Michigan vs. Michigan State In The NBA
Sorry if this is too far away from the coaching threads, but I wanted to compare the success of each teams NBA player. I came away from this with these thoughts:
Michigan State as of now has the best current NBA players. However, in 5 years the likes of Trey Burke, Tim Hardaway Jr, Mitch McGary, and Nik Stauskas are going to out pace Draymond Green, Gary Harris, and Adreian Payne. Here is what I came up with:
Michigan State:
PG: Kalin Lucas (Memphis Grizzlies)
Has only played one game for the Grizzlies, not the best representative of MSU's talent.
SG: Jason Richardson (Philadelphia 76ers)
He has averaged 17.3 points per game over his career which is very solid. He led the NBA in 2007 for three pointers made. Has not played in two years.
Gary Harris (Denver Nuggets)
Has not really played this year, he has averaged 4 points per game so far. He played well in the summer league, and needs to break through into the lineup.
SF: Alan Anderson (Brooklyn Nets)
A decent role player in his career averaging 7.8 points per game.
Shannon Brown (Miami Heat)
Averaging 7.6 points per game he has been a good role player.
PF: Draymond Green (Golden State Warriors)
He has averaged 5.5 points per game with a recent spike. He is starting on one of the best teams in the NBA and is playing really well. He is the best out of these young players.
C: Zach Randolph (Memphis Grizzlies)
The best active MSU player in the NBA. He has averaged 17.1 points per game in his career. He has been an all star two times.
Adreian Payne (Atlanta Hawks)
Brief D-League stint. Behind lots of talent in Atlanta.
Michigan:
PG: Trey Burke (Utah Jazz)
A solid young player, needs to shoot a lot better. He should end up being a Jameer Nelson type player.
Darius Morris (Free Agent)
Recently waived by the Portland Trail Blazers. If he had developed a shot he would have been a really good pro.
SG: Jamal Crawford (Los Angeles Clippers)
A very solid NBA player, he has averaged 15.6 points per game over his 14 year career.
Nik Stauskas (Sacramento Kings)
Very similar to Gary Harris so far. Just played his best game last night where he scored fifteen points with eight rebounds.
SF: Tim Hardaway Jr. (New York Knicks)
He has averaged 9.9 points per game in his short career. He has surprised many so far. He jacks up a lot of shots and does not play the best defense, but he is among the upper tier of these players.
Manny Harris (Los Angeles D-Fenders)
D-League. Averaged 6.4 points in 89 games in the NBA. Averages 26.9 PPG, 7.5 RPG, and 3.6 APG in the D-League.
PF: Glenn Robinson III (Minnesota Timberwolves)
Signed to a guarantee contract but has played sparingly. He has averaged 1.7 points in 7 games. Has had trouble breaking into a really bad Minnesota lineup.
C: Mitch McGary (Oklahoma City Thunder)
Broke his foot early on and is just now attempting a comeback. Mitch played pretty well in the D-League games he played.
Overall MSU wins for right now. But give Beilein a couple of years and this will change.
December 8th, 2014 at 9:21 PM ^
December 8th, 2014 at 9:23 PM ^
Even calling Richardson an NBA "player" at this point would be a stretch,
December 8th, 2014 at 9:24 PM ^
December 9th, 2014 at 10:20 AM ^
Randolph has been a double-double machine his entire career. And a plus defensive player too.
December 8th, 2014 at 9:22 PM ^
December 8th, 2014 at 9:23 PM ^
Josh Smith currently has a higher 3pt % than both Nik Stauskas and Gary Harris.
Just sayin'.
December 8th, 2014 at 9:26 PM ^
Manny Harris should have some NBA numbers. IIRC he was borderline on a roster before his freak medical mishap basically ruined what little chance he had of a career.
December 8th, 2014 at 10:42 PM ^
Before the injury he played almost a full season with the Cavs. Then he got cut after the freezer burn, came back for a quarter of a season and was waived again before he came back and sign a 10-Day contract with LA.
His career was far from ruined. He averaged 36 PPG in the D-League last year. He just isn't what the NBA wants.
December 8th, 2014 at 9:29 PM ^
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December 8th, 2014 at 9:30 PM ^
If people looked there, I would post it there.
December 8th, 2014 at 9:51 PM ^
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December 8th, 2014 at 9:56 PM ^
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December 8th, 2014 at 10:13 PM ^
To be fair, people do read the diaries, or at least the people who tend to give more thoughtful commentary on subjects like this tend to read the diaries. In reality, the couple thousand views that many of the better diaries get match the plurality of board threads in that respect, so at worst it is a wash. If you want to expand this or have it moved, I have no trouble doing it.
