BR put together a list of the top 50 draft prospects and our own Nickeil Alexander-Walker came in at #44. The article mentions he could use another year (which I agree), but I wonder if he continues his improvement through the ACC and NCAA tournament (man that feels good to type), could we see Tech's first one-and-done?
No other VT player was listed, but it does seem like teams will always give a 3 pt shooter a chance, anyone think Bibbs could find his way to a NBA roster some day?
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This was talked about by myself and others in another thread, but I think Bibbs goes international for a little bit before making his way back to the league. I don't think he will get a G league spot unless he really wants that and a team really likes him. I personally think he will end up on a roster in the next 5 years or so because he has solid size, great shooter and is starting to develop his game inside the arc. But I am not a scout and don't know exactly why some guys make it and others don't. Hell, Erick Green absolutely lit up the G league and still couldn't find his way onto a roster. Now he's over in Spain killing it and probably won't be coming back.
I hope Bibbs makes it. Love his jumper
As an owner of a 2008 Sierra, I enjoy your handle and avatar
Woah BleacherReport
He would be very helpful towards our 2018-2019 season, and I think he has 1st round potential in a later draft.
I don't think NAW is ready. He started the year like a house afire, and then kind of was irrelevant in the middle. (Not "irrelevant" so much as inconsistent.) Now he is becoming a force again.
I think he *could* be with another year. I hope he doesn't eff it up.
Who doesn't love Bibbsy?!
What happened to 'Med?!
Agreed. I could see teams taking a flyer on him, but I think he'd be better off staying one more year to boost his draft stock (and therefore, earn more guaranteed money). The only potential issue with waiting another year is that there's another crop of one-and-done wings coming in, so who knows.
He'd certainly be tasked with a larger share of the offensive load at VT next year, which honestly, could end up being a blessing or curse to his draft stock.
I've said it before, but I think the mechanics of Hill's release (low angle, slow set up) make it extremely difficult for him to get off his shot during ACC play when better athletes are running at him.
Agree on all points.
This is why Bibbs quick release could be the attribute that gets him on an NBA roster at one point.
Strange this is, when Hill catches and shoots on the inbounds curl to the corner he gets elevation and pretty quick release, but that's the only time you see it.
Nothing happened to Med. Not to sound like a dick, but this isn't a slump. What you see is who he is as player. He's just not as good as you think. The disconnect is a good chunk of fans have a perception about him that doesn't match reality. Since he was a touted recruit with a bunch of stars and will have a few good games to start the season, people tend to view him as a big time talent. But the reality is he feasts on lower level competition in the OOC part of the schedule and then regresses to the mean against better competition in conference. It's happened every season. Don't get me wrong. He's a fine player and a Power 5 conference level talent. He's just not a top level Power 5 conference talent or a guy you can depend on night in and night out ala Blackshear or Robinson.
Well, he shot 16-39 from 3 over the last month + in ACC play as a freshman. I think he does have talent to be a 10-12 ppg player he's just been more prone to slumps as a mostly perimeter shooter.
Considering he is missing wide open 3's that he would typically make, I would have to call that a slump.
Gotta disagree man. Average players don't hit 50% of their 3s in the first two months of the season, no matter who you're playing. Wide open 3s are wide open 3s, and he used to hit them and now he's not.
There's wide open and there's WIDE open. The window closes much more quickly against taller, quicker, better jumping talent. And that fraction of a difference can be everything - particularly for a guy that's got mechanical challenges, doesn't really create shots, and generally needs to be set before release.
i love bibbs hes my favorite player on tech and really since zabian but I don't think he moves his feet well enough to make an NBA roster. he doesn't play much D at all. he has a sweet stroke but for his position you have to be able to defend. if he was a big and had a J like that he could hide out in the paint but hed have to guard against the hardest position on the floor to guard and he would just be a liability more than an asset. that being said I hope he can make an NBA roster because I love watching him play.
I strongly disagree. He is one of our better defenders. His biggest issues are he can't/won't (I think it's more the latter) create his own shot, and he hesitates to pull the trigger if he has missed a few.
Bibbs is our best defender. has to guard the #3 or best player for 33 minutes a game.
Until Wilson got put into the starting lineup, Bibbs was our best on-ball defender and was constantly tasked with shutting down whomever was getting hot on the other team. I don't think he's as effective as Wilson, but more than serviceable.
im sorry I don't agree with you guys. maybe he closes out well. but that's about it, his side to side movement is slow. and he cant guard well in man to man. but maybe that's just my assessment, I hope im wrong and you guys are right lol id love to see him on my Celtics. ill never claim to be a basketball scout so it may just be im blind on this one.
