Gophers and the NBA Draft: What Comes First - The Talent or the Development?

[GopherHole Staff]

Gophers and the NBA Draft: What Comes First - The Talent or the Development?
By Chris Monter

http://www.gopherhole.com/news_article/show/398208?referrer_id=331171


The 2014 NBA Draft will be held Thursday and it is expected that no Minnesota Golden Gopher will be drafted for the tenth straight year. There has not been a former Gopher selected since Kris Humphries was the 14th pick by the Utah Jazz in 2004.

Minnesota had a strong run of players drafted in the 90's. Willie Burton was the ninth overall pick by Miami after being named the Orlando Classic MVP in 1990.

Kevin Lynch was the first pick in the second round by the Charlotte Hornets in 1991. Voshon Lenard was a second round pick by Milwaukee in 1994, but decided to return for his senior season.

Seniors Bobby Jackson, who was the 23rd pick by Seattle and traded on draft night and John Thomas was chosen 25th by New York in the 1997 NBA Draft.

The Gophers' run of producing first round picks continued as Sam Jacobson was the 26th pick by the Los Angeles Lakers in 1998, Quincy Lewis was the 19th selection by Utah in 1999 and Joel Przybilla was the ninth overall choice by Houston Rockets in 2000.

Those players were all seniors except Pzybilla, but Rick Rickert reversed the trend when he left Minnesota after his sophomore season and was selected in the second round by the hometown Timberwolves.

Many Gopher fans wonder when the next Minnesota player will be drafted in the NBA. There is not a sure-fire NBA prospect on the roster, but head coach Richard Pitino and his staff are looking to upgrade the talent level on the team.

The Big Ten has produced 34 draft picks since Minnesota's last draftee. Ohio State, which has had at least one players selected in the last seven drafts, leads all Big Ten schools with nine draftees in the past nine years. Illinois, Indiana and Michigan State have had five players picked during that time. Purdue has four players selected and Michigan has three.

Nebraska, Northwestern and Penn State have not had a player drafted in the past nine years. Ironically, all three schools had their most recent draftee selected in the second round in the 1999 NBA draft.

The following is a look at Big Ten teams draftees from 2000-04 (the last years a Gopher was drafted) and from 2005-13.

2000-04, 2005-13
Draftees
Illinois 3 5
Indiana 3 5
Iowa 0 1
Michigan 2 3
Michigan State 6 5
Minnesota 3 0
Nebraska 0 0
Northwestern 0 0
Ohio State 3 9
Penn State 0 0
Purdue 1 4
Wisconsin 1 2

The question is similar to what comes first, the chicken or the egg. Do colleges produce NBA talent because they get better players or do the better players typically go to schools that produce the most NBA Draft picks?

Kentucky has had 17 players drafted by the NBA in the past four years, including 13 first round selections, which has caused many top prospects to land in Lexington.

Minnesota is tied for sixth among Big Ten schools with Purdue with 19 top two round selections since 1957. That number is less than half of the Big Ten leading Indiana, which has 39 top two round picks. However, Minnesota's 19 is more than Wisconsin (10), Nebraska (5), Northwestern (2) and Penn State (1) combined.

The following is a look at the Big Ten players drafted in the first two rounds and overall selections since 1957.

Top 2 Round Total
Selections
Illinois 23 58
Indiana 39 60
Iowa 17 44
Michigan 29 60
Michigan State 29 51
Minnesota 19 43
Nebraska 5 20
Northwestern 2 23
Ohio State 28 44
Penn State 1 9
Purdue 19 39
Wisconsin 10 28

The Big Ten may have had the best rookie class of any conference this past season. The conference had four players drafted in the first round in Indiana's Victor Oladipo (second) and Cody Zeller (fourth), Trey Burke (ninth) and Tim Hardaway Jr. (24th) of Michigan. There were only four rookies who averaged double figures and three of those players were from the Big Ten.

Oladipo finished second among first year players with 13.8 points per game, behind NBA Rookie of the Year, who averaged 16.7 points. Burke, who was drafted by Minnesota and dealt to Utah, scored 12.8 points per game after starting the season on the injured list and Tim Hardaway Jr. added 10.2 points.

The three former Big Ten standouts were all named NBA's First Team All-Rookie and Zeller, who averaged 6.0 points, was named second team All-Rookie.

The 2014 NBA draft will feature several Big Ten players such as Noah Vonleh of Indiana, Gary Harris and Adreian Payne of Michigan State, Nik Stauskas, Mitch McGary and Glenn Robinson of Michigan, who will hear their name announced Thursday night.

