Also had 2 steals, all in 18 minutes. I know this game wasn't much watch TV, but his defensive prowess is night and day compared to Acuff. Was scared the Nets made the wrong choice, but this silenced all my fears.

Like his conditioning has already started to improved and he’s shown to be pretty coordinated for a huge Center. As well as his pick n rolls coverage has been actually solid in the preseason. I know it’s only preseason! But he’s definitely showed a lot more than he did in the summer league

Still getting to know this class, but I'm not particularly excited by it, especially if you're a franchise looking for a player to change your fortunes. There does appear to be some potential depth in this draft, though.

I'm comfortable having Tyran Stokes at No. 1, and I'm probably a little higher on some of the sophomores than others. I previously had Cameron Williams higher, but apparently he's been battling a virus, and Joaquim Boumtje Boumtje looks to have locked down the starting spot.

Brandon McCoy would be somewhere around the middle of the first round for me, but he's now unlikely to play this season.

I also think the consensus is sleeping on Marcius Ponder. A lot of freshmen get projected as first-rounders early in the draft cycle but never find themselves in a position to establish meaningful minutes. Marcius, on the other hand, has a clear path to playing time.

Pick Player

1 Tyran Stokes

2 Jordan Smith Jr.

3 Caleb Holt

4 Hugo Yimga-Moukouri

5 Stefan Joksimović

6 Alijah Arenas

7 Tounde Yessoufou

8 Bruce Branch III

9 Anthony Thompson

10 Thomas Haugh

11 Sheldon Henderson

12 Dame Sarr

13 Dylan Mingo

14 Baba Oladotun

15 Cameron Williams

16 Patrick Ngongba II

17 Malachi Moreno

18 Braylon Mullins

19 JJ Andrews

20 Quentin Coleman

21 Jason Crowe Jr.

22 Amari Allen

23 Motiejus Krivas

24 Abdou Toure

25 Cameron Houindo

26 Miikka Muurinen

27 Luigi Suigo

28 Colben Landrew

29 Marcius Ponder

30 Deron Rippey Jr.

Second Round

Pick Player

31 Sayon Keita

32 Billy Richmond III

33 Christian Collins

34 Trey McKenney

35 Tyler Tanner

36 Klark Riethauser

37 Jalen Haralson

38 Davis Fogle

39 Juke Harris

40 Ivan Kharchenkov

41 Rueben Chinyelu

42 Moustapha Thiam

43 Dash Daniels

44 Mor Massamba Diop

45 Milan Momcilovic

46 Neoklis Avdalas

47 Austin Goosby

48 Alex Condon

49 David Mirkovic

50 Andrej Stojakovic

51 Flory Bidunga

52 JT Toppin

53 Daniel Jacobsen

54 Dwayne Aristode

55 Miles Byrd

56 Pavle Bačko

57 Marc-Owen Fodzo Dada

58 Jeremy Fears Jr.

59 Najai Hines

60 Nikolas Khamenia

I Studied some data over the past 20 years.

Landing the unicorns—players who are drafted under the age of 20 and become historically great and stay with your team, is really a matter of drafting in the top 5 plain and simple. In almost every case over the past 20 years the <20 y/o drafted in the top 5 was a fairly obvious pick that anyone with eyeballs could have done successfully.

Once you get out of the top 5 where other variables come into play, we still often find teams drafting "high upside" <20 y/o players. But what the data show is that this is a strategy that reliably fails.

A few things to consider. Players rarely stay with their drafting team for more than 8 years. In fact, outside of top 5 picks that ratio is 12:1. This alone, should end arguments about age concerns of older draftees. The metrics that suggest teams should draft extreme youth are so weighted by elite draftees that are obvious top 5 picks that it obscures the fact that teams are otherwise better off drafting upperclassmen.

Older players produce more over their first three seasons regardless of draft slot (even including those elite top 5 picks). Across all draft slots, players over 20 average 2.45 VORP and -0.45 BPM where players under 20 produce 1.15 and -1.85 respectively over their first three seasons. This shouldn't be a surprise, but it is often overlooked for teams hoping to draft the next Kobe.

So if older players produce more in their first three years and almost all players depart after 8 seasons or earlier, the aging argument is effectively negated.

The only reason to draft extreme youth is to get a franchise cornerstone you can build around but the reality is if you don't have a top 5 pick that's incredibly unlikely. But it's even less likely to happen if you try to draft a player under 20. or even the next Jokic (drafted 41st) Giannis (drafted 15th), Booker (13th) or Bam (14th) DeRozan (9th). This is the list of guys who have become franchise cornerstones with the team that drafted them under 20 and outside of the top 5 over the past 20 years. And two of them (Jokic and Giannis) have atypical paths to the NBA.

Here's a graph of notable players over the past 20 years drafted between 6 and 30—excluding career bench players and draft and stash players who don't pan out.

I chose to include Kawhi in the over 20 group since at 19 years 359 days he was much more 20 than 19. But even moving him to the other group it doesn't change the story in the data.

Those two guys were "meh" prospects but later on bloomed as the season went.

My canidates for potential All stars/ Franchise players are Jordan Smith Jr, Stefan Joksimovic,Motiejus Krivas.

All three players have swing abilities that can make them Franchise cornerstones.

From what I’ve seen from Cam Boozer in college, summer league and preseason, it seems like Cam Boozer has no flaws at all. Even with the athleticism and defensive question marks, Cam has answered that question by losing weight and looking quicker on his feet and looks good defensively so far in the preseason and it looks like that improved athleticism will foreshadow good things that will happen when the season starts soon.

Out of all the players I’ve seen, I never seen such a unique player like Cam Boozer cause I never seen a player who plays like Cam in my history of watching the NBA. Most players have 1 style that they stick to and that’s it. If your a guard or wing, your going to operate in the perimeter as a ball handler, handle the ball in the P&R and occasionally post up or faceup at the elbows and boxes. A big will post up on the low block, operate at the dunker spot to catch lobs or just dunk or layup, pick and pop, set screens by rolling to the rim, set screens & then catch a lob, get downhill from the short roll or do a DHO like a Jokic or Sabonis.

Cam is someone who can do both by operating as a wing style point forward but can also play like a big too and does big like things especially when it comes to the dirty work. And I think that’s the conundrum for Cam is that he does so many good things on the court but doesn’t do a single thing elite.

Is Cam Boozer having too much diversity in his game preventing him from having a higher ceiling and should he simplify his game because of this or am I overthinking this and just wrong for making Cam having too much diversity in his game into a bad thing?