^^ Yea, it's fucking Duke

1/23/2012 8:26:14 PM

Quote :

"As I've said before, I'll be very happy if we get Gathers instead of Jefferson. Jefferson looks like all potential at this point, a skinny kid waiting to grow into his NBA-grade frame. Gathers is already filled out and ready to terrorize opposing defenses, but since he's only 6'6", he ain't jumping early to the NBA."

I think that it is the whole concept of taking undervalued players (a la Moneyball) that could potentially pay out well for the current era of NCAA college basketball. Isn't it better in the long run to get a solid 4-year stud (Howell, Wood, Zo, etc...) then a one and done type that will average 10 or so a game but then split. Just look at Texas, each year they bring in studs but then they leave after 1 season.

[Edited on January 23, 2012 at 8:35 PM. Reason : uh]

1/23/2012 8:35:02 PM

Or Kentucky.

Oh thats right. nvm

1/23/2012 8:38:17 PM

Quote :

"Or Kentucky. Oh thats right. nvm "

1/23/2012 8:39:06 PM

guys, don't you think our team is better than kentucky's?!

1/23/2012 8:44:26 PM

Quote :

"Or Kentucky. Oh thats right. nvm"

That is one example, there were plenty teams in the sweet sixteen that had senior type studs.

1/23/2012 8:48:07 PM

Basketball is not baseball. You only need to recruit 2-3 studs to have a basketball team that can go far. There are far fewer basketball players, and they are evaluated pretty well compared to baseball. There's also way more parity in NCAABB, although some teams do have a much better payroll than others.

We want guys like Lorenzo and possibly Leslie to be the core of our teams. Guys who are 2 and done or 3 and done, but who definitely have NBA potential. CJ Williams types should be bench players or your 4th and 5th player in terms of minutes. You won't get far if all you have is CJ Williams and Howell types. Zo is in a different class than those 2.

A shitty program like ours is already getting top talent. It's just a matter of having the talent at all positions, coaching, and experience in place at once.

Or in the case of Butler, coaching and experience. Butler is more the exception than the rule.


---

In any case, Moneyball was how you could do arbitrage on baseball player statistics to find good values. Basketball player statistics are not so clear cut, since it's much more dependent on who the player has around him and who he is playing against. Baseball is more about 1 on 1 matchups.

[Edited on January 23, 2012 at 8:53 PM. Reason : .]

1/23/2012 8:48:34 PM

Sorry a 6'6" PF probably isn't going to cut it in the ACC. Watch Howell in the post against UNC and it will be a clear example of how an undersized post player is not really going to cut it. Gathers would be a huge liability defensively...

1/24/2012 8:07:08 AM

Gathers Seems like he'd be much harder to back down under the basket than Howell is, not to mention, it looks like he actually has some jumping ability, so that would help . I would love if he were 3 inches taller, sure, but I think his man child build makes up for it in some ways.

1/24/2012 8:37:24 AM

^^ Charles Barkley would like to have a word with you.

1/24/2012 8:57:52 AM

You know recruiting is on the rise when we're all in here arguing about whether we want either, neither or both recruits that are rated in the top 30 in the country (according to ESPN).

1/24/2012 8:58:03 AM

6'6 is plenty tall enough to be an effective PF in the ACC.

1/24/2012 9:08:34 AM

I like how people are quick to bring out the once-in-a-few-decades 6'6" PF as a comparison. I think the guy is a good player, but I'm not idiotic enough to compare him to Barkley.

People forget that Barkley was also super athletic.

1/24/2012 9:19:51 AM

Well keep bumping this thread arguing about which player you would prefer between two players we probably won't get, while providing zero information. I'll gladly eat part of that sentence, btw.

1/24/2012 9:19:55 AM

i'd love to get 2013 C kennedy meeks, dude looks like a beast. a literal beast.



holds offers from half the ACC

1/24/2012 9:38:16 AM

go to youtube and watch a couple videos of Gathers and tell me that he isnt FAR more athletic than Richard Howell. If we are using Howell as a serviceable PF in the ACC, I have no concerns about Gathers doing the same

1/24/2012 10:00:23 AM

This isn't the fucking NBA...you can have undersized forwards. As long as your center isn't 6'6"...you'll be fine. There have been plenty of undersized PF's other than Charles Barkley over the years that have done really well in college. PJ Tucker, Dejaun Blair, Jason Maxiel, Chuck Hayes, and Larry Johnson to name a few. You just have to be big and athletic enough to bang and hang with the guys who are a couple inches taller.

