Posted by tomverve:

The odds of picking an impact player in the later stages of the draft depend on two factors:

1) the number of quality players still available; and
2) the ability of a GM to discriminate those quality players from the duds

In the 20s region of the draft, there are invariably quality players still on board. What varies is whether GMs are able to accurately decide which players still on the board are the quality players. That is why sometimes you get duds in the late teens and early 20s but keepers in the late 20s and the 2nd round. The presence of Ginobili and Parker on the Spurs is more testament to their GM's ability to pick the diamonds out from the coal than it is to the dearth of quality players still available.

Luckily, IT has proven skilled at picking quality players with his draft picks. Hindsight shows that he does not always pick the absolute best player available (no one does), but he doesn't pick duds either. I'm confident we'll get a quality player at 23 if we keep the pick.

At this point, I'd say Lee is the only player he's drafted that is a significant impact player on both ends of the court. The others are nice role players (although it's arguable with Frye and Nate), but not exactly what I'd call significant, two-way impact players.

Lee is NOT a significant impact player on both ends of the floor. He is an impact player rebounding ala Rodman, he will be a impact player offensively if he can learn to hit the J and he'll be an impact player if he can learn to guard better.

Posted by Bonn1997:

They're in the 15% like I said. You just helped prove my point. You must be confused about the difference between 15% and 0%.

No, the issue is that many tools on this board are confused what the difference between 15% and 100% is. They think that just because an impact player has a marginal outside shot of being drafted late... that they WILL be drafted. Just like how they are 100% certain Eddy Curry will be a 20/10 player within 2 years. Yes, I deservingly call these people tools.

As for Almond, again it's simple. There's still a month before the draft. Teams will do workouts, and we'll see how he's evaluated. If Almond is as good as people say (e.g.: the equivalent of Allan Houston), some team with a higher pick will be all over him. Allan Houston went #10 or #11 when he was drafted, I believe. If Almond is that good, he'll go higher than #23. Especially when most teams and fans look for things in this order: 1) scoring, 2) scoring, 3) scoring, 4) everything else. Or, again, he's more of a specialist, which is fine, too, and has its purpose in the league. I'm all for drafting him, if he's there, but if he's the second coming of Allan Houston, I don't think he will be available.

Posted by martin:

the argument is negated by the likes of 1) David Lee

Doesn't apply -- check the sleeper mention earlier.

Posted by martin:

2) Drafting for potential

Doesn't apply -- people are saying Almond is that good NOW. If he's a project, that's a different story.

Posted by martin:

2) drafting for need

Another #2? Not sure the point of this one.

Posted by martin:

3) drafting bigs before smalls.

This one holds more validity than the others. I'll give you that one.

Posted by martin:

Lee dominated the pre-draft workouts. Teams were talking about him. that doesn't mean teams will draft him early or that he is bad because he falls.

Lee doesn't apply and is a terrible example. Dominated is a little strong. He had a good showing, and despite that still wasn't picked to go in the first round. Most teams didn't have him on their radar as a first rounder, so apparently his showing wasn't strong enough.

And we are talking about David Lee, who, while good and a nice piece, isn't exactly a star. Talking about someone being as good as Allan Houston is a level above, IMHO.

Posted by Bonn1997:

At this point, I'd say Lee is the only player he's drafted that is a significant impact player on both ends of the court. The others are nice role players (although it's arguable with Frye and Nate), but not exactly what I'd call significant, two-way impact players.

This just turns on quibbles about how we want to define "impact player." If you set the bar very high for what you call "impact player" (like 'significant impact player on both ends of the court'... name me some players who meet that description consistently who aren't at least borderline All-Stars) then of course the probability of an impact player still being around in the 20s will be very low, but that's a trivial point. What I have in mind is something more like useful role player or non-trivial trade asset. You might say that's setting the bar low, but if you look back at past drafts I think you find that there are a surprising number of players who don't amount to much of anything, especially once you get past the first 10 or so picks.

Almond is very well known, so I agree he's not a sleeper. But sometimes, good players who are well known fall. His shooting is unquestionable. In the last three seasons, he shot .462, .444 and .456 from behind the arc, scoring 26 points last season. As Briggs pointed out, he can rebound. If the guy improves his handle, he could be a very good player. I'd love to get him.

Posted by Ira:

Almond is very well known, so I agree he's not a sleeper. But sometimes, good players who are well known fall. His shooting is unquestionable. In the last three seasons, he shot .462, .444 and .456 from behind the arc, scoring 26 points last season. As Briggs pointed out, he can rebound. If the guy improves his handle, he could be a very good player. I'd love to get him.

