First of all -- I need to indicate that this is Moni's downbeat, but over the next few weeks and months we're going to be filling in here. No, we did not amnesty Moni. Shut up. Sorry this is late. I'm visiting my parents this weekend (I think it's Moth day or something)
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Okay, so the cat is out of the bag, MyLo and I have been given credentials from the freekin' NBA to go to the Chicago Predraft Combine. The cool thing out of all of this is now I'm getting a lot of spam from the NBA in my inbox. Well, not spam, but it's funny where I am now in a situation where I check my e-mail and there's more and more info directly from their one of their PR guys. I have the full list of players who will be attending. There are few surprises about the 60 players who have been asked to participate, the main thing is that not all the players will be directed by their handlers to participate in every thing. What do we have on tap? Well, there are four main parts to the combine.
- Physical measurements: height in socks, height in shoes, wingspan, standing reach, weight, and occasionally body fat percentage, and last year we got hand dimensions (length and width)
- Performance measurements: sprint (3/4 court sprint), lane agility (touching cones along the key around the basket), vertical jump (from standing position), vertical jump (off of one step), and then maximum reach (a reflection of how high you can touch -- Derrick Favors max reach at the camp was over 12', and that was before P3)
- Directed shooting drills: these are divided between bigmen and everyone else; however, bigmen who wish to display / show off their range before the draft sometimes elect to shoot from the guard ranges. There are a number of shots taken from different ranges (I believe there are 10 from each spot) and they are shots off the run and not spot up shots. The ranges are close, in the key, midrange, and ncaa three point range for bigmen. They are one step farther for the guards (goes to nba three point range). One of the sections is timed and that tests not only your ability to make shots, but how quickly you can take them.
- Misc drills: these are things like post moves, passing in transition, defending in transition, going around screens, and so forth. The fun thing is that there is a high level of uncertainty here as some of the drills that are "for player x" may break down if another player who is supposed to be helping playing x screws up. Like if a guy gets paired up with another guy at the camp who can't pass, if you are a bigman. If if you are paired up with a guy who can't set screens, if you are a guard trying to show off the ball offensive movement. I think that these misc drills are better for evaluating foreign unknowns, just to see where their baseline level of fundamentals are at.
The last part is the media availability. There will be nothing really interesting here, unless you are Mychal and I. We're both loud, funny, short guys so I'm sure the players will recognize us. We intend to be memorable. Our line of questions (e.g. "How many years do you think you wouldn't mind coming off the bench behind guys you are better than?") will be spectacular.
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There's going to be a bigger post just on the pre-draft info and who is going . . . but everyone seems to be getting on the hype train for certain players already. This is normal and always happens. Of course, this is a good time to look at some of the long shots as well -- this is something our team usually does (like they did with Wesley Matthews Jr.). I'm a little disappointed that we're only seeing 2 foreign guys at this combine: Rudy Gobert and Dennis Schroeder. There are about 40 international players on my draft big board, and 2 is a small number. I really would have loved to learn a little more about: Alex Abrines, Augusto Cesar Lima, find out the differences between Bogdan Bogdanovic and Bogdan Radosavljevic, see Dario Saric in person, and try out the 27 different Danish words I know on Rasmus Larsen. The big problem is not being able to measure Sergey Karasev or Giannis Adetokoubo. Those are the two late lotto first round bubble guys who have a chance to rise in the draft. Oh well . . . I guess I should be happy with the fact that I get to ask a lot of inappropriate questions to Myck Kabongo . . .
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Okay, enough about the draft combine . . . check out these dunks!
Dunks!
I think we know why these dunks happen though . . . check out the hard work our players put in at P3.
Woo! People getting sweaty!
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Both of these players played in the NBA last year. Both are about the same size and play the same position. And both are the same age. Who is better, according to their per 36 minute stats last season? Keep in mind that Player A only played 16.8 mpg last year, and Player B played 23.7 mpg.
Who is better?