TO |
| Clint Capela |
656 |
0 |
15.3 |
13.2 |
1.4 |
2.7 |
0.7 |
| Noah Vonleh |
530 |
485 |
16.7 |
13.3 |
1.3 |
2.0 |
0.3 |
| Adreian Payne |
536 |
423 |
23.9 |
10.6 |
0.7 |
1.3 |
0.7 |
| Jarnell Stokes |
531 |
0 |
18.8 |
13.2 |
0.9 |
1.2 |
1.0 |
| Julius Randle |
516 |
167 |
18.7 |
13.0 |
0.6 |
1.0 |
0.6 |
| Khem Birch |
510 |
0 |
14.6 |
12.9 |
0.8 |
4.7 |
0.9 |
| Eric Moreland |
508 |
333 |
11.9 |
13.7 |
0.9 |
2.6 |
0.6 |
| Javon McCrea |
561 |
0 |
22.7 |
12.1 |
1.9 |
2.7 |
0.9 |
| Justin Jackson |
532 |
0 |
16.2 |
10.6 |
2.4 |
4.2 |
0.9 |
| Halil Kanacevic |
577 |
360 |
13.6 |
11.0 |
0.9 |
1.9 |
1.5 |
| Patric Young |
541 |
0 |
17.1 |
9.6 |
1.0 |
1.6 |
0.6 |
| Mike Moser |
514 |
378 |
18.2 |
10.6 |
1.6 |
1.0 |
0.9 |
| Cory Jefferson |
515 |
368 |
18.6 |
11.2 |
0.5 |
1.8 |
0.7 |
| Richard Solomon |
543 |
0 |
15.2 |
14.2 |
1.8 |
1.5 |
0.9 |
| Daniel Coursey |
571 |
0 |
17.1 |
10.8 |
0.6 |
3.5 |
1.6 |
| Shawn Jones |
579 |
0 |
19.9 |
11.9 |
1.3 |
2.7 |
0.4 |
| Brendan Lane |
564 |
370 |
18.0 |
10.1 |
0.6 |
3.4 |
0.7 |
| Tyler Stone |
614 |
338 |
22.3 |
11.0 |
1.1 |
1.8 |
1.4 |
Players are listed in order of how I would draft them all other things being equal.
1. Clint Capela, Chalon: When looking at prospects I always try to think upside over all else. I believe Capela has more of it than any PF available this year. He’s raw, but his numbers are pretty impressive. Playing over 800 minutes between French and Eurocup games he hit over 65% of his 2-pointers with strong rebounding and defensive numbers. He’s 6’11 with a 7’3” wingspan. He seems to have a ton of upside and I feel he has a better chance at NBA success than any other PF prospect available this year.
3. Adreian Payne, Michigan State: Payne is a big, multi-skilled PF. Like Vonleh he flashed some 3-point skill this past year and his stock has been boosted because of it. At Michigan State he had a slow rise to the top, emerging as one of the team leaders in this his senior year. Here’s a look at his career.
|
Adreian Payne |
Min |
2PP |
3PP |
P40 |
R40 |
S40 |
B40 |
A/TO |
| Freshman |
306 |
493 |
0 |
11.1 |
10.2 |
1.4 |
3.6 |
0.3 |
| Sophomore |
661 |
567 |
500 |
15.8 |
9.6 |
1.5 |
2.4 |
0.3 |
| Junior |
923 |
582 |
381 |
16.7 |
12.0 |
1.2 |
2.0 |
0.4 |
| Senior (pre-injury) |
432 |
551 |
439 |
23.0 |
11.0 |
0.9 |
1.4 |
0.7 |
| Senior (post-injury) |
438 |
520 |
413 |
24.8 |
10.2 |
0.5 |
1.2 |
0.5 |
With a player like Payne, who comes up short on some benchmarks as a senior, I like to look back on his entire career to see if he had previously reached these numbers. With Payne there is evidence that he has a nice, well-rounded game. He posted good defensive numbers his first two seasons, though it happened while playing lower minutes. He hit a 2PP as high as .582. As a rebounder he has been solid the last couple of seasons.
Payne looks like a decent prospect to me. He has a diverse offensive game, even if he comes up a little short as an inside scorer. The rebounding is solid and his defense has been better than the weak numbers he posted this year. He has never been much of a passer and that can be a negative for a player like this. Despite the negative I see Payne as a useful NBA player who should have a decent career.
