Andrew Schlecht and Alex Speers discuss the the upcoming NBA Draft with Sam Vecenie including, why Cooper Flagg is the undisputed number 1 pick, who Sam is looking forward to watching in the NCAA Tournament, who are the best shooters in the class, hand what players are expected to make in impact in year 1 of the NBA. Then the boys play a fun edition of Andrew vs. the Beat, a trivia game where Andrew is pitted against Sam Vecenie on NBA Draft history. Host: Andrew Schlecht and Alex SpeersWith: Sam VecenieExecutive Producer: Andrew SchlechtAudio/Video Editor: Jake Kleinberg Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
Chapter 1: Why is Cooper Flagg the number one pick in the NBA Draft?
post game uh shout out to uh my buddy joe masato from the oklahoma and like tried to ask him again like can you just like tell me more like why like how did you come up with this and he's like well i used some creativity or something like that it was just i don't know it's just too good um okay so we're talking about the the nba draft there's a clear number one guy in this draft, Cooper Flagg.
I want to just try to contextualize how good he is. And so I wanted to look back at some of the best prospects of the last few years. So let's go with Cade Cunningham, Palo, Chet, Wimby, Scoot Henderson as prospects only, like pre-draft prospects. Where would we rank them?
Cooper flag amongst those guys, or how would you rank those guys and where would Cooper like fall into the pecking order there?
Yeah. I have Cooper out of all of them except Wendy. Wow. The level to which Cooper has been able to problem solve basketball this season at Duke as an 18 year old. It's almost like when you watch his first five minutes, six minutes of a game or whatever, you can see all of the information flowing into the supercomputer that is his brain.
And then right around that point in the game is where you start to see him just go, okay, like to quote the lethal shooter guy, I understand it now. You know what I mean? Like he just gets it from that point forward and he understands, okay, this is how I have to attack this guy. This is now the matchup that I'm looking for.
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Chapter 2: What makes Cooper Flagg stand out among recent prospects?
This is what they're doing in terms of help defense and how I can attack it. The processing ability that he showcases is incredibly, incredibly high level. He's improved a ton as a shooter this year. That was the biggest concern coming into this season was what he would look like as a shooter from distance, from mid-range.
He started to show flashes of that during his last year at Montford, but we weren't quite sure how exactly that would translate from day one within college basketball as the game speeds up and you're dealing with better athletes on a night-to-night basis.
whether or not he's dealing with better athletes on a night to night basis, you know, as he was in the NIBC playing at Montverde versus playing in the ACC up for debate. The ACC is not very good this year, but they're certainly better players at the very least. Uh, people I think will point to like some of his performances in high level games.
And I mean, I can pull up his numbers in these high level games and high leverage moments. And it's just like, yeah, he's still a stud. He did have a poor moment at the end of the Kentucky game. And at the end of the Kansas game, But if you look at the Kentucky game, he had 26, 11, 2, 3, and 2 against Arizona, who's a top 20 team.
He had 24, 7, 3, 4, and 3 against Auburn, who is a top three team in the country. 22, 11, 4, and 2 blocks. You can go up and down the board, and it's just like this dude is a total joke. Every single thing that he does, is going to translate to the next level at an incredibly high level.
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Chapter 3: How does Cooper Flagg's competitive character affect his draft value?
But more than that, and this is really what I want to end on, when you select Cooper Flagg, you are drafting a culture and a competitive character unto itself within your organization. He doesn't take days off in practice. He doesn't take plays off during games. He is as competitive as you will find in a truly elite level prospect. Uh, he is, is that he's everything that you're looking for.
Uh, he's not as good as Victor Wembanyama in terms of upside as a prospect in my mind, but he's, you know what, like Victor is probably going to be the best player in the world as long as like the health allows it. I think Cooper's upside is to very easily be a top five player in the world at some point.
It is, it is hard for me to envision a world where he's not a top 25 player in the NBA and very easy for me to envision a world where he is a top five to 10 player in the league.
So it sounds like you're saying he's worth all this buffoonery we're seeing from some of these teams out there. Rest in honor, guys. Might be worth it. Not Portland. Portland's out here playing hard every night. Shout out, Portland. Shout out, Portland. Sam, before we get to the other prospects, I wanted to ask you a general question because you've been doing this for a while.
And like anyone else, you've had hits and misses. When you look back at the players you missed on, Are there any specific types of players or profiles that you feel like you have tended to overvalue or undervalue?
I think early on when I was doing this, I think I had a tendency to undervalue bigs that just have an incredible set of tools to work with, right? So super long arms, right?
extreme high level athletes real size for the nba center position uh in hands is the other thing like being able to catch the ball like that's the difference between like james wiseman and like clint capella or something like that right uh wiseman's hands are not very good and that is what ended up kind of being the downfall of his career to this point um
I think that early on I would probably underrate the hands aspect of it. And I think that I, I am somebody still, even I would say to this day that unless the upside is very, very high, in my opinion, I tend to be someone who likes to draft not 24-year-olds or 23-year-olds, but I'm pretty comfortable drafting older and getting value on rookie-scale deals.
