The Bratwurst – Milwaukee Bucks Blog

Yesterday I introduced my new system for ranking NBA Draft prospects and illustrated how it has done over the last several years. I also talked about the top three prospects in this season’s draft. Today I want to move on to the other players who are projected to fill out the top eight.

When I developed my draft rankings, I was pleasantly surprised to see that the top 8-10 prospects consistently were similar to the actual top picks. When looking at the 2002-2007 drafts, there was only one prospect that was actually drafted in the top ten that my rankings completely tossed out of the window, and it turned out to be correct to do so: Adam Morrison.

This track record makes this years’ draft predictions very strange. Of the consensus top eight prospects, my methodology claims that some of these guys are no better than second-round picks. One explanation is that several of these players are very young and may simply have had poor seasons this past year. That is what happened with Thaddeus Young at Georgia Tech , he never got on track, and while he should have been drafted higher than #12, my rankings listed him as the #26 pick. But I don’t think that explains it all. Several years from now, people will be scratching their heads, wondering what happened to some of the top ten picks from this draft.

After the top couple of players, this draft gets tricky. There is the potential for some major busts here , the numbers point to gaping flaws in each of the remaining players. Buyer beware.

Here we go:

Brook Lopez, Stanford (C, 20, 7’0, 260, Ranked #9): Lopez sits pretty high in my rankings, but taking centers with high lottery picks (that aren’t top-2) is very risky. Players like Greg Oden (and even Andrew Bogut) , good enough to go #1 , don’t come by often but almost always become All-Stars. But for every Chris Kaman, there are plenty of centers taken between the 4th and 10th picks that are huge disappointments (Shelden Williams, Rafael Araujo and Patrick O’Bryant, to name a couple from the last six years).

The #1 question about Lopez it isn’t about his game , it’s about his head. Not his intelligence, but rather how much he really cares about basketball. You sort of have to wonder about a guy who at one point simply decided to quit going to class for a while and cost himself one semesters’ eligibility (“I was just being lazy“, he would tell Sports Illustrated).

While a little immaturity and lack of focus can be expected from any 20 year old, to play center in the NBA you have to simply love the game because of the incredible physical toll it will deliver to you (note: Andrew Bogut only missing two games after having surgery to repair a broken nose). Lopez’ flaking out because he was more interested in drawing cartoons with his brother than in studying hard enough to stay eligible for basketball “¦ well “¦ it’s a $50 million question: are you more interested in hoops or Walt Disney?

Physically, Lopez has the tools but I don’t really know how well his game will translate to the NBA. He scored about 20 ppg this season, but did it without shooting a terribly high percentage (47% FG), so if he drops to, say, a 41% shooter he will have become very inefficient. He’s an average rebounder, which projects to being a pretty poor pro rebounder. He did an excellent job as a shot blocker (56) considering he rarely got into foul trouble (66 pf’s in 27 games). His ability to avoid fouls played a large part in propelling him to the upper tier of my rankings.

One problem with judging Lopez is that scouts might mentally combine Brook with his much more energetic (but less talented) twin brother Robin, and hope that they are drafting an Anderson Varejao clone with more scoring ability. But the fact is that taking centers in the mid-lottery is risky business. Despite ranking pretty high, my guess is that Lopez will be a disappointment as well.

Where he will be drafted: Top eight.
Best teams for him: One with a bruising, offensively-challenged power forward. Charlotte.
Worst teams for him: One with a good center or who would count on him to make an immediate impact on both ends of the floor. Milwaukee, Memphis.

Eric Gordon, Indiana (SG, 20, 6’4, 215, Ranked #49): The numbers hate Gordon, but I think he might simply be a player who was stuck in a bad situation and had a pretty poor season as a result. Gordon posted a very poor IPM (0.761), which looks thoroughly pathetic considering that any college player will probably see his numbers drop in the NBA. However, besides playing with a wrist injury, he seemed to me to be stuck in a bad offense. Kelvin Sampson built his game plan around DJ White, and Gordon’s role often seemed to be little more than to catch the ball 30 feet from the basket, check and see if his defender had momentarily wandered off the court, and to then toss it to a teammate. Despite being strong, a good ball handler, and an eye-popping athlete, Gordon never seemed to get the ball inside the three-point line.

