Anthony Davis: Projecting Potential No. 1 Overall Pick’s NBA Career

 Rumors  No Responses »
May 282012
 

Kentucky’s outstanding freshman Anthony Davis is all but assured of being the No. 1 pick in June’s NBA draft.

With that being said, you never know how that will turn out?

On one side of the coin, the likes of Derrick Rose, LeBron James, Dwight Howard, Blake Griffin and Allen Iverson were taken No. 1 and became or are on their way to becoming franchise-type players.

Flip the coin over though and the likes of Greg Oden, Kwame Brown, Michael Olowokandi and Joe Smith were also selected No.1 overall and things didn’t quite work out so well for them.

The question though which side of the coin will Davis’ NBA career end up on?

There’s little doubt in my mind that Davis will turn into a good pro.

He was the most dominant player in all of college basketball this season and has the rare ability to dominate the game without ever touching the ball. Davis will become the cornerstone of whatever franchise that gets the privilege of selecting him and should be a solid NBA player from the day he enters the league.

However there’s a difference from being a good or very good pro and becoming that franchise-type player that leads his team to multiple championships, similar to what No. 1 overall picks Tim Duncan and Shaquille O’Neal did throughout their NBA careers.

Physically, Davis is as gifted as any player to come out into the league in the past 20 years. He makes the game look easy and effortless at times and that will translate nicely to the NBA.

Defensively, Davis can guard multiple positions and his length and quickness will make him a very good shot-blocker and rebounder.

Offensively, Davis will be a very tough guard for opposing players. Against bigger defenders, his quickness, ability to run the floor and soft shooting touch make him a difficult matchup. Against quicker defenders, his size, length and finishing ability make him extremely tough to matchup against.

However the question surrounding Davis’ game isn’t about his thin frame as much as it is about his ability to take over and dominate situations. He shot 63 percent from the floor on the season, but late in games, Davis often disappeared or deferred to teammates.

Davis has guard-type skills in a big man’s body, but is he that franchise changer?

I really don’t think so.

He will be an outstanding pro, but unlike the likes of Duncan, O’Neal, LeBron and a few others who made their teams championship contenders almost instantly, I don’t see Davis having that type of NBA impact.

He will make an impact and will be a multi-time All-Star, but at the end of the day Davis isn’t going to turn whichever team that drafts him into an immediate contender.

He’s quite possibly the best big man prospect since Duncan came out, but right now if I were to project his future, it may be closer along the lines of Chris Webber, who was drafted No. 1 overall in the 1993 draft.

While I won’t compare the skill sets of the two, they have a similarity in the fact that both were, and are in the case of Davis, very unselfish players.

Webber was a very good player who was the Rookie of the Year, a five-time All-Star and an All-NBA selection on five different occasions.

He also was a player that never really dominated the game in the fashion that his skill set said he should have. He averaged 20.7 points, 9.8 rebounds and 1.4 blocks per game throughout his 15 year NBA career.

Davis will average less points per game and will block significantly more shots, but down the road we may see a lot of similarities between Webber’s NBA career and Davis’.

That’s how I project the career of Davis in the NBA.

At the end of the day, don’t think Duncan or O’Neal, but instead think Webber instead and there’s nothing wrong with that as plenty of teams would like to have a Webber-type of big man on their team for the next decade.

Read more NBA news on BleacherReport.com

Go to Source

Glen Taylor is looking to sell the Minnesota Timberwolves (Ball Don’t Lie)

 Minnesota  No Responses »
May 072012
 

Every NBA owner has a few black marks on their reputations. For Minnesota Timberwolves owner Glen Taylor, those include agreeing to pay Joe Smith under the table , lording over a franchise that managed just two playoff series wins with Kevin Garnett in his prime, hitting a dismal run of form thereafter, not having particularly kind words for Garnett and others following their departures, and, depending on whom you ask, hiring the erratic David Kahn as general manager.
All things considered, though, Taylor has a relatively good reputation compared to other owners (which says something about those owners), currently serving as chairman of the league’s Board of Governors and generally not doing anything especially embarrassing in public. There’s a sense that Taylor, a former state senator, conceives of a sports team as part of the fabric of the community rather than a mere business venture.
As reported by Jon Krawczynski of the Associated Press , Taylor is now looking for, in his words, a successor. Except, in keeping with his approach, he’s not looking for the highest bidder or a regular change in ownership:

Go to Source

NBA Draft 2012: Terrell Stoglin Joins List of Unprepared Early Entrants

 Rumors  No Responses »
May 012012
 

The deadline for college basketball underclassmen to declare for the 2012 NBA Draft came and went on April 29th, but not before Maryland’s Terrell Stoglin slid under the door as one of the last (and most curious) early entrants in this year’s pool.

The junior-to-be considered testing the waters in March, before deciding to return for his senior season. But he later reneged on that notion once he was slapped with a season-long suspension for violating the university’s student-athlete code of conduct.