Vonleh is a projected top seven pick, who could go as high as the fourth selection. Harris and Stauskas are guards, who have been mentioned as possible Minnesota Timberwolves' pick at 13. Payne is a late lottery or mid first round pick, while McGary and Robinson III are late first rounders or early second round selections.

Roy Devyn Marble of Iowa is a possible second rounder, while fellow seniors like Austin Hollins from Minnesota, Keith Appling of Michigan State and Ohio State's Aaron Craft figure to go undrafted and will try to land a spot with a summer league team in Orlando or Las Vegas.

Minnesota fans are hoping that under head coach Richard Pitino that hearing a Gopher player's name being drafted is a common occurrence, which can only help recruiting in the future.

 

[march madness]

I don't believe this is an either or statement. A majority of the first round american players are 5* recruits and a majority of them choose big time schools.

5* ESPN guys expected to go in the first round (not inclusive):
Kyle Anderson, Smart, Harris, Wiggins, Parker, Randle, Gordon, Embiid, Young, Vonleh
4*ESPN
Jordan Adams, McGary
**A vast majority of NBA picks have just showed steady progression from their high school potential and if there was no college rule would be drafted right out of high school.
**Occassionally a player with some potential will work their but off, and the coach also deserves credit in turning them into an NBA player: Burke, Stauskus, McDermott, Payton, Early. Sometimes these players don't have the athletism to be ranked 5* other times it may be exposure, grades, etc that made them not be rated higher.

As for the gophers current roster who has NBA first round potential? If lil Dre was 6'+ and not 5'9". If Andre was 3 inches taller. If you could combine EE's fire and quickness for a 7' with the offensive skills of MO you would have a player. We need to get the 4* and 5* recruits to really increase our draft picks. A very low number of players are made, most are scouted so well they are on the media radar in Junior high.


"The question is similar to what comes first, the chicken or the egg. Do colleges produce NBA talent because they get better players or do the better players typically go to schools that produce the most NBA Draft picks?"

 

[60's Guy]

Different possibilities but..

I don't believe this is an either or statement. A majority of the first round american players are 5* recruits and a majority of them choose big time schools.

5* ESPN guys expected to go in the first round (not inclusive):
Kyle Anderson, Smart, Harris, Wiggins, Parker, Randle, Gordon, Embiid, Young, Vonleh
4*ESPN
Jordan Adams, McGary
**A vast majority of NBA picks have just showed steady progression from their high school potential and if there was no college rule would be drafted right out of high school.
**Occassionally a player with some potential will work their but off, and the coach also deserves credit in turning them into an NBA player: Burke, Stauskus, McDermott, Payton, Early. Sometimes these players don't have the athletism to be ranked 5* other times it may be exposure, grades, etc that made them not be rated higher.

As for the gophers current roster who has NBA first round potential? If lil Dre was 6'+ and not 5'9". If Andre was 3 inches taller. If you could combine EE's fire and quickness for a 7' with the offensive skills of MO you would have a player. We need to get the 4* and 5* recruits to really increase our draft picks. A very low number of players are made, most are scouted so well they are on the media radar in Junior high.


"The question is similar to what comes first, the chicken or the egg. Do colleges produce NBA talent because they get better players or do the better players typically go to schools that produce the most NBA Draft picks?"

but like mm is saying it's not easily pinned down. Like mm says, you can get an idea in 8th grade who the 5 stars might be. Yes, they grow and
develop but... coach k, Calipari, Bill Self, Ol' Roy, AZ etc aren't developing NBA players. They get the elite prospects and mold them to their culture. They help them grow as people and develop as basketball players but they already were 4 and 5 star prospects. Having said that...I think the fortunes of a team are a factor in the perception of NBA readiness or draftability. We had a nice team and Bobby Jackson, Sam Jacobson, John Thomas etc all
got to the NBA. Play on a losing team and your chances of getting drafted diminish. jmo

Measurables matter: if Mbakwe was taller, with longer arms he'd be in the NBA. Same as lil Dre.

Jimmer Fredette made himself a player. Like Sam, he got drafted. Now, whether Jimmer ends up successful depends in part on an opportunity to play.
But not that many guys with short comings overcome them. Steph Curry worked his butt off as an undersized skinny player to become an elite shooter but he had an NBA shooting dad to guide him. I don't think a lot of guys are made in the NBA. You need the elite athleticism to start with and then develop it. Those are already 4 and 5 star guys. 2 and 3 star guys can become good college players and if the team has success they may get noticed in a different light but individually it's tough w/o being tall, long, quick, tough, deadly from somewhere.

 

[EG#9]

This is a really interesting question and I just haven't had the time to respond to it adequately. I think their are multiple factors both in and out of the Gophers control that have contributed to their long drought of NBA draft picks.

