Hawks draft pick grades (Jalen & Sharife)

[bleachkit]

My main concern is that he had injury problems his senior year in high school and freshman year at Duke. 

[thecampster]

3 minutes ago, Diesel said:

You can have all the tools but not the mental or the toughness.  This guy may be like Josh Smith with no hops.   A primadonna head case. 

 

No hops?  The NBA comparisons for Jalen have been Aaron Gordon or pre-injury Rudy Gay.

He registered a 37 inch vertical.  Josh was 39.5.  Basically, the kid is very strong, loves to go right at the basket. He's a power forward body with SF speed and athleticism. He's a nightmare cover in today's nba where lots of 4's are either lean shooters or thick rebounders.  The kid is both.

Just now, bleachkit said:

My main concern is that he had injury problems his senior year in high school and freshman year at Duke. 

that is my only concern...I'm with you there.

[sturt]

3 minutes ago, thecampster said:

He's a power forward body with SF speed and athleticism.

...with PG court vision.

 

That's the part that excites me.

 

But we'll see.

 

Like our #48 pick, so much of his career is about to be defined by his ability to develop a reliable shot.

[swanlee]

At #20 it is a great pick, we are pretty stacked as it is someone like him panning out could give us a huge boost. It is a wise gamble

[thecampster]

One of my favorite parts of his game is the distance he closes with 2 steps. When in the open floor, he picks up the dribble at the 3 point line and is dunking after 2 strides. This guy in transition is terrifying.

 

 

 

[thecampster]

Speaking of being 19 and athletic.  Just came across this 19 year old video of Giannis. I forgot how skinny he was when he was drafted. Crazy looking at him now.

 

 

 

 

[BangHolman]

3 hours ago, AHF said:

I like the word gamble over experiment.  High upside, significant risk.  Experiment to me is more like trying Boris Diaw at PF/C or the early stretch bigs.  Ie, guys who don’t fit the mold for their positions.  I’m not so much seeing novel issues with fit as much as lots of unknowns which can mean great variance but the nice thing is he went from a top 10 guy in his class to lower due to his limited playing time the last two years but still put up some nice production when he did play.  

All this, and then the fact that we already have the core we do. We can afford to take the BPA risk. Not the exact situation, but we are in a spot that the Nuggets have been in during recent drafts where they're just fielding high talent players that fall to them. There's also consolidation trade posts all the time, he would be a player that could be a part of a deal or back-fill a role for us.

[Diesel]

4 hours ago, kg01 said:

I think it's reasonable to have questions about a foot injury.  Again, it was one of my concerns and I find it odd that no one has talked about it.

But, again, these are just reasonable concerns.  Not reasons to hate the pick as you seem to.

Why was he not dominant?  Eh, we'll see how he fares.  Again, this is a developmental prospect selected at 20.  If he had dominated, he would've been selected higher.

Don't make me do it, dies ... ah, you made me do it ... Giannis wasn't exactly "dominant" in that subleague he played in before getting drafted.  Let's just see how the dude pans out.

I think we can absorb an "L" picking at 20, if it comes to that.

I just think we could have found some better players.

Robinson-Earl,  Isiah Jackson, Garuba,   Aldama, Sharpe, 

Robinson-Earl and Aldama are better than Jalen (IMHO).

 

[kg01]

1 minute ago, Diesel said:

I just think we could have found some better players.

Robinson-Earl,  Isiah Jackson, Garuba,   Aldama, Sharpe, 

Robinson-Earl and Aldama are better than Jalen (IMHO).

 

I don't think you're wrong, necessarily.  I imagine they decided to err on the side of upside considering this pick was never supposed to play/contribute right away.

I'm not sure any of the guys you list will ever be any better than, say, a Kenrich Williams type.  Certainly useful but truly replaceable.

We took a guy who could be that and more.  If we strike out, so be it, but we weren't ever meant to be relying on whoever we picked here.

[AHF]

6 hours ago, thecampster said:

Most of that production is terribly skewed as he was playing hurt.  The 2 games he wasn't hurt were NBA stat lines of 20+/15+/7.

The foot is the one thing that bothers me and that it wasn't disclosed what the foot issue was.

 

We just don't have the number of games from him that you'd like to see as a scout.  (2 games is almost worthless by themselves.)  That creates a void of information and a buying opportunity.  Echoing to another discussion on another thread, it reminds me a bit of the early days of Euro players when people hadn't seen as much of them so teams were reluctant to take the gamble on them.  As a GM, if you don't feel like you really know what to expect from the kid and your tolerance for risk isn't high enough you pass on him for a more "sure" thing.  The lack of data is what makes it more of a gamble for me.  

 

4 hours ago, Diesel said:

 

If he would have finished out his season with Duke... and his averages remained the same or even dropped, would he still be top 10?