December 8th, 2014 at 10:15 PM ^
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December 8th, 2014 at 9:34 PM ^
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December 8th, 2014 at 9:44 PM ^
December 8th, 2014 at 9:53 PM ^
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December 8th, 2014 at 9:58 PM ^
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December 8th, 2014 at 10:05 PM ^
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December 8th, 2014 at 10:10 PM ^
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December 8th, 2014 at 9:59 PM ^
I wish Mitch would be able to play a few seasons without injury. There is a possibility that his gung ho spirit is causing him to exceed his body's limitations. I hope not.
December 8th, 2014 at 10:00 PM ^
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December 9th, 2014 at 5:29 PM ^
Some people are injury prone, hopefully McGary isn't and has just been unlucky, would be sadly unsurprised if he turns out to simply be injury prone and never gets a chance though.
December 8th, 2014 at 10:11 PM ^
December 8th, 2014 at 10:12 PM ^
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December 8th, 2014 at 11:06 PM ^
is killing it for my fantasy team ... he fills the stat sheet
December 9th, 2014 at 1:14 AM ^
December 9th, 2014 at 9:58 AM ^
You can really split this up to into "Veterans" where MSU leads by a mile (ZBo, Anderson, Brown, Richardson) against UM (Crawford) and "Up-and-comers" where Michigan leads.
While the up-and-comers category is too early to judge, I think any GM in the NBA would rather have the UM guys (Burke, Stauskas, Hardaway, Robinson, McGary) than the MSU guys (Lucas, Harris, Payne). I'd ignore M.Harris and Morris, unfortunately, as they are more likely to play overseas than be back in the NBA and really fringe NBA players at best.
Green is the one guy who is really in his prime and I think you glossed over his impact by just listing his ppg. He's a starter on the best performing team of the season thusfar and playing very very good 2-way basketball. He does a bit of everything and seems like a great fit with that team. He's pretty much displaced two solid NBA players (Barnes and/or Lee) in emerging as one of the Warriors 5 best.
Green is one of my favorite Spartan basketball players of all time. He came very close to coming to Michigan and always had a thoughtful perspective on the Rivalry. Classy and smart, unlike a lot of former-Spartans. He was also always a versatile talent, excellent passer, and great teammate. Usually I root against Spartans in the NBA, but Green is an exception.
December 9th, 2014 at 12:41 PM ^
December 9th, 2014 at 10:45 AM ^
I'm not sure what it says that the two best NBA products from MSU under Izzo played 2 (Richardson) and 1 (Randolph) years in college before bolting. I do think that Izzo runs a good program and can turn okay players into productive college players, but other than Green he hasn't had a guy stick around for a long time and turn into a game-changer. Beilein doesn't have a great showing yet either, but lots of his kids are young and he's still been at Michigan a relatively short amount of time.
December 9th, 2014 at 12:05 PM ^
Peterson had a nice long career and Cleaves, well, he was drafted pretty high (thanks Joe Dumars!) But that was a long time ago.
The bigger critique against Izzo (IMO) is that over the last decade Green is the only legit NBA player that has come out of MSU (though I would expect Harris to be the next) and there have been a lot of busts in that time. His success rate is low and his philosophy seems antiquated as the NBA has evolved away from the Iso game with brutish PFs to more pick and roll, passing, and shooting.
If kids are looking at NBA development, it's hard to compete with the resumes of Calipari, Pitino, Krzyszewki, Williams, and Donovan. I think the argument we would make for Beilein (turning 3 star talent into NBA players) is too nuanced for the majority of college recruits. In other words you should look beyond raw production, but most kids won't.
December 9th, 2014 at 12:36 PM ^
I forgot about Peterson, but absolutely he had a solid NBA career. I remembered Cleaves because I thought it was a dumb decision when he was drafted, as the NBA doesn't usually have much use for a pass-first PG with mediocre athleticism and absolutely no shot. Though again, that was early in Izzo's tenure, and as you noted it has been a number of busts/underperformers compared to recruiting rankings.
I don't expect UM to ever compete for the NBA-level talents you see at the blue-bloods of college sports, or at least the blue-blood coaches, but at some point top-ranked kids will look at the number of pros Michigan is pumping out and they won't really care if they were lower-ranked kids coming out of school. Calipari is obviously a big-time recruiter, but he had some luck that guys like Camby turned out to be studs at UMass and help elevate him in the eyes of other kids. Beilein won't ever by that scummy or anything, but when you have guys like Hardaway, Burke, Stauskas, Caris, etc getting drafted high despite coming with meh credentials out of HS, I think it gives top-notch and lower-ranked kids pause.
