A bigger coincidence is that the Blazers (Bob Whitsitt) traded a pick for his father on draft day, then did the same for the son 23 years later.
Wait. Let me enjoy this. For once in my life, I know more than BJ does. Exhale. Fun. https://www.blazersedge.com/2018/6/...n-josh-okogie-khyri-thomas-pre-draft-workouts
I have no idea how accurately Kevin Pelton can predict the future, but if Trent ends up being a better shooter than DiVincenzo and Huerter and everyone else picked ahead of him, we just got a huge steal. BNM
I think the Trent over Thomas thing is for the intangibles. Trent is a no-nonsense superhard worker who has a professional mindset. Don't know where Thomas falls on those measures.
I sure wouldn't want to base my pick on workouts; even Olshey has said he doesn't do that. I guess an argument could be made that Trent's first year in college was better than Thomas'. Oops, then I looked. Thomas shot over 41% on threes his first year and has proved consistency by basically doing that for three years. And his overall FG% his first year 47%, 6 points higher than Trent. That is a huge difference and he improved to almost 54% by his third year.
So we are drafting a guy on potential, but he is an average athlete who lacks explosiveness and lateral quickness. I tried to talk myself into liking Swanigan last year but I don't think I can do that again.
What am I missing? Trent shot a measley 41.5 % overall. His EFG was 52.8%, a full ten percent behind Khyri Thomas 62.9%.
Shot selection which led to inconsistent numbers. He’d have games where he was lights out followed by games where he didn’t make anything. But the base is there for him to develop into a really good shooter with Portland, especially since he won’t be asked to do as much. Trent was a near 90% free throw shooter. Thomas was at 72%. That’s a pretty significant difference. I don’t know of many guards that shot below 80% in college that went on to be great shooters in the NBA.
You're not missing anything. It's a poor pick. Even best case, Crabbe's poor defense would still put Trent's to shame
To me a lack of defense shows one of 3 things. That player doesn't have a high BBIQ, the effort isn't there, or he just doesn't have the physical ability to move quick enough. Khyri Thomas was a two time defensive player of the year in the Big East and Gary Trent's team had to switch to zone defense because they were so bad at man to man defense. If we're evaluating work ethic, I'll take the one who has proven he loves to play defense. On top of all that, Thomas is a great shooter too. The only things Trent has on Thomas are his size, that he is younger, and as @Scalma just pointed out free throw %.
He was in top 5 in the combined in the shuffle with 2.99 so I thank he as it but he has to make up his mind up to do it on the D side of the ball.
To expand: an example is Evan Turner. Turner had seasons of shooting 44% and 37% from outside at Ohio state, but never shot over 80% at the stripe. It’s not a perfect science but I wouldn’t bet on someone like Thomas translating his outside shooting into the NBA. Trent has better odds.
Duke play zone due to they had 3 or more freshman in there all the time. I believe Carter was best out the bunch.
Well he have to remember that Thomas a lot of mock draft had in 1st round so we not the only team pass over him. So there must been something about him through combined and work outs that teams didn't like.
What if, having seen both players in workouts, they decided Trent had a better chance of getting his shot off against NBA defenders? What if, they were more interested in playing him some a SF? You can’t measure those things in raw stats. And that isn’t even to mention professionalism, aggression and work ethic.
