NCAA Basketball 2017/18

[mister d]

My O/U bet on Embiid reaching 500 career regular season games gets an unfortunate bump.

[Rex]

I'm surprised not to see a condolences thread for the Syracuse fans today, because their top recruit has decided to bolt....for the G League. It's being applauded by all of the people you would expect to applaud it, but I'll be honest here, this decision appears to be completely terrible on all levels. There may come a time when the G League provides a viable development path, but it's not anywhere close to that yet--not every team is owned by the NBA affiliate, and there are still big differences in resources available from team to team. And obviously anyone entering into the G League draft has no control over what team he ends up on. The available salaries are $19,500 or $26,000, and that is pre-tax, with no allowance for room and board that I'm aware of, and no benefits that I'm aware of. From a developmental standpoint, there are some advantages to the G League--it is much closer to NBA rules than college basketball, the competition is older and better, and you don't have to go to class. On the other hand, you are playing against grown men. The G-League is full of 24 to 28 year olds that are trying to feed their families. I'm envisioning the first day at Shawshank here. There are pretty much no 18-year olds that have ever been good at professional basketball in the U.S. In NBA history, I think Kobe is the only one who managed an above-average PER as an 18-year old. In the G League, one guy has tried this before, and he ended up playing 0 NBA games.

And we haven't even started to talk about the difference in exposure you get between a program like Syracuse and the G League. As far as I can tell, this is only a viable option if for one reason or another you will not be able to play college basketball in the next year.

[A_B]

My O/U bet on Embiid reaching 500 career regular season games gets an unfortunate bump.

Yeah he only played like 10 at Kansas so I think you’re safe.

[Sabo]

I'm surprised not to see a condolences thread for the Syracuse fans today, because their top recruit has decided to bolt....for the G League. It's being applauded by all of the people you would expect to applaud it, but I'll be honest here, this decision appears to be completely terrible on all levels. There may come a time when the G League provides a viable development path, but it's not anywhere close to that yet--not every team is owned by the NBA affiliate, and there are still big differences in resources available from team to team. And obviously anyone entering into the G League draft has no control over what team he ends up on. The available salaries are $19,500 or $26,000, and that is pre-tax, with no allowance for room and board that I'm aware of, and no benefits that I'm aware of. From a developmental standpoint, there are some advantages to the G League--it is much closer to NBA rules than college basketball, the competition is older and better, and you don't have to go to class. On the other hand, you are playing against grown men. The G-League is full of 24 to 28 year olds that are trying to feed their families. I'm envisioning the first day at Shawshank here. There are pretty much no 18-year olds that have ever been good at professional basketball in the U.S. In NBA history, I think Kobe is the only one who managed an above-average PER as an 18-year old. In the G League, one guy has tried this before, and he ended up playing 0 NBA games.

And we haven't even started to talk about the difference in exposure you get between a program like Syracuse and the G League. As far as I can tell, this is only a viable option if for one reason or another you will not be able to play college basketball in the next year.

This recruit is from my high school. Go Princeton Vikings!

[mister d]

The G-League is full of 24-28 year olds trying to hang on, sure, but the NBA is full of all the best players in the world and HS kids have made that jump.

[Joe K]

I think the G-League is probably significantly better from a player development standpoint but significantly worse as an incubator for future fame and endorsements. If Bagley and Carter went to the G-League instead of Duke, they’d probably work a lot more on defending the pick-and-roll* instead of getting hidden in a 2-3 zone. But they’d also be a lot less famous than they are now.

*As an aside, it’s crazy how different the NBA and NCAA games are for big men. The NBA game is all about floor spacing and pick-and-roll defense. If you can’t do one or both of those things well, you’re useless as an NBA center (see: Jahlil Okafor). Traditional post play is such an afterthought. I saw a stat recently that Karl-Anthony Towns is the most efficient high-usage post-up scorer on the NBA. But the Wolves’ EV is still much higher on KAT’s pick-and-pop 3s than his post-ups. (A 3 point shot by anyone above like 37% accuracy is more efficient than a post up by even the best low-post scorers.)