December 9th, 2014 at 1:52 PM ^
Yeah, I hated that pick too. It was pandering to the fanbase and obviously not very wise to any objective fan of basketball. In fairness to Dumars he had pretty great success with the 'hard-worker' thing in an era where nobody else wanted much of that. (Wallace, Curry, Barry were all spirited intense guys) Cleaves was the same breed, theoretically. Thing is you have to have an NBA skill and he was no Eric Snow.
The other topic you bring up is more interesting. I see no reason Michigan can't get the 5-star guys. They did in 2012 and they have come close with the Bookers of the world. And of course we did very well at that in the 80s and 90s, although that was a time when Michigan put out as much talent as any state. Now we have to dip to Indiana, Arizona, Maryland and Texas to get the elite guys.
We may never get 5-star centers like McGary again (though we can hope) but we absolutely SHOULD be on the map for any elite guard. Cross your fingers for the '16 kids.
The area I see us really struggling at is recruiting the 4 spot. That's really a role-player's spot for Beilein and I'm not sure it's going to change anytime soon. We'll see what happens with Chatman...
December 9th, 2014 at 10:50 AM ^
This post is actually quite refreshing with regards to all of the CC nonsense going on. Some of the information seems to be a bit off, but otherwise very interesting. Nice work.
December 9th, 2014 at 10:50 AM ^
This post is actually quite refreshing with regards to all of the CC nonsense going on. Some of the information seems to be a bit off, but otherwise very interesting. Nice work.
December 9th, 2014 at 10:50 AM ^
This post is actually quite refreshing with regards to all of the CC nonsense going on. Some of the information seems to be a bit off, but otherwise very interesting. Nice work.
December 9th, 2014 at 2:08 PM ^
HOT TAKE ALERT:
Beilein's development has so far only produced two NBA players of note: Burke and Stauskas. LeVert will join those ranks soon enough I think. But GRIII, Mitch were 5 stars who played in college like 5 stars and were drafted like 5 stars, not really any improvement (though we didn't see enough of McGary to know what he could have done). Hardaway is doing what he always did, shooting everything.
For MSU:
1. HOLY CRAP SHANNON BROWN HAS STARTED FOR THE HEAT. That's not a great sign for them. I'm really impressed that he's been in the league for this long. He's a 5 star type player that Izzo let ball.
2. Harris is not in a great situation right now, but he's only 20. I'm hoping he can get some playing time this year and work into the rotation. At 6'2", he'll either need to grow or become a servicable PG.
3. I wouldn't call Richardson an NBA player anymore, he hasn't played in nearly two years. but he was good while he was there.
4. Kalin Lucas is my great "what if?" He was never the same after that torn Achilles, but I'll always root for him.
5. I didn't think Green would be this good of a pro. Here's his stats from Basketball-Reference: 13.3 pts, 6.7 rebs a night in 32 minutes. Started every game for the best team in the league right now. That's a pretty good example of Izzo development. Though Green was always a smart player, he just needed to lose weight and improve athleticism (as much as you can improve something you're born with).
December 9th, 2014 at 2:51 PM ^
Michigan guys aren't really lighting it up right now but they are obviously young. Burke is playing like crap, taking a ton of shots and shooting 40% from the floor. A lot of people in the NBA see his ceiling as a good backup pg. Hardaway is a jacker but has been suprising for the Knicks and is shooting better than Trey. GRIII can't get any run on a bottom 5 team in the NBA just filled with young dudes so he has a long way to go. Obviously you can't judge any of the recent 5 yet but overall I'd be suprised if any of them wound up being difference makers or really anything above solid role player at the NBA level.
December 9th, 2014 at 7:12 PM ^
What makes Stauskas more "of note" than Hardaway?
December 10th, 2014 at 3:13 PM ^
Uh, I guess because Stauskas raised his game a ton in college whereas Hardaway was basically similar all three years he was in school.
Quick comparison:
Hardaway yr 1: 108.8 ORtg, 12% ast rate, 11% TO rate, 48%/36.7%/76.5% 2PT/3PT/FT
Hardaway yr 3: 106.7 ORtg, 13% ast rate, 15% TO rate, 48%/37.4%/69.4% 2PT/3PT/FT
That's not really a ton of improvement (and his role in the offense basically stayed the same). Seems more like just a guy getting older, not exactly better. But my initial rankings was more "just a gut feeling" than this actual analysis.