4. Jarnell Stokes, Tennessee: An important thing to know about Stokes is going by age he’s a sophomore, still just 20. He enrolled in Tennessee for the winter term in 2012 after graduating high school early. I take this in itself as a good sign. It shows some initiative. Being only 20 gives him more upside points than a typical junior.
Stokes is basically a rebounder. He has posted strong rebounding numbers his first 3 seasons, but has come up short on scoring and defense. As the piece I did on Vonleh and Randle shows, being a great rebounder more often than not hasn’t been enough for a player to make much of a career. In that way Stokes is in the same boat as Vonleh and Randle. He’s a young player with some potential, but he has to prove he’s more than just a great rebounder.
5. Julius Randle, Kentucky: While I don’t think much of Randle as a prospect overall, there is something to be said for upside. He’s a freshman so there is a lot of room for improvement.
6. Khem Birch, UNLV: Birch is a young guy who has been a good rebounder and a great shot blocker in his 2+ years of college ball. He doesn’t look to score that often and hasn’t been very effective when he does, but he did hit .571 and .563 on 2-pointers his first couple of seasons. His efficiency dropped when his attempts increased this year. In addition to having a weak offensive game, Birch weighed in at just 209 at the combine, so he’ll need to add bulk.
Birch left Pitt for UNLV in something of a huff, ripping his Pitt teammates publicly in the process. Not a good sign, but it could have been a case of an immature young man venting to the wrong person at the wrong time. His 2 years at UNLV have been incident-free.
Birch is an active inside player who has a lot of upside. He came out of high school as a top 10 prospect and has righted himself after a rough start. The negatives are there with Birch, but so is the upside. He has enough that an early 2nd-round look seems about right.
7. Eric Moreland, Oregon State: Moreland is one of those players with promising numbers who just never put it together. This year should have been a good one, but he missed the first half of the season due to a suspension and didn’t really get things going until late in the year. Here are his career numbers:
|
Eric Moreland |
2PP |
P40 |
R40 |
S40 |
B40 |
A/TO |
| Freshman |
521 |
9.1 |
11.8 |
1.4 |
3.4 |
0.9 |
| Sophomore |
604 |
11.7 |
13.4 |
1.2 |
3.2 |
0.7 |
| Junior |
508 |
11.9 |
13.7 |
0.9 |
2.6 |
0.6 |
He’s not much of a scorer, but he did have that .604 as a soph. His rebounding has been consistently excellent. His defensive numbers were also stellar until 2014. They were starting to trend up following a slow start once he returned for an abbreviated 2014 season. He has a 7’3” wingspan and has hit 8-of-24 on 3-pointers during his college career so there’s some stretch 4 potential.
Moreland has a lot of good numbers. I’m surprised there isn’t more love for him in the mocks. I think he’s well worth an early 2nd round pick. His college career didn’t go as well as it could have, but few PFs have flashed as much potential as he has.
8. Javon McCrea, Buffalo: In a weak year for PFs and big guys in general, McCrea is the type of sleeper pick who could make an immediate impact. With small college PFs, the gold standard for the past several seasons has been Paul Millsap and Kenneth Faried. Both players were drafted after relatively anonymous 4-year careers at smaller colleges. Both have outplayed their draft position to become solid NBA rotation players. Both are examples of players whose statistics should have been taken much more seriously at the time they were drafted.
|
Senior PF Prospects |
2PP |
P40 |
R40 |
S40 |
B40 |
A/TO |
| Paul Millsap |
578 |
19.6 |
13.3 |
1.9 |
2.3 |
0.4 |
| Kenneth Faried |
613 |
20.0 |
17.0 |
2.3 |
2.8 |
0.3 |
| Javon McCrea |
561 |
22.7 |
12.1 |
1.9 |
2.7 |
0.9 |
McCrea isn’t quite at the level of the other two. Faried posted some monster numbers. In addition to stellar PF stats, Millsap flashed some outside shooting ability in college that has progressed in the NBA making him a more valuable player. It would be unrealistic to expect McCrea to have a similar impact. But it it isn’t out of the question either. McCrea hits all the right benchmarks and has for all 4 college seasons.
McCrea is young for a senior, just 21, so he has a small upside advantage on the average senior. He’s also taller than I previously had him. According to Draftexpress he was measured at 6’8” in shoes and has a 7’3” wingspan. That’s a big deal, because that’s NBA PF size to go with his NBA PF numbers with extremely long arms thrown in as a nice bonus. In the 3 seasons I’ve been following him it was under the assumption he was 6’6”.