Despite that, Gordon still managed to set Indiana’s freshman scoring record, and displayed the single most indispensable asset for today’s NBA: a lightning quick first step.

EJ (his nickname , short for Eric Gordon, Jr) has often been compared to Ben Gordon since, you know, they are about the same size and both named Gordon. However, I think a better comparison is Dwyane Wade or Monta Ellis , a player who can be impossible to keep off of the foul line. Gordon is also an incredibly explosive dunker, and I think he will become a major fourth quarter force for someone, someday. The peak of his career may be kind of short because he will take a constant pounding by going to the basket (just as the miles seem to already be piling up for Wade) but Gordon could have a 3-4 year run as an unstoppable weapon at some point , just give him the ball at the end of the game and let him get layups or head to the foul line all night.

Of course, there is the question of Gordon’s size — I remember when he committed to Illinois as a High School junior he was “6’5″”, and then shrinked an inch or so every season after that. The day that the NBA measures the height of their prospects will be an important one for Gordon, for if he measures closer to 6’2″ than 6’4″, his draft stock will plummet, since he is definitely not a point guard.

Gordon would be better off staying in college for at least one more year (especially since he would be coached by the man that put Wade on the map) but he’s going for the money now. He’s a couple of years away, but I think he’s going to be good.

One subplot with him is that since Kelvin Sampson has joined Scott Skiles’ coaching staff, he will likely be on the Bucks’ radar.

Where he will be drafted: Top ten.
Best team for him: One that can afford to wait for him to blossom and that really needs to sell tickets in Indianapolis. Indiana.
Worst team for him: One that would want him to play point guard. New York.

Danilo Gallinari, Armani Milano (Italy) (20, 6’9, 209, Ranked #52): Ah, yes, another tall, skinny European who is young, thin, can’t rebound and is touted as “the next Toni Kukoc”. You know, that’s what they said about Ersan Ilyasova for a while too.

There’s not too much that can be said about Gallinari’s game because it all sounds like a rehash of what we’ve heard before. Tall kid, still growing, handles it like Magic Johnson, shoots like Nowitzki, etc, etc.

His numbers for Armani Milano are pretty solid. He averaged 17 ppg, 5 rpg and 1.5 apg against 1.6 to’s. However, he only shot 44 percent. He appears to have quick hands, getting 1.7 steals per game, and did a pretty good job of staying out of foul trouble. One major bright spot about him is that despite being so young he was good enough to see 33 minutes per game for a very good Armani team. But it all added up to an IPM of 0.792 , which would be quite good for a 20-year old NBA rookie, but international players usually see their numbers drop once they come to America.

Gallinari played a lot of minutes so five RPG sounds pretty bad, until you consider his age. He is only 19 years old and playing in the top leagues in Europe (The best European teams play in their own country and the multi-country Euroleague), so he has to go up against 28-year old men all the time. It might not be that big a deal that he gets pushed off of the boards so much, since he has to fight with much more mature people for the ball. Besides, he projects as a small forward , if he averages 5 rebounds a game it will be a solid contribution.

The real question about Gallinari, and one that I can’t answer, is: “will he be athletic enough to play small forward and guard the LeBron’s of the world”, because he sure isn’t going to be big enough to play power forward for several years. I’m not the person to make that call.

Where he will be drafted: Top ten.
Best teams for him: A team that can afford to wait for him to grow into his eventual NBA position. Charlotte, Minnesota, Miami.
Worst teams for him: A team looking for an instant starter at small forward. New York, Memphis.

OJ Mayo, USC (SG, 20, 6’5, 200, Ranked #54): About 20 years ago, Sports Illustrated wrote an article listing the most promising players at each grade from High School senior down to sixth grade. While the grade schoolers never panned out, the four high school players were (senior) Marcus Liberty, (junior) Alonzo Mourning, (soph) Penny Hardaway and (freshman) Damon Bailey. Three NBA players (including an all-star and a hall-of-famer) and one big-time college player. The lesson: when a player shows that much potential early in his High School career, there’s a good chance he’s going to make it.

