The Bratwurst - Milwaukee Bucks Blog

Yesterday I talked about the five top prospects who are likely to fall short, and today I bring to you the sleeper of this years’ NBA draft. The player who despite having a pedigree as a McDonalds All-American and highly-sought after recruit, three years of solid production at a big-time school and an NBA body, has been so ignored by the powers-that-be that he hasn’t even hired an agent and may return to school for his senior season.

He’s listed as my #3 prospect, and he’s my #1 candidate for this years “Steal of the Draft�.

First, a game of “Name the Power Forward�:

Player A is listed at 6’9, 258 and attended an ACC school. In his final college season he had an IPM of 1.084, shot 66% from the floor, averaged 0.305 rebounds per minute and had a combined total of 52 steals and blocks. He has become a 2-time NBA All-Star.

Player B is listed at 6’9, 240 and attended a high mid-major college. In his final college season he had an IPM of 1.107, shot 51% from the floor, averaged 0.324 rebounds per minute and had a combined total of 94 steals and blocks. He made his first All-Star team in the 2007-08 season.

Player C is listed at 6’10, 245 and attended an SEC school. In his final college season he had an IPM of 1.068, shot 61% from the floor, averaged 0.341 rebounds per minute and had a combined total of 98 steals and blocks. He was a high first-round pick and was a key contributor to his teams’ surprising push to the seventh game of their playoff series this year.

Player D is listed at 6’9, 255 and attends an SEC school. In his final college season he had an IPM of 1.147, shot 60% from the floor, averaged 0.330 rebounds per minute and had a combined total of 104 steals and blocks. He is projected by many as a second round pick.

Player A is Carlos Boozer.

Player B is David West.

Player C, clearly, is Al Horford.

But Player D has statistics that stack up well against these three top-tier players and yet is seemingly unknown around the NBA, seeing as I have yet to see him seriously mentioned as even a mid-first round pick. This guy will be the steal of the draft, and his name is:

Richard Hendrix, Alabama (22, 6’9, 255, Ranked #3): Hendrix did it all for a pretty average Alabama team this season, leading them in points, rebounds and blocks; was third in steals and fourth in assists, and was their only player to shoot over 50% from the floor for the season. However, Alabama lost their point guard, Ronald Steele, to an injury before the season and failed to qualify for the NCAA or NIT tournament, so Hendrix didn’t have a chance to display his skills to the wider tournament audience.

However, Hendrix wasn’t always an unknown. He was a McDonalds All-American out of High School and was a hyped recruit to Alabama in 2005. According to RSCIhoops.com, he ranked as the #7 high school player in the nation that season, and five of the six ahead of him are currently in the NBA (the other being Tyler Hansbrough). As I talked about in my OJ Mayo article, when players show big time talent at a young age, there is a good chance that they turn out pretty good.

In three years at Alabama, Hendrix didn’t burst onto the scene as some might have expected given his status as such a touted recruit, but he steadily improved, from a 0.76 IPM his freshman year to 0.993 his sophomore year to this seasons’ massive 1.147. He shows a very impressive rebounding skill (6th best rate among prospects this season), is able to take care of the ball impressively well for a big man who was the focus of his teams’ offense (51 assists vs. 55 turnovers this year), and does a good job of being active while staying out of foul trouble (averaging under 3 fouls per game, and getting 41 steals and 63 blocks against 94 fouls). There is no doubt that Hendrix is an NBA-caliber athlete, and the fact that he was such a high recruit and improved each year at Alabama suggests that his superior Junior season was not a fluke. In fact, I ran Hendrix’s statistics from his first two seasons, and despite supposedly being an underachiever, he would have been the #17 draft prospect in 2006 and #13 in 2007. So it’s not like he just burst onto the scene out of nowhere.

He is also apparently a pretty smart guy, on track to graduate from Alabama this summer after three years in school.

