Ignore the Hype, Focus on the Substance(2014 NBA Draft)

With the draft, there comes much (unavoidable) hype and many questionable opinions from unnamed scouts and draft experts all around. Every year there is this one high school player who is this can’t miss, FUTURE SUPERSTAR NBA prospect. And every year, it seems they fail to truly live up to the hype in NCAA, or hit the nba, get drafted high and lead people to realize their draft spot was waaaaay too high. This season, it was Andrew Wiggins who assumed the mantle of CAN’T MISS, NEXT SUPERSTAR WING. The whole season, we were bombarded with “BEST WING PROSPECT SINCE ______” , and told all the incredible things Wiggins was going to do in the NCAA and eventually the NBA. 

Once he got to college, it was evident that he wasn’t that kind of Tmac, Durant, Kobe kind of prospect, though that didn’t stop people from comparing them to him. For one, his handles were near nonexistent, and his jumpshot was lacking as well. The whole story behind him was his breathtaking athleticism, which was obviously there, but all the other skills needed for a franchise wing player were seemingly absent. For some reason, the intensity also wasn't there consistently. Not only was there that but he also seemed to be the 2^nd best freshman and player on Kansas behind his ever rising teammate, Joel Embiid, as well as markedly less skilled than fellow freshman, Jabari Parker.

 

This isn’t an isolated case, as I stated previously; there are some recent great examples such as Shabazz Muhammad(whose potential I actually like) who coming out of high school was compared to James Harden and touted as a future superstar in the league. From the high school level, I saw a guy not quite that great off the dribble or athletically either, but he was dominating the overmatched high school competition. Once he got to college, his play wasn’t close to dominant and everyone who loved him soured on him. 

Michael Kidd-Gilchrist. He had a similar hype, even though he was playing on a stacked Kentucky team with Anthony Davis and co. His obvious offensive flaws, such as his truly unorthodox shooting form and his lack of ball handling skills were ignored.  Great defender, rebounder and energy guy, but when you draft someone #2, you’re doing so because you feel they can become a franchise player. The previous year we had Harrison Barnes(same draft as mkg) , who coming out of high school was supposed to be this can’t miss wing prospect in the NBA. Once he hit college, it was painfully obvious that the hype was nowhere near warranted, due to his lack of go to moves and he even ended up being outshined by his much less heralded teammate, Doug McDermott! And now after being taken with the 10^th pick in the 1^st round, just looks like(and expected) a very average player. 

Does Wiggins truly deserve to go #1? Is he that much better than similar wing players like Paul George(2010 #10 pick) and Kawhi Leonard(2011 #15 pick). Sometimes you just have to see how the player gets their points. Focus on the skill (shooting, handles, post game), iq or even effort over the athleticism because if you’re being touted as a future great player, we know that most of the great players actually have all of these things for the most part from youth. On the real though, if development were so easy, we’d have more superstars and less role players. Not probable. Will he become a terrible player? Not at all, he has all the tools to be a great defender and a maybe solid third scorer, maybe 2nd depending on the team. So I easily expect him to stay in the nba for over a decade, just not become the franchise player(Rudy!) we all expected in high school.