One thing I wanted to disagree with though is how that quote says steals are a major indicator of athleticism. I can certainly understand that statement, but the comparison of Nick Young when using that statement just doesn’t add up. Nick Young is extremely athletic. But with that being said….that could just mean the stats in that category (for NY and Shabazz) are even worse because they have the athleticism, just not the desire to play defense.

“His energy level is highly dependent on how he’s faring on the other end of the court. When he misses a shot or doesn’t touch the ball on a given possession he can be slow to get back on defense, and his lateral quickness appears to be just average on top of that.”

Who does that remind you of? That’s what I see when I’ve watching Shabazz and it’s one of the things I hate most about players and one of the reasons I wasn’t a fan of NY and I’m not a fan of Shabazz. I’m a big guy when it comes to body language because I think a players body language speaks volumes about a players personality and general psycological makeup and he has bad body language.

The next quote isn’t something I generally wouldn’t highlight but it mentions NY again so it supports my argument.

“Muhammad does not get in the passing lanes very often, averaging under one steal per-40 minutes…it’s rare to find too many successful wing players who have been successful in the NBA without generating many steals in college, as that appears to be a major indicator of athleticism. Players who fit that profile as freshmen or sophomores include the likes of…Nick Young…”

Wait, there’s more.

“Perhaps more alarming is how few assists Muhammad generated this season, just 27 in nearly 1000 minutes of action. He ranks 78th among the 81 college players in our Top-100 rankings in assists per-40, and 79th in assists per possession. The only non-big men first round picks we found in the past 10 years who averaged fewer assists per possession as a freshman or sophomore are Michael Beasley, Morris Almond, Lazar Hayward, Al Thornton, and that’s it.”

So I don’t doubt Shabazz is a scorer. That goes without saying. What I’m saying is there is more to being a player than just scoring.

Even if we draft one of those 2, I still think signing Webster is a priority as he should be a starter this season as our rookie comes off the bench, learns and develops behind Webster. Re-signing Webster is still the key this offseason because we need his sharp shooting around Wall.

Wiz of awes says Shabazz is worth the risk for the wiz because we need shooters and pure scorers around Wall. He saw Shabazz play in college a lot first hand. He needs to get better off the drive and on defense but he thinks with Wall, Shabazz will reach his potential as you said Webber and b. 20 point guy and we can gave a “big 3″.

Harden leaft after his sophomore year also.Not his freshman year. Look at Harden’s freshman stats where he played guard (not small forward like Shabazz) and Harden’s assists were only 1.7 a game. Sophomore year Harden’s was only 2.1 a game, I don’t see anywhere when he averaged near 4 assists a game. :-/

http://statsheet.com/mcb/players/player/arizona-state/13-james-harden

I think Harden playing that sophomore is a huge difference as far as being more NBA ready and developing in the half court and being a playmaker for teammates. You do that when you become more comfortable on the offense and I remember Harden being asked to initiate the offense often at ASU play like a PG to set up others. Howland never allowed Shabazz to do that, that I remember.