Post by Employee8 on Jun 17, 2016 17:04:35 GMT -5
We all know the mother-load Danny offered to try and wriggle Winslow from the Hornets & Heat ... so if Brown has a higher ceiling than Winslow, doesn't it stand to reason that he'd covet Brown with this draft pick?
Let's compare scouting reports and see who comes out on top:
Winslow ... 4/2015
Measured at 6-6 without shoes, with a 6-10 wingspan and a chiseled 229 pound frame, Winslow has strong physical tools for either NBA wing position. He's a good athlete on top of that, showing nice quickness, a strong first step, and both the ability and willingness to punish weaker opponents with his imposing physique and outstanding toughness.
Winslow's best attribute as a NBA prospect is clearly his defense, which has been his calling card ever since he first started making a name for himself with USA Basketball as a 16-year old beating up on older players at the FIBA U17 World Championship in Kaunas.
Very few power forwards overpower him inside the paint, while he's quick and agile enough to stay in front of guards on the perimeter, giving him tremendous versatility on this end of the floor. His footwork and lateral movement is outstanding for a player his age, as he's always in a stance, displays tremendous focus and awareness, and is incredibly tough, physical and competitive. While he's tremendous one on one, he's even better as a team defender, doing an outstanding job of making the right rotations and helping out his teammates, digging down on the post, closing out on shooters, and finding ways to make plays off the ball, averaging 1.8 steals and 1.2 blocks per-40 minutes.
This ability to defend multiple positions is all the rage in today's NBA game, and it wouldn't be surprising at all to see him draw the other team's best offensive player at the 1-3 spots every single night from very early on in his career, with the added bonus of being able to operate as a small-ball power forward like he often did at Duke. He won't give up anything on the defensive glass either, as he demonstrated with the 7 rebounds per-40 minutes he averaged at Duke, the third best rate among wing players in our Top-100.
Offensively, Winslow is not the most prolific scorer around, with his 17 points per-40 ranking towards the bottom among wing players in this draft, but he's efficient, with a 58% TS%, and also is a solid passer who rarely turns the ball over. He's excellent in transition, where he finds himself frequently with his aggressive style of play, and can also go down to the low post and punish opposing players with his strong frame. He is very intelligent operating off the ball, showing a great knack for being in the right place at the right time and making strong cuts to the rim when the opportunity presents itself.
While not the fanciest ball-handler, he can create a little off the dribble as well thanks to his quick first step, strong frame and incisive nature. Even though he's mostly a straight-line driver, he's developed his ability to operate at different speeds and will mix in some simple change of directions to keep defenders off-balance. He will often lower his shoulder and just bulldoze his way to the basket with pure strength, showing decent touch with either hand once he gets there, even if he's not the most vertically explosive guy around.
Winslow was considered a mediocre shooter coming into college, as he made just 26 of the 86 [30%] 3-pointers he attempted in 1900 minutes and 82 games in the many events (FIBA, EYBL, Adidas Nations, etc) he participated in prior to Duke that we have on record. He clearly put a lot of time into improving his shooting mechanics, and came into the year with a much more compact stroke than in the past, which resulted in him shooting 46/111 [41%] from beyond the arc as a freshman, a significant improvement.
He's mostly a catch and shoot guy who needs time and space to get his shot off, but that's nonetheless a very encouraging sign. The next step for him will be developing his ability to shoot off the dribble, where he struggles badly, only hitting 2 of 19 pull-ups on the season.
The biggest question marks about Winslow revolve around how prolific a scorer he will become at the NBA level. Is he better suited as being a third or fourth offensive option, or can he develop into someone who can shoulder a heavier load? Right now he's a little on the mechanical side and seems to struggle as a primary shot-creator, not being very effective in isolation or pick and roll situations, unless he has a slower footed power forward he can take advantage of on the perimeter. It's no surprise that his productivity fell off when playing alongside two non-shooting big men (Jefferson/Okafor) earlier in the season, before Duke started using smaller lineups more frequently.
His game relies heavily on power, which probably won't work quite as well in the NBA, where lowering your shoulder and bulldozing through the lane doesn't get the same results as it does in college. Developing his in-between game will help, as will quickening the speed of his release and showing he can translate his somewhat flat shot to the longer distances of the NBA 3-point line. The 64% he shot from the free throw line as a freshman indicates he still has work to do on his jumper.
With that said, Winslow has continued to improve every single time we've seen him, as he has a reputation for being an absolute gym rat, and will certainly continue to work on his game as his career progresses. He's also an extremely intelligent player who is highly unselfish, executes extremely well offensively, and has won in every single place he's been. He won three gold medals with USA Basketball, and a NCAA championship as a freshman, which speaks volumes about the type of competitor he is. What he lacks in style points he'll make up for as a flawless teammate, which will certainly be very attractive to teams in the lottery who are looking to upgrade their culture and try to get back on the winning track.
