Grade The Pick: Gary Trent Jr. (37th Overall)

You really haven't read anywhere that says he's a poor defender?

 

CARMELO also sometimes like guys who played non-starring roles on good teams, such as Kentucky’s Kevin Knox and Duke’s Gary Trent Jr. These players don’t necessarily post hugely impressive raw statistics, in part because they have to share the ball with a lot of other talented players. But they look better when evaluated on an efficiency basis and adjusted for strength of competition.
https://fivethirtyeight.com/feature...rs-in-the-nba-draft-according-to-my-computer/

 

No.

 

Oh fuck! I forgot, everyone gets an 'A' and orange slices around here.

 

somebody took my orange slices! the nerve!

 

Any sort of grade before the guy even puts on a jersey is non sense. So is giving them a “pass.”

 

Most of what I've seen is more along the lines of

Than saying he's trash or poor on that end.
And a lot of that is stated based on effort and gambling

 

From Klay Thompson scouting report:

 

Grades are subjective and based off opinion. How does it not make sense to have an opinion on a prospect?

 

And he was a lottery pick. Beal was another one with a similar profile as Trent. He was a top 5 pick. I think expectations from some fans need to be curbed a bit. Why does Trent have to be a two way player to be worth the pick anyway? If he develops into a rotational player he’d have beaten the odds.

 

You’re giving a guy a grade before he takes the test, that’s why it doesn’t make sense.

 

http://www.draftexpress.com/profile/Gary-Trent-82914/
http://www.nbadraft.net/players/gary-trent-jr
https://basketballscouting.wordpress.com/2018/05/16/gary-trent-jr-scouting-report-2/
http://www.nbascoutingreport.net/player-profiles-gary-trent-jr.html
https://hashtagbasketball.com/nba-draft/2018-nba-draft-prospects
https://hoopshabit.com/2018/06/21/2018-nba-draft-top-60-big-board-part-3/2/

 

I'm not grading his NBA performance though. I'm grading based off of who he is as a player. He could definitely surprise me and end up being a great pick... due to the error in his standing reach, I don't even think it's a bad pick, I just don't expect him to ever be good defensively, as my most optimistic expectations are that he'll be average defensively.

 

You gave me 6 links and maybe one of them said he was a bad defender, and it was a fan blog. Cool cool really convinced me there.

 

I’m okay with these two folks going head-to-head and having a fun interaction. #twopeasinapod #bestfriends #letmetellyousomething #blazers

 

DX and nbadraft.net listed defense as a weakness. NBADraft.net says he doesnt posess quick feet or lateral quickness. Your biased tirades him because you already like him, so your going to downplay any negatives about him. That's fine, whatever. But everything I've voiced are legitimate concerns that most, if not all scouting services, view as weaknesses or question marks.

 

Thanks for your approval.

 

You are most welcome.

 

https://www.twincities.com/2018/06/19/gary-trent-jr/

There is something Gary Trent Jr. has that no other member of the 2018 NBA draft class can match: 15 years of training from a retired NBA player.

Former Timberwolves forward Gary Trent Sr.’s last NBA season was in 2003-04. Since then, he has spent countless hours helping his son develop his game. Hence, Trent Sr. said his 19-year-old son is “more prepared than any other kid” heading into Thursday night’s NBA draft.

“You cannot find a child in this draft who has logged more gym hours, more film hours and more basketball conversation hours,” Trent Sr. said. “My son grew up around Kevin Garnett, … my son grew up around me, my son grew up around pro locker rooms. There is not a kid who’s been exposed to more basketball in this draft than my child.”

That’s part of the reason why Trent Jr. made the decision to go pro after one season at Duke. He felt he was ready to make the leap.

“I worked so hard,” he told reporters at the NBA Combine. “(I’ve put) countless hours, blood, sweat and tears into my craft.”

When Trent Jr. was 6 years old, he sprinted so hard through the end of a dribbling drill that he collapsed at the finish line. As he got older, he would wake his dad up at 1 a.m. to go to the gym to shoot baskets, usually after already completing two or three workouts the previous day.

Scroll through Trent Sr.’s Facebook and Instagram accounts and you’ll find posts of father and son in the gym at 3 a.m. During the school year, when Trent Jr. wasn’t in football, he and his father had a daily standing practice time from 6-8 p.m., and, if there was no tournament of some kind on the weekend, they’d try to fit two practices in each day.

A typical summer day for Trent Jr. looked something like this:

The Trents would wake up early in the morning for a workout that consisted of conditioning and strength training before getting into catch-and-shoot work, which consisted of Trent Jr. taking up to 400 shots off the catch.

In the afternoon, it was back to the gym to work on his off-the-dribble moves.

In the evening, post-ups were the focus.

And, when Trent Jr. and his father would decide to hit the gym for a fourth time in the day, Trent Sr. would do something like put his son through a series of pressure situations. Sometimes Trent Jr. would get the ball at half-court knowing he had to score in less than seven seconds. Other times, he would go to the free-throw line, knowing he had to hit three in a row for his team to win.

“Throughout the years you have to be creative so a player doesn’t get bored,” Trent Sr. said. “We’ve done so many different variations of testing your skill, testing your mind.”

Most practices had a specific plan and purpose. That’s where Trent Sr.’s experience came in. Trent Jr.’s hours in the gym were maximized by having a father who knew how to help his son improve. At the NBA Combine, Trent Jr. told reporters having his dad around is “basically like having a cheat sheet.”

“If a kid shows up to school and just goes into the library, he’s there, but he’s not going to know how to read,” Trent Sr. said. “So you can’t just show up to the gym and just shoot around, just like you can’t go to the library and flip open books. You have to come in with a mindset and a plan. The pros and the great ones have a plan, they have a blue print and organization. They have structure and a state of mind of how they’re going to go about it.”

Years ago, Trent Sr. remembers people saying he was pushing his son too hard. Those comments have since dissipated. He posts videos of his younger sons performing drills now, and the responses are positive.

“Now people see, (dang,) all that strenuous skill work, look where Gary (Jr.) is now,” Trent Sr. said.

It’s all been part of the plan to help the 6-foot-6 wing reach his full potential. When Trent Jr. left Apple Valley High School after his junior year to attend prep school, eventually landing at Prolific Prep in California, the goal was to better prepare himself for Division I basketball, as well as the NBA.

Trent Sr. said his son is a bigger gym rat now than ever before. Because the plan was never just to get to the NBA.

“This is the process that we expected. It’s not like we’re shocked,” Trent Sr. said. “What (Gary Jr. has) done is put yourself in a position where you have got to work 100 times harder now. This 15-year internship just got you into the country club. Now that you’re in the club, you’ve got to work 100 times harder to stay. The goal was not to get to the league, the goal was to get into the league to make a name for yourself and stay.”

 

Definitely a positive in regards to him as a prospect, potentially with being and to help us now. If he can defend, he'll be a steal.