2024 NBA Draft Thread

[scott]

Williams seems to be one of those "fluid" athletes at best while Holland looks like he's moving around on springs. I know they only show a couple makes but could the resident ST shot doctors tell me what's broken about Holland's jumper?

I'm not an expert, and I have Holland as #2 on my board, but his shot does have a little bit of that Michael Kidd-Gilchrist to it.

[Mr. Body]

I wanted to try and get a better idea for Stephon Castle's shooting prospects and the odds that he'd be a decent shooter. People cite his FT% often, but using that as a sole factor seems inaccurate. For me at least, trying to get an understanding of "touch" and 3 point accuracy looks at 4 factors - FT%, college 3 pt%, college 3 pt volume, and college midrange %. That said, Castle scores poorly in 3/4 categories - while his FT% is acceptable, his 3 point % (27), 3 point volume (75) and midrange accuracy (35%) are extremely worrisome to me. Looking at these factors, I would expect that he would not project to be a good shooter moving forward.

These are the results of a quick database search. I used Bart torvik to look for all 1st round draft picks (excluding bigs) in the last 17 years with the following:
FT% > 75
Midrange % < 40
3 point volume < 100
3 pt % < 30

Of the 17 hits, there were 3 guys who ended up turning into good shooters by their pre-draft season and then obviously became good NBA shooters
Buddy Hield (Fr), Jalen Williams (So), Mikal Bridges (Fr)

Of the 14 others, 6/14 became league average or better shooters:
Kawhi, Alec Burks, Oladipo, Delon Wright, Grant Williams, Pascal Siakam

Unfortunately, the 8/14 other players who did not become league average or better shooters all busted or are on their way out of the league

If we turn the FT filter down to 72%, we add Jaden Ivey, Kobe Brown, De'aaron Fox, Michael Kidd-Gilchrist, and Jeff Taylor; none of these 5 are what I would call good shooters, although maybe there is some hope for Fox and Ivey in the future

So these results actually are more optimistic for Castle than I would have thought. I basically assumed that he had virtually zero chance of becoming an acceptable shooter with his metrics, but in truth I think that there is some precedent that he can get to at least league average. That may be enough if he is used more as a secondary creating POA defender like Jalen Suggs. However, this list also suggests that if he does not develop into a league average shooter, there is a decent chance he will bust out of the league along the likes of Nassir Little and MKG.

Those are actually some fantastic results, good work. If you have something like a 9 of 17 hit rate would be excellent, and it's notable that many of those who hit (became average shooters) are very high end role players or stars. For busts, a guy like Michael Kidd-Gilchrist is a very close comp and his J was fundamentally broken. He was improving in the NBA before injuries (shooting shoulder, etc.) completely derailed him.

One thing to notice is that a couple of these players, MKG, Mikal Bridges, also won NCAA les. Others, like Oladipo and Jalen Williams, were very high end players in college. There was no Josh Minott "maybe he might be good someday."

A while back, I posted something I found about how smaller players in the lottery are more likely to hit in the NBA than bigs. The gist is that small players are simply better at basketball than bigger players... if they're drafted in the lottery. Basically, stating it the opposite way: if you're good enough to make the lottery as a small guy (6'1 or 6'3" or whatever), you're probably very, very good. A 6'8" guy is more of a 'promise' swing of the bat athlete, and a 7'1" center is even more hopeful.

Ergo, a reason why these guys in Castle's mold are hitting pretty well despite mixed shooting is that they're probably very good at everything else. They're really good players, with one significant question mark. If you can get that question mark figured out, then you have a Kawhi, an Oladipo (pre-injuries), Mikal Bridges, etc. You have a very good player.

[cutewizard]

[cutewizard]

https://www.nytimes.com/athletic/551...qv0kTW3TQyrU0K

[spurraider21]

I’d be good with that. I like castle much more as a wing than a point guard

[ChumpDumper]

This is one person's opinion mind you but I saw something similar.

