You've done you're very best to like McDaniels. But where do you rank him amongst Hampton, Green, Nesmith, Precious, Bey?
It's probably a coin toss that McDaniels is available at 26 after his antics last season.
Hampton's top projection is as an all star lead guard, and I have a lot more faith that he reaches that projection than McDaniels. Hampton's clearly busted ass to fix his game in his time off and he's always had the gym rat rep (which is a great tell for projecting guys). Achiuwa is, like McDaniels, a swing for the fences move. His 1% projection would be a Bam Adebayo type. But he's a seriously terrible shooter, so ultimately he has the same no floor problem that McDaniels does. He's also rather old for a freshman as he turned 21 a month ago, which has to temper expectations.
Green, Bey, and Nesmith I put in the roleplayer category. Nesmith looks like Buddy Hield v2.0. But his upside projection is still elite 3&D guy. If he could ever learn to play D. I'm much higher on Josh Green and Saddiq Bey (there are two Beys this year, guys, and Tyler's pretty good too). Bey's a classic high floor/low ceiling player. He's going to carve out a 12-15 year career as a 3&D specialist with a high end projection of elite 3&D guy.
Green needs to fix the jumper. And learn to play offense. But he's an elite defender with length (6'6" +4 wingspan), strength, and hops. In his workout tape he looks like he's really filled out in the time off (during the season I would have pegged him at 200-205, he looks more like 220 now). He's refined the jumper some, there's still a hitch at the top of the motion, but it's not as ugly as before. The release point's more consistent than in his game tape and the overall motion's cleaner. But he's got a ways to go yet. That being said he's a high floor/high ceiling type. You can't teach those physicals. He's also a gym rat, so reason to hope that he can learn to play offense. All told he could be Jaylen v1.2 if he hits his top projection.
So, ranking them?
- R.J. Hampton
- Josh Green
- Saddiq Bey
- Precious Achiuwa
- Jaden McDaniels
- Aaron Nesmith
EDIT: Meant to add... Boston's sort of limited in how they can build off the Jay-Crew with the new covid19 economic landscape. This is the reason why I suspect that they might take a home run swing at JMD if Hampton's off the board at 14.
If he can get to 235-240 and
if he can get straight, he's got superstar potential and fits ideally with the other Jays.