I’m going to take a quick break from the forwards here to look at a couple of young big guys. These are a couple of freshmen centers whose most impressive skill is blocking shots. While Orton has been a good shot blocker, Whiteside has swatted away shots at a historic rate. I’ll look at each separately below, but first here’s a table showing the best freshmen shot blockers. I included players from major conferences who played over 500 minutes as freshmen only. The cutoff was 4.0 blocks per … [Read more...] about NBA Draft 2010: Daniel Orton and Hassan Whiteside

The SF class of 2010 is a deep group, but doesn’t have much in the way of potential star power. There are several players who I feel would make a good late first, or second round draft pick, but few who look like lottery picks. The plight of these players is further complicated by the fact that there is a strong group of combo forwards also in the competition to catch the eye of scouts. So we have several SFs who have the potential to forge decent NBA careers, but few, if any stars or … [Read more...] about NBA Draft 2010: Small Forwards Part 2

I’m not sure it would be accurate to call these guys wing players, because some actually played more inside. The thing they have in common is they’ll probably need to show they can play some SG, because they’re short or slight for a SF. Or because doing so would enhance their value. Player AFG P40 R40 A/TO ASB40 Marqus Blakely .543 20.0 10.8 1.1 9.3 Landry Fields .519 24.5 9.7 1.1 5.7 Paul … [Read more...] about NBA Draft 2010: Small Forwards

This is the last of the SGs. Well start to move into the frontcourt next, before getting to the Walls, Turners and Favors of the draft. Things get better after this, because the strength of this draft is in the forwards and big guys this year. Henry and White are basically two players who didn’t fit with the other group of SGs, so they get lumped together. They do have similarities too. Both are young and have flashed some good potential. Neither has scored frequently enough over an entire … [Read more...] about NBA Draft 2010: SGs: Part 3 Xavier Henry and Terrico White

Unlike the last group of SGs, this bunch has no illusions of playing PG even on a part-time basis. These three players like to fire away and all scored in bunches this past year. In general I’ve been down on SGs as draft picks lately. My opinion is there are usually good ones available for a fairly reasonable price, which lowers the value of SGs as a group and should limit what any team should be paying for their SG. Look at how cheaply Milwaukee was able to get John Salmons and the … [Read more...] about NBA Draft 2010: Scoring Shooting Guards

These players are clearly SGs, as opposed to the last group of guards I looked at who were a little hard to define. The thing to know about this group is that while scoring is their main function, they’re also able to pass and have even shown some potential to run an offense. I’ll look at them as SGs though, so here’s a quick recap on what I look for in SG prospects: Scoring over 20.0 P40 and the higher the better. This is one benchmark that seems to be non-negotiable for prospects if … [Read more...] about NBA Draft 2010: Shooting Guards: Part 1, The Passers