BRIGGS wrote:I want to be encouraging as a fan-- but Mudiay has to meet us halfway and make some darn shots. I'm not sure what the asking price for Payton was but he's been light years better than Mudiay in every single category.
If he could make those "darn shots", he would not have been available.
If a player is available, it's usually for a reason.
The idea of some hidden gem is a nice narrative. And you'll find it in MLB and the NFL. Wayne Chrebet. David Eckstein.
The reality though is it rarely happens in the NBA. Fewer players in general means more intensive scouting for the existing players within the marketplace. In MLB and the NFL, you might only get a quick pass over a prospect before the draft. In the NBA, there is so little personnel movement, that these guys have nothing to do but intensively scout everyone down to the bone.
The last time someone really slipped through the cracks was Jeremy Lin, and there was clearly a variation of the classic "Euro Bias" in play. ( Basically, he was seen and treated as a novelty until he started wrecking everything in his way. Bizarrely, league scouts, many went off the record but to the press saying Lin was a mirage ( because their jobs were on the line) which is so far out of bounds for what non GMs do and don't do with the press)
I recognize I have a different exposure level to this than many here, but we are talking guys sleeping on cots in their office. We are talking guys going home for Xmas for about four hours, then going back to work. We are talking some teams where they had to bring in fresh laundry daily because some coaches during the draft phase stopped changing their clothes.
There is no Mudiay and Burke are secretly so awesome and only the Knicks figured it out.
If a player doesn't break through or break out by his third year, then odds are he won't.
I keep hearing, Enes Kanter is ONLY 25, he's still so young. Yes, in civilian terms. Maybe if he was a MLB pitcher. You have a very limited developmental window. Once it passes, you are usually going to be hovering about what you've shown thus far.
Burke and Mudiay's previous teams gave up on them for a reason. Those reasons rarely change no matter where the player goes next.