Scotty Hopson Makes It Back

After not being drafted in 2011 and bouncing around a few summer league teams, Scotty Hopson looked like he would slip through the cracks in the NBA. There's no question he had the talent - Hopson is an athletic 6'7 200 guard who averaged 17 points a game on 49% shooting at Tennessee.

However, at the next level, one-dimensional scoring guards are a dime-a-dozen. Hopson wasn't a great rebounder, passer or defender and he didn't get a ton of pre-draft publicity - he didn't have anything that made his resume stand out. Maybe he could have been MarShon Brooks, but that's hardly a big deal.

He ended up heading overseas and playing in Europe. It's a better living than the NBDL, but not many guys who go out there end up making it back to the NBA. It's easy to be out of sight and out of mind while the longer rotations and shorter games make it harder for guys to put up huge stats.

That's one thing I've picked up on covering the NBA draft - the line between making it and not can be very thin for non-elite perimeter players. It just isn't a huge deal if you are the 400th or 500th best player in the world. For 7th-8th men, it all comes down to opportunity. 

If Hopson succeeds, like Patrick Beverley before him, he could help blaze the trail from Europe back to the league. I don't see why more NBA teams don't use Europe as a minor-league - if you need to add a role player, why not get a 27-year old man as opposed to a 20-year old boy?

The best players will still get scooped up out of college, but there's no real reason to commit a rotation spot to a late first-round-early second round talent when you can get that same guy, except 4-5 years older, coming out of Europe. 

Not only that, working as a professional overseas for a few years humbles and matures players in a way that the NCAA does not. You can see it in Patrick Beverley - he plays every night like he's fighting for his spot and trying to prove every team in the league wrong.

If Hopson buys in on the defensive end and plays unselfish basketball, he has the size, athleticism and shooting ability to help the Cleveland Cavaliers. The real question is how many more Scotty Hopsons and Patrick Beverleys are out there, waiting for a chance.

Kentucky's Bench Is Unfair

There aren't many college teams who could lose a potential lottery pick at center (Willie Cauley-Stein) and not miss a beat. John Calipari just looked down his bench and called the number of a 6'9 McDonald's All-American (Marcus Lee) who hadn't played much all season.

Lee, a 6'9 215 jumping jack, could start for almost every team in the country and he couldn't get minutes at Kentucky. He had 10 points and 8 rebounds against a Michigan team which didn't have a big men who could hang with the sixth man (!!) in the Kentucky front-court.

The Wildcats start Dakari Johnson (future first-round pick), Julius Randle (lottery pick) and James Young (first-rounder) and they bring Cauley-Stein (first-rounder), Alex Poythress (second-rounder) and Lee off the bench. That's more McDonald's All-Americans upfront than most conferences and more size than a lot of NBA teams.

Cauley-Stein, Randle and Young are all projected to leave this season and even that won't clear up the logjam in the Kentucky front-court. Next season, they are bringing in a recruiting class with two more McDonald's All-Americans upfront - Karl Towns (7'0 250) and Trey Lyles (6'10 255).

Calipari literally has an embarrassment of riches, because there won't be enough minutes for all those guys next season. College teams are usually better off going small instead of going big - if he plays 3 big men at the same time, there won't be enough floor spacing or perimeter D.

You figure Johnson and Towns will split the center position, while Poythress and Lee fight for minutes behind Lyles. Long story short, we might not see anymore of Lee next year than we did this year. He might have an easier time finding minutes in the NBA than he will at Kentucky.

Anthony Lee: An Impact Transfer

While it won't make a big splash, picking up Anthony Lee from Temple is a coup for Ohio State. Lee is one of the most underrated players in the country, a legitimate NBA prospect at the 4 who drastically improves an OSU front-line that has been weak ever since the departure of Jared Sullinger.

Temple had a 9-22 record in their first season in the AAC, but they have been a perennial NCAA Tournament team under Fran Dunphy, making the Big Dance in each of the previous six seasons. Lee was a big part of their success last season, when they narrowly lost to Indiana in the second round.

