Apr 10, 2014
If you paid attention to college basketball in the last month you heard of Shabazz Napier of the University of Connecticut. Napier and UConn just won the NCAA Tournament a few days ago and Napier was rightfully named the Most Outstanding Player of the NCAA Tournament. Napier is a senior so he’ll be automatically be draft eligible. Since he is a senior he’s not looked at as the top point guard prospect but lets be real here Napier is nice.
According to Draft Express’s 2014 NBA Mock Draft (http://www.draftexpress.com/nba-mock-draft/2014/) right now Napier would be the first pick of the 2nd round. Now thats not too bad but I feel as though after the performance this guy put on in the tournament that this guy deserves to atleast be a first round pick. In the first round there are supposed four point guards ahead of Napier. Dante Exum, Marcus Smart, Tyler Ennis and Elfrid Payton are all ranked as higher prospects than Napier. I’ve never seen Exum play since he’s from a different country, Smart is a good player but he didn’t really accomplish anything this year but a bad reputation for pushing a fan, Ennis is another good player as well and admittedly I haven’t heard much of Payton but his stats are nice so I won’t throw any shade on him.
The one thing that all those players have in common against Napier and that’s age. Napier is 22 years old and in NBA years thats old for a rookie, now if he was 19 and accomplished what he did this year we might be looking at a the top point guard off the board, but thats not the case here. Youth and potential are looked at very high in the NBA. A player like Napier is looked at as having less potential for some reason and is ultimately ranked lower. Teams that will pass on Napier for a younger prospect, hoping that they will develop into a better player than him one day and could be right. On the other hand those teams could be passing up on a sure thing that could help teams win right now.
Hopefully Napier will land late in the first round where he can go to a good team that could use point guard help or even even shoot up and go to a team that he could start on right away. Ultimately Napier staying in college all four years and developing his game will hurt his draft stock but it definitely won’t hurt his production. Situations like this happen all the time but somehow the NCAA wonders why guys leave early.
Everick Davis Jr.
Was good though, it's me Everick Davis Jr. Born and raised in Portsmouth Virginia, I'm currently a senior at the University of North Carolina Greensboro. I watch every sport (not so much golf) but I am huge on the NBA. My favorite players right now are J.R. Smith, Russell Westbrook & Nick Young. Drinking beer and watching sports is my favorite past time and I do it year round! I used to play basketball on the regular until everyone else kept growing and I still stood at 5'6. So that's when I channeled my efforts into becoming the next Stephen A Smith or anything close to that. I currently write for "The Carolinian" newspaper in Greensboro, NC and intern for http://theurbantwist.com/ Random Fact about me, I love anime, my favorite one is One Piece! Second random fact, I got beatz! check me out http://www.reverbnation.com/ielabs