International draft picks: This is a huge factor and has been for years. More and more talent is available from outside the American college programs making for fewer available draft slots for Gopher players. With the current salary cap rules, it's become more and more important to draft international kids who you can stash overseas and not have them count on either your 15 man roster or your salary cap. A team that wants to be in the sweepstakes for LeBron or Carmelo or whoever was better suited to take a foreign player who wasn't going to come over to the US this year than to take a college kid who they'd have to pay at his draft slot immediately and take up that cap space. So not only is their dwindling available spots for American players, but their is also a strong incentive for teams to take foreign players over similarly talented Americans.

Technicalities: The Gophers had Colton Iverson for 3 of his 4 college basketball seasons, yet don't get credit for him as a draft pick. Royce White was a Gopher and mysteriously found a way to stay out of trouble for 18 months in Ames, Iowa when he's been unable to do that anywhere else over the last 5-6 years. The list doesn't look nearly as bad with 2 Gophers being drafted since "04 as compared to ZERO.

Bad luck: If Trevor doesn't tear up his knee a second time and enter the draft damaged goods (and almost as important a year older), he would have been drafted. He was projected to go in the second round by most last year even as it was.

Poor development: Rodney Williams had all the measurables you could want in a draft pick, yet didn't develop much during his time at Minnesota. He still got a strong look form the 76ers based almost solely on potential. If Rodney's college production was better, he's an NBA draft pick. Colton Iverson was an NBA pick after leaving Minnesota and going to Colorado State. Those are probably the two best examples of guys with desirable NBA measurables that we didn't develop in recent years. Going back further, if Vince Grier would have built on his Junior year, he likely would have been a second round pick and he still got a shot with the Heat in training camp (Shaq nicknamed him Dorrel "Wrong").

Average to poor recruiting: Monson's recruiting dropped off quite a bit at the end of his tenure and the same is true for Tubby Smith. Outside of Royce and Rodney, I am not sure we've had another recruit come in that had a signficantly better than average chance of becoming an NBA draft pick.

Luck: Anyone in the country could have had Roy Devyn Marble as he was a very lightly recruited kid who just snuck in to the back end of the second round last year. Doug McDermott did not get a look from Iowa or Iowa State(despite his dad coaching there) and was headed to UNI before his dad took the Creighton job. The Gophers haven't had any breaks in terms of a kid not expected to be good rising above expectations. Obviously some of that is player development, but when you are talking about kids who were less regarded than the kids you actually signed turning in to NBA draft picks there's quite a bit of good fortune involved.

Who could make the NBA on the current roster? It seems like the best chance would be from development from of the Diedhiou or Konate as they both allegedly have some of the physical attributes the NBA looks for. Dre Hollins is probably too small to get drafted as a SG no matter what he does as a Senior and Dre Mathieu probably lacks both the size and the jumper. The Mo Walker type of big is not popular in the NBA right now, so he has just as much of an uphill climb as the two 'Dre's. Pitino could do a great job developing all three this off season, but I am not sure any amount of development will help them overcome their limitations to get drafted. This is why it really, really would have been nice to get Vaughn even if just for one season. He has the size and skill set and NBA team will take a chance on and probably would have been ~75% to break the Gopher draft drought and give Pitino an example to sell to future recruits.

It's tough to recruit without the results of putting kids in the NBA, but it's equally as tough to put kids in the NBA when you don't recruit at a high level at least occasionally. A kid like Jarvis will be an interesting case because, athletically, he appears to have the desired measurables to play PG in the NBA. Now does he have the skills? Can those skills be learned/developed? How about Alex? He probably needs to both grow another inch or two and get stronger to be a stretch 4 prospect for the NBA. Either kid has a chance to be an NBA player, but they both will take development (on the court or in the weight room) to get there and have further to go than a kid like Royce or Kris did.

What I like from Pitino and his staff so far is that a number of players have shown significant improvement. If that trend continues and he starts with kids who may have better measurables (if not basketball talent) than the kids he inherited, I feel pretty good about him producing some NBA players. Those two sentences involved both a small sample size and an "if", so I am not making any proclamations.

Hopefully the drought ends soon, we're down to just one active NBA player now and I'd hate to see a season happen where there wasn't a single former Gopher in the league.

 

[march madness]

When Colt left here he was not considered an NBA draft pick he didn't even start at center over an average starter. Colt and the staff at CSU turned him into one. I agree on most of the other comments you made.

Technicalities: The Gophers had Colton Iverson for 3 of his 4 college basketball seasons, yet don't get credit for him as a draft pick