Rather than stick around, then, Stoglin decided to take his talents to the draft.

That might not be the smartest decision, to say the least.  

Stoglin grades out as a combo guard, if only because he’s small (6’1, 185 pounds) for a shooting guard and doesn’t have a game that’s all that well-suited to the point. There’s no doubt that he can score; he led the ACC in that department with 21.6 points per game last season, becoming the first Terrapin to do so since Joe Smith in 1995. But with the draft already overstocked with early entrants, particularly with skill sets similar to Stoglin’s, it seems unlikely that he’ll wind up as one of the lucky 60 to come away with some form of employment from draft day in late June.

Is he any better than Texas’ J’Covan Brown, another high-scoring ‘tweener who could go undrafted? Or Villanova’s Maalik Wayns, who’s one of the top point guards in a weak draft at the position but still figures to fall a ways into the second round? He’s certainly nowhere near the stratosphere of Weber State’s Damian Lillard, who looks like a surefire lottery pick at this point.

Of course, curious draft decisions are anything but unusual amongst underclassmen. This year alone, we’ve seen the likes of FIU’s Dominique Ferguson and Alabama’s Tony Mitchell opt for the NBA amidst issues at school, be it Ferguson’s desire to transfer or Mitchell’s outright dismissal.

Those two will have Stoglin at their side on draft day, though all three will likely have to find work in the D-League or overseas long before they can even hope to realize their NBA dreams.

 

Follow @J0shMart1n 

Read more NBA news on BleacherReport.com

Go to Source

LNB: La Unión en Formosa le ganó a San Martín

 Uncategorized  No Responses »
Feb 162012
 

FORMOSA — La Unión de Formosa se impuso a San Martín de Corrientes, por 79 a 69, en partido por la fecha 25 de la Liga Nacional de básquetbol.
El local tomó una gran ventaja en los tres primeros parciales pero en el último el “Santo” se acercó a sólo 4 tantos, 70 a 66, llegando así a un final mas complicado de lo esperado por el elenco que dirige Gabriel Piccato que terminó ganando 79 a 69.
Joe Smith en La Unión con 30 puntos y William Mc Farlan en la visita con 27, fueron los…
Go to Source

La Unión venció a Peñarol en Formosa

 Rumors  No Responses »
Feb 112012
 

FORMOSA — La Unión de Formosa superó el viernes por la noche al líder de la clasificación, Peñarol de Mar del Plata, por
99 a 89, en partido correspondiente a la 21ra. fecha de la Liga
Nacional de básquetbol, segunda fase. El partido jugado en el estadio Cincuentenario tuvo como
máximo goleador al extranjero Joe Smith, con 23 puntos. Un escalón
por debajo estuvo Javier Cáceres, también del conjunto formoseño
(llegó a su cuarto triunfo seguido), con 22 unidades. El primer…
Go to Source

Regatas sorprende a La Unión en Formosa

 Rumors  No Responses »
Jan 072012
 

FORMOSA — Regatas Corrientes reanudó el viernes por la noche la temporada con una victoria sobre La Unión de Formosa, de
visitante, por 87 a 78, por la 11ma. fecha de la Liga Nacional de
Básquetbol, segunda fase. La visita manejó el partido con cinco jugadores que
terminaron con doble dígito. El goleador del encuentro fue el
extranjero de los formoseños, Joe Smith, con 22 puntos, seguido de
cerca por Gabriel Mikulas, también del local, con 18 tantos. Un inicio dubitativo…
Go to Source

Josh McRoberts to Los Angeles Lakers: Breaking Down the 2011 NBA Free Agent Signing

 Rumors  No Responses »
Dec 132011
 

Josh McRoberts will join the Los Angeles Lakers following the trade of Lamar Odom to Dallas.

The big man, who had spent the duration of his career with the Indiana Pacers heretofore, has agreed to a two-year deal for the mini midlevel exception to join the Lakers roster.

While a lot of fans of the team will snicker at the move and complain that the team has replaced Odom with McRoberts, that’s simply not the case.

Rather than having the likes of Theo Ratliff, Joe Smith and D.J. Mbenga fill out the end of the bench as we have seen in previous seasons, an aging Los Angeles roster brings in some much needed youth to serve behind Pau Gasol and Andrew Bynum.

McRoberts is capable of playing both power forward and center, something that will be extremely valuable to the Lakers given the fact that both starting big men have been forced to the sideline with injuries in previous seasons.

Additionally, McRoberts will act as an “energy guy” capable of getting up on the glass and securing rebounds, another element to the attack that the team was often missing last season.

Given the limited financial flexibility the team has to utilize in free agency and the rather underwhelming crop of big men available in the club’s price range, McRoberts may very well pleasantly surprise some fans who have yet to see him play on a consistent basis.

It’s going to be interesting to see how the team utilizes him as Mike Brown’s offense is tailored through his big men, but there’s no question that this was a move that had to be made in order to bolster the (lack of) depth behind Bynum and Gasol.

Go to Source