At 6'9 230, he has prototype size for an NBA PF. And while he isn't an elite athlete by any stretch, he's big and fast enough to hold his own at the next level. He averaged 13.5 points, 8.5 rebounds and 1 block on 49.5% shooting this season, a slight dip in his efficiency numbers from the year before.

Lee, like the rest of his Temple teammates, struggled at times without Khalif Wyatt, who drew an incredible amount of defensive attention. Temple had neither a dominant scorer or a true PG who could get everyone else easy shots, so everyone on the roster was forced to fend for themselves.

At Ohio State, Lee should benefit from playing next to Shannon Scott, who will be given the keys to the offense with Aaron Craft gone. Lee can run the floor, finish at the rim and knock down a 20-foot jumper - he's the perfect complement to a slash-and-kick PG like Scott.

So while he will never be a great player, Lee has the skill-set to play a big role on a good team. He gives Thad Matta a lot of options in terms of deploying personnel - he can play in a huge line-up, as a face-up 4 next to Amir Williams, or he can play as a small-ball 5. 

Lee's NBA ceiling is probably Dante Cunningham, a reserve big man who swings between both interior positions on a second unit. If he can put up double-double numbers in the Big Ten and keep OSU in the Top 25, Lee will get a much longer look from NBA scouts than if he were on a rebuilding Temple team.

That's a thing for a guy with Lee's ceiling - just because you have the tools to play in the NBA doesn't necessarily mean you will. There's no pressing demand for backup 4's at the next level. For a potential second-round draft pick, it's all about being in the right place at the right time.

No one has more riding on OSU's success next season than Anthony Lee.

It Is Never A Charge

If there's even a question about a bang-bang play, it should be a block, not a charge. No one wants to watch guys run to spots and fall down. It may not violate the letter of the law but it sure as hell violates the spirit of it. Basketball is supposed to be entertainment - if everyone starts cheating in order to win, it ruins the flow of the game and the spirit of the action.

Can you imagine a guy trying to win a pick-up game by taking a charge? It's absurd - get up off the ground and play basketball. If you want to win a game, you must make basketball plays to do it.

A charge is when you are standing still, the other play is out of control and he runs directly into you. That's the only time that play should be called. If you are playing 1-on-1 defense and you are sliding, you should not be taking charges.

As a big man, I could elbow a guy in the kidneys every time there's a scrum for a rebound and it wouldn't get called against me. That would help my team win, so why shouldn't I do it? The answer is that basketball is a gentleman's sport and there are certain thing everyone agrees to do beforehand in order to make it a fun thing to do and to watch.

Jordan Morgan cheated, deceived the ref and made the game-winning play for Michigan. There is no justice in this world.

Zach LaVine is a Blank Slate

On the surface, a freshman guard with Zach LaVine's numbers (9 points and 2.5 rebounds a game) declaring for the NBA draft is ridiculous. Why would a player who wasn't even a starter on his college team think he was ready for the next level?

However, let's pretend for a second that every bit of hype you have ever heard or read about LaVine is true. If he really was one of the best SG's in the country, would he have been able to show it at UCLA this season?

On the perimeter, UCLA started a 6'9 sophomore point forward (Kyle Anderson), a 6'5 sophomore shooting guard (Jordan Adams) and a 6'4 junior combo guard (Norman Powell). There isn't a freshman out there who was going to come in and take either Anderson or Adams spot in the line-up. They were proven college players and first-round NBA prospects before the season even began - UCLA was always going to be their team.

With Anderson and Adams dominating the ball, the other starter on the perimeter needed to be a defensive-minded player who could play off the ball and guard multiple positions. That's a role for an upperclassman with experience like Powell, not a hot-shot freshman guard whose never had to play off the ball before in his life.

Not only was LaVine coming off the bench, he had to share time with Bryce Alford, the coach's son. Alford didn't have nearly LaVine's talent, but he's a good player in his own right, averaging 8 points and 3 assists a game as a freshman. 