I'd also add that he has that "Street Fighter 1/4 Circle - Hadouken" motion leading into the shot which I believe leads to inconsistencies upon release ie. two shots are never really the same.

Thanks.

[ChumpDumper]

I'm not an expert, and I have Holland as #2 on my board, but his shot does have a little bit of that Michael Kidd-Gilchrist to it.

Yeah. It's not a good or consistent shot, but it doesn't seem to be completely irreparable. I'm biased toward players like Holland but I'm not going to be busted up when the Spurs don't pick him.

[Vienna]

Williams seems to be one of those "fluid" athletes at best while Holland looks like he's moving around on springs.

interestingly the atheltic test numbers of this two are almost identical. Holland jumped slightly higher from one foot (+2.5"), while Cody jumped slightly higher from two feet (+1"). Cody had a slightly better sprint time (3.06 to 3.10), Holland had slightly better shuttle run (2.91 to 2.93).
while I don't see the test numbers as an ultimate proof of the athletic abilities, I see it as an interesting discussion, that the eye test shows one player as a "dynamic athlete", while the other is more of this "fluid athlete", when both might be pretty much the same in the result.
that said, I think Cody might be a bit underrated in that aspect, because he looks so fluid.
in fact, his sprint time is outstanding for a guy his size and he beat most of the guards in the test.
this combine displayed an above average number of great sprint tests, but with his time of 3.06 cody would have won the sprint test in last years combine, as well as in the year before and going back the last 10 years, he would have been top 3 in 9 times out of 10.

[RC_Drunkford]

I saw Devin Carter as a trade down possibility, then I saw the spurs are interested in him at 8.

Kid is the type of compe or you want next to Wemby. Great defense, great reach, great rebounder and Just tough as nails. Looks like he has a legit shot and his timing and awareness are sorely needed with the spurs squad.

Feel like he's another Derrick White Combo type. And he has the hairline to compete.

also very quick and athletic. If we need something at the 1 it's speed and shooting. I'd prefer them trading down rather than picking him at 8.

[objective]

Just hire a shooting coach and put Holland in the gym until the season starts

Mark Price was hired to be shooting coach in Charlotte after MKG's rookie year if I remember right, didn't help much. Or course his shot was worse off

[Bruno]

Castle, Topic, Holland and Buzelis have all shoot about the same 3 pointers this year.

Their 3 point shot stats this year:
Castle: 20/78 (25.6%)
Topic: 21/73 (28.8%)
Holland: 23//92 (25%)
Buzelis: 29/106 (27.4%)

Holland and Buzelis were playing with the farther NBA 3 point line.

You can make a case for a player by saying that he shots well free throws or that his shooting mechanics looks good or could easily be fixed but these are kinda week arguments to me. Teams that draft them will only know if their shot can be fixed after weeks/months of practice. These players are even more of a gamble than other draft prospect because of that.

[RC_Drunkford]

Someone was asking about Castle's jump shot. I believe in his shot more than I do Sochan's, and Jeremy's is improvable, he just seems to be targeting the basket more than shooting in rhythm. Castle shoots pretty well from spots above the break. His motion, the form, all look pretty good. I think he can develop it. Will he be a knockdown shooter? Probably not. Will he keep defenses honest? I think so. My question is more about how relatively deliberate and slow he is attacking the rim. He's not going to get there at will. But with Wemby's gravity and other actions, he's gonna know where to cut and how things work.

Otherwise he's exactly what would be great in the Spurs system. His rotations and man defense will be excellent to exceptional. Navigates picks extremely well, just dogged and relentless on that end. On offense, he'll be able to make quick reads and reactions, move the ball, do the right things. He won't take a long time to figure things out. He has special capabilities like being a really strong screener for a guard, meaning you can possibly even have him screen for Wemby or others to get things going.

Only real question I have with him is his mentality. Is he a secret diva who wants the ball in his hands a lot? Is he going to get irritable if he doesn't? If he's not a lunatic and simply means he doesn't want to be defense-only next to a guy like LaMello Ball, that he'll be energized playing in a strong motion system where he'll have every opportunity to read and react, then he's the player to get in this draft.