1/24/2012 10:17:31 AM

There’s really no such thing as positions in basketball, anyway. Baseball and football, you have clear demarcations where certain players line up every play, But basketball, like soccer, is a free for all. The players have no restrictions on movement to any part of the court. The traditional five positions are a guideline, not a rule. You can field a perfectly effective team with four players under 6’5”, or three players over 6’10’’. Its all about how those parts fit together on the floor, not about any preconceived notions concerning what works. You need a big guy to match up with the other team’s big guy, sure, but if the rest of your guys are quicker and faster, a couple inches here or there isn’t going to matter.

1/24/2012 10:19:24 AM

Gathers is listed as either 6'6" or 6'7" depending on the service and consensus top-40 player. I don't think any service profile I've read mentions any concerns about his size.

1/24/2012 10:21:19 AM

Yes, the ranking services can mess-up sometimes, but when they rank a guy in the top40, it's a safe bet that they'll pan out in college. 6'7" is plenty big for a PF in college. (and somebody mentioned Barkley being "athletic"? When I think "athletic", i think of quickness and leaping ability along with strength, and I wouldn't really consider Barkley "athletic". However, this Gathers guy looks pretty "athletic" in his highlight videos).

VI realize he was a freak, but i don't remember him running the break and dunking quite like gathers.... and in no way am i saying gathers is better than barkley. I'm just saying, when I hear "athletic", i don't think of a young barkley. i'm no young pup. and i just went back and watched his highlights, just to refresh myself.


[Edited on January 24, 2012 at 10:51 AM. Reason : ]

1/24/2012 10:43:11 AM

Barkley was a freak. Most of you young pups who've only ever seen him in the TNT chair don't realize that. He was Blake Griffin in Bartolo Colon's body.

1/24/2012 10:45:58 AM

I hate having the best things.

1/24/2012 10:50:04 AM

Quote :

" I wouldn't really consider Barkley "athletic""

Jesus fucking Christ

--

Quote :

"i don't remember him running the break and dunking quite like gathers."

This is orders of magnitude dumber than the Reddick/Wood discussion

I don't really remember Byrd being a "scorer"

I don't think Randy Johnson threw "hard"

Jerry Rice didn't really have "good" hands

[Edited on January 24, 2012 at 10:55 AM. Reason : ]

1/24/2012 10:52:12 AM

Bunch of dumbasses ITT only know Barkley from his fat-ass on TNT with Ernie and Kenny.

[Edited on January 24, 2012 at 10:53 AM. Reason : ^^^Didn't see Slave's post...rinse, repeat]

1/24/2012 10:53:26 AM

I wouldn't really consider Jesus fucking Christ "athletic" either.

^^you must have missed my post when i explained i'm no young pup. i was around for chuck's glory days. all i'm saying is that gathers is big and athletic enough to play PF in college. that's really all i'm saying. calm down, i'm not saying barkley wasn't great.

[Edited on January 24, 2012 at 10:57 AM. Reason : ]

1/24/2012 10:53:30 AM

for the idiots out there

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_v9XE7BijJA

1/24/2012 10:53:48 AM

Quote :

"i was around for chuck's glory day"

And you obviously had no idea what you were watching.

[Edited on January 24, 2012 at 10:58 AM. Reason : Never mind that Chuck is destroying the greatest players in the world, look at this AAU kid!!!]

1/24/2012 10:56:33 AM

explain it to me ernie. is gathers not "athletic"? what are you bitching about?

^i'm not the one comparing barkley to gathers. not sure why you're whining about that. the conversatin started with someone saying gathers wasn't big enough. then, of course, someone brought up barkley. then someone said "but remember barkley was "athletic"". so i responded that i think gathers is athletic (and when i think of "athletic", barkley doesn't come to my mind. "athletic" is pretty subjective.)

[Edited on January 24, 2012 at 11:03 AM. Reason : ]

1/24/2012 10:58:19 AM

I think my quoting your post above is pretty clear? You said Chuck wasn't athletic. That's fucking moronic.

1/24/2012 10:59:55 AM

Take it back, Ernie. Larry Byrd could really play!

1/24/2012 11:01:08 AM

Carl Lewis wasn't "athletic" but boy could he "sing"!

1/24/2012 11:01:42 AM

From the video posted above, Howell is obviously a modern-day Barkley.

1/24/2012 11:02:00 AM

I fully understand your position, bullet or ribs or tower or whoever, I don't really remember. And it's fucking moronic, no reason to explain further.