As you can see, LaVine was at the bottom of a very long pecking order in Westwood. Even when he was in the game, he was playing with some combination of Adams, Anderson, Powell and Alford, all guys capable of making things happen with the ball in their hands. 

In essence, he was like Terrence Ross in his first season with the Toronto Raptors. A shooting guard needs the ball in his hands to impact the game - they aren't big men who can just dominate by rebounding and playing interior defense. But when you don't play a lot and you don't get a lot of chances to play with the ball when you are in the game, it can be very hard to get into any kind of offensive rhythm.

If LaVine was the man but the political situation at UCLA meant he couldn't be The Man, what would we expect? We'd expect him to be very efficient - 44% from the field and 38% from three - and we'd expect him to have more positive players than negative ones as a decision-maker - 1.8 assists on 1.1 turnovers. When Adams and Anderson were suspended for a game, we'd expect LaVine to thrive in a bigger role, which he did in UCLA's OT loss to Oregon in February, when he put up 18 points, 8 rebounds and 5 assists. 

When you are evaluating LaVine, you have to look beyond his statistics because there's no way any 18-year old guard in his situation would have put up better statistics. How would he look if he had dominated the ball and played 30+ minutes a night? We don't know - we can only project.

By leaving school before he was "ready", LaVine became one of the most polarizing prospects in the 2014 draft. My prediction? He's going to make some team in the middle to latter stages of the first round look very, very smart. I don't have any numbers to back this up - I just see a blank slate with every tool you could possibly want out of a big-time guard.

The Importance of Balance

At RealGM, a column on the importance of playing good offense and good defense.

Baylor and Stanford: The Luck of the Draw

After strong play in the first weekend of the NCAA Tournament, Baylor and Stanford came back to Earth on Thursday, losing handily to Wisconsin and Dayton. As well as they played in the first two rounds, Baylor went 9-9 in the Big 12 while Stanford went 10-8 in the Pac 12. They were the same slightly above-average teams they've been all season; they just got very favorable match-ups in their pod.

That's what the NCAA Tourney always comes down too - match-ups. If you changed up which 2 and 3 seeds were in Stanford and Baylor's pods, neither team advances to the Sweet 16. Stanford couldn't have asked for a better road than New Mexico and Kansas while Baylor was set up perfectly against Nebraska and Creighton. So much of a team's success or failure is determined by the seeding committee. 

Let's take Baylor's first two games, which gave them the mythical state crown of Nebraska. There's no big men in that state - the Huskers went 6'10 and 6'7  on the front-line; Creighton went 6'7 and 6'8. Baylor goes 7'1, 6'9 - they just overwhelmed small teams who couldn't handle their size. When they played a Wisconsin team that had good big men and good guards, they got run out the gym.

Size was the key for Stanford. At 6'11, 6'10 and 6'7, they had one of the biggest frontlines in the field of 68. In the first round, they played a New Mexico team which had no real Plan B if bludgeoning teams upfront didn't work. In the second, they played a Kansas team that was missing their center and couldn't shoot 3's - allowing Stanford to pound them inside on offense and sit in a zone on defense. 

Dayton had the better guards, so they sped the game up, got it going up-and-down and killed Stanford in transition. Stanford wasn't exactly a team full of world-beaters - if they had been the 10 seed in Wisconsin's regional, they would have had no chance to advance. The Badgers had the size to keep up with them and the players to expose their lack of athleticism and ball-handling on the perimeter. 

The NCAA Tournament is unpredictable in the sense that no one in February would have told you that Baylor and Stanford were going to the Sweet 16 - but that's because no one could have known who they were going to face. That's why having a balanced team that is strong at all five positions is so important, because you never know who you are going to face in a one-and-done scenario.

So when you see two average teams play above their heads in the first two rounds and get blown out in the Sweet 16, don't just write the whole thing off as completely unknowable. There are reasons these teams win or lose and if you back through the match-ups, you can find them. If Baylor and Stanford are proof of anything, it's this - even if your team isn't that great, a huge front-line can take you pretty far in March.