The guy is a big time scorer. There is no doubt in my mind he has as much potential as anyone from pick 3 down in the draft. He has proven he can score with double and triple teams coming at him at a high% with a LOT of points. He's got near flawless form and he's very big for a guard. And if you look at his numbers without ever seeing him play--I think you can get a gist that if he is getting to the FT line 8-10 times a game and averaging nearly 7 boards from the 2 guard along with nearly 1 block and 1+ steal--that he has the potential to be a solid TWO way player. Rice wasnt or hasnt been a very good team so you have to count all the energy he has to put out on the O when looking at the D. He has all the goods to be a good defender long arms strong body good athlete. It's almost a given that this player is goingh to be a very good nBA player because you just cant teach shooting/scoring the way he can do it. So if Im looking at the need for a scorer--a guy who can get me 10 points off the bench as a rookie at a good%--this guy can do it. Logic goes out the window as to why someone is not on a mock draft Martell Webster went 3rd in the draft around the same size with MUCH less proven ability. He just happened to score well in the Mcdonalds game and became flavor of the month without proving it.

Posted by Allanfan20:

Briggs, the way you talk about him, he's a top 5 player. Then why do a lot of mock drafts have him falling in the second round? I mean, is he getting more or less attention (Not from message boards!) than say, Michael Redd?

Solace and Bonn, this is all I have to say, if he's this good and he falls for us. This league is in the day and age of defense and big men winning championships. Either that, or you better have 1 tremendous guard superstar with a sidekick, and that superstar better be the best player ever.

My point is, in the draft, teams are looking for defensive gems to go with the trend, along with big men stars. If this is the case, then I can totally see Almond falling in our laps. This is, afterall, the draft of the big man.

I'm not saying he's a top 5 player--I do think he has as much potential as anyone else from 3 down. This guy is an Allan houston type player with better rebounding and driving abilities. Allan isn't a Kobe Bryant type--he wasnt winning any dunk contests--wasnt going to be top 50 defensive player--but his size and stroke were so good--that his particular type role to his club was a very high level. Can Morris Almond score 20 points in the NBA shooting 45% from the field and 40%+ from 3 I think he has that ability. Scoring 20-25 points is a gosh darn big role in the nBA.

Posted by Allanfan20:

I'm not saying you said it. It's just the vibe I get. I'm just hoping my theory is right, in that the reason he would fall is b/c people wanna take a chance on bigs and potentially defensively solid players.

If that's not the case, we have no shot in hell at Almond unless we trade really really up. That is, if he's as good as you say.

almond is more mike redd than houston

Posted by Solace:

Posted by martin:

how do guys like Balk and Lee fit into this equation?

Those were sleepers on nobody's radar. Nobody including this board had those guys coming anywhere close to the first round. That's the definition of a sleeper. If Almond is as good as everyone says and everyone knows it, surely the knowledge isn't contained to New York, so he will go higher, barring a miracle.

My True Sleeper in this Draft-

Trey Johnson-

Physicals:
H: 6' 5"
W: 218 lbs
Bday: 8/3/1984

NBA Draft Diary: Trey Johnson
May 2, 2007
It takes a special kind of athlete to achieve high levels of success in two sports. Trey Johnson is a special athlete. Coming out of high school he was drafted by the Kansas City Royals as a pitching prospect. Johnson decided to pass on the major leagues and try his hand at the college game first. He attended Northeast Mississippi Community College for a year before moving on to Alcorn State. Any future in baseball though came to an abrupt end when Johnson tore ligaments in his arm in his very first appearance for the Braves; he would require Tommy John surgery to repair his pitching arm. Luckily for Johnson, he had taken up basketball several years earlier.

As a kid growing up, Johnson was always around the game, playing in YMCA leagues with friends. He always felt it was a sport he could find success in, and began playing seriously his junior year of high school.

“I was always pretty confident with what I could do,” Johnson said. “I guess the summer going into my senior year, I had a pretty good summer, and I started thinking this is something I can do as far as going to college, and who knows how far it can take me.”

Johnson performed well enough during his two years of high school to garner interest from several junior colleges. After his one year stop at Northeast Mississippi CC, Johnson found him self lacing up for Alcorn State. The 6’5” guard had modest numbers for the Braves, averaging just over 11 points, but wasn’t happy with the team’s losing ways. It was at this point that Johnson made the life-changing decision to transfer to Jackson State and focus solely on basketball.

