The NBA draft and the Charlotte Hornets/prospects

I'm going to talk about our co-host James You know, he knocks down like 84% from the foul line. He shot over 200 free throws last year.

So it's not like some small sample size. And, and he's, you know, he's so sort of fluid and he, when he, when he takes a jump shot, he's got very good mechanics. It's a very pretty shot, but when he gets up to his release point, he's already over the rim.

It's like this unblockable shot. You know, he could do this Dirk thing where he goes off one foot and he's got a ton of natural ability and obviously things that he's worked on, but you've never seen anything like him. It's jaw dropping. And, and to think that there's, there's a lot, you know, a lot of room for improvement for him to be, you know, one of the iconic players of his, his time. Jay Billis is joining us. He'll be part of ESPN's draft coverage tonight. He also has, it seems, I mean, I've never met him and I've only seen him handle himself in interviews. And I watched him on the draft lottery night with Brian Winhorst over in France, but he seems to have a maturity about him that is uncommon for somebody who is what, 19. Yeah, he's been raised for this. So that's true of a number of, of international players that have played professional basketball at a very young age. And he's one of those, but, uh, he's also, you know, he, he, he treats himself like a pro and not, not, I don't mean spending money and buying cars. I mean, he takes care of his body. He does significant injury prevention work that usually it takes the guy to, or, you know, two or three years to figure out in the NBA.

Sometimes they figure it out right away, but he's doing it before he gets there. And, uh, so, and he's also, he's not been most of the other international players in this draft have been complimentary players on their teams because of their youth. Right. He led his league in scoring, rebounding and block shots. And, and he doubled the block shot total of any other player in the league. Um, and he took his, took his team all the way to the, to the finals of that league this year.

Um, he's really extraordinary. And, uh, you know, I, I think sometimes at this time of year, when basketball fans don't spend all this time looking at these prospects, they're kind of going, okay, we've heard this before. You haven't heard this and you haven't seen this before. This is not hype. Um, this is fact that we, but we heard the same thing with LeBron, you know, people saying, oh, geez, okay, here's the next great one. And he was, um, but this is not the general, you know, positive talk about the number one pick being the best player this year. This is, he could be one of the best ever. If he, uh, if he doesn't get hurt. Yeah. I mean, and I know he's skinny and he actually said that maybe everybody else shouldn't be lifting weights.

Maybe they should try to be getting skinny too. My concern for him is more about his feet because when guys are that tall, it's usually the lower extremities that are more of the issue than anything else. But I mean, he is, as you said, a fluid athlete, Jay Billis is joining us here. The Hornets have the second pick. I know you're based in Charlotte.

I'm sure you've heard a lot of the chatter about this. Do you have an opinion, Brandon Miller or scoot Henderson? It's a close call because, uh, you know, scoot Henderson is kind of like, uh, he reminds me of Russell Westbrook when he was at UCLA. He's that dynamic. Uh, and similarly they were not good shooters when they came out. Um, he's not a good shooter, but, uh, he's not a bad shooter, but he, uh, he only makes about 29% from three. And because he's not that good of a shooter, he doesn't take, it doesn't take all that many of them. Um, but he, he's, you know, he's got the arms of a six, nine guy and, uh, you know, you talk about explosive first step, gets to the rim, finishes, uh, ultra competitive, but Brandon Miller, six, nine, and he can really shoot it. And I think what you're saying before about, you know, what you're saying is, you know, Sam before about, you know, shooting being at a premium in the NBA, uh, you know, he's got that already. And so I tend to think that he, he would be the pick for Charlotte, but you never know.

I mean, it's, you can't go wrong either player. It's really because shooting is such a premium. That's why, I mean, you have no way of, uh, you don't have to believe me when I say this, but back in 2008, I guess it was, I thought Steph Curry should be the first pick in the draft with James Harden, with Blake Griffin, because we knew this, we knew Curry would be able to shoot. That's he could just keep going further, further, further back. Uh, and if you wanted to go out and guard him, he was going to be able to shoot.

I'm not sure why greedy Dick isn't going to be a very high pick because I think this guy can shoot it from everywhere. Who else loves summer, but gets a little overwhelmed by all the plans. Daily Harvest helps me conquer the morning and kick off my day with intention through nourishing and delicious food all delivered to your door. Daily Harvest is the easiest way to get your daily serving of sustainably sourced fruits and vegetables without the shopping, shopping and post cooking cleanup. Go to daily harvest.com right now, enter promo code harvest and get up to $65 off your first order. Their strawberry and peach smoothie or apple and cinnamon oat bowl are the perfect addition to my morning routine. They also have tons of options for any time of day, like flatbreads, harvest bowls and bites.

