Vanderbilt practices

[UK8STL11]

Vanderbilt has 2 options - play this season and not get drafted or don't play and not get drafted. People are WAY overrating him at this point. He has been built up into this mythological player by some. Very good freshman and college player? Yes, definitely. 1st round NBA pick after 1/4 of a freshman season? Absolutely no chance.

I am very excited to get him on the court for UK as I think he can be a huge help to this team. But, we are talking about a kid who was ranked 15ish in what is consider a pretty weak freshman class. He is not a one and done and he is kidding himself if he thinks he will be drafted after not playing this year.

[Joneslab]

Shai was ranked in the 30s.

Vanderbilt is very, very good...if he's healthy. I was more impressed with him than any of our freshmen when I saw him in high school.

BUT. You don't know if he's healthy. And you don't know what sort of mental make-up he has.

It's hard to imagine that he would be a one-and-done, but when you're 6'9" and blessed with his skillset it doesn't take much. A few solid games and he'll be in the mix.

The only thing we can't know is what his family situation is. Would they be happy with a gamble, like Marquis Teague or somebody like that? Or are they looking for the lottery?

I just want him to help the team. We need another junkyard dog type and that's what I think Vanderbilt can be if he's right.

[Joneslab]

If this kid is too frightened to play we DONT NEED HIM. If he doesn’t have the heart to compete and committ to his team and try to help them win right now he isn’t a winner. On another front, if this kid is this soft and so frightened of injury how could anyone think he can hold up to a grueling NBA schedule. I could care less about his future NBA career, he is at UK to play college basketball right now . If he can’t or won’t Vaya Con Dios

He's 18 years old. Won't turn 19 until April. Of course he's frightened.

[UK8STL11]

Shai was ranked in the 30s.

Vanderbilt is very, very good...if he's healthy. I was more impressed with him than any of our freshmen when I saw him in high school.

BUT. You don't know if he's healthy. And you don't know what sort of mental make-up he has.

It's hard to imagine that he would be a one-and-done, but when you're 6'9" and blessed with his skillset it doesn't take much. A few solid games and he'll be in the mix.

The only thing we can't know is what his family situation is. Would they be happy with a gamble, like Marquis Teague or somebody like that? Or are they looking for the lottery?

I just want him to help the team. We need another junkyard dog type and that's what I think Vanderbilt can be if he's right.

Yes, Shai was ranked in the 30s...but he's playing and has proven what he can do.

Vanderbilt wasn't one of the Ayton, Bagley, types who could afford to sit out the season and then think he is going to be drafted. There are a million and one 6'9 guys in the NBA. Especially ones that CAN shoot well. Vanderbilt will have to play to show NBA guys what he can do. Which is why I still think that he does, sooner rather than later.

[justford]

Yes, Shai was ranked in the 30s...but he's playing and has proven what he can do.

Vanderbilt wasn't one of the Ayton, Bagley, types who could afford to sit out the season and then think he is going to be drafted. There are a million and one 6'9 guys in the NBA. Especially ones that CAN shoot well. Vanderbilt will have to play to show NBA guys what he can do. Which is why I still think that he does, sooner rather than later.

Or he could follow the the Diallo blueprint and go to the draft camps and see what the feedback is.

[Joneslab]

[/B]

Or he could follow the the Diallo blueprint and go to the draft camps and see what the feedback is.

Diallo had record-breaking athleticism.

Vanderbilt doesn't have much of an NBA cache except maybe in his ball-handling and passing ability, but you don't see "great passer" a lot of times when Jay Bilas is going through one-and-dones' draft night resumes.

But if he just planned to hold out and then enter his name to test the waters, he wouldn't be in the lay-up line. He would've just stayed over there in his sweatpants. You don't go through all this only to pull back at the last minute and say, "Oops, changed my mind. Not playing this year."

[surveyor]

Mike Pratt was on local radio one day last week talking about the Vanderbilt situation. He spoke with a friend of his who's intimately familiar with the AAU circuit and said there's a lot of people outside of UK in his ear anf that's an impact on his not yet playing.

[UK8STL11]

[/B]

Or he could follow the the Diallo blueprint and go to the draft camps and see what the feedback is.

Hami was WAY more highly regarded than Vanderbilt and has once in a decade athletic talent.

[Joneslab]

Hami was WAY more highly regarded than Vanderbilt and has once in a decade athletic talent.

Regarding his athleticism, yes.

You are however not correct about Hami being way more highly regarded.

In fairness to Hami, he's an unusual circumstance. He's up there at the Putnam School kind of hidden, nobody knew if he was going to reclassify or not, and he didn't have the luxury of playing in the all-star games. Nobody knew what class to even put him in.

As far as the summer all-star circuit, nobody Kentucky has right now was more highly regarded than Vanderbilt. It depends on how much stock you put into that sort of thing and whether it can translate to actual games.

[Joneslab]

Another difference with Hami is his size and length: that's NBA currency right there.

Vanderbilt as a 4 doesn't have that advantage where you can look at him and fit into a neat NBA profile. He will probably be a kind of stretch, but a non-traditional stretch. Think we'll see him at the 3 maybe at UK but more as a MKG rim-running type of 3.

So in that way Hami fits into the NBA mold better.

[BobS]

Diallo is dropping like a stone in mock drafts. If you can't shoot or guard, it matters little how high you jump. Even to the dumbest of the NBA GMs.

SGA rising.

[justford]

Hami was WAY more highly regarded than Vanderbilt and has once in a decade athletic talent.

So Diallo was rated higher than Vanderbilt coming out of high school? I did not realize that.

[Joneslab]

So Diallo was rated higher than Vanderbilt coming out of high school?

No. Diallo was in the top 10 at one point but ended up 11th according to ESPN. Vanderbilt was 12th. (Diallo was eventually removed from the class rankings because he reclassified.)

No discernible difference. Where Vanderbilt separated himself a little was in the Hoop Summit game, which is a big deal because it's the only real all-star game. Outside the McDonald's practices it's really the only thing in the summer you can put any stock in; everything else is a dunk contest.

Diallo didn't get to play in those games so it's impossible to say what he would've done. His high school situation was unusual.

Both were elite players according to the recruiting gurus but not on the level of Bagley, Ayton, or Bamba. But Trae Young wasn't on that level either.

[Matt Dillon]

At what point do we resign ourselves to the fact he isn't going to play this season (if he doesn't)? In other words, how much longer can he wait and still have a realistic chance of playing at some point this season?

[Joneslab]

At what point do we resign ourselves to the fact he isn't going to play this season (if he doesn't)? In other words, how much longer can he wait and still have a realistic chance of playing at some point this season?

This is a good question and one I've thought about.

I would think the coaching staff will give him the leeway to go as far as he wants. If he doesn't think he's ready they won't rush him, so in theory if he came to them and told them in the first round of the NCAA Tournament that he wanted to play they'd probably play him.

But really the question is how much he needs to play to get to the point where he can be at a high level in March. In that case I think he needs to make a decision quickly. If eh plays this weekend that would give him 13 games to get himself ready for the postseason.

Impossible to say whether that's enough or not. It'll depend on how good he is and how healthy he is. But really you would've loved to have had him for the entire season, because as we've seen it's often a learning process with freshmen.

I hated it when I originally heard the news of his injury. I thought it would seriously limit Kentucky as a team and I think that's proven to have happened. We don't have enough dudes on this team.