And not because it's a bad draft. Without their hype, he could have pushed Scoot and the Thompsons last year for spots. It wouldn't be surprising to see him impacting the league more than they do in five to eight years.

He'd be super effective in inverted pick & rolls with Wemby. Doesn't have the speed to get by defenders, but is extremely crafty around the rim and with his wingspan I don't see a problem here. He's probably the safest bet out of the non-shooters to develop a reliable jump shot, cause he played PG in high school and has experience when it comes to shooting off the dribble, etc. although he's not converting them at an elite percentage.

My thing is just that I wouldn't play him as PG. He's a wing who could play PG with the bench once your starting PG sits or occassionally when you need stops.

[CGD]

If this is going to be the Luka of the next 4 years, I think it strengthens the case for someone like Castle.

[SpursBills]

Those are actually some fantastic results, good work. If you have something like a 9 of 17 hit rate would be excellent, and it's notable that many of those who hit (became average shooters) are very high end role players or stars. For busts, a guy like Michael Kidd-Gilchrist is a very close comp and his J was fundamentally broken. He was improving in the NBA before injuries (shooting shoulder, etc.) completely derailed him.

One thing to notice is that a couple of these players, MKG, Mikal Bridges, also won NCAA les. Others, like Oladipo and Jalen Williams, were very high end players in college. There was no Josh Minott "maybe he might be good someday."

A while back, I posted something I found about how smaller players in the lottery are more likely to hit in the NBA than bigs. The gist is that small players are simply better at basketball than bigger players... if they're drafted in the lottery. Basically, stating it the opposite way: if you're good enough to make the lottery as a small guy (6'1 or 6'3" or whatever), you're probably very, very good. A 6'8" guy is more of a 'promise' swing of the bat athlete, and a 7'1" center is even more hopeful.

Ergo, a reason why these guys in Castle's mold are hitting pretty well despite mixed shooting is that they're probably very good at everything else. They're really good players, with one significant question mark. If you can get that question mark figured out, then you have a Kawhi, an Oladipo (pre-injuries), Mikal Bridges, etc. You have a very good player.

I think the pessimist's view of this is that there is about a 50% chance that he turns into a below average non-usable shooter. He can clearly ball and his passing ability gives him a moat, but can you think of any below average shooters (.320 or below on low-medium volume) that have had success in the league beyond being an end of bench guy? Ben simmons is the obvious one but he had all of Castle's strengths turned up to 10 before the Hawks series. Maybe pre-injury Justise winslow? I guess Marcus Smart had a terrible jumper for his first couple of years before improving and during that time he was still relatively useful. Guys who fill the role that Castle would fill, like Suggs, Holiday, and Derrick white, have all become above average shooters (Jalen Suggs hit 40% on 5 3s a game this year)

This is not to say I don't want Castle. But a 50% risk of being an end of bench player or worse is a scary outcome for a #4 pick and he definitely qualifies as more boom-or-bust than I would have thought. Then again, I don't know that we have too many options who are better. Even Risacher who seemed like the safest pick in the draft to me is surprisingly scary when I run his numbers against priors.

[CGD]

^ with everything else he brings, I happily take the 50% chance that Castle’s shooting improves like Suggs, Holiday, and White. That sounds good actually.

If the Spurs want the safe plug and play guy, they can trade up for ZR.

[exstatic]

Castle, Topic, Holland and Buzelis have all shoot about the same 3 pointers this year.

Their 3 point shot stats this year:
Castle: 20/78 (25.6%)
Topic: 21/73 (28.8%)
Holland: 23//92 (25%)
Buzelis: 29/106 (27.4%)

Holland and Buzelis were playing with the farther NBA 3 point line.

