NY Knicks: Quentin Grimes came into the league ready
I’ve had these thoughts about the NBA Draft and prospect analysis before, but really I had some inspiration from listening to an episode of JJ Reddick’s podcast titled The Old Man and The Three the other week where he had Draymond Green on as a guest.
Among the things the two talked about was the NBA Draft and how teams have invested so much into taking big gambles in the draft.
“Gambles” meaning selecting players who are “raw”, predominantly “one and done” players, guys who are “physical freaks” as opposed to picking players who are… known good basketball players.
And I don’t want to make these vague all-encompassing statements about the NBA Draft and the process of evaluating players seem 100% true. Obviously, those gambles can sometimes pay off. But it feels like teams are chasing that massive cashout later in the draft and instead of taking the proven talent staring at them in the face.
Green and Reddick (Both guys who played 4 years of college) emphasized two things in that episode — how much they grew in college, and how much room they had to grow in the NBA in spite of being in college for 4 years. They weren’t even close to being done developing physically or in their games.
As for Quentin Grimes, here’s a player who was a top high school prospect who had a rough beginning to his college career, but improved every single year. By his 3rd year, he was the focal point of an offense — putting up big scoring numbers on lethal, high volume shooting, playmaking, rebounding, and defense.
And yet, he fell in the draft because… he played 3 years of college, and he isn’t 6’9 with a 7’2 wingspan with a 48 inch vertical.
Again, I don’t want to make it seem like these statements are “matter of fact” because it’s so early in these guys’ careers, but look at the players who went right ahead of Grimes — Keon Johnson, Usman Garuba, Josh Christopher?
Maybe they can become good players, but a lot of these guys are incredibly raw, low-floor guys. And who’s to say the ceiling is even higher than Grimes?
Sure, there are plenty of players who have great college careers who don’t have good NBA careers, but in Grimes’ case, he has so many tools that today’s NBA teams crave, that you can’t help but question why he was so overlooked.
Grimes is a proven bucket, and there are qualities to his game that already indicate a long NBA career.