Brown ... May 2016
Measured at 6'6.5 in shoes with a 7'0.5 wingspan and a 222-pound frame at the 2015 Nike Hoop Summit, the intrigue surrounding Brown starts with his prototypical tools for the small forward position. An explosive leaper in space with the strength to potentially spend some time at the power forward position at the next level depending on the matchup, Brown has long looked the part of a NBA wing.
The challenge for Brown as a freshman was parlaying those tools into consistent on-court production. Asked to fill a substantial role in Cal's space-starved offense, Brown did most of his damage playing off the ball spotting up or filling lanes in transition, but was also granted significant opportunities to create for himself off the bounce in the half court. Given considerable freedom, the freshman scored just .853 points per possession over 17.2 possessions per game to rank 149th in scoring efficiency among the 173 players using over 17 opportunities per game according to Synergy Sports Technology.
The sizeable role Brown played in Cal's oversized but underskilled lineups shined a spotlight on the good and bad elements of his offensive game, particularly in the half court. Coming out of the high school ranks with the reputation as a productive scorer, Brown shot 52% inside the arc, 39% from deep, and 70% from the line in the 50 games of stats we have for him in our database spanning his three seasons on the summer circuit at the prep level. Flashing the ability to make jump shots with range, but doing most of his damage as a slasher, the Georgia native with nothing short of spectacular at times on the AAU circuit.
Shooting 48% inside the arc, 29% from three, and 65% from the line for the Golden Bears, Brown didn't have the easiest time translating his game to the college ranks. With 51% of his shot attempts in the half court coming from the perimeter, the mechanical issues with Brown's jump shot became clear. Timing his release differently shot-to-shot whether he's pulling up off the bounce under pressure or shooting catch and shoot jumpers in space, Brown's mechanics are not particularly reliable at this stage. He casually fades away on some attempts unnecessarily, sometimes holding the ball longer than others at the top of his shot. His combination of mechanical issues resulted in the unimpressive 31% he shot from the perimeter overall.
As a slasher, Brown battled through bouts of inefficiency as well. Possessing a strong first step and impressive leaping ability off of one and two feet, Brown's fairly loose handle, lack of craftiness around the basket, and tendency to get tunnel vision and force shots into traffic led to his 45% shooting around the rim in the half court and top-100 leading per-40 minute pace adjusted turnover rate. While Cal's insistence on surrounding him with two to four non-shooters at all times didn't do him any favors, there's no doubt that his feel for the game is underdeveloped at this stage in his career, as evidenced by his poor -6.48 PPR, which is by far the worst passing metric among any non-big man in this draft.
As much as Brown struggled, he had plenty of positive moments offensively as well. He scored the ball well inside throughout the middle portion of the season and found some amount of consistency with his jump shot in the later part of Cal's Pac-12 regular season schedule. He's capable of scoring effectively around the rim, his jump shot isn't broken, and he gets to the line very prolifically, even if he is aggressive to a fault at times. He proved to be a willing passer, dishing out a respectable 2.9 assists per-40 minutes pace adjusted, and scored impressively on the break, showing the ability to fill lanes or push the ball himself. Surrounded by better talent in a more up-tempo offense, Brown will likely have an easier time utilizing his superior physical tools and nose for getting to the basket in the open floor and half-court.
Looking far more comfortable on the offensive end some nights than others, Brown clearly has untapped potential as a scorer. If he can clean up his mechanical issues as a shooter and ball-handler, he could look like an entirely different player on this end a few short years from now. Not turning 20 until October, a key element of Brown's appeal at the moment is what he could become on this end after some grooming at the NBA level.
Largely the same things about Brown's offense can be said about him defensively. He has all the tools to be successful and potentially even defend multiple positions down the road, but struggled at times with his focus off the ball and discipline defending one-on-one. He had some flashes using his strength and lateral quickness to apply ball pressure impressively around the arc and make his presence felt in the passing lanes, and is a strong rebounder, but has plenty of things to clean up on this end as well.
Brown didn't have the season some expected him to at the college level, but has outstanding physical tools and plenty of room to continue to grow as a shooter, ball-handler and perimeter defender. Despite his up and down freshman campaign, there's a strong chance Brown hears his name called somewhere from picks 3 to 8 in the upcoming draft. Given his combination of size and athleticism, his success from that point will largely come down to how quickly his skill level comes around in the environment he's drafted into.
You decide ... but my analysis is that Winslow is the better defender with a weak offensive game while Brown has the better offensive game with potential to become a very good shooter as well as slasher getting to the free throw line regularly with a decent % of success there. His defense doesn't have the potential that his O does but it sounds like he'll be a very good defender once he becomes more focused on that part of the game with his physical attributes. Seems as though his only focus in college was to be the main scorer for a team that didn't have much talent around him on the perimeter to help space the floor and he will not have that problem with the C's. All in all, I have to believe that if DA wanted Winslow as much as we're led to believe, it's a no brainer to think that Brown must be on his short-short list.
I like Murray a lot but I can see where Brown could have a much higher ceiling and become an All-Star. I'm beginning to think that Chriss was a mis-direction ploy by Danny as his main focus is either Murray or Brown unless Bender makes a really BIG impression.