“I wasn’t whole heartedly into the baseball thing in anymore,” he said. “I had sort of shifted my focus to basketball. I played baseball at the junior college level, and when I went out and competed, I had it, but as far as practicing, I was kind of burned out. I grew up playing baseball and it was kind of like a job when I was younger, so I got burnt out on it.”

The transfer to Jackson State meant a year on the bench for Johnson, but as a player who is always thinking, he quickly turned this time off into a positive.

“When I transferred to Jackson St, going into the summer before the year I was sitting out, I actually prepared like I was going into a year of playing,” he said. “I didn’t take any days off, I worked hard in the gym still like I was going to play that year, and I worked hard that year all the way through.”

That alone would have been a sign of dedication from any player, but Johnson went the extra step. Still relatively new to competitive basketball, he attended every single Tiger home game and studied the game. He learned the intricacies of his new team’s offense and learned the game from a whole new angle.

“I was able to just play the game in my head, I wasn’t able to do this before because I had to just go out and play right away, but being able to sit and learn helped me out a lot.”

Armed with this newfound knowledge, and a full year of intense training under his belt, Johnson was ready to start his career at Jackson State. He didn’t disappoint. As a junior, Johnson averaged 23.5 points and was 11th in the nation in scoring, while shooting a scorching 44.1% from beyond the arc. This season, Johnson upped his numbers even more, averaging 27.1 points and finishing second in the country in scoring.

With such impressive scoring performances being turned in game after game during his two years with the Tigers, many scouts and fans began to label Johnson as just another mid-major gunner, launching up shots just to keep his team in the game. As Johnson put it though, that wasn’t exactly the case.

“You’d be kind of surprised actually,” he said. “A lot of people think the offense went through me, but it actually didn’t. When I first came here, we ran the same offense we had run prior to my arrival, and that was the same offense we ran during my two years. They didn’t change anything, they didn’t adjust anything.”

The Jackson State offense according to Johnson is really more of a guideline than set plays. Players are expected to be able to make reads off of passes and cuts and run the offense based on their understanding of the game.

“I feel like I have a high basketball IQ and that helped me out a lot, and I was just able to create my own shot a lot of the time,” he said. “It may have seemed like the offense was going through me, but at the same time when I was out of the game we ran the same offense. It was just that the things I had worked on kind of catered to that offense.”
This mature understanding of the game, Johnson hopes, will catch the eye of NBA scouts and help raise his stock.

“There are guys who can play basketball, and then there are basketball players,” Johnson said. “My coach always kind of stressed that to us. There are the guys that always want to come to the gym and just play pickup and they call themselves basketball players, but can they play the game? I always wanted to be a guy that can play the game of basketball. When somebody sees me, I might not jump out at them as a high jumper or things like that, but when they see me play, they can really appreciate what I bring to the table as far as knowing the game and how to play it.”

Johnson’s basketball IQ and his scoring ability have drawn comparisons from to NBA rookie Brandon Roy. While Johnson stated that he was honored just to be mentioned along side Roy, the sharp shooter likened himself to the Detroit Piston’s Chauncey Billups. Both players are bigger guards that were tremendous scorers during their college careers. Billups had to deal with critics saying he wouldn’t be able to transfer over from the shooting guard to the point guard position in the NBA, but he prevailed when given the opportunity. Billups’s game is also very fundamental and without a tremendous amount of flash.

“That’s kind of how I see myself,” Johnson said. “I’m not a very flashy guy; I’m not going to wow you with this pass or that pass; I’m going to make the right pass, or I’m going to make the big shot. I just look and see how I’m being compared right now to these guys; I just hope that one day people will be comparing young players to me as an NBA player.”

While the comparisons to current pros has been nice for Johnson, he had the opportunity to test his game against a future NBA player in the form of Corey Brewer when Jackson State met Florida in the first round of the NCAA Tournament. Though the Gators ran away with the game, winning 112-69 en route to a second straight national title, Johnson played very well against Brewer’ fantastic defense, scoring 21 points and dishing out 5 assists. For Johnson it was a real statement performance, proving that his scoring abilities were the real deal.

“I knew it was a real good chance for me to show what I had, and kind of test out my skills not for myself, but to show scouts that I’m not just scoring 27 points because I play in the SWAC or because of the competition I face. I felt like I could do that on anybody.”
Towards the end of that game, Johnson landed awkwardly after a shot and tweaked his back, an injury that kept him out of the NABC All-Star Game and the Portsmouth Invitational Tournament. While the rest has been necessary, it has also been irksome for Johnson who is more than ready to the draft process underway.