We all deserve easy mornings. Let Daily Harvest give you one less thing to worry about. So don't wait. Order your meals now at daily harvest.com. Enter promo code harvest for up to $65 off your first order.

That's daily harvest.com promo code harvest for up to $65 off. There's nothing like kicking back, tearing open a bag of M&Ms and hanging with a friend. Now that's a good time. Whether you're at the movies, on a beach or stuck in traffic, there are so many kinds of M&Ms to enjoy. Milk chocolate, peanut, peanut butter, minis and many more. It's the iconic candy that's all about bringing people together to bond over colorful bite sized chocolate candies, delicious flavors and something else we all have in common.

Fun M&Ms for all fun kind. He's going to be a high pick. He'll be taken in the top dozen, I think.

And that's hardly, it's a lottery. It's pretty good. But the one thing Grady Dick has a problem with, he's not a great defender. He gets attacked on defense, but you're right. He can really shoot. He's probably, he and Bryce Sensabaugh of Ohio State, Brandon Miller would be up there. Ben Sheppard of Belmont. Those guys are the best shooters.

Let me ask you one more thing before I let Jay Bilas go and I appreciate your time, sir. And there are no absolutes here, so I'm not trying to paint everything with a broad brush. It does make it more difficult to evaluate players who play in G League Ignite because they don't play, when I say a non-competitive, they play against good players, but the outcome of their games generally do not matter. Overtime Elite takes it to another level where the outcomes don't matter. Whereas in college, these guys, while not playing against maybe the best competition, are playing games of consequence. How does it kind of impact the evaluation process when you have guys playing in different types of basketball?

I'm not sure I would concur with that line of thinking. The G League is made up of NBA players and sometimes it's guys on a two-way contract or whatever. It's a really high level of competition and part of that, if there is a function where you think that players don't care about the outcome, that can be a better scenario to see if the individual prospect cares about winning when other people might not. Overtime Elite's a little bit of a different deal. Overtime Elite is more glorified high school basketball, I'd say.

It's not bad. There's nothing wrong with it, but look, in my view, if you know what you're looking at, you can spot talent, whether it's playing at the YMCA or playing in high school or whatever. It's not like we didn't know that Zion Williamson was really good when he was in high school or R.J. Barrett was really good when he was in high school. Now, of course, all these guys are going to get better as they get older. Players are going to look different from age 18 to age 23, 24, whatever.

But the hard part of this is not what they are. It's it's what they're going to be in the future. That's what that's what these players are being drafted on is what tools do they have and aptitude do they have and want to to be a difference making player in the future. And so I think in tonight's draft, you're going to see a number of what I would call upside picks where they're betting on their future. And you're going to see a number of picks where they're taking a guy like Kason Wallace, who is from Kentucky, who's a really safe pick because of what he can do already, what his floor is rather than his ceiling or Jaime Hawkins Jr., where you know what you're getting and it's really good. It's just not perhaps not going to be superstar good.

You know, that's the rub here and the difficult part. Do you have a favorite player as I let you go? Oh, I don't know that I have a favorite. You know, you watch all these guys.

There are some really interesting stories here. I mean, I'm a I'm a big fan of Jaime Hawkins Jr. mentioning him at UCLA. You know, I think he'll go late in the first round.

And but they're called the Jones Xavier. I really like I mentioned case and Wallace of Kentucky, not as superstars, but as as guys that are going to come at like Colby Jones reminds me a little bit of Josh Hart in the way he when he was in Villanova and then Cam Whitmore. I've been really high on from the beginning. He didn't play a ton that Villanova because of injury, but I have him as the fourth best prospect in the draft. And and I think he's I don't know where he's going to go, whether it's eight or nine or four or whatever, three, who knows?

But but I think he's legit. Jay Villas, I appreciate your time, sir. Next time, we'll talk about you and five clubs golf because I know you you are there with Gary Williams. I appreciate your time. Appreciate being on. Thank you. You got it. Jay Villas here on the Adam Goldshoe ESPN draft coverage this evening. Don't you know?