I mean, being younger is pretty significant, especially when the difference is three years. Trent is the same age as Simons.
Shooting is one skill that doesn't necessarily translate from one level to the next. There are several factors (strength of competition, height of release, quickness of release, range, age, etc.) that contribute. Just because one player shoots better in college than another, doesn't necessarily mean that same player will shoot better at the next level. Unlike Kevin Pelton, I don't watch enough college ball to have an informed opinion why he said what he said. As an extreme example, Klay Thompson was a good shooter in college (.436 FG%, .398 3FG%) who became a great shooter in the NBA (.458 FG%, .422 3FG%). At the other extreme, Adam Morrison was a great shooter in college (.496 FG%, .428 3FG%) whose shooting did not translate to the next level (.373 FG%, .331 3FG%). I'm not claiming Trent Jr. is the next Klay Thompson, or that Khyri Thomas is the next Adam Morrison. As I said, these are two extreme examples. I'm just pointing out there are reasons why one player may project as a better shooter at the NBA level than another player who shot better at the college level. Kevin Pelton is the one who projected Trent Jr. to be the become the best shooter at the NBA level from this draft. He must have some reasons to back up that projection. Unfortunately, he didn't share them in his tweet. BNM
We hear for years that Dame and C.J. are two small combo guards that can't coexist. We take another small combo guard with the 24th pick and people bitch about that. So, we take a 6'6" SG in the second round and now people are bitching that we passed on yet another 6'3" combo guard. I think sometimes (most of the time) people just like to find something to complain about. No one we were going to take at 24th and 37th was going to propel us into contention this season. So, we took a pair of 19-year olds with upside. Not sure why that's considered bad. I get that Khryi Thomas may be better than Gary Trent Jr. today (and even that is debatable), but where will Gary Trent Jr. (and Anfrnee Simons) be three years from now when they are the same age as Thomas, with three seasons of NBA experience under their belts? One, or both, may break out. One, or both, may end up total busts. Those are the risks associated with the draft in general, but especially when drafting at 24 and 37. BNM
I tracked down Peltons formula. From an insider article couple years ago. Explains why he would be so high on Trent, who shot near 90% from the line. Predicting NBA 3-point percentage It might seem crazy that anything but the college 3-point shooting percentage would help predict NBA 3-point shooting. But history is striking in this regard. Consider this: 13 players in Sports-Reference.com's college database (dating to 1997-98) shot at least 42 percent from 3-point range with at least 250 career attempts and have attempted at least 500 career 3-pointers as pros. A similar-sized group of players made at least 85 percent of their free throws on the same number of attempts. Lo and behold, the two groups -- which overlap somewhat -- have shot almost the same percentage from 3-point range in the NBA. From a statistical standpoint, it makes sense that free throws might convey important information about a player's overall shooting ability. After all, a player's free throw percentage is much more stable season to season. NBA players who have attempted between 100 and 200 free throws in consecutive seasons have a .785 correlation between their free throw percentage in the two years. (Correlation measures the linear relationship between two numbers, with 1 representing one-to-one correlation and zero indicating no linear relationship at all.) The year-to-year correlation in 3-point percentage among players with the same number of attempts is just .313. So if we take the full sample of players with at least 250 career 3-point and free throw attempts in the Sports-Reference.com NCAA database and at least 500 career 3s attempted in the NBA, college free throw percentage actually correlates slightly better (.443) to NBA 3-point percentage than college 3-point percentage (.429). Neither is a particularly good predictor of 3-point shooting in the NBA, but together they're stronger than either stat individually, explaining about a quarter of the variation in what players shoot.
Thanks for tracking this down. To Thomas' credit, he did improve his FT% each year at Creighton. He went from an abysmal .521 as a freshman to .766 as a sophomore to .788 as a junior. In three years of college he basically improved from a terrible FT shooter to an average one. Trent Jr. was near elite level as a freshman. Only time will tell which ends up the better pro. Given where the are selected, I'm not expecting either to be the next Klay Thompson, but I'm not averse to being pleasantly surprised. BTW, Thompson shot above .800 FT% all three seasons at Washington State... BNM
Neither can play PnR defense Edit: Watch the St Joe’s game. That’s why they went to a 2-3 and got the bigs out of pnr.
You're taking my comments a little out of context, which even I do occasionally. My point was your point, basically. Can't just look at stats, watch them play, too. You DO base your decisions on workouts, stats, eye-test,... every data point you can get. I too would have liked Thomas, 3&D for days. However, Olshey, after weighing all of the evidence came to the conclusion that Simons has more upside and Trent has more intangibles (work ethic). Seems reasonable to me.
I like Thomas, too. NO had them both in for workouts. I assume it's an intangibles thing, but I'm reading between the lines here, like everyone else.
Hahahaha! Exactly. You and @BonesJones keeps up on things a lot more than I do, so I've got to give you guys props, but I also need to enjoy things every once in a while!
I think Trent may eventually be better than Thomas (may even be right now like you suggest). My point all along is that Thomas is an elite level defender while Trent is very poorly thought of on defense. For this current team I would rather have an Avery Bradley type than another Crabbe type player. If neither is particularly good at creating their own shot then I don't think there is a big enough difference in their spot up shooting to warrant Trent being a better prospect. I do get and understand that finding an elite shooter, even if that is his only skill, in the 2nd round is a good thing. I was just disappointed that we gave up two future 2nd rounders for him and did so with Thomas on the board. Obviously I'm just a stupid poster on the internet so my opinion doesn't really account for much, I just really like Thomas a lot and don't have huge hopes for Trent.
NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO! Just read that the picks we gave up were the best of the Minny/Lakers 2nd rounder in 2019 (not a big deal) but the other one was the Miami 2021 2nd rounder. Like @Sarni mentioned the Heat could be really bad by then.
The biggest knock on Trent is his defense. Unless someone is a slug or at a tremendous physical disadvantage, neither of which Trent is, they can learn to play defense at least adequately. I've seen mixed reviews about his ballhandling. And I'm not sure if the Crabbe comparisons fly beyond the fact that both shoot the ball well. Trent seems to be a much more aggressive offensive player than I recall Crabbe being in college. Also, Crabbe and Khyri Thomas, like Bridges, were juniors when they were drafted. Trent's development is two full years behind any of them, and yet one can make a reasonable argument that he's already at least the same level as the first two were when they were drafted and ahead of the third when he was a college freshman. Trent wasn't exactly what I was hoping for, but I'm willing to let this play out. There are things to like about this pick.
Where is this idea that he is a terrible defender come from? I’ve seen no stats to back it up and it didn’t match what I saw. I’ve seen scouts say he is inconsistent in his effort and gambles for too many steals, not that he is a matador and a sieve. Khyri obviously a much better defender, but it won’t matter if he is playing SF minutes because he is too short / doesn’t weigh enough. Also, Trent Jr. is already our 3rd best offensive player as soon as he lands in the state, imo. The spacing he will provide for Dame and CJ is going to really help - plus, he is better with the ball than Crabbe.
I haven't looked at the 2019 second round, but it sure seems like the second round this year had a lot more value than the average year.
