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Forum nameOkay Sports
Topic subjectMY THOUGHTS!
Topic URLhttp://board.okayplayer.com/okp.php?az=show_topic&forum=8&topic_id=2696117&mesg_id=2696218
2696218, MY THOUGHTS!
Posted by Frank Longo, Wed May-15-19 12:17 AM
Garland: Easy to fall in love with him. Best handles in the class. Might be the quickest PG in the class end to end-- certainly competes with Morant in that regard (though Morant is longer and far more athletic). Potentially the best 3-point shooter in the class as well. Not a *great* athlete, not terribly strong, and not currently a tremendous creator for others with consistency. Def will have to work on that assist-to-turnover ratio... but then again, a lot of the better PGs in the league today came in with a similar sort of question. Defense, he showed good effort-- not strong enough or long enough to be a stopper, but a good motor guy on that end.

It's *really* hard to say what he'll be because our sample size was so small, but I think his upside is obvious. I think his worst case scenario is, like, Diet Coke CJ McCollum-- someone who never really becomes a PG but still finds a niche in this league as a guy who, at worst, can go off scoring any given night. Best case scenario, you've got someone like Lillard or Kyrie but a step or two down-- or perhaps more accurately a Jeff Teague with a better jumpshot-- someone who likely will have bumps in the road as he learns how to create for others but who ends up a natural guy with the ball in his hands as the game winds down.

White: Like Garland, a quick PG who'll fire from anywhere and who probably scores better than he creates. Shifty ballhandler. A genius in transition. A terrific shooter for the most part, though I'm not in love with his release point. Also not a great athlete-- Garland probably the better athlete, but White *definitely* is stronger. Like Garland, questionable decision making-- I saw way more Coby game tape, obviously, and he's a guy who can shoot you in or out of a game. Example: end of the first Duke game, White was really starting to jack questionable shots in a game where he struggled against Tre Jones. White had the ball in his hands late in a key possession, and I turned to my friends and say, "We've won." Sure enough, White took an awful shot, missed badly, Duke wins the game.

Hard to hold that against White tbh-- a freshman willing to take those shots is a commodity, honestly. Also hard to compare him to Garland since Garland has so much less game tape-- also, White wasn't the prospect Garland was and wasn't even expected to be OAD, so does that mean he played above his talent this year or was he just too slept on in HS? I'd personally peg White's ceiling as, and I'm not the first person to say this, a Diet Coke Gilbert Arenas. Never the most efficient guy, but a terror when he's hot, and if he got on the right team, he'd be outstanding. Floor is maybe... I don't know, a more aggressive Greivis Vasquez? I think he's deserving of a Top 10 pick, at worst.

Tough to say who Chicago wants. Neither is probably the ideal fit next season with LaVine, as neither is likely to be a better distributor than Dunn Day 1-- or honestly have a better A:TO than Dunn. Both guys will also likely have green lights, and since we know Zach has a green light, that could potentially backfire, especially considering how tremendously talented the frontcourt is for the Bulls next season. I think Garland has the higher upside if he can develop some of those point skills-- he's a little less reckless than White, he has the higher pedigree, and I wouldn't be too concerned about his lack of strength since the Bulls have some length and interior presence to help him defensively if bigger guards try to bully him (plus Dunn would be there for this express reason). One will likely wonder if Garland's injury/long absence would affect his play at least in the short term... but then again, I think it's likely the Bulls are tanking again next season, so the higher upside guy is probably the move.

(This, of course, introduces the question of whether they should just take Best Available over Fit at that point in the draft-- but that's a different question.)