Who’s ready to do some NBA Draft homework?
With men’s college basketball’s major conference tournaments on tap this week and the NCAA Tournament just around the corner, these next two weeks are a great opportunity for fans of struggling pro teams to do some quick research on the better prospects for this June.
Before we get too deep in the weeds, let’s start with the 10,000-foot view: It’s an unusual draft this year on two levels. First, there is no consensus No. 1 pick right now, or anything even close; this is the most jumbled I’ve seen draft boards since the 2013 draft, when Anthony Bennett was the surprise top pick. Second, several of the best prospects aren’t actually in college basketball. Between G League Ignite and overseas leagues, it’s possible five players will be off the board before a single player is drafted from the NCAA.
Nonetheless, there’s talent every year, and this one is no exception. The key is separating the wheat from the chaff, and while this year might have an unusual amount of chaff, I assure you we will look back in 10 years and realize there were some useful grains.
What follows, then, is a bit of a viewing guide toward the most interesting players to keep an eye on over the next couple weeks, both based on their likelihood of actually participating in meaningful games and on the relative question marks about their games that might get resolved for fans (and scouts) in that time.
This isn’t necessarily a ranking of my top college prospects but a ranking of how much I’d want to track each of them for draft purposes. Here are my top nine players to watch in the madness of March:
1. Reed Sheppard, 6-2 freshman guard, Kentucky
One of the interesting subplots of the past few months has been seeing evaluators try to avoid the conclusion that Reed Sheppard is the best NCAA prospect despite having the evidence punch them in the face every day. Of late, however, Sheppard’s play seems to have won over even his biggest skeptics. He was dominant — again — in Kentucky’s 85-81 win over No. 4 Tennessee on Saturday, finishing with a 27-6-5 line on just 14 shots.
Inexplicably coming off the bench (along with Kentucky’s other likely lottery-bound freshman guard Rob Dillingham) and thus limited to 29 minutes per game, Sheppard has defensive stats that jump off the page. He’s averaging 4.7 steals per 100 possessions, second only to Iowa State’s Tamin Lipsey among major college players, and despite standing 6-2 with a 6-3 wingspan, has blocked 23 shots this season. The eye test backs this up; Kentucky isn’t good on defense, but Sheppard has been a terror.
Meanwhile, his outside shot has been cash. Sheppard is shooting 52.6 percent from 3 and 84.1 percent from the line, with hair-trigger speed on his 3-point launch. While you’d like to see him get more up than his 8.1 attempts per 100, he’s also been effective in the paint (55.7 percent on 2s); the biggest issue in his statistical record is a relatively low usage rate, which can be explained partly by how often he’s shared the court with Dillingham and partly by John Calipari’s multi-decade track record of being the best defense against talented guards.
Nitpickers can have some fun around the edges, perhaps. Sheppard hasn’t had the keys to the offense at Kentucky and would likely need to be a full-time point guard as a pro; he’s been a bit more turnover-prone than you’d hope as well. And his shooting probably isn’t as good as his percentages indicate, because nobody is that good.
Finally, teams will surely fixate on Sheppard’s stature. But “I wish you were 2 inches taller” isn’t an actual weakness unless you can connect it to some other basketball deficiency; Sheppard’s tape and stat lines don’t betray any shortcomings that you can link back to his size.
GO DEEPER
Reed Sheppard and Kentucky, a love story. ‘The whole state is connected to him’
2. Stephon Castle, 6-6 freshman guard, Connecticut
While Stephon…
This article was originally published by a theathletic.com . Read the Original article here. .