GRBluefan

March 28th, 2018 at 10:33 AM ^

will be a good pro.  I hear the Carmelo comparison, but I think he is a more explosive athlete and a less polished scorer.  The comparison that jumps out to me is Michael Beasley, but with his head screwed on straight.

bringthewood

March 28th, 2018 at 12:03 PM ^

I am hoping for some transfers. Langford and Ward specifically. Not because I think they are especially good, but because I'd like to see Ward play for someone who can utilize him better. I think he is talent wasted at MSU. Langford because I think he is broken at MSU.

And I would like to see Tom scramble for recruits.

Maize and Luke

March 28th, 2018 at 10:36 AM ^

Only one year too late. I think he has the potential to be the steal in this draft. So many players projected ahead of him that are still such raw talent. Miles is NBA ready imo. I would take him over Mo Bamba any day.

Needs

March 28th, 2018 at 11:46 AM ^

That's the reality, though. I just quickly glanced at the drafts from 2011-2015 and the best outcome for draft positions 8-14 are players like Stephen Adams, Klay Thompson, Andre Drummond or CJ McCollum, players firmly in the "3rd best player on a winning team" role (maybe McCollum is the 2nd best).

The only possible lead guy in those 5 drafts is Devin Booker, and the Suns are so bad that it's hard to tell what his optimal role on a good team would be.

 

If you go back a couple more years, you get Gordon Heyward, Paul George, and DeMarr Derozan. So you get a couple lead guys on low playoff seeds and one legitimate best player on a good team (who took almost a decade in the NBA to become that).

Trebor

March 28th, 2018 at 12:25 PM ^

I don't understand this thinking. If you pick in the 8-14 range three years in a row, how can you possibly expect that your three picks will all be "best on the team" sort of guys? The average length of an NBA career for all players is around 5 years. In those 5 years, you have 70 players picked in the top 14 of a draft. There are only 30 teams in the league, so some of those guys are bound to be role players, especially since the guys at the top of the draft generally have much longer careers than 5 years.

This isn't the NFL where you're trying to find 22 quality starters plus competent backups, so you're reliant heavily on guys in the first and second round not busting out on you. It's much more similar to the NHL, where if you're not picking top-5, you're looking for guys that will play at a reasonably high level for a while but aren't counting on to be the centerpiece of your franchise for years.

ijohnb

March 28th, 2018 at 10:56 AM ^

never really understood the hype about MSU from the beginning of the year.  They were barely a tournament team the year before and got blown out by Kansas to finish the season.  That was one of the worst MSU teams in recent memory in 2017.  They basically had that team plus Jackson coming back.  Great recruiting class or not, I never really understood why so many people expected them to go from sucking to best team ever in one year.  Never made a lot of sense to me.

In reply to by ijohnb

FatGuyTouchdown

March 28th, 2018 at 11:34 AM ^

they got back all of their injured big guys, and their star studded recruiting class got another year older, and added a future lottery pick at center? 

They're probably the most talented team in college basketball. Which makes it that much more amazing that Ben Carter was their most played big man against Syracuse.

champswest

March 28th, 2018 at 4:37 PM ^

talented team in college basketball. It may have looked that way at the beginning of the year, but not so much now. The 2016 class didn't turn out to be that great. Bridges is the only one to live up to greatness. Winston is good, Langford is average and Ward is average. The players that got healthy are all average bigs, not great. Jackson has high potential but didn't reach it this year and really wasn't given much of a chance to develope it.

They didn't have the depth that many think they do. Just because you play a lot of guys, doesn't mean that you have good depth. They were too heavy in bigs and lacked depth in guards/wings. Off the bench they brought in Tum-Tum and McQuade.

Position by position, Michigan was better. At the 1 even, 2 UM, 3 MSU, 4 MSU, 5 UM, rotation players UM and coaching UM. We're still playing and they're not. 

In reply to by ijohnb

Mr Miggle

March 28th, 2018 at 1:02 PM ^

playing together in the frontcourt. They looked to have four sophomores starting and players tend to make the most improvement between freshman and sophomore year. And that lineup was three 5*s, a borderline 4/5* and a 4* in Ward who had a surprisingly strong season.

Few schools could put out a team that could match their rankings and no one else had a certain lottery pick coming back. As mentioned above, last years MSU team had a lot of injuries and everyone was back.

HAIL-YEA

March 28th, 2018 at 10:39 AM ^

I wonder if last year Bridges thought that there was any chance that coming back he would hurt his game and draft stock, and still not make it out of the first weekend in the tourney or beat Michigan.  Best of luck to the kid though.

UMfan21

March 28th, 2018 at 10:42 AM ^

bye Felicia.

1-3 against Michigan
2-2 in the NCAA tournament

part of the most disappointing classes in MSU history. hell of a legacy.

Indonacious

March 28th, 2018 at 10:48 AM ^

I would not be surprised at all if Jackson returns. A lot of MSU folks are suggesting that its 50/50. Jackson's dad was an NBA player and his mom his head legal counsel for the WNBA, so their deicision making is likely different that your average family - particularly given their nba-related resources. 

As an aside, they might be worried about his minutes (maybe too many?) next year given Ben Carter is graduated, so Jaren may get more than 15 minutes in the most important game of the season.



 

Indonacious

March 28th, 2018 at 1:02 PM ^

Huh? I just meant that it's not like he doesn't have people in his circle that are familiar with the process, have connections regarding draft forecasts, and who understand life as a professional athlete. Not sure if I ever suggested he wanted to "sponge off his parents".

stephenrjking

March 28th, 2018 at 1:50 PM ^

They've also seen guys wait too long and flame out of the draft by not capitalizing on their stock. And they've seen, with their own eyes, Izzo's apparent determination to not play JJJ in key minutes.

The impression I got from late in the season is that JJJ wasn't happy with his coaching. He totally chewed out Fife at least once. And it's really hard to explain why Izzo wasn't playing him more. 

If he is a top ten pick, I think he has to go now.