But I’m not so sure about Mayo.

Something about Mayo’s story , from the whole “five high schools in four years” to his deciding to go to USC despite not being recruited by them (I highly recommend you read this article) in order to market himself doesn’t sound right to me. He already has a track record of moving on whenever things get a little tough for him (changing high schools over spats with coaches regarding discipline and his teammates) and of getting by based on his talent and name recognition (he sent some guy to Tim Floyd’s office to tell him that he’d go to USC). Clearly he’s a slick operator who knows how to play “the game” of selling himself and knows how to say and do the right things when it’s best for his image, but is he in it to win games for his team or for himself? Needless to say, I don’t trust the guy. There’s something about his story that screams “bad news”.

And then there’s the fact that his game this past season was nothing special.

His IPM does not stand out (0.773), and his ratios suggest that he is pretty average athletically. He shot 44% and didn’t really stand out in any other statistical category, except for averaging a very respectable 1.5 steals per game.

On the court, I thought I was watching Larry Hughes , constant gambling. He’s definitely not enough of a ball handler to play point guard, but Mayo got a lot of credit for his spectacular dishes. However he forced way too many passes, averaging 3.5 turnovers per game. In OJ Mayo, I saw a guy who isn’t all that instinctive a player, just a really good athlete who seems to decide before each possession starts what he’s going to do , to drive, pull up or try a spectacular pass. It’s sort of like when Sammy Sosa was in his prime , just guess what pitch is coming and swing as hard as you can at it.

Clearly OJ Mayo is a hard guy to figure out, but I think the numbers tell the real truth about him , he’s an average player in a flashy package, and it’s hard to tell if he really wants to work hard enough to become great.

Where he will be drafted: Top eight.
Best teams for him: A major market where the better he plays on the court, the more off-court rewards come to him. New York, Chicago, Miami.
Worst teams for him: A major market where the off-court distractions ruin his focus. New York, Chicago, Miami.

Jerryd Bayless, Arizona (20, 6’3, 199, Ranked #64): Much like Gordon, Jerryd Bayless has two saving graces in his game: a devastating first step, and surprisingly good hops. But I just don’t see that all adding up to a great player in this case.

I can’t stand these “point guards who don’t really play the point” guys. A player like Bayless is clearly too short to play shooting guard at the NBA level and doesn’t have much of a team leader rep, so he’s going to have to be a truly exceptional athlete to make a go of it.

But Bayless’ college numbers suggest that he might not be the athlete he is advertised as. His IPM of 0.773 is pretty poor, and given that Bayless was an exceptional scorer this season shows that his game is very one-dimensional. Under three rebounds per game, only 29 steals, and just three blocks this season makes him seem like a player who doesn’t do much without the ball in his hands.

The track record of these sort of “big, scoring point guards” is really poor. Reece Gaines or Marcus Banks, anyone? How about Acie Law? Unless they can become a game-controlling point guard like Chauncey Billups then it’s usually a short stay in the league for them, but it took Billups four teams and six years to figure it out.

Most mock drafts I have seen show Bayless as the #3 pick, and I’m sure there is something about him that I am missing , but I know that there are plenty of players I would take before him.

One thing that is interesting is that Bayless’ numbers were almost identical to Ramon Sessions’ final season at Nevada: an IPM of about 0.78, 29 steals, about 45.5% shooting. Sessions got a few more assists and turned it over a little less (30 more assists and 4 fewer TO’s in 4 more games) than Bayless. Sessions was a fantastic pick but I wouldn’t use a top 10 pick on him, and certainly not on someone similar who was a little worse in college.

Where he will be drafted: Top ten.
Best teams for him: A team that needs backcourt scoring and has a big backcourt defender to pair him with. Charlotte, Sacramento, LA Clippers.
Worst teams for him: A team with an established, undersized backcourt or scorers already in place. Chicago, Seattle, New York.

And now I would like to present my list of the top 86 prospects for this season’s NBA Draft – with one name edited out. My supersleeper, the number three prospect, has been cut out, to be revealed tomorrow.