There are some knocks on Hendrix. First is his free throw shooting (53.7% this season) which declined from 63% his first two years, and that is a concern. The other question about him is his size and quickness – he may actually measure closer to 6’7 than 6’9, and some say that he might not have the most footspeed in the world. Well, being called “undersized� hasn’t seemed to stop Boozer, West or Paul Milsap. I think that nitpicking about a players’ footspeed is a little silly unless he is clearly so overweight he can barely get up and down the floor. It’s not like he has to sprint end to end constantly. It’s just as dumb as making a big deal out of the 40 yard dash time of an offensive lineman. The guy was quick enough to get into position for 2 blocks a game – what more do you want?

One other thing that I like about Hendrix is that he comes from Alabama, the home of the surprisingly good NBA player. In the last 20 years the Tide has seen several unheralded players go on to solid NBA careers, including Antonio McDyess (who was the #2 pick but was unknown before the NCAA Tournament his sophomore year), Latrell Sprewell, Robert Horry (I still remember the NBA Draft commentators saying; “Why would Houston take Horry when a talent like Harold Miner is still available?�), Gerald Wallace and, oh yes, Mo Williams. Even Jason Caffey stuck around in the NBA for 10 years.

I just can’t understand why he is flying under the radar so much: he put up great numbers, has a track record of improvement (so it’s not like he had a fluke season), carried a weakened team on his back in a tough conference to a .500 record, and apparently doesn’t have any character questions. If you are an NBA GM who wants a power forward who can grab loose balls, bang around in the paint, and shoot well enough to keep defenses honest, why would you look any further?

According to ESPN.com’s Chad Ford, GMs’ are a little more worried about Hendrix’s size than I am, and don’t seem to trust the quality of his numbers this season:

“Despite Hendrix’s NBA body, athleticism and excellent numbers in the SEC this season, scouts aren’t totally sold on him. They believe he is undersized for his position and needs polish on the offensive end. Still, Hendrix is smart to test the waters. He’s a junior and he can give teams a free look. If he impresses, he could go anywhere from the late teens to mid 20s. If he doesn’t impress, he can return to Alabama for his senior season.â€?

It kind of perplexes me how a player can have an “NBA body� in one sentence and be “undersized� in the next. I also wonder just how raw someone’s offensive game could possibly be if he led his team in scoring and shot 60%.

Since Hendrix is about to graduate early it seems interesting to me that he hasn’t hired an agent. Maybe he knows something about himself – such as that he may be shorter than advertised – that isn’t readily apparent. If he’s serious about turning himself into a high first round pick then he should hire an agent, who can then pay for his training to tune him into someone who will impress teams with his workout ability. But then again, maybe he is a little naïve about the process, maybe he honestly wants to stay in school if he’s not promised a high pick, or he just wants to let his work on the court speak for itself.

It seems to me that the real reason that scouts and GM’s have overlooked Hendrix is that the power forward position is very deep this year and Hendrix doesn’t have the “oomph� that other prospects have. Tossing aside Michael Beasley and Kevin Love, there are other guys available that offer more “uniqueness�. If you want a raw player who might be a Chris Bosh clone, go for Anthony Randolph. If you want a guy from a program with a winning pedigree that has put a ton of guys in the league over the last couple of years, go for Marreese Speights. If you want a workmanlike player who has been solid in a bruising conference then take DJ White.

But as for me, I want the best player.

If I was running the Bucks’ draft room – and did not move into the top three in the lottery – I would try to trade Villanueva and move down in the draft to get Hendrix. At the very least he should be a bruising, quality player who could come in the game and offer a nice change-of-pace to the finesse skills of Yi. In the best case scenario, he could become a dominant power player who scores at a high rate, pairs with Bogut to become one of the best rebounding frontcourts in the league, and also has the athleticism to do a little of everything else. Either way, it’s highly likely that he will a least be a good player.

Now that I have revealed the steal of the draft, here is the completed list of all of the prospects for this seasons’ NBA Draft. Over the course of the next few days I will offer a few comments about some of the other players who might go in the top 20 (funny how it’s nothing but power forwards and point guards this season, isn’t it?) and then a bit about the players who didn’t put their names into this years’ draft.

And then after the lottery on May 20, we can start thinking about projecting the draft.