You can make a case for a player by saying that he shots well free throws or that his shooting mechanics looks good or could easily be fixed but these are kinda week arguments to me. Teams that draft them will only know if their shot can be fixed after weeks/months of practice. These players are even more of a gamble than other draft prospect because of that.

The FT thing as a shooting signal is based on a consistent repeatable shooting motion. If you look at the really great shooters, the guys shooting well above 40% from beyond the arc year after year, you won’t see a hair’s difference in their shooting motion. Mechanics and a repeatable motion are everything in shooting the basketball, and I find this a shockingly awful take from you, Bruno. The Spurs certainly don’t follow your school of thought. The story of Kawhi at the combine blows that up. The Spurs desperately wanted to see his ‘new’ form that he had been working on, but he wasn’t scheduled to shoot or workout because of an ankle injury. They basically stalked him throughout the combine, and when he got bored waiting to be measured, he put up some shots. That observation of his shooting was the deciding factor in going all in to get him. Watching. Him. Shoot.

[exstatic]

I think the pessimist's view of this is that there is about a 50% chance that he turns into a below average non-usable shooter. He can clearly ball and his passing ability gives him a moat, but can you think of any below average shooters (.320 or below on low-medium volume) that have had success in the league beyond being an end of bench guy? Ben simmons is the obvious one but he had all of Castle's strengths turned up to 10 before the Hawks series. Maybe pre-injury Justise winslow? I guess Marcus Smart had a terrible jumper for his first couple of years before improving and during that time he was still relatively useful. Guys who fill the role that Castle would fill, like Suggs, Holiday, and Derrick white, have all become above average shooters (Jalen Suggs hit 40% on 5 3s a game this year)

This is not to say I don't want Castle. But a 50% risk of being an end of bench player or worse is a scary outcome for a #4 pick and he definitely qualifies as more boom-or-bust than I would have thought. Then again, I don't know that we have too many options who are better. Even Risacher who seemed like the safest pick in the draft to me is surprisingly scary when I run his numbers against priors.

Doncic first two seasons: .327 and 315. Doughy white boy with good size, but nearly zero NBA level altheticism, but a pick and roll and overall passing wizard.

[SpursBills]

Doncic first two seasons: .327 and 315. Doughy white boy with good size, but nearly zero NBA level altheticism, but a pick and roll and overall passing wizard.

Luka also put up 7-8 3s a game his first two years and clearly had significant shooting gravity - I have a hard time classifying that as "low-medium volume"

EDIT:
Jimmy Butler the last few seasons I can think of for now, which has always been Castle's upside comp, but I think Jimmy has a couple other advantages going for him as well

[SpursBills]

^ with everything else he brings, I happily take the 50% chance that Castle’s shooting improves like Suggs, Holiday, and White. That sounds good actually.

If the Spurs want the safe plug and play guy, they can trade up for ZR.

I agree with you, I have Castle top 2 right now and I think he's worth the risk. Just wanted to explore the fact that Castle has been called "high floor" and see how true that really was

[LeBowen]

Doncic first two seasons: .327 and 315. Doughy white boy with good size, but nearly zero NBA level altheticism, but a pick and roll and overall passing wizard.

Athleticism is way more than speed and vertical.
Luka had elite body control and lower body strength from day one.

And looking at just shooting splits never tells the whole story.
Players need to be split in two categories. Ones that need to be stopped from shooting and ones that opponents are daring to shoot.

We need way more than someone who's going to be able to hit corner threes. Devin is good and then we need two more elite shooters opponents really want to stop from getting their shot off.

[Twisted_Dawg]

I wanted to try and get a better idea for Stephon Castle's shooting prospects and the odds that he'd be a decent shooter. People cite his FT% often, but using that as a sole factor seems inaccurate. For me at least, trying to get an understanding of "touch" and 3 point accuracy looks at 4 factors - FT%, college 3 pt%, college 3 pt volume, and college midrange %. That said, Castle scores poorly in 3/4 categories - while his FT% is acceptable, his 3 point % (27), 3 point volume (75) and midrange accuracy (35%) are extremely worrisome to me. Looking at these factors, I would expect that he would not project to be a good shooter moving forward.

