Shabazz Expelled From NBA Rookie Transition Program

[longstrangetrip [enjin:6600564]]

Thanks for the correction, Camden. You're right. In terms of character, Floyd does not belong with the other guys I mentioned. Everything I have read about him leads me to believe that he is an exceptional individual who rose above his difficult beginnings. But he does belong in the conversation, though, because he was a top 5 guy in the mocks who dropped way down for reasons that appear to be other than football reasons...right or wrong. You can find articles about him online where writers talk about his growing up in the toughest neighborhoods, had family members in prison (his dad, I think?) and was even homeless from time to time in high school. It sounded like me that some GM's were shying away from him because of his rocky childhood, even though it appears that he showed enormous character and resolve in rising above the childhood that was given to him. I think there are several NFL teams that are going to regret passing on him.

It is said that a fund manager will never get fired for buying IBM (or maybe Apple or Google in today's market), and the same goes for sports GM's. The easy move for Flip would have been to keep the 9th pick and draft a high character, talented guy like CJ McCollum. GMs don't get fired for making the safe pick who is next on the consensus draft board...they get fired for trading that safe pick for two picks that turn into a talented guy with red flags and a 24 year old center who has only played basketball for a few years. Only time will tell if Flip was right, but as I said, give me the GM willing to roll the dice occasionally.

[Coolbreeze44]

LST, I would take issue with the thinking that Shabazz has an enormous upside. He really doesn't. I'm hoping he can become a serviceable rotation player on a contending team. That would be good value IMO.

[longstrangetrip [enjin:6600564]]

Yeah, I know that's your position, cool, along with a few others on this board. I just don't fully understand how you get to that conclusion. What we know about him is what I laid out in my post: consensus best high school player in 2011-12, highest freshman scorer in the history of the Pac 12 despite playing with a point guard who froze him out, ability to score both inside and outside, and a reputation as a relentless hard worker driven to be the best. He's succeeded at every level so far, and I'm not ready to relegate him to a career as role player until he proves he can't cut it in the NBA. Until then, all evidence seems to point to enormous upside. But I think we'll just have to disagree at this time and see how it plays out.

[bleedspeed]

Did Ricky have to attend this?

[Leado01]

One more note on this . . . There are a slew of successful players who made stupid mistakes in their NBA careers (Carmello, Mario Chalmers, Barkley, Kidd, etc . . . . . ) and because they didn't compound the mistakes by repeating them or making the papers too often they were pretty much forgotten. Bazz really needs to do what he's asked and just focus on basketball for a few years and he'll be fine, but he does need to understand that the media will be watching him.

Beasley is likely done after this last arrest. He could have been so good but he didn't put in the work and he never got serious enough about the discipline (his diet was horrendous, most of these guys have very strict diets, and Beasley lived on candy and fast food) it takes to earn the money. Bazz needs to focus on basketball and understand that talent plus discipline will get you paid - he has the talent - he will learn the discipline or end up like J.R, Beasley, and a litany of others that the press watched and they never learned.

[Leado01]

One more other note - Bazz is going to be brought along slowly and that's the reason he has so much upside. Kevin Martin was not highly thought of coming out of college - he had less upside than Bazz - but Adelman taught him the NBA game and by his third year he had learned how to score and play team basketball. I like Martin and Bazz together because Martin is testament to what you can be with work.