[Edited on January 24, 2012 at 11:04 AM. Reason : ok, bullet]

1/24/2012 11:04:14 AM

holy shit, you like to argue. fine, barkley was "athletic". calm down.

Let's talk about recruiting. How do you feel about Gathers? Is he big enough to be a big-man in college? Do you feel he is "athletic" enough.

Vand one of my least favorite things is when you're discussing something (like a recruit), and ernie takes one statement in your post, that really isn't about the subject, runs with the tangent and argues like a mad-man about it.

[Edited on January 24, 2012 at 11:10 AM. Reason : ]

1/24/2012 11:07:09 AM

I think my least favorite thing on TWW is when you call someone out, they know how dumb they were so they're all WOAH CALM DOWN YOU ARE OBVIOUSLY MAD BECAUSE YOU SAID FUCK TWICE SHEESH

1/24/2012 11:08:56 AM

Fat people can be athletic too.

Most of them are just fat, though.

1/24/2012 11:09:46 AM

I like to curse more on the internet. Makes me feel tough. Even though I throw out a bunch of curse words...I'm usually calm while typing them.

[Edited on January 24, 2012 at 11:10 AM. Reason : .]

1/24/2012 11:10:20 AM

I can't flip people the byrd online, so I just tell them to fuck themselves, or link to a vulgar gif.

1/24/2012 11:11:11 AM

I just don't know how else to distinguish between regular-moronic and what Bullet is positing here

I mean next up is fucking moronic, right? Did I skip a step?

--

Quote :

"ernie takes one statement in your post, that really isn't about the subject, runs with the tangent and argues like a mad-man about it."

This another thing I hate. I know you're just calling on Ernie stereotypes, but come on. I made one post, you replied with a fucking question. What am I supposed to do?

[Edited on January 24, 2012 at 11:14 AM. Reason : I hate when people come on a message board trying to discuss things! What the fart!]

1/24/2012 11:11:40 AM

Speaking of Madman, where has he been lately?

And to think...I was just starting to like him.

1/24/2012 11:14:47 AM

I feel that Gathers is big enough to play power forward in college. And from looking at a couple highlight videos, i would consider him "athletic".

(i wonder how many more times Barkley will be referenced?)

1/24/2012 11:17:02 AM

i'm pretty sure dennis rodman was only about 6'6 or so

1/24/2012 11:23:10 AM

He also wore dresses and was the greatest rebounder of all time.

1/24/2012 11:28:01 AM

You don't have to keep putting athletic in quotes. It's generally acknowledged that athleticism, as a basketball reference, refers to strength, explosiveness, jumping ability and quickness. Gathers is an obvious freak athlete. Barkley's paradoxical athleticism (he looked like a fat little guy out there next to the 7-footers) was legendary.

1/24/2012 11:32:41 AM

Quote :

"ernie takes one statement in your post, that really isn't about the subject, runs with the tangent and argues like a mad-man about it.""

it is not fair to call ernie out b/c bullet saying Barkley wasnt athletic, in his opinion, is asinine. barkely is one of the greatest 50 players in the NBA, gold medal winner on the "dream team" as well as a beast in college.

"Barkley is one of only four players in NBA history to have compiled at least 20,000 points, 10,000 rebounds and 4,000 assists." http://www.nba.com/history/legends/charles-barkley/index.html

[Edited on January 24, 2012 at 11:40 AM. Reason : and this says that chuck was closer to 6'4]



[Edited on January 24, 2012 at 11:42 AM. Reason : lol i know right]

1/24/2012 11:40:29 AM

gunzz defending ernie?

Now I've seen it all

1/24/2012 11:41:21 AM

I realize Barkley was a great top50 player that scored a lot of points and rebounds. All I'm saying, hear me out, is that Gathers is plenty athletic.

1/24/2012 11:51:29 AM

Yo

That's not all you're saying, as clearly evidenced by your saying other (very silly) things

OK?

1/24/2012 11:57:02 AM

I, for one, am just glad that we are able to have these nonsensical conversations about 4 and 5 star recruits.

1/24/2012 11:59:21 AM

Hey, let's discuss ranking and stars! In ESPN's recent ranking update, Lewis is now a top50 player (from #69 to #43). Purvis and Warren dropped slightly (#16 to #19, and #23 to #28). Let's discuss ranking conspriacies against Wolfpack players!

1/24/2012 12:20:15 PM