However, a league source insists the Sixers taking Porzingis over Russell is a reach and they are after the best available player regardless of position.

“If you’re basing taking him because of last week’s workout, you should be fired,’’ the league source said.

Just thought this was an interesting quote because we all pay such close attention to workouts (myself included).

Front offices may not necessarily do this as much. Plenty of guys have been burned by guys who show well in workouts before.

Nalod wrote:The Workouts showed more to the fans and created some hype. Writers can write all they want.
Question is if he falls to 4 do we take him or go more ready made?

to me Porzingis is 4 whether we keep him( to me the right thing to do) or at worst to get the value in a trade. Once he's our property and there is no game of chicken that's where we can get a maximum return. You need ca hones and strategic logic in life. Same goes here.

WaltLongmire wrote:

crzymdups wrote:

However, a league source insists the Sixers taking Porzingis over Russell is a reach and they are after the best available player regardless of position.

“If you’re basing taking him because of last week’s workout, you should be fired,’’ the league source said.

Just thought this was an interesting quote because we all pay such close attention to workouts (myself included).

Front offices may not necessarily do this as much. Plenty of guys have been burned by guys who show well in workouts before.

Come on now, as founder of the More Ignorant Lies About Porzingis club (MILAP) you know I would not let this slide. You left out something, from the same article.

You might have also used this quote from the same article, but you are cherry-picking for a good thread title.

However, Tim Shea, a former Knicks scout in Europe who now tutors coaches in Spain, says Porzingis can become a player similar to Bob McAdoo, the original sweet-shooting 7-footer, who played for several teams, including the Knicks and Nets.
“He plays within himself, plays for the team and has gotten better every year since I’ve seen him,’’ Shea told The Post. “He loves to play, loves the game, puts the work in and is well-liked by teammates because he puts team first and has a good character. I wouldn’t be obsessed with his numbers over here.’’

I agree that you cannot take Porzingis based on that workout alone. How could anyone think that you would?

I agree that you can go by 1/0 workouts when looking at a player. That is why you have to question what Stein will do in the NBA, because in 3 year at KU, and even in HS, he has never done anything similar to what he shows against the shadow opponents he scores on in workouts, unlike Porzingis, arguably the most scouted overseas player coming over this year.

Another "who knows who this Porzingis guy is" thread.

Somewhat lame at this point in time given all the pre-existing interest and scouting of him over the past 2 years, but it seems par for the course given the Europhobia which inflicts many around this forum.

And it's not exclusively on this forum. I think New York and a number of traditional NBA fans have an issue with alleged "softness" of European bigs, and reference Bargs, Tskitishvili, Darko, Lampe, etc. as reference points. Meanwhile we also have had both Gasols, Nowitzki, Sabonis, Kukoc, Gortat, Ilgauskis etc.

We are easily going to be biased towards American players for some rather obvious reasons, one of which is that we can usually watch them play more, but also cultural bias, which I rarely hear anyone admit to.

BRIGGS wrote:Like I said in another threa Justin Andersen is being severely undervalued it will become apparent that he is one of the top 8 in this draft as well

I'm a fan. The dude brings serious defensive energy and he can knock down the 3 point shot for a big boy.

newyorker4ever wrote:

BRIGGS wrote:Like I said in another threa Justin Andersen is being severely undervalued it will become apparent that he is one of the top 8 in this draft as well

I'm a fan. The dude brings serious defensive energy and he can knock down the 3 point shot for a big boy.

WaltLongmire wrote:

newyorker4ever wrote:

BRIGGS wrote:Like I said in another threa Justin Andersen is being severely undervalued it will become apparent that he is one of the top 8 in this draft as well

I'm a fan. The dude brings serious defensive energy and he can knock down the 3 point shot for a big boy.

Something to think about...if he slipped to GS's slot- would he fit their present model if they feel the shooting he showed this season is for real?

No chance he falls to 30. How about 14-18.

He's performed similar moves in a real game before. The video just shows you what he can do as a go to guy. You can lean on his offensive skill right now. I don't understand how people say he's 2 years away. Away from what? This guy can hit any arsenal of offensive shots....step backs, catch and shoot....off the dribble. Lobs....

Porzingus will contribute right away and could be rookie of the year, depending on the system and minutes. Because he's the type that can fill up a stat sheet. Blocks, Rebound, 3's, Steals

The only thing he hasn't been known for is passing. The good thing about the Triangle is what....passing. The Triangle forces you to be more of a passer first, and scorer second. So the Triangle will actually help his development even more.

Porzingus will help keep a big guy out of the paint.....So Melo and Monro would just eat up any remaining big thats left in the paint. Remember, he's a catch and shoot big.....so in half court, he's like Novak. In crunch time, he can create his own shot with step backs, or that ugly 1 leg fade away Dirk type jumper. The kid is legit, whether anybody believes it or not.

martin wrote:

blkexec wrote:His scouting report video are clips from actual games, not a workout video. Granted it's just a small sample size, but they are from real games. And he has the pedigree, which usually turns out pretty well.....Curry and Thompson for example. His brother is or was an All Star baller. So he's bound to be something special.

He's performed similar moves in a real game before. The video just shows you what he can do as a go to guy. You can lean on his offensive skill right now. I don't understand how people say he's 2 years away. Away from what? This guy can hit any arsenal of offensive shots....step backs, catch and shoot....off the dribble. Lobs....

Porzingus will contribute right away and could be rookie of the year, depending on the system and minutes. Because he's the type that can fill up a stat sheet. Blocks, Rebound, 3's, Steals

The only thing he hasn't been known for is passing. The good thing about the Triangle is what....passing. The Triangle forces you to be more of a passer first, and scorer second. So the Triangle will actually help his development even more.

