Exclusive Welcome Zach Collins!

Thanks guys. That makes total sense. Shoulda been able to figure that one out myself.... Lol

 

It's kinda like college football. You'll see a guy absolutely dominate in college, but his advantages are severely diminished when he gets to the NFL.

 

He's slow and prodding, which 15 years ago he might be able to get away with in the NBA. He's not a great rebounder or shot blocker. But he ate up tons of space with his size, could pass better than any Center I saw at the college level and his post moves were pretty damn good, but against guys quite a bit smaller than him.

Karnowski has never been in great shape. You could tell by the end of the tourney all the basketball had worn him down. He was missing bunnies and stuff he usually always made. He will be a beast in Europe. If he can ever transform his body, he might be an NBA talent. As of now, I don't see it.

 

For those who don't think his shot blocking will transfer, that SAVAGE ASS block was on the #1 draft pick Markelle Fultz.

 

I think it's more likely that it will take him a year or two to adjust to how the NBA is called. I remember Joel Przybilla was a foul magnet early on in his career as well.

 

Wasn't Channing Frye the 7th pick in the draft?

(Just going off my faulty memory)

 

I think he was 8 -frye

 

The only person who gets to decide who starts for the Zags is the Zags coach. One guy with his own biases and agenda. Did the Zags coach made a bad decision from the team's perspective by bringing the freshman off the bench? I think it's a pretty hard argument to make, given they made the NCAA Finals.

It was definitely a bad decision from the perspective of Collins' career, though. He almost certainly doesn't fall to us if he were a starter. But the coach made his decision based on projected team success. I don't hold it against Collins for the decisions his coach made any more than I hold it against Manu Ginobili coming off the bench for a Spurs title.

I think the "He wasn't even good enough to start as a freshman in college" argument only works in this instance if people were arguing Collins is a transformational player along the lines of LeBron or Durant. I'm a big fan of his, and I really see him as having Rasheed Wallace/Chris Bosh/LaMarcus Aldridge type of upper limit.

The key indicator in answering if he's NBA ready is to look at how he produced when he was in the game, especially in the tournament. It's pretty promising by that yardstick. I don't think he's a guaranteed starter, but frankly the competition ahead of him is pretty thin. Beating out Vonleh isn't going to be that tough.

 

I think this "small ball" stuff is a fad rather than an "evolution of the game". I see this all the time in sports, where everyone thinks they need to copy or draft players to defeat whoever is the best at the time. When Shaq was dominant, teams were drafting big bodies just to guard him in the post. And tell me how the Warriors would have defended Shaq?

It's not like small ball is new. The Warriors were doing it back in the 80s with Don Nelson.

I think the pendulum will swing back the other way if this league gets a collection of skilled big men who can actually score in the post, rather than the swath of unskilled athletic guys that seem to be coming in lately. It's like an NFL defense building itself solely to stop the pass, then realize a team can run the ball down their throat.

 

You are forgetting one small thing: Adam Silver wants the league to be about a million 3-point shots every game. He doesn't REALLY like basketball so he finds defense and post play boring.

The league itself is shaping the gameplay and not the other way around. The league is allowing endless moving screens for shooters, whistles for every touch beyond the arc and nothing in the paint. God forbid someone tries to touch James Harden or Curry on the perimeter! defense is not allowed.

 

I myself miss the post-up days. The 80s and early 90s was the best era of basketball by far. It doesn't seem that many american kids are working on their post skills. Most of the big men you see from america are all athletes or tall guys that can shoot.

The touch fouls are ridiculous too, what is more boring than watching a guy shoot FTS?

 

Not sure about the Adam Silver bit though. The NBA teams started jacking up a hell of a lot more 3s the year the NBA experimented with moving the 3pt line to the college mark. A lot more players started practicing their shooting, and they never looked back. I think a lot of players like it, because why drive hard and risk getting injured when you can launch up a 3? And if you can hit around 33% of them, that's a really decent percentage.

The 3 pt shot is here to stay, but I'd still like to see better post play.

 

^^^ That is ridiculous! And yet out on the perimeter, if you breathe on Curry, Harden, Durant, etc, there is an immediate whistle.

 

Hook? Nothing
Elbow? Nothing
Full on WWE shove? Nothing

I love me some Jeff Van Gundy. He doesn't care one bit if he shouldn't say something like that. Reminds me of Snapper

 

There was another play like it in the finals and JVG ranted again on this whole subject.
He said something along the lines of: "players are not trying to score using post up moves because the league is not rewarding them with foul calls and they risk getting the ball stolen from them. you only get rewarded in this league for three point shots ".

I'm sorry that i couldn't find that clip :-(

 

It's the David vs. Goliath syndrome. I'm too lazy to look up the exact quote, but Wilt commented on it back in the 1960s. He said (paraphrasing) the common fan will always view the big man as the villain (Goliath) and cheer for the smaller hero (David). They do not self-identify with the 7' giant and consider him a freak of nature.

All the recent rule changes and the current officiating favor the smaller player more than at any time in NBA history. The league wants this because the average fan self-identifies more with 6'3" point guards than 7' centers.

BNM

 

It's the exact same reason why flopping is rampant in the NBA and not at any other level. Flops are rewarded with a whistle.

 

I think the ref called a "foul" on that block haha

 

That "SAVAGE ASS block" was a foul, so yay