@saleem, brother his height is 6' 1.75" barefoot and around 6'3" in shoes and he has a freaking 42" vert. FVV is likely under 6' and only dreamt of a 42" vert in his younger days. The question for most of these guys is how well they'll be able to defend against bigger, stronger, faster and quicker players than who've they played against. With that said Sheppard does not have lateral quickness or the ability to move like Castle on defense, but he does have elite ball awareness and anticipation to offset some of his lateral limitations. Guys like FVV and Shep contribute to defense in ways that a good scheme and supporting cast can help incorporate and minimize their weaknesses. No young players are perfect coming into the league and they all have things they have to work on. Heck, generational talent Wemby got abused by slow, short Sengun for 46 pts! I usually share your perspective, but I believe sometimes we all nitpick these guys way to hard.
Nobody said there was. That has nothing to do with keeping certain guys on a pedestal that they can't be knocked off of, regardless of how others outshoot them. We need our best 3 PT shooters taking more of the shots, and we need more proficient 3 PT shooters on our team. This crap isn't working in our favor when we rank in the bottom tier of the league. Nobody stands a chance at going far in the playoffs without good shooters.
Sheppard in the lane agility 10.96 Castle in the lane agility 10.93 Sheppard faster in 3/4 sprint Castle faster in the shuttle. By a similar margin. Sheppard a better leaper. They’re similar athletes in all directions. Castle has the edge in length.
Thanks for sharing. The limited defensive tape I've watched on both led me to seeing Castle as a better positional defender because of how he moves his feet laterally. Castle has more of that shutdown, "you ain't getting around me" kind of mindset, while Sheppard is looking for an opportunity to take the ball from the player, which tends to make him gamble on how he positions himself. I know they're too different guys, but I think with more discipline Shep can do a better job of staying in front of his man than maybe he did in college. The article where his coach talked about him doing a better job of assessing when to gamble and when not too is probably an area for improvement that FVV and Ime can help young Shep work on.
Reed defensively puzzles me, he gives a lot of space and looks beat often but his quick hands make up for it. I think he’ll struggle in the NBA with bigger guards and I’m not sure he can keep up with the more athletic ones but if he can stay in front of them he’s got a good chance of stealing it. I like his help defense and his willingness to mix it up in the paint. His passing skills are much better than most give him credit for, great vision to know who’s open although he’s not really a play maker. If he were 2 inches taller he would be a lock at #3. So his size is questionable but he will have a solid NBA career if his 3pt shooting holds up. I think he’ll be a great addition off our bench but would he be more valuable than someone like Clingan who can provide size? It comes down to what’s more important for the team, interior defense or outside shooting. Our defense was impressive last year but we did struggle with size in the paint. And our 3pt shooting left just as much to be desired. Either way, as someone mentioned we can’t expect this 3rd pick to be an all star or even a starter anytime soon. I see it as we are getting either a Walker Kessler or Austin Reeves type player off the bench. I’d be happy with either as it gets us one step closer.
That’s a list while drills were in progress. Not a final standings. Bronny hit 19-25, for instance. someone just posted that to show how well Castle did, bc that’s his main weakness, and failed to say it wasn’t a final list. Reed hits 15-19 here, and we don’t see his first 6 shots. (fwiw: I tried to find the final standings, but can’t find it.)
Pretty sure they have the results via the combine shooting results data (though the drill names are different): https://www.nba.com/stats/draft/combine-non-stationary?SeasonYear=2024-25 There's a spot up one too. IIRC Reed didn't do crazy well, but well enough. But I also think the results are next to worthless.
This is where the scouting and private drills matter. Others have noted that Bronny’s release was slow - if it’s not going to be doable in a game scenario, what’s the point? I recall a story of a drill Memphis did where players would have to explode from a standing position and dunk as many reps in a row as possible. It was meant to test explosiveness - Battier set a new record for them. Was Battier an explosive athlete? No, but he knew how to manage his energy exceptionally well. I’m really curious if anyone can think of an example of a player who showed marked improvement in 3P (or even FT) shooting between their last year of college and NBA rookie season. Improvements can happen, but it’s usually not the type of thing that happens between the end of college and the draft.
I saw that. But did not see Shooting Stars drill. I guess the “College Spot Up” is the results that match the gif of the mid-results standings says reed shot 60%, which means he missed all 6 of the shots not shown in the Givony tweet. some ppl did say Reed was shooting faster (game speed) while few others were. ie there isn’t a drill clock like there is for the ASG 3-pt shooting contest
Your close in how I see them. Castle is a dawg, but also a very smart defensive player. Shep is a disruptor, a momentum changer with his defensive style. Yes, some of his gambles miss and that's what Coach Calipari was saying in that article that he has to know when it's ok to gamble and when its not. That's certainly teachable.
Grain of salt I guess, but he's kinda annoying me if he's pushing to be a PG this much (even if I ideally see him as a PG). I forgot if I said this already, but I watched a bit of him recently. Maybe it was a bad set of random footage, but I wasn't that impressed, especially when evaluating him as a PG. There's possibly something there, but I don't think he'd be ready right away for it. Amen seemed much further along with that skillset, and we know how that went. Of course I'm a terrible evaluator, so what do I know. Edit: Beaten! But yeah
Oh ****, you're right. His draft comps are Divincenzo and Jimmer Fredette. Shame, I would've preferred somebody as good as JJ tbh, his comps are more "scrub tier" than that though I guess.
Spurs at 4 and 8 is going to be interesting as an in division opponent. Spurs development adding two top prospects, even from a lesser draft is a headache for us for sure. I wonder if there's someone at 3 they covet enough to give up both picks? I'd do that just to throw their plans off. Like Tate+3 for 4 and 8? We would be to the gills with youth if we took both but maybe we select at 4 and trade out of 8 for future picks? Or maybe they're just content to take BPA twice in the top ten and roll with whoever they get? They could get freaking Castle and Clingan that would be not good for us. Castle - Vassell - Sochan - Wembanyama - Clingan
Lazy comps are lazy comps. Just say you don’t watch ball and move on. Specially if you think Divincenzo is a scrub. Keep up your stupid takes. Standard from foreigners