I need to really feel confident in the player. But project players with limited upside were probably something... And by limited upside, I mean, okay, this guy can be a... regular season starting center, right. As opposed to like a guy that you feel comfortable with in the playoffs. Right. I would say that that is a role that I probably have consistently undervalued.
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Chapter 4: Which players should we watch in the NCAA Tournament?
In other words, you don't think the weakness is as big of a deal as everyone else seems to think.
Hmm. I tend to be quite hard on some of these things. So this is a hard one. Weakness that I don't think is as bad as what it is perceived to be. That's a difficult one. I'm sorry. I'm like ruining the lightning. It's okay.
It's okay. I feel like this is usually how the lightning round goes.
Yeah, I would say that I think Con Canepo's defense is actually quite good, actually, at the college level. Now, I have questions as to whether or not it will translate to the next level at a particularly high level. But in terms of staying in front of his man, competing... rotating with anticipation, understanding what's happening around him, being a good team defender.
I think Khan's actually quite good on defense at Duke. Now, in the NBA, there are longer areas to traverse, longer closeouts. You're in more oceans of space. So shiftier guards are going to be able to potentially beat him off the bounce in straighter lines and then cause more help and teams are going to have to rotate around Khan and try and help him out that way. But
I actually think like Khan has a better chance to be a neutral defender than what other people I think contend at the very least. Like what, what I'm most worried about him with is not actually the bigger, you know, the Lucas, the Jason Tatum's, the, the bigger wings, right. It's actually like the smaller guards, right. in my opinion, that could actually like give him more problems.
Like a Donovan Mitchell, I think could give him more problems maybe than even like Luca, because Luca is just trying to like lean on you the whole time and like, you know, use his frame to his advantage. Khan's big, he's strong. He's like 215 pounds already. He's like six, six, he's physical, he's competitive.
Like, I think he'll be able to like really stand those guys up when they try to attack him. it's more the like shiftier guards that I think could catch him. And absolutely those guys will try to catch him early in his career. So I would say that is probably my, that's probably a good answer for that one.
So who, who is this year's best? If he can shoot guy, Colin Murray boils point blank.
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Chapter 5: Who are the best shooters in this draft class?
And Matt Ishbia seems like he wants to continue to try and do this, but it also seems like they're probably moving Kevin Durant this summer, you know, based off of all reporting out there. Right. So, you know, how, how far do they contend with,
moving kevin durant right like what do they move him for how do you go about retooling the roster that's the first question assuming it looks similar to what it is right now like ryan kalkbrenner makes a lot of sense to me for them uh a big dude who can play in drop coverage who can play minutes basically immediately who is really sharp and has potential to shoot from three a little bit
But more than anything, he's just excellent with angles. He's super long. He's been one of the best defense players in college basketball for four years now. Outstanding, outstanding player. I mean, like around 30, like if Nick Clifford fell there, he'd be valuable. Janai Broom is another center that could work there. Yeah. You know, I really like Jojo Tugler.
If he's in the draft, it'll be a question as whether great name Jojo Tugler, by the way, one of my favorite names in the draft.
Have you seen Jojo Tugler play yet?
I haven't, but I've just read his name and I love reading his name.
So Jojo Tugler is, I don't know, six foot seven, six foot eight with a seven, six ish wingspan, like something like that. Oh, the tug man. He is the best defensive player in college basketball, point blank. Okay. Like no questions asked to me. I saw him play against Auburn. He like blocked a shot in a help, like in his momentum, took him out of bounds, like beneath the baseline.
He gets up the offense. Alabama gets the rebound and like swings it out, you know, twice onto the opposite side. Wing from where he was gets up. Mark Sears shoots a three. He rotates like 35 feet all the way out to Mark Williams after or Mark Sears. I'm sorry. After blocking the shot and blocks the jumper. And I'm like, what in the world just happened here? Like, like how, how did he do this?
It's what it's like. It is the craziest defensive play ever. I have seen non-Victor Wembanyama addition in five years. Wow. He's unbelievable on that end. The issue is from an NBA perspective, there's no offensive game right now. It's really, really tricky to figure out what the fit is. He's a great offensive rebounder. He will occasionally make a three here and there.
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Chapter 6: What are the key weaknesses of top prospects?
Is it better or worse than what Ryan Dunn was coming out of the draft?
It's more of a big than what Ryan Dunn is. He's more of a true four, whereas Dunn you could see being a 3-4 kind of. But JoJo Tuggler this year made the all-Big 12 team, averaging five points and five rebounds a game. That's how good he is on defense.
On defense. Yeah. Wow. Okay. Which player are you most excited to watch in the tournament other than Cooper Flagg?
Good question. I would say I want to see more Casper Siakashonas. Had a great start to the year. has had an up-and-down run in Big Ten play, I would say, and there have been a few more downs, realistically. He's just not a great athlete, and that's a real concern for his NBA future. But in terms of his... passing, feeling ball screens, ability to get to pull up jumpers.