These are the results of a quick database search. I used Bart torvik to look for all 1st round draft picks (excluding bigs) in the last 17 years with the following:
FT% > 75
Midrange % < 40
3 point volume < 100
3 pt % < 30

Of the 17 hits, there were 3 guys who ended up turning into good shooters by their pre-draft season and then obviously became good NBA shooters
Buddy Hield (Fr), Jalen Williams (So), Mikal Bridges (Fr)

Of the 14 others, 6/14 became league average or better shooters:
Kawhi, Alec Burks, Oladipo, Delon Wright, Grant Williams, Pascal Siakam

Unfortunately, the 8/14 other players who did not become league average or better shooters all busted or are on their way out of the league

If we turn the FT filter down to 72%, we add Jaden Ivey, Kobe Brown, De'aaron Fox, Michael Kidd-Gilchrist, and Jeff Taylor; none of these 5 are what I would call good shooters, although maybe there is some hope for Fox and Ivey in the future

So these results actually are more optimistic for Castle than I would have thought. I basically assumed that he had virtually zero chance of becoming an acceptable shooter with his metrics, but in truth I think that there is some precedent that he can get to at least league average. That may be enough if he is used more as a secondary creating POA defender like Jalen Suggs. However, this list also suggests that if he does not develop into a league average shooter, there is a decent chance he will bust out of the league along the likes of Nassir Little and MKG.

Hey SpursBills, thank you for this very insightful post and the many others you do. Much appreciated. Do you think the complexities of that UConn offense might have hindered Castle's offensive game. They run a complex offense with all various different screens. Castle coming in as a freshman to a team at the highest college level with experienced upper classmen, accepted his role to focus on defense. As the season progressed, his offense seems to have improved. So I'm wondering if Castle coming in as a freshman to the defending national champions playing in a complex offense with experienced teammates might have hindered Castle's offensive production?

[Vienna]

I found an interesting comparison for Castle......DeMar ReRozan. at least regarding their measurements. but there might be some more similarities.

DD: height w/o shoes: 6'5.5", wingspan: 6'9", reach: 8'6.5", weight: 211 lbs.
SC: height w/o shoes: 6'5.5", wingspan: 6'9", reach 8'6.0", weight: 210 lbs.

test number are pretty similar as well (Castle is faster than DD was) 38.5"/37.0", 29"/28.5", 3.31sec/3.19sec
college stats are close in many categories.

so, Castle looks a bit like a twin brother of DeRozan. if Castle can't improve his 3pt shot, will he become another DD? (hopefully with better defense)

[exstatic]

Athleticism is way more than speed and vertical.
Luka had elite body control and lower body strength from day one.

And looking at just shooting splits never tells the whole story.
Players need to be split in two categories. Ones that need to be stopped from shooting and ones that opponents are daring to shoot.

We need way more than someone who's going to be able to hit corner threes. Devin is good and then we need two more elite shooters opponents really want to stop from getting their shot off.

We actually don’t need Castle or Topic to be elite. Either of them at league average (36%) is a potent weapon. Supporting players who bring one or two skills to the table need to be elite at one. Like a 3&D guy, you’d want him to shoot over 40% if he isn’t an all D level defender.

[exstatic]

Luka also put up 7-8 3s a game his first two years and clearly had significant shooting gravity - I have a hard time classifying that as "low-medium volume"

EDIT:
Jimmy Butler the last few seasons I can think of for now, which has always been Castle's upside comp, but I think Jimmy has a couple other advantages going for him as well

I’m not giving any gravity to some er shooting ..315. Basic close out, and he can pull up to the buffet and have all he can eat.

[SpursBills]

I’m not giving any gravity to some er shooting ..315. Basic close out, and he can pull up to the buffet and have all he can eat.

I mean, I think in Luka's case most NBA coaches would disagree with you, but you do you I guess?