“I grew up my whole life being that kid in the classroom when the teacher asks what you want to be when you grow up, I just knew I wanted to play professional sports,” he said. “It didn’t matter what sport it was, that was just always my answer. I never said I wanted to be a doctor or a lawyer; I’ve always wanted to be a professional athlete. It’s always been a dream and a goal, and now that it’s coming closer to reality, I’m anxious. I’m ready to get everything underway and done. I’m ready to close one chapter and open another.”

Still, with nearly two months until draft day, there is plenty of work to be done. Johnson is training six days a week, twice a day, in preparation. He has said that he is working on his entire game so that he doesn’t overlook a single detail that could cost him in the eyes of the scouts. While his main goals are to improve his ball handling and extend his range, conditioning, he said, is going to be the key.

“I feel like if I’m in my best shape than I’m going to be at the top of my game for a long time,” he said.

While scoring is certainly the biggest strength in Johnson’s game, he states that he thinks he can further improve his ability to free himself up for shot attempts. He also said he will be working on many of the mental aspects of his game, specifically making better reads while on the floor.

Johnson will continue to work hard with his two-a-day training sessions in preparation for his life long dream of career in professional sports. With so much to offer, it was no surprise that when asked what type of team he would be best suited for, the always confident but never ****y Johnson put it simply:

“It really doesn’t matter to me, I feel like I can help any team, whatever their needs may be. I think I can bring anything to the table that is needed.” http://www.draftexpress.com/viewprofile.php?p=1129


http://collegebasketball.rivals.com/bviewplayer.asp?sport=2&sid=1146&player=77574

He plays at a school that had a grand total of one home game before New Year's Day. He is basically the No. 1, 2 and 3 offensive option for his team. And yet the man has a chance to win the national scoring title.

Trey Johnson has a first name that suggests scoring, and he's done nothing to dispel that notion during his senior season. The Jackson State guard is neck-and-neck with Rice's Morris Almond in the scoring title race, averaging 29.7 points through the first 13 games. Almond is at 30.3 after a 36-point effort on Friday.

Consider these two factors, however: Rice has played six home games to Jackson State's one. And Rice averages 77 points per game, while Jackson State is at 67. So Johnson is scoring roughly 45 percent of his squad's points. Johnson scored 36 of his team's 65 against Alabama, 27 of 55 against Illinois and 31 of 54 against Tulsa.

Jackson State's Tevester Anderson, who has been in college coaching since 1982, said he knows every team's plan before the game starts.

"Box-and-ones, triangle-and-twos," Anderson said. "He gets quite a bit of attention. Give him credit. He has a high basketball IQ."

But not a high basketball ego. Johnson insists he doesn't follow the scoring race, getting informed only by media and friends.

"I don't really care to know," Johnson said. "That is not something that is on the front of my mind."

The Jackson, Miss., native started his career at Alcorn State, his mother's alma mater, playing two years before deciding he wanted to transfer. Johnson's father and brother played baseball at Jackson State, making it a natural fit for him.

"I liked [Alcorn State], but at the time I decided if I wanted to develop as a player and further my basketball career, it wasn't going to happen at Alcorn," he said. "Jackson State was moving in the right direction. They had just hired coach Anderson, so I decided to come here."

And the Tigers were certainly thankful. Johnson averaged 23.4 points as a junior, and has upped that mark despite the constant attention from the opposition.

"The coaches do a good job of designing stuff to get me free," Johnson said. "I know every game there is going to be one or two guys keeping an eye on me. It is tough."

Anderson said the NBA scouts he has talked to are happy with Johnson's game, and Anderson compares Johnson to Raja Bell, a seven-year NBA veteran out of Florida International.

"He's an excellent shooter," Anderson said. "He can put the ball on the floor with either hand and goes to the basket with authority. He uses screens real well. He can really let it go coming off of screens. He's very aggressive and just a good, solid player."

Johnson nailed a game-winning 3-pointer with three seconds left to lift Jackson State to a 100-97 victory over UTEP earlier this season. It was his seventh three of the night and gave him 49 points. One night later, Johnson was out of gas, missing all seven of his long-range attempts, including a last-second shot that gave Drake a 71-70 victory.

The Tigers were picked sixth in the Southwestern Athletic Conference, but with six wins already in a road-dominated preconference schedule, Jackson State should be in the running for the regular season and tournament crown.

"The thing I want to do is win more than anything," Johnson said. "Scoring is just something that I do, but I don't go out and say, 'I have to take this many shots or whatever.' I just want to win."


http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/2006/writers/bill_trocchi/12/29/mid.major.report/index.html

[Edited by - joec32033 on 24 May 2007 03:46]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=67iVryY_Qd8

Video proof... Almond is the man