During the course of the past few weeks, I participated in a mock draft over at Baseball Think Factory. Each NBA team was assigned to a different poster, and I happened to be put in charge of the Milwaukee Bucks.
Here are a few notable facts about the Bucks that informed my draft strategy:
(1) They made the fewest 3s in the league this year. All season it looked like the Wolves would hold that ignominious distinction, but in the end the Bucks took the crown. To put their poor outside shooting in perspective, Milwaukee opponents made 74% more 3s than they did, and Steph Curry made 0.3 fewer 3s per game than the entire Bucks team.
(2) Their defense, which had been their greatest strength the year before, cratered in 2015-16. They fell from 4th to 23rd in points allowed per possession, while dropping from 1st to 13th in steals and 8th to 19th in opposing field goal percentage.
(3) Giannis Antetokounmpo, their 21-year-old star player, is ridiculously awesome in just about every way. He’s an active and athletic defender, with crazily long arms, who will take on major ball handling and scoring responsibilities going forward. However, like many of his teammates, his outside shot is putrid.
Based on these facts, I had a clear primary objective: to surround Giannis with excellent outside shooters who could play the type of swarming, disruptive defense that helped make the Bucks so much more successful the year before. Of course I wouldn’t look for this profile to the exclusion of all others, but when deciding among players in a given draft tier, these are the skills I would prioritize.
Ultimately I selected the following players: Taurean Prince (Pick 12), Demetrius Jackson (26), Guerschon Yabusele (36), and Paul Zipser (38). [I ended up with the #12 and #26 picks by trading down from #10 in the belief that Prince would still be there a couple slots later. Scroll to the bottom for full mock draft results. My BBTF handle is and always has been Dandy Little Glove Man, the nickname of former MLB second baseman Mickey Morandini who helped the 1998 Cubs reach the playoffs].
You can read my thoughts on Prince and Zipser, including how they fit that desired profile, in my Most Underrated Prospects post from earlier this week. Here I’ll focus on the other 2 selections, Demetrius Jackson and Guerschon Yabusele.
Demetrius Jackson – 21.7 years old, 6’2” 194 pounds, 6’5.5” wingspan
I think Demetrius Jackson fits an archetype that often is more successful in the NBA than in college: supremely athletic guards playing in heavily structured systems. Though Notre Dame plays a version of small ball, they run very methodical sets in trying to work for the best shot. Their pace, or tempo on kenpom, is typically among the slowest in college basketball (327th out of 351 teams this past season). Defensively Coach Mike Brey focuses on avoiding fouls—the Irish consistently rank among the NCAA leaders in limiting points allowed at the free throw line—which can also be somewhat stifling and may be partially responsible for Jackson’s often-lethargic defense. Jackson certainly is a tremendous athlete, with the quickness to get into the lane at will and the leaping ability to play above the rim without exerting max effort despite his size.
My main concern with Jackson stems from my belief that Notre Dame’s scheme tends to artificially inflate 2-point shooting percentages. Mike Brey likes to go small and play 4-out by limiting and staggering the minutes of his big men, in this case Zach Auguste and Bonzie Colson. The Irish have excellent spacing and tend to run a highly efficient offense as a result, though their defense suffers from the lack of size.
Yet my hesitation about whether his interior scoring will hold up is more than offset by Jackson’s phenomenal outside shooting. Jackson made just 33% of his 3s this past season after back-to-back years of shooting 40%+ behind the arc, though in context that drop-off doesn’t worry me at all. The key difference between this season and prior years is that in prior years Jackson operated as a secondary ball handler with substantial catch-and-shoot opportunities, whereas this year he acted as Notre Dame’s sole distributor and shooter of last resort.
Catch-and-shoot jumpers are much easier shots than pull-ups off the dribble. In the former scenario the shooter is able to set his feet, square up to the target, and shoot in rhythm, usually with a fair amount of space. None of these favorable conditions are present on dribble jumpers. That’s why in the NBA the effective field goal percentage on catch-and-shoot jumpers is around 52% compared to just 40% on dribble jumpers, and roughly 85% of 3s and 50% of 2s are assisted.
This year Jackson’s shot attempts fundamentally became much more difficult, as he was tasked with facilitating open jumpers for all of his teammates and then creating his own shot when all else failed. Rather amazingly, the other 3 players on the team who made a substantial number of 3s (VJ Beachem, Steve Vasturia, and Matt Ryan) were assisted 96% of the time, while Jackson was assisted 42.6% of the time, one of the lowest rates in the NCAA (stats courtesy of hoop-math.com – subscription required). In the NBA only 4 players made as many 3s as Jackson this year while being assisted less than 50% of the time: Damian Lillard, Chris Paul, Reggie Jackson, and Russell Westbrook. Maybe even more amazingly, Jackson was assisted on just 2.1% of his 2-point jumpers.
Considering the fact that more than 75% of his made jumpers came off the dribble, Jackson’s shooting this year was actually still quite good. And last season, when his shots were split nearly evenly between the assisted and unassisted variety, much more like they should be in the pros, Jackson sported a sensational 60.1% effective field goal percentage on jumpers.