[DSafetyGuy]

I am looking forward to Nike announcing how much money Bazley's endorsement contract for next year will be (his AAU team, Ohio State - he committed there before Thad Matta was fired, and Syracuse all have Nike affiliations). I think Nike's shoe money could be a driving force behind it. They can throw a multi-year deal at him, structured at something like $250K at him for next year (pocket change for Nike) with an escalator clause for where he gets drafted in 2019 with more money the higher he goes.

The reason I expect the value to be announced (at least the endorsement deal's top end value, just like an NFL contract announcement) is to show kids that they can get paid a lot out of high school even if they can't go to the NBA.

In any case, there will be rule changes for NCAA/NBA that stem from this as far as reinstating jumping from high school directly to the NBA and the minimum amount of time a player has to spend in college. The G-League will also end up with a team affiliated with every NBA franchise and a significant salary jump (a league in Australia is adding a bonus roster spot with a salary of approximately $78K (USD) a year to entice high school kids). Terrance Ferguson of OKC played in Australia for one season before entering the draft.

[Rex]

The G-League is full of 24-28 year olds trying to hang on, sure, but the NBA is full of all the best players in the world and HS kids have made that jump.

I think you're talking about something different. HS kids entered the NBA back when they were allowed to do so and some of them eventually became good players. But almost none of them were useful to an NBA team at 18 years old (T-Mac is the exception, not Kobe), and even for guys who entered in their 19-year old season, only the very best (like Lebron and Garnett) were actually good then. Here are all of the 18 and 19 year old NBA rookie seasons, including college OAD guys, minimum 250 minutes played, sorted by PER:

https://www.basketball-reference.com/pl ... der_by=per

15 is league average, so most of these guys, including future hall of famers and all stars, were below average contributors. That didn't matter to them or to their teams, because they were on multi-year NBA contracts and the teams were paying for the future. Bazley is a borderline top 10-15 prospect, so in the absence of OAD he would probably be a late first round pick and could afford to be bad for a year or two. But now he is going to be on a team whose purpose is to develop the other players who are signed to the NBA club, and specifically not to develop him, and his salary will be less than $20,000 with no guarantees as to the future. If he's good, then he'll help his draft status and the only thing he will have given up is free publicity. If he's bad, then why would his team even keep him around? There's no incentive for the club.

[mister d]

Does this presume that Jim Boeheim's purpose would have been his one-year development? Wherever he goes there would be competing intentions but in this one he gets paid and, if anything, probably lowers his downside risk. A bad year at Syracuse has to be seen as worse than a bad year in the G League.



(Also, he's top 10 on every list I've seen. Which is two because that was enough to support "Top 10" without risking finding one where he wasn't.)

[Ryan]

If Bagley and Carter went to the G-League instead of Duke, they’d probably work a lot more on defending the pick-and-roll* instead of getting hidden in a 2-3 zone. But they’d also be a lot less famous than they are now.

Yeah but so what? A year later, they'd be exactly where they're about to be anyway. Scouts are on these kids for 5 years before they even get to this point. The G-League sucks because G-Leaguers suck. That can change.

[Joe K]

Does this presume that Jim Boeheim's purpose would have been his one-year development? Wherever he goes there would be competing intentions but in this one he gets paid and, if anything, probably lowers his downside risk.

Yeah, I largely agree with this point. Barring a sudden, league-wide loss of outside shooting ability, no NBA team will be playing a 2-3 zone as it’s primary, let alone exclusive, defense anytime soon. So if nothing else, Bazley should develop much more of the defensive skills he will need by playing in the G-League. College coaches, especially ones like Boeheim, aren’t going to bend their philosophies to develop even the best recruits for the NBA game. Going back to the Karl-Anthony Towns example, he’s making 44% of his 3s this year on 4 attempts per game, which is one of the best shooting seasons ever by a big man. And Calipari barely allowed Towns to play outside of the paint because he subscribes to a more old-fashioned view of a center’s offensive game. (Calipari, being the salesman he is, pitched it as “developing Towns’ postgame for scouts,” which is pretty funny in retrospect.)

[mister d]

Right? Scouts are gone by the 5:00 mark at the latest to beat traffic!

[wlu_lax6]

Bruno F. coming back to Terpland. Glad he tested the NBA and that he said he needs more time.

[bfj]

Bruno F. coming back to Terpland. Glad he tested the NBA and that he said he needs more time.

Sounds like Huerter might be leaving. I think Bruno has a bigger upside, if he stays healthy.