Sounds like he's at worst Ruben Patterson. Great on-ball defense, physical, athletic, 6'5, 225, not a great team defender but a hard worker, limited handle but a line-drive dunker. The Kobe Stopper was dumb as a post and a rapist and a terrible three point shooter and he made it 9 seasons in the NBA. They had similar college numbers. So yeah, if you get a 4.2 gpa Ruben Patterson with high character, that really isn't a bad baseline for a 25th pick. Ruben was both an asshole and a moron who came up in the Jail Blazer era. So it'll be interesting to see an alternate reality where you get to put a decent, smart human being in Patterson's body, put him on a high character team, and just see what happens.
It’s funny, when Little was still on the board around pick 20, I was honestly hoping someone else would take him, just so I didn’t have to deal with the the rage I would’ve felt if Olshey passed on him for like Okpala or whatever.
I was with you. It came down to our pick and I was thinking, "God dammit, we are going to pass on him too, aren't we.".
I don’t know, it’s not like I’m in the gym with the guy, but everything else I’ve heard about his work ethic contradicts it.
If he learns to shoot passably (35% or better from three-point range), he's a massive steal. If he never is capable of shooting, he'll still be a decent pick at 25, but more of a role-player. Definitely a good selection.
The ceiling would be someone like Jimmy Butler who completely transformed his game through hard work, very hard work. Not many people that have that kind of energy and focus, but it’s possible Little could become a very different player than he is now.
I didn’t hone in on Little this season, but remember seeing NC play a few times and wonder where he was. The last time we saw him he was killing it in the McDonald’s game. Hope he uses whatever happened as fuel. I’ll take Gerald Wallace 2.0 and be very happy.
Questions about his motor are concerning. Did anyone watch him play much at UNC? The highlight videos make it look like he has a motor and some fire. But as we've seen with Harkless, that isn't something you can teach.
Little and Reddish both failed to meet expectations as freshman - and largely for the same reasons. One stayed a top ten pick and the other dropped. Strikes me as rather arbitrary.
It was an insanely weird draft imo. It was because really so many guys all graded out similarly to a lot of teams and some teams and I dunno as it went probably 10-15 picks in the 1st round, I was surprised at where guys got drafted, some absolute head scratchers, some just weird how far they dropped. Like Little and Kevin Porter Jr, might have top 7 ish talent and just dropped. Just a strange draft to follow this year.
He could run into the same problem he had in college. On a team in "win now" mode, his lack of polish could trump his obvious talent.
Reddish has better skills for the modern NBA. For one he’s a better shooter than Little and we saw how much value teams placed on shooting.