So I went googling for some measure of individual defensive ratings and found this that has a defensive rating for individual players. Sort and you'll see he's near the top on our team and best of all the starters and significant bench players.Not trying to necessarily argue right/wrong, but at least want to find some stats to back up opinions, or start an analytical discussion on this if there are better stats out there. I'm a bit skeptical that Hill is right there with him since the eye test hasn't shown him to be a great defender.Edit: Ignore all this for not knowing how defensive ratings work
Hate to break it to you, but a lower defensive rating is better. Unless this "defensive rating" means something else... but usually offensive/defensive rating is a measure of points for (or points allowed) per 100 possessions.
This statistic is so hard for me to evaluate in space. If you hold player that averages 40 a game to 20, how does your rating compare to letting the guy who scores 7 a game get 14? If you are supposed to be the guy that doubles on the center on a pass to the paint, how do you get scored if he does not score, but kicks to the guy you came off of that does, versus if he does score? If one player switches on a screen and the other does not, who gets dinged? If you are supposed to get help, or don't help when you should? The guy you guard is not open enough to get many passes, versus he is the guy the other team makes the ball through? I couldnt even find a decent explanation for any of these online.
Buzz has said he plays Bibbs too much because he needs his defense. That is a metric I kinda get in space..
I agree. In a vacuum defensive rating is meaningless because it gives an individual number for team points against (or points scored) -- and it's entirely devoid of context. Maybe Bibbs has a worse defensive rating because he often plays with bench heavy units. Maybe it's because opposing offenses are incredibly efficient at ball movement ahead of the rotating defense and all their shots drop.
A better way to use ratings is to look at net rating, and to look at net rating for an entire 5-man lineup, as this will strip out the variance introduced by ignoring teammates on the floor.
Yeah good points. Glad to have brighter statistical minds try to interpret this, since my google-fu is apparently not that strong without context.
Quantifying sports performance is hard...beyond the obvious stats (points, rebounds, steals, etc.). I'm amazed by the people that do these analytics for a living.
It's not just quantifying those numbers, but contextualizing performance numbers can be incredibly informative. Some of the more advanced numbers will boggle your mind, especially in the NBA where there are tracking cameras. Some of the early basketball writers/statisticians now have jobs working directly for teams (John Hollinger in Memphis, Seb Pruiti in OKC). SportVU tracking cameras allow for quantification of opposition fg% when a defender is within X feet of the shooter, shooting percentages for a player when the nearest defender is X, Y, or Z feet away, average time of possession for a player (ie, does he facilitate ball movement or does it stick with him), efficiency on various types of possessions (how does the team as a whole fare when Kerry Blackshear sets a pick for Justin Robinson vs when Chris Clarke sets a pick for Justin Robinson) etc.
Baseball long was the sport of choice for stat geeks, but basketball is seriously giving baseball a run for its money.
baseball is by far the easiest sport to quantify as it is essentially a batch sport. You have nearly the same event happen every "play" (a pitch) with a direct result (strike, ball, foul ball, out, hit, 2B, 3B, HR, etc.). Very easy to draw conclusions. I think football is a close second, but there are many more outcomes to each similar batch (a snap). Continuously flowing sports like basketball, hockey, and soccer are much harder as there are fewer defined and determinable points on which to measure the action and result. All that being said, the stats they develop are incredible and the tracking software is so cool.
The NBA does not care about players playing D.
This is patently false and a laughable statement.
James Harden
FTFY. Go Rockets.
Naming one player hardly proves that the NBA doesn't care about defense. That's laughable too.
For every Harden over the last 10 years, there are ten players who are relative nonentities as scorers and have gotten serious playing time because of their defense. Here, let's name them! PJ Tucker, Andre Roberson, Tony Allen, Andrew Bogut, Michael Kidd-Gilchrist, Patrick Beverly, Marcus Smart, Thabo Sefalosha, Omer Asik, Bruce Bowen, etc etc etc
Harden's defensive numbers and on/off splits aren't even that bad! You'd think he was league-worst at defense or something, but really he's just a little below average. You're either being willfully ignorant or you're basing your stance off of general perception based on Vines and Twitter lol
I have so many people tell me they don't like watching NBA because they don't play defense and I tell them they just don't know basketball. You can play the best defense possible and NBA offensive talents will still make the shot. The only reason Andre Roberson is even on a roster is because he is just as elite a defender as Harden is a scorer. Thank you for compiling that list because it really annoys me when people act like nobody in the NBA plays defense.
Alllll of my legs...
"Nobody in the NBA cares about defense!" Yet the whole key to the warriors' lineup of death is the fact that Draymond (and now Durant) can guard as well on the perimeter as they can in the paint. Being able to switch screens and not get roasted when (a) a bigger player backs you down or (b) a smaller, quicker player clears out for an isolated is desired by every team.
Watch the 4th quarter of the Cavs game 7 finals win against the Warriors and tell me again nobody cares about playing defense. LeBron's chasedown block on Iguodala and Love's iso defense on Curry won that title. It's crazy!