Javon McCrea is definitely a player worth a look. He has posted solid numbers for 4 college seasons, is young and has NBA size. Because the weakest part of his game is offense, he projects to an inside energy player in the Faried-mold. His high end would be another Kevin Faried. And I guess his low end would be a poor man’s Kevin Faried.
9. Justin Jackson, Cincinnati: Jackson got starter minutes for the first time in his career in 2014 and responded with a solid season. He cut down a high foul rate that probably had a lot do with the limited minutes his first 3 seasons. His defensive numbers were better than those of any other PF prospect. These are numbers he has posted consistently during his college career even in his foul-prone underclassman seasons, so defensively he looks like the real deal. That’s the good news.
The rest isn’t so good. Jackson has always been weak offensively and just adequate as a rebounder. He’s also older, turning 24 in October. But the defense is very impressive and that makes him another candidate to develop into a useful energy player.
10. Halil Kanacevic, St Joseph’s: This is an interesting prospect. Kanacevic was a fairly anonymous 5th-year senior who finished at a pace blistering enough to put himself on the map as a prospect. It looks like he went straight to Europe rather than going through the pre-draft process, as he’s playing for Roma in Italy now. His senior numbers are very similar to Royce White’s only college season:
|
Prospect |
2PP |
3PP |
P40 |
R40 |
A40 |
SB40 |
A/TO |
| Royce White |
534 |
333 |
16.7 |
11.6 |
6.2 |
2.7 |
1.3 |
| Halil Kanacevic |
577 |
340 |
13.3 |
11.0 |
5.4 |
2.7 |
1.3 |
White was 21 playing his only season of college ball. Kanacevic, a year older at 22, posted his numbers following three years of similar numbers other than the 2PP which was much less efficient, always around .480. The two players have similar size, around 6’8” 260. Of course Royce White remains something of an unknown. He may yet become the special and unique NBA player some thought he would be, but he’s nowhere near that point right now. But any team that was intrigued by White and might want him minus the drama should give Kanacevic a look.
11. Patric Young, Florida: Young has been on everyone’s radar for 4 seasons now, but he has never posted numbers that would make me think he could have much of an impact in the NBA. He has never hit double figures in R40, though he was at 9.8 once and 9.9 twice. He topped 3.0 SB40 twice, 3.2 as a freshman and 4.0 as a junior. His P40 topped out at 17.1 this year, which is low for a prospect. He hasn’t attempted a 3-pointer in his college career. His yearly 2PPs were from freshman to senior years: .556, .618, .586, and .541.
He’s a nice college player. As a prospect he comes up short, but not so much that I would dismiss his chances. He’s exceeded some benchmarks and has been close on others during his career. He is listed as a center in some places, but I have him as a PF, because he rates higher as a prospect. Like a lot of the marginal PFs this year his stats suggest his high end is an energy player.
12. Mike Moser, Oregon: Moser is a 5th-year senior who has been at 3 different stops, UCLA, UNLV and Oregon. A transfer has historically been a negative thing for a prospect and Moser has 2 of them. He was looking like a potential star after his first season getting significant PT at UNLV in 2012, but he never got back to that point.
I like Moser based on his 2012 season when he was one of the nation’s leading rebounders and posted a impressive 6.4 ASB40. He was injured to start the 2013 season and never got back to where he was. This past year he flashed some of the 2012 promise, but still came up a little short. He is a versatile player who can play either forward position and does a lot of things well. That would make him worth a look.
13. Cory Jefferson, Baylor: Jefferson regressed this season, after a promising junior year in 2013, his first as a full-time rotation player. He’s worth a mention, because last year he hit .620 on 2-pointers with solid defensive and rebounding numbers as a junior. He can drill the 3-pointer better than most PFs and that adds to his value.
Richard Solomon, California; Daniel Coursey Mercer; Shawn Jones Middle Tennesee State: 3 seniors who stepped up their games enough to be considered inside energy prospects. It is a deep year for such players and none of these guys is on the level of Birch, McCrea and Moreland, but any one of them could stick if things fall right for them.
Brendan Lane, Pepperdine and Tyler Stone, SE Missouri State: A pair of 5th-year seniors who are decent stretch 4 prospects. Both have had up-and-down careers, but showed enough this year that they’re worth a look.