December 9th, 2014 at 3:52 PM ^
Long, long time lurker, first time poster, but as a diehard NBA enthusiast this post was so laughable I thought I'd chip in with the others on correcting what was not the greatest assessment by the OP.
The biggest reason for optomism on the Michigan side of things is that Belein truly looks to be putting more guys in the league moving forward, but it isn't as though Izzo will simply stop recruiting and developing NBA ready guys himself.
I think you severely short changed Shannon Brown and Alan Anderson in your assessment. Brown has fallen off the past two years, but both of these guys have played starters minutes for long stretches in the past few years.
I also think your assessment of the young crop is off base. I'm all for being biased to feel good about myself, but cummong.
Of the players we've seen enough of out of that group, no one even comes close to Green.
Trey Burke appears to be a bust as far as where he went in the draft, mainly due to his awful shooting percentages and lack of play-making. He'll definitely find a role for himself in the league but that role is not being a starting point guard on a good team. Someone in the thread compared him to Jameer Nelson and while their style of play is slightly different, I think Jameer in his prime is probably Burkes ceiling.
THJ is the best of the Michigan bunch right now, and he's definitely proved he can score at a very high level in the NBA. But when I talk to friends who cover the Knicks for a living, to a tee they all rag on his defense. I don't think that should surprise anyone who watched him in college when faced with comparable talent. He's also getting a lot of his minutes as a result of New York being really, really bad at assembling a roster and J.R Smith being J.R Smith.
Both Nik Stauskas and Gary Harris look to be legit. Harris had a dominant summer league, and the reason he hasn't gotten many minutes yet is because of all the talent in front of him in Denver. He finally cracked Shaw's rotation the last two weeks, and I'd be hesitant to judge his statistics based on ~80 minutes of basketball after the percentages he put him last Summer.
Stauskas probably deserves more credit than you gave him as well, as there were rumblings in Sacramento that he could actualy supplant Ben Maclemore (sp?) as the starting 2. Maclemore has really improved his game, but Stauskas is entrenched in the rotation of one of the most surprising teams in the NBA this season.
As to the rest - I don't know what makes you optomistic on Mitch at this point. I loved him in college, he definitely has the goods physically, but he wasn't given the opportunity to develop in college and carries some injury baggage. Maybe he's an allstar, maybe he's a towel boy, but its a little presumptuous to claim he'll end up in the plus column based on four d-league games.
Same goes for Payne in his d-league stint, and him being sent down has nothing to do with talent and everything to do with a stacked front court in ATL for a coach who keeps his rotation very tight. Much like McGary, we have no clue how his career will pan out so I'm not sure how you can assume one will kill it while the other won't.
Finally, GRIII - Excluding Payne and McGary, where we really just don't know what's there yet, I think this guy is your biggest flop of the bunch. Minnesota is extremely desperate at the 2 and 3 right now. Their bench players are essentially starting at 4 positions right now and that's been the case for weeks. In that span they've been horrible, and in that same span Robbie Hummel (!!) has logged significant minutes. The fact he's played so few minutes at the same time as a guy like Zach Levine (who has been pretty bad) is being allowed to develop concerns me heavily.
If I had to rank the prospects, I'd say 1.) Green 2.) Stauskas 3.) Harris 4.) Burke 5.) Payne/GRIII
Caris Levert may end up better than all of these guys - I see a little bit of Jrue Holliday and Kawhi Leonard in him and think this could be the case.
With Z-Bo and Crawford basically a wash, and MSU having a few role players still kicking, I'd say they have the slight advantage now and that moving forward both teams will probably have comparable talent once the young guys develop.
Sorry for the long post, I love this blog for great college sports discussion but always find the NBA analysis to be pretty effing bad and couldn't bite my tongue on this one.
December 9th, 2014 at 4:35 PM ^
Part of Payne's early issues (beyond Atl's front-court depth) has been some fairly serious recurrences of his plantar fasciitiss. Which in turn has affected his fitness level. His latest d-league stints (which the team termed as condition-driven) were some of his first and most substantial stretches of basketball since the Summer. At this point, his feet are becoming a serious obstacle toward him establishing any type of role this year...And perhaps moving forward. Obviously at 23, he still has time, but foot issues are very problematic for a professional basketball player...Or a librarian.