 If he remained hurt all year like he was for most of those games, he would likely not have been a top 10 pick.  If he played a full season like he did when he was healthy, he might have gone #4 overall.  We are just throwing stuff against the wall with speculation if any of us claims they know how that would have played out.  

Your concerns about commitment and attitude surely factor in as well for some people.  The high school thing isn't a big deal to me as he went to IMG, got hurt, never played for them and returned to the team that he was a state championship with the year before then rehabbed, returned and played out the remainder of the season.  I don't have enough insight into that situation to say whether that was just a comfort move while he was hurt, because he was mistreated, etc. or because he didn't like the staff or team at IMG.  Nobody on this site knows the answer.

For the season at Duke, he was hurt but this is also a strange time when players are going to the G-League instead of college, dropping out of college to focus on their draft prospects, the NCAA is losing litigation over barring these players from getting compensation while in college (while they rake in billions), and on top of all that Covid was in play.  Just a strange year.  Tough to draw any definitive conclusions from the outside but easy to put whatever narrative  you want on it.

[Spud2nique]

1 hour ago, Diesel said:

Robinson-Earl,  Isiah Jackson, Garuba,   Aldama, Sharpe, 

 

Ahhh I’m gonna have to politely disagree here. And Diesel why do you always like the neighbors lawn better than ours? Ours is the best cut lawn with the healthiest grass in the neighborhood. Comon bady, git it together! If we’d gotten Isaiah Jackson you’d prolly say you wanted Jalen Johnson more.  I kid I kid.

[MarylandHawk]

13 hours ago, sturt said:

...with PG court vision.

 

That's the part that excites me.

 

But we'll see.

 

Like our #48 pick, so much of his career is about to be defined by his ability to develop a reliable shot.

His comp is Ben Simmons. All the same skills and all the same concerns. Good problem to have on a rookie scale contract. 

[Sothron]

John Hollinger's thoughts on our draft:

 

Favorite draft: Atlanta

We’ll see if both the Hawks and I are smart, but based on my board, Atlanta had a great night. At picks 20 and 48, the Hawks selected the ninth- and 28th-rated players on my board in Jalen Johnson and Sharife Cooper.

Johnson, the 20th pick, offers unusual upside for a pick in that range as a big, athletic forward who can handle the ball. In retrospect, it’s odd to see that he slipped when teams lunged for more speculative players with less upside in the teens.

Cooper, meanwhile, could play backup point guard minutes immediately. While he’s a smaller player with a poor outside shot, and that likely prevents him from ever being a starting-caliber player, he’s also an elite shot creator and passer who can run an offense off the bench. For a team that has struggled with backup point guard minutes and is going to need inexpensive bench options once Trae Young’s max contract hits next year, this could end up an inspired selection.

[Diesel]

19 hours ago, Spud2nique said:

Ahhh I’m gonna have to politely disagree here. And Diesel why do you always like the neighbors lawn better than ours? Ours is the best cut lawn with the healthiest grass in the neighborhood. Comon bady, git it together! If we’d gotten Isaiah Jackson you’d prolly say you wanted Jalen Johnson more.  I kid I kid.

I love our Grass.  I love the Cooper pick.  Hell, I would have picked Cooper at #20.   I just don't  like  the pick of Johnson.   I like Robinson Earl because I saw him play in the tourney 2 years ago.   Dude was good.   I think he was Villanova's leading scorer.  Honestly, I didn't see him play this past year.. but I can only imagine that he is still good. 

[sturt]

[txsting]

Who is a good comp for Sharife?  Best I can come up with is Schröder?!?

[txsting]

6 minutes ago, txsting said:

Who is a good comp for Sharife?  Best I can come up with is Schröder?!?

Or Collin Sexton?

[AHF]

As I think about what Sharife can be, I see him as a much better passer and playmaker than either Dennis or Sexton but not nearly as threatening a scorer as either of them.  I'd think of his long-term best case more along the lines of Rod Strickland or Jason Williams where you have very strong passers who develop decent but not great scoring games.  

[sturt]

As a rule, I'm gathering that many Hawks fans have set some pretty high expectations for both of our picks. In both cases, there is reason for optimism due to some assessments. Fair to say that. Also fair to say, not all assessments, and indeed as the draft drew closer, both players became somewhat less valued than earlier among some of the higher-regard mockers... which one would naturally figure was a consequence of what they were hearing from their sources, which one would naturally figure was a consequence of what they were hearing following player workouts with a variety of teams.

So, just me, I feel best about suspending expectations where it concerns either one for 21-22. Don't let myself get too down or too up on either one until there's a full year of work to look at, and evaluate.

Ya know, we're just not used to this. Every year it's been somewhat critical to see our rookies make their mark, because until now, we were still in player development mode. Now, though, it's time to focus almost entirely on the guys who have effectively set expectations for themselves and for the franchise.

[Gray Mule]

STURT:  Another reason they recently fell from grace - They became Hawks.

Both had a pretty good showing in their 1st summer league game.