The people who make money off the NBA know defense does not pay, so they monkey with the rules and officiating so even good defenders have issues defending.
I can see where you are going with this, but if anything that makes being able to play effective defense even more valuable.
I forgot about Bismack Biyombo in my list above... dude has the agility of a tree but because he's tall and can protect the paint, the Magic signed him to a 4/$70m contract. His career VORP is actually slightly negative.
If you can't play defense, you can't play in the nba. Only 25 plus per game scorers get a pass for defense. It is the most desirable trait for a marginal player ,in someone not a lottery pick
I'm close with a few of the coaches and they both say that Bibbs is by far our best defender.
Correct. Buzz Williams says he's our best defender and defends his shooting at the end of games for having to guard the opponents best player all game.
Buzz was very candid in the Tech Talk Live this past week when asked about Wilson & Bibbs. From his mouth, he said they're our two best defenders, and he added that he's not sure who's going to defend anybody next year (with his trademark half-serious sarcasm).
That being said, I think Bibbs is a solid defender at the college level, but I do have questions about his ability to defend at the NBA level. That's not a knock on him by any means, as it's just a very difficult transition. Even with as many good athletes are in the ACC, practially everyone in the NBA is better than the top 5% of ACC players in my estimation.
Buzz convincing NAW to stick around would be bigger for the program than convincing him to come to VT in the first place.
Let's not go bringing Rich-Rod into this. It's not that bad if he goes 1 and done.
Haha, agreed. It's great for the program. I'm just being selfish.
Obligatory
I think if NAW can somehow move his way up into the bottom half of the first round, it'll be program changing for us. With the work that Buzz has done with NAW throughout the year, I think becoming a landing spot for one and dones will take our program to the next level. I'm rooting for big things over the coming weeks, and honestly wouldn't be mad if NAW left early.
Looked like he hit a freshman wall this year and despite breaking through late this would give me some pause given how grueling an NBA schedule can be.
if you're not being discussed as a lottery pick you have no business leaving early.
Aren't they all lottery picks?
Top 14, teams that don't make the playoffs are in the lottery for the top pick.
Then after that how is order decided?
Reverse record/finish order, like the NFL
ok theres where i went wrong. I thought it was lottery all the way down.
Because I became curios - From the NBA Draft Lottery Wikipedia
I once became curios too - here are some selfies
via GIPHY
Yep. People make the mistake of thinking getting picked in the first round of the NBA draft is the equivalent of the 1st rd of the NFL draft and so on with the 2nd round. It's not.
IMO, every 8-10 picks in the NBA draft is roughly the equivalent of a round in the NFL draft.
Getting picked with the 44th pick would sort of be like getting picked in the 5th or 6th round of the NFL draft.
And in some ways that's probably being generous.
While I'd like to see NAW stick around another year, for both him and the program, the really good thing is that the team would still be decent without him.
#progress
Lots of good comments and observations in this thread. NAW isn't ready for the NBA. If he can go in the 2nd round then JRob can go in the first (based on results this year).
I know 5s size doesn't match up well to today's NBA, I wasn't going there, just pointing out that I think this BR analysis is over-reaching. Are the available draftees a weaker class this year?
That's not how the draft works. It has never been based on production. Players are drafted mostly for measurables and potential.
I think 5 could find a home eventually though. His shot has improved dramatically, his ability to run an offense is pretty damn good, his knowledge and ability to execute the pick and roll game is very good and will get better with a third year running it with KJ (another very smart player). His size doesn't help but he has the athleticism to negate that a bit. I'm not at all saying he is Kemba, but he has those handles, that athleticism, and can take another year to become a really great shooter and then he will have a chance.
Agree
I'd love to see NAW stay another year, but I'd also love to see him get drafted. Win-win in my opinion.
Sure.
But NEXT year, after he does some really good things at VT and has another year of experience.
No disrespect to NAW. Like him on the team and like his potential.....but he aint NBA at this point.
NAW will only be ready this year if the last we see of him is draining a 3 as time expires on April 2nd
To win by double digits. I mean if we are going to dream, I would like to not have a stress induced heart attack that might keep me from seeing the ending.
Nah. Have it be to cap off a 30-point performance and show his clutch ability at the biggest stage.
The win will be over UVA.
Unfortunately 90% of the draft is all based on potential these days. Draft a kid who's 19 who has the potential to be a starter in three years.
His upside for going now is he has measurables and potential to be great, with limited film post HS (where he was great). That will get you drafted.
If he returns next year, he probably needs to avg close to 20 ppg plus 4-6 boards to show progress against that potential and move up a round. Else his potential starts to quickly fade with 2 full seasons of tape showing him as a good college player that may not be as great as projected. Lot of pressure as a soph.