Porzingus will help keep a big guy out of the paint.....So Melo and Monro would just eat up any remaining big thats left in the paint. Remember, he's a catch and shoot big.....so in half court, he's like Novak. In crunch time, he can create his own shot with step backs, or that ugly 1 leg fade away Dirk type jumper. The kid is legit, whether anybody believes it or not.

another interesting article

http://www.sheridanhoops.com/2015/06/18/mitnick-kristaps-porzingis-is-not-a-top-five-pick/

Kristaps Porzingis Is Not a Top-Five Pick

Latvian big man Kristaps Porzingis is flat-out not worth a top-five pick in the 2015 NBA draft. He’s not even the best European prospect this year; that would be Mario Hezonja.

With the draft just 10 days away, Porzingis’ stock has taken a dramatic rise that has put him in the conversation to be among the first three players selected, with some even debating if it may be worth it to take him first overall ahead of Karl-Anthony Towns.

While Porzingis is a lottery lock with great potential, after seeing him a great deal these past two years, I can tell you he is being overvalued right now.

This season for Spanish club Baloncesto Sevilla, Porzingis made big strides in his game – improving his skills, his body and his confidence – on his way to being named the European rising star of this year’s Eurocup. While Sevilla had a rough season in the Spanish ACB League, it played well enough in the Eurocup to qualify for the round of 32 (the competition’s second stage), where Porzingis got extremely valuable experience for someone still shy of his 20th birthday.

For a 7-1 player, Porzingis possesses incredible mobility with great legs. Not only is he an excellent catch-and-shoot player, he can set a screen for a high pick-and-roll and end up finishing with a sweet alley-oop dunk. Porzingis gets out very quickly in transition, where he is a quality finisher, and does a great job coming from outside for offensive rebounds. There is no question that Porzingis should be a lottery prospect in this draft, but the hype surrounding him over the past few days since his ballyhooed Las Vegas workout is way over the top.

ASM, the agency spearheaded by Andy Miller, made a brilliant move running its own workout and inviting every NBA team, rather than having Porzingis work out individually for teams. With full control over the environment, ASM put Porzingis in the perfect situation to showcase his strengths, and he hit the ball out of the park, leaving both NBA staffers and media drooling over his potential. Unfortunately for the Pistons, Bucks and Nuggets – who used lottery picks on Darko Milicic, Yi Jianlian and Nikoloz Tskitishvili, respectively, mostly on the merit of how they looked in workouts – a predraft workout is almost irrelevant when looking at the potential of a player.

The reality is that Porzingis was a 20-minute per game player for a Spanish team that failed to make the playoffs and did not have an American at his position. American coach Scott Roth, a former NBA player who had multiple stints as an NBA assistant, was fired in January and essentially paid the price for giving Porzingis a bigger role instead of building a team that could reach the postseason.

Last season, Dario Saric played on a Cibona team that was struggling financially and didn’t have the strongest roster. But Saric was able to put the team on his back and singlehandedly lead it to great heights. If you have the type of length and mobility of Porzingis, what excuse do you have for grabbing three rebounds or fewer in 19 of 50 games this season, especially when you are second on your team in minutes?

ESPN draft expert Chad Ford said that if Porzingis were in college this past season, “I have no doubt – and a number of scouts have said this – we’d be talking about him as a potential No. 1.”

PorzingisTo be honest, I would say absolutely the opposite. If Porzingis played in college and had lost in the first round of the NCAA Tournament, maybe he would be going back to school because he didn’t think he would be a lottery pick. I don’t buy the idea that he would have been as dominant as Towns, Jahlil Okafor and Frank Kaminsky were in college this season. I would even go one step further and say that if Hezonja played for Sevilla instead of Porzingis, Sevilla would have made the playoffs and Hezonja would’ve been on the All-ACB First Team.

A lot of American journalists like to label European players as unknown because they don’t watch international basketball. The average reader doesn’t, either. But in 2015, every NBA team has access to every European league game, and with Google Translate, you can follow everything going on with every top prospect in every country. NBA teams have had every chance to see Porzingis many times, and anyone tasked with making a draft decision has been watching Porzingis for a while.

So how could a workout just two weeks before the draft greatly impact the stock of a player that teams have had many opportunities to see over the past years?

The answer is the herd mentality. If you put enough basketball personnel in one room to see a player in an ideal, controlled environment and he impresses, teams not only are more interested because of his potential, but also because they saw that other teams were impressed. For what it’s worth, the biggest winner of the workout was ASM, because their pre-draft strategy for Porzingis was brilliant. I’m sure other players and agents will take notice.

Porzingis certainly is no draft bust like Milicic or Tskitishvili, but he doesn’t seem to be Dirk Nowitzki, either. Whichever team drafts him likely will be very happy, but at this point it doesn’t look like a good idea to pick Porzingis ahead of Towns, Okafor, D’Angelo Russell, Emmanuel Mudiay, Justise Winslow, Willie Cauley-Stein or even Hezonja.

Very interesting....It's definitely a gamble to select Porzingus.....And with Stein, there's really no gamble. You know what you get. Same with the other guys like Winslow and even Mudiay. Well, hopefully our international scouts are doing their job. I tried to look at a real game and didn't see anything really positive....But the scouting video must have just cut out all the negatives and put together the positives, like they do with most videos.

Hezonja (eventhough I haven't seen him) sounds like somebody that always has a chip on his shoulder. Mix in his shooting / scoring skill, and he might be a steal. Porzingus will not be drafted on production....Same with Mudiay and Stein. They are drafted on potential. Unlike Durrant, who played one year....He was killing every stat you can think of in his first year. You knew he was a star. You don't have anybody with that level of college production. Ok4 is the closest one. Everybody else is purely ranked on potential.