Like all of that stuff is there. I would just like to see him continue to play against higher level, like athletes that maybe aren't, you know, getting to see him night in night out in big 10 play, like within your own conference play. he has a chance to like take the tournament by storm.
He has the chance to kind of shoot Illinois out of a game potentially if, you know, he just has to fire from distance and he's getting like blitz on his ball screens. And, you know, he isn't able to, I mean, he's an unbelievable passer. The issue is that like nobody else on that Illinois team can really create a shot. in all honesty.
So Yaka Shona, this is the guy for me, like he, and I'll also give Jace Richardson some love here. Jace Richardson has been unbelievable to close the year for Michigan state. He's Jason Richardson's son plays nothing like Jason Richardson. Like if you were to put a polar opposite player on,
you know, out there, you know, Jason was this unbelievable, incredible nuclear athlete, like three and D player. Jace is this like six foot one, like Jalen Brunson knee in terms of style guard, who's just like unbelievable navigating space on the interior and being able to get to his spots and get the floaters and finish around the rim. Um, really, really fun player.
And the way that he came on late in the year, being more of the primary for Michigan state, who has been awesome throughout the year in the big 10. I, if he has a big tournament run, we could be talking about him as like a top six, top seven type player in this class for sure.
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Chapter 7: How does the NBA Draft comp market influence player rankings?
Like, you know, Caleb Swan again, when he was at Purdue, like Purdue devised the scheme where like he would call out to a teammate on the wing to go up, guard the ball screen. I'll switch onto the guy on the wing. Right. And for his part,
Derek queen is actually like a really good communicator on defense within the scheme and is like really good at making sure that like he has his teammates, you know, in the right spots and that he's in the right spots. I think he's actually also like pretty okay. Laterally on defense. Like if he is in a switch situation and is guarding like a wing and
he can slide his feet in like cut off that player. The problem is when you get them North South, it's really hard. I think for him to kind of stop his momentum and then change directions. Right. So like if he's closing out onto a shooter in like a scramble situation, I think he's really, it's, it's really hard for him to like stop and, and cut off a drive against him.
Like that's what I worry about most with him. And then like in drop also, I don't think he's particularly long and he's only like, you know, six, 10 ish. Let's go with. So like, he doesn't take up a lot of space in those circumstances either. Like the best drop coverage defenders in the league, they tend to be very big because they can just extend their arms.
They take up as much space as possible in the one on two. It's just a very, very difficult because of where teams set ball screens in the NBA. Like there's just a lot of space to cover. And I worry that he might not be long enough to cover all of that space effectively. So concerning for me, for sure. Okay. Concerning.
Every season there's a few prospects whose situation leads them to being undervalued in the draft process. In the past, we've talked about the G League Ignite and how it wasn't a great situation for player development. Are there any players in this year's draft whose situations may be hurting them and it might even be unfair for them in the draft process?
Thank you.
more often than he should be because they just don't have good point guard play this year. So he's asked to like, kind of separate from his man occasionally and try and get downhill. And like, that's not really what he's great at. Like he's an unbelievable shooter and floor spacer and movement shooter and everything that has some ball skills, but is not like a primary creator out there.
So you look at him and he's shooting 40% from the field and like 35 from three. And it's like, well, yeah, he's shooting 39, 40% off the catch from three and he makes his shots off of movement. And like, he's doing everything that we expected of him coming into the year.
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Chapter 8: What are the prospects' potential roles in the NBA?
But, you know, VJ is an unbelievable defender, like for the guard position and for his size. Like he, he is awesome on that end. He, uh, really flies around. He's very active with his hands. He's aggressive. Like, you know, Jalen has never really shown an inclination to do that consistently throughout his career. So that one, that one doesn't really work for me at all.
uh here's a very popular one igor demon and josh giddy yeah so jaeger unfortunately has not found a way to score within college basketball i actually think josh is like a little bit ahead of him in that respect in terms of like being able to get to his spots as a scorer i think jaeger is actually like probably a little bit better of an athlete than josh
The shooting is probably somewhat similar, I guess, in terms of where they are. Yeah, I mean, I understand what you're going for there. I can pick up what you're putting down because Jaeger is like 100% the best defender, or not best defender, best passer in this class. Some of the looks he finds are incredible and very Josh-like.
in terms of being able to, you know, live dribble, throw the ball from like underneath a defender's arm out to like the cross wing. And you're just like, what just happened? Like how, how did that just work? But yeah, you know, the ability to get to the rim consistently.
I actually think that Josh is a little bit ahead of Jaeger in terms of like getting paint touches and frankly, like his pacing and ball screens a little bit too. Josh is really sharp in the way that he uses his pacing, even though he's not a great athlete. There are, there are teams out there that still love Jaeger though. I can definitely assure you of that. And it's not impossible.
He goes in the lottery regardless.
Another slob wizard out there. And his name is Jaeger. Okay, next one. Jace Richardson and Cason Wallace.
Yeah, no, not really for me. We almost got you there.
I know.
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