For the Leonard haters - Hollinger and his Draft Rater.

[Smills91]

Ford may be a numbers junkie, but not in Fredette's case. He's a big Fredette supporter. Of course he teaches a class at BYU, so he has up close and personal time with Fredette.

To be accurate, he teaches at BYU-Hawaii.

 

[rainmaker]

As I said in another response to a similar post by you. I think your overthinking this thing. You draft the talent, and then you figure out how to deal with the rest of the suspossed problems. Obviously, it the Kings draft a SF, and then sign a veteran SF, their going to rid themselves of one or possibly two of the SF's they have on the roster.

As far as drafting based on the Hollinger report, I'll pass thank you. I prefer to go with what my eyes tell me. I think those reports can be somewhat useful in affirmation, but I wonder just how many players that didn't score well in one of their reports turned out to be very good players, or even stars. What a report like that doesn't, and really can't tell you, based on its premise, is why a player may have posted some of those scores. Who was the coach, and what was his system. If he's a PG, how good a team did he have around him? Was he playing injuried part of the year? If he was a post player, did he have a good PG that was able to get him the ball, often, and where he wanted it? There are a thousand things that can affect the numbers a player puts up.

If you watch that player play 15 to 20 times, your eye's won't lie to you. I don't mean to discount the report. Getting a good score is certainly better than not getting a good score. I just don't think its the be all, end all.

Well Baja, we're going to get our answer in under 72 hrs. Whether we disagree or not, it doesn't matter much, as Petrie is going to pick who he likes, and a doubt he cares what you and I have to say about it. But come thursday night, we'll have plenty to discuss, and a more concrete picture of the future.

 

[bajaden]

To be accurate, he teaches at BYU-Hawaii.

Hey, I'm just going on what he said in a podcast. He implied that he got to see Fredette practice, knew the coach well, and was somewhat biased because he taught a class at BYU.

 

[bajaden]

Well Baja, we're going to get our answer in under 72 hrs. Whether we disagree or not, it doesn't matter much, as Petrie is going to pick who he likes, and a doubt he cares what you and I have to say about it. But come thursday night, we'll have plenty to discuss, and a more concrete picture of the future.

What! Your telling me that Petrie doesn't listen to us. And with the 7th pick in the draft, the Kings select, Jordan Hamilton... I just had to mention him. One of my favorite players last season. ... Oh well!

 

[Sptsjunkie]

http://insider.espn.go.com/nba/draf...lumnist=hollinger_john&page=draftrater-110620

Insider only, but I'll post some Leonard tidbits. First, he has Leonard as the second best perimter player in the draft aside from Irving ( 5 overall )

"Similarly, of the 14 wings to rate better than 12, the list includes Durant, Wade, Anthony, Granger, Gay, Luol Deng, Josh Childress, Mike Dunleavy, Dajuan Wagner, Rashad McCants, Evan Turner, Delonte West, Caron Butler and Ben Gordon. Only Wagner and McCants failed, and each pretty clearly had NBA talent. So Leonard, at 13.21 with no injury or character red flags, looks like a very, very safe play."

For those who arent aware of the Draft Rater ... Its a bit to hard to explain here without directly copying how Hollinger explains it. Its pretty freakin accurate though.

I like Hollinger's rankings. They are flawed, but he admits as much. Still they do provide some insight and force you to at least reevaluate prospects. T

I am a little dubious about the assessment of Leonard. Not his actual rating, but the way Hollinger interprets it. John compares him to all players with a rating of over 13.

But obviously, there is a huge discrepancy in talent between players separated by say 2 points. I am guessing there are some mediocre wings who score an 11. So instead of comparing Leonard to all players who scored over 13, which included players like Durant who scored over 17, compare him to all players between 12-15. Even this is kind since it give him +2 and only -1; however, Hollinger only listed 12+ so I am handicapped here.

The list of players scoring 12-15 is: Luol Deng, Josh Childress, Mike Dunleavy, Dajuan Wagner, Rashad McCants, Evan Turner, Delonte West, Caron Butler and Ben Gordon.

This still isn't a bad list, as most of these are serviceable players and a couple are very good. However, it dampens expectations a bit compared to listing Durant, Wade, Anthony, Granger and Gay - who all scored much higher.

 

[hammystyle]

good lord. I've never even seen him write about basketball. He writes about statistics. There is a significant difference.

i might hire him to do my taxes, that's about it.

do have to give him credit though for being clever enough to invent his own stats, and then pimp them afterwards.

He writes about basketball and uses statistics as evidence. Heaven forbid a basketball scribe use data instead of cliches to make a point.

 

[Kingster]

Better shooting is an immediate need, but it doesn't need to be filled through the draft. Same goes for the starting SF position for that matter. If we're looking at best player available, I have Fredette listed above Leonard though neither of them is in my top 7 so I would be lukewarm on the pick regardless. It's just killing me that Williams is number 1 on my board and Minnesota is dangling him out there for the taking. He's so much more compelling than any of the options at 7.


And the rest of the article is behind a pay wall, so whether there's useful information there or not is not for me to say.

I'll join you in the painful experience. Some deal is going to be made by Minni; just a question of who with and for whom.