December 9th, 2014 at 5:38 PM ^
Forgot to put THJ in those rankings, but right now I'd place him after Green although Stauskas and Harris could definitely pass him by.
December 9th, 2014 at 6:54 PM ^
you waited all these years to post this crap?
I stopped at 'optomism'...
do your self a favor, go smoke a joint, chill, and leave the posting to intelligent people...
love,
jdon
December 10th, 2014 at 1:50 AM ^
Yes, I misspelled optimism amidst a lengthy post discussing the NBA and that makes me stupid.
My user name is a joke from the movie "This is the End" and I'm extremely sorry you did not catch the reference.
On the other hand, in a post ragging on my spelling, you managed to misspell 'yourself' yourself (see what I did there).
You also seem unaware of how to properly use an ellipsis and couldn't be bothered to capitalize your sentences or use proper punctuation.
Congrats as well on adding absolutely nothing worthwhile to the ongoing discussion in this diary regarding Michigan and Michigan State players in the NBA.
Oh, and you sign every single one of your meaningless posts with something called jdon. I'm going to assume it means asshole in whatever language trolls speak.
Love,
WeedIsTight
December 10th, 2014 at 12:41 PM ^
I always write 'your self' or 'my self' because I am talking about our 'selves'...
enlightened I am.
love you,
jdon
December 10th, 2014 at 1:18 PM ^
many, many friends
December 9th, 2014 at 7:28 PM ^
Re: Burke -- there was definitely a large group of "He's Chris Paul" nutters, but Jameer Nelson was mentioned by many as his ceiling back then. His shooting has been mildly disappointing but his turnover rate/game management has been outstanding for such a young guy. He's on track to be a smaller-sized Derek Fisher IMO and should have a nice long career as a likely backup or even a potential starter if he lands in the right spot.
RE: Green -- he's not really a 'prospect' anymore, he's in the early prime of his career
RE: Stauskas -- whoa, hold the train. He's far from entrenched and has been outplayed by McLemore. While improved from last year, Mclemore was a disaster. He's not playing much and there's not a ton of people ahead of him.
It's way too early to decide on any of these young guys, but THJ should be #1 on the 'prospect' list IMO. He can shoot and has the athleticism to be a defensive asset within the next few years. That's always going to be a problem for Nik and shooting is going to be a problem for GR3 and size is always going to be a problem for Trey. Harris could be better than THJ down the line but we'll see if he has a legitimate NBA skill or if he's just a guy who should be a high-end player in Europe. Payne/McGary are wait-and-see but they both have the talent and showed flashes in summer.
The NBA comments are generally very bad here -- you are right about that.
December 10th, 2014 at 1:45 AM ^
I'm in total agreement with you on Burke although I'm not a big fan of the D Fish comparison. I didn't mean to seem so down on him. My point was that he appears to be a flop relative to his draft position, not that he was/is a flop. His main issue in my view is that he takes wayyyy too many 3's (something like 4.5/game last two seasons) and hits them at a horrible clip. I think that is a symptom of it being difficult for him to find and get his shots off closer to the rim due to size. I expect him to figure out how to find better shots from outside as well as improve his inside game, but so far this season he has actually regressed in that respect.
With regards to Green, prospects wasn't the best word. My intention was to portion off the newer crop of players from the previous generation. The OP seemed to conveniently be placing Green in the older players camp in order to fit his narrative. But yes, he is definitely not a prospect at this point.
So let me rephrase that ranking list as a ranking of the "fresh blood" Belein and Izzo have put into the league.
Stauskas is most definitely entrenched in the King's rotation. He's played in every game this season for them, and that is nothing to scoff at considering the success that team is having. And yes, Mclemore last year was a disaster and the chatter of him being displaced came most during preseason and few of the first games this year before Mclemore got it going.
Related to Stauskas but touching on your THJ point. He certainly has more athletic tools to eventually become a better defender, but Stauskas this year is a better NBA defender than THJ this year, straight up. I do think that if THJ didn't improve his defense at all that he would still enjoy a long and fruitful NBA career.
All in all I think we're on the same page with all of these guys though, not trying to nitpick and I enjoy the back and forth hearing other peoples opinions on these guys. Hopefully I didn't make too many spelling mistakes this time?
December 10th, 2014 at 5:07 PM ^
Then by God list J. Howard, he of supreme towel waving and Championship rings!!
(Seriously he was vital to a youthful head string Miami team last few years)...
Also, MSU has more busts in NBA over last 15 Years than UM, let's list those!
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