I had been looking for a bigger and more defensive-minded secondary ball handler for the Bucks, but I couldn’t pass up on Jackson with the 26th pick. While he’s shorter than I’d like, he makes up for it with a reasonable 6’ 5.5″ wingspan and a very strong frame, so I’m betting that he can develop into a disruptive defender by emphasizing that aspect of his game. And he’s already such an effective spot-up shooter with experience playing off the ball that I expect him to be a better fit alongside Giannis than a typical college point guard would be.
Guerschon Yabusele – 20.5 years old, 6’8” 270 pounds, 7’1.75” wingspan
Yabusele is a bulky stretch big man who had per-40 averages of 16 points, 9.5 rebounds, 1.5 assists, and 1.5 steals while playing a leading role for the worst team in France’s top professional league. Though frequently labeled an undersized power forward, Yabusele has a 7’1.75″ wingspan. His combination of size, agility, length, and outside shooting makes him a player with few obvious comps, and thus it should not be surprising that he and his compatriots liken him to Draymond Green.
The biggest issues with Yabusele are his conditioning, inconsistent defensive effort, and questionable defensive awareness, which in my mind are substantially related. If he can find a good situation in terms of coaching and training to motivate him to slim down a bit and focus on the defensive side of the ball, he has the potential to be the steal of the draft. Or he might just eat himself out of the league. Given my concerns with all the college players left on the board at this point, it’s a gamble I was willing to take.
BBTF Final Mock Draft:
1. Philadelphia – STIGGLES – Ben Simmons
2. Lakers – SoCal Committee – Brandon Ingram
3. Boston – MHS – Dragan Brender
4. Phoenix – Thok – Marquese Chriss
5. Minnesota – Bitter Mouse – Buddy Hield
6. New Orleans – billyshears – Jamal Murray
7. Philadelphia – STIGGLES – Kris Dunn
8. Sacramento – theboyqueen – Timothe Luwawu
9. Toronto – Smileyy – Deyonta Davis
10. Philadelphia – STIGGLES (from MIL) – Jaylen Brown
11. Orlando – JJ1986 – Jakob Poeltl
12. Milwaukee – Dandy Little Glove Man (from UTA, via DEN and PHI) – Taurean Prince
13. Phoenix – Thok – Denzel Valentine
14. Boston – MHS – Wade Baldwin (from CHI)
15. Orlando – JJ1986 (from DEN) – Tyler Ulis
16. Chicago- Moses (from BOS) – Dejounte Murray
17. Memphis – Votto – Domantas Sabonis
18. Boston – MHS – Henry Ellenson
19. Denver – Oriole Tragic – Skal Labissiere
20. Indiana – aberg – Ante Zizic
21. Charlotte – Rolling Wave (from ATL) – Brice Johnson
22. Atlanta – Der-K (from CHA) – Furkan Korkmaz
23. Detroit – Crosseyed and Painless (from BOS) – Petr Cornelie
24. Philadelphia – STIGGLES – Gary Payton II
25. Clippers – tshipman – Chinanu Onuaku
26. Milwaukee – Dandy (from PHI) – Demetrius Jackson
27. Toronto – Smileyy -Cheick Diallo
28. Phoenix – Thok – DeAndre Bembry
29. Charlotte – Rolling Wave (from SAS) – Zhou Qi
30. GS – King Mekong – Thon Maker
31. Boston – MHS – Juan Hernangomez
32. Lakers – Caris Lavert
33. Clippers – Pascal Siakam
34. Phoenix – Thok – Rade Zagorac
35. Chicago – Moses (from BOS) – Damien Jones
36. Milwaukee – Dandy – Guerschon Yabusele
37. Houston – Athletic Supporter – Malik Beasley
38. Milwaukee – Dandy – Paul Zipser
39. New Orleans – billyshears – Malachi Richardson
40. New Orleans – billyshears – Diamond Stone
41. Indiana – aberg – Ben Bentil
42. Utah – Cervo + Booey – Ivica Zubac
43. Houston – Athletic Supporter – Robert Carter
44. Charlotte – Rolling Wave (from ATL) – Isaia Cordinier
45. Clippers – tshipman (from BOS) – Michael Gbinije
46. Dallas – stevegamer – Georgios Papagiannis
47. Orlando – JJ1986 – Fred VanVleet
48. Chicago – Moses – Daniel Hamilton
49. Detroit – Crosseyed and Painless – Patrick McCaw
50. Indiana – aberg – Malcolm Brogdon
51. Detroit – Crosseyed and Painless (from BOS) – Stephen Zimmerman
52. Utah – Cervo + Booey – Andrey Desyatnikov
53. Denver – Oriole Tragic – Wayne Selden
54. Atlanta – Der-K – A.J. Hammons
55. Brooklyn – Chicago Joe – Dorian Finney Smith
56. Orlando – JJ1986 (from DEN) – David Michineau
57. Dallas – stevegamer (from MEM via MIL) – Anthony Barber
58. San Antonio – Quaker (from DET via BOS) – Gracin Bakumanya
59. Sacramento – theboyqueen – Thomas Walkup
60. Boston – MHS (from UTA) – Derrick Jones
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