I see a lot of high expectations for Nachbar and I wanted to explore “next year’s draft pick”. First off I have never seen him play, so everything here is conjecture, retreads and hope. In light of that I have three things from which I drew research; draft history, the 2002-03 season, and press notes/comments. Draft History Boki was taken in the 15th slot. I use draftnet.com, which I think is a well done site. I looked at the 14th, 15th and 16th picks for the last 12 years for comparison. Below is the chart. FYI, Draft.net prediction was for Boki to go 14th so presumably he was drafted about the right spot. 14th pick 15th pick 16th pick 2002 Fredrich Jones Bostjan Nachbar Jiri Welsch 2001 Troy Murphy Stephen Hunter Kirk Haston 2000 Marteen Cleaves Jason Collier Hidayet Turkoglu 1999 William Averey Fredric Weis Ron Artest 1998 Michael Dickerson Matt Harpring Bryce Drew 1997 Maurice Taylor Kelvin Cato Brevin Knight 1996 Predrag Stojakovic Steve Nash Troy Delk 1995 Eric Williams Brent Barry Alan Henderson 1994 Yinka Dare Eric Piatowski Cliff Rozier 1993 Scott Haskin Doug Edwards Rex Walters 1992 Malik Sealy Anthony Peeler Randy Woods 1991 Rich King Anthony Avent Chris Gattling 1990 Travis Mays Dave Jamerson Terry Mills Several things jump out at me. Unfortunately the first is that I don’t know who most of these players are. I have to see that as a bad sign. Second is that I wish last year was 1996 all over again. The third thing I see is that several of the better players did not start right off as stars. Most took several years to develop. Out of 39 players, I only see two, Nash and Stojakovic (OK maybe Artest upon re reading this) that would make a dramatic difference to our team. That is about a 5% (9%) chance that Boki, or anybody drafted around number 14 turns into an all star caliber player. Murphy, Turkoglu, Artest, Dickerson, Harpring, Taylor, Cato, Knight, Delk, Barry, Piatowski, and Peeler would find a place on our team. That is about a 30% chance. If you include careers hampered by injuries that list gets smaller. You can argue the exactness of these lists and percents, but I read about a two out of three chance that any number 14 pick will be remembered as “who”?. Not to be a pessimist, but even if Boki is in the successful third, it could take several years for it to show. Nash and Artest, two of the better players on the list were traded because their talent was not immediately apparent. 2002-2003 Season Second thing I can research (read into) is his performance last year. Bottom line is he got no playing time. That is not good. A lot of people bring up Rudy not playing rookies. This has been refuted in many previous posts, but the punch line is Yao, Francis, Mobley, Dickerson all recently received significant PT as rookies. Maybe the whole groin thing conveniently moved Boki to the back burner in a crowed situation. But my take is if he had a better than average game, he would have been on the floor. The few times he did get garbage minutes, I though he looked very poor. According to NBA.com he had .90 fouls and .43 turnovers in 5.5 minute per game played. That means he would foul out of the game about the middle of the first quarter. Those two stats hint to me that the NBA game is just to fast for him. First off welcome to being a rookie. Second I suspect most people start off that way, and I expect him to get better. But, it also explains why he was glued to the bench. He is not ready for the big time game at this point. What I have heard or read Third thing I can research is (sorry no links or photos, so please feel free to chime in) is what people are saying about him and various press (mostly pre draft) clippings. First off most people assume he is a great shooter, I guess because he is European, and will solve our three point shooter needs. Everything I read and heard from the Rockets was that he was a good finisher, not an outside shooter. I kept reading that he exploded toward the basket and such. He may well turn into an offensive force (oh please, oh please) but I suspect his game is more like Posey’s than Rice. Yes we all hear about how he shot 39 out of 40 three pointers in practice or try outs or something, but I think this is true of most professional players. A wild guess says Karl Malone once made 30 consecutive threes in a game of horse. Though he has range and is a great offensive player (after all – who is more offensive than Karl Malone), he is not by any stretch a three point specialist. I suspect Boki’s three point game will be similar to that of Posey or Terence Morris. Can make the three, can get hot, but if our playoff hopes live and die on his threes, we are in trouble. This whole section is conjecture and interpretation on my part. If anybody has factual knowledge on Boki’s game, I would love to here it. Summation I hope, I hope, I hope. But my research, if that is the right word, has lowered my expectations for Nachbar next year. If he just contributes I will be happy. A solid rotation player by the end of the year would exceed all my expectations. I’d like to hear what you think.
That's a damn fine post, Pat. I don't know what to expect from Nachbar, based on this season, but I'll own up to being one of those who had very high hopes of him making a significant contribution. Looking at your post, I'll cross my fingers and see what happens next year. Right now, I have no expectations for him at all. I hope he surprises us.
Yes, but how many of them got near zero playing time at age 21? You know, I can't think of any *drafted/signed* 21yr olds who got zero PT and amounted to anything later. Now, when you narrow that down to 6'9" "shooters," the list gets even smaller. If you are going to show a historical list, seems like you have to start by naming all 21yrs old mid-rounds who didn't play their first year. I'm willing to bet over 95% of them are busts. Sorry if that lowered your expectations even more, Pat.
Why does having less than 1 foul every 5.5 minutes equate to fouling out in the middle of the 1st quarter? Using those stats it would take more than 33 minutes for him to foul out.
I think the rockets staff just hyped him up so they don't look like idiots for drafting him. But in the end, they look like idiots for not playing someone who's supposed to have "serious game". Either way, they're idiots. How ironic?
What I expect out of Nachbar next year... To at least play more than Dan Langhi played his first year as a Rocket.
WELL....I hope he gets to play! I hope he doesn't suck. He can shoot 3's. He had a contest against...I think Mobley and Rice and Moochie or somebody. And he won like 4 times! Hmm... Oh well. I hope he's good.
So far Boki has played a grand total of 77 NBA minutes. Stats extropolation is meanlingless at this point. I'll wait until he played at least 500 minutes before assessing him.
I expect Nachbar will be our starting bench warmer. He will lead the league with 8.9 SWPG (Seats Warmed) at an average temperature of 115 degrees. Nachbar will learn special butt temperature techniques in the offseason so he can keep them even toasty than last year.
Who the hell knows what to expect from Boki next year... I hope he can make some contribution next year, but he'll definitely get more pt than he got this year. But the fact that he got virtually no pt at all this season scares me......
Great post Pat! Sadly I agree with all of it. Usually at that point in the draft it's already hit or miss, with us getting our share of misses for sure. Boki could still turn out to be something but honestly, I think we need to keep our expectations realistic.
I don't have much hope given the odds, but let's hope for the best. Damn are we going to remain forever the only team with only Euro busts? He looked too slow to me in the limited time I saw him, but again I hope I,m wrong.
