What is potential?

[Monster]

In all seriousness this is an interesting thread. One reality about "potential" is that it really is subjective. It's not just limited to figuring out what athlete is going t be good at the next level. Right now there are people that are quite high on Jarrett Culver and feel like the Wolves did well getting him. Some are more skeptical. Some like poor Lip and Cool went off the deep end. :) Some really smart folks are gonna be "wrong" on Culver. Why? We may know or we may not.

I worked with someone in a previous job that had a wide range of scouting reports from promising (my opinion if she was in the right situation) to um...unfavorable. She ended up getting into sales when she moved on the from the company we had worked for which was Suns/King's/Wolves bad and got into sales. She has done very well there as salesperson of the year recently.

One of my best friends from HS was so socially awkward he wouldn't order his own food at Hardee's. He would skip class to play computer games and didn't graduate with the rest of our class because he failed a few semesters of English class. The next year of college he visited me and proofread a paper I was turning in shockingly before it was late. I had done poorly on my previous papers because not only they were late but had a ton of grammatical errors etc. I got a B+ on the paper and the teacher* wrote how much the grammar and punctuation had improved. Months later my friend said he was bored and tired of sitting at home (parents house)?playing video games and watching TV. He went and got a job as a dishwasher at a local steakhouse. Everything seemed to click. He loved it. He worked his way up and after a few years was a manager working 60+ hours never missing work unless he was talking a vacation. NOBODY would have predicted that outcome or the weird potential he had. He does still play video games sometimes. Lol

Really in some ways trying to quantify "potential" is like trying to understand why people do what they do. It's something people ave been trying to understand for centuries. Great philosophers, psychologists, theologians, doctors teachers people like us, everyone tries to understand this stuff. It's terrifically interesting...and baffling at the same time. Anyone that says they have it figured out is lying...even if maybe they don't know it. So this is a super interesting thread and we even have some formulas floating around. This forum can be super awesome.

[Lipoli390]

I would also say a huge thing that can't be quantified is the role that you play on your respective team when you join the NBA.

Like would Wiggins be a lot better of player if he didn't have to carry the offense early in his career, If the Cavs trade never happened would Wiggins be an elite 3 and D guy because that is all he would have had to focus on in the NBA with LBJ.

I remember listening to the Ringer NBA podcast way early in the year and KOC and Chris Vernon were talking about Marshon Brooks. Marshon Brooks says that a thing that really killed his career was his team sucked and later in his rookie year he picked up really bad habits on the court that he could really never break out of.

There are so many plays that get drafted in a terrible situation or organization that kills players potential and development. I do think there is a reason why the Wolves really struggle at drafting the right player. Wolves are a terrible organization. Would Curry be Curry if the Wolves drafted him, I am not sure and it is a question we will never know.

Good points. You're getting at the issue of player development. Good head coaches adapt to the talents and strengths of the players they acquire. Adapting to those talents and strengths not only helps the team succeed, but also facilitates the development of those players. From the very beginning, one Wolves coach after another tried to turn Wiggins into something he could never bee with his loose handle and lack of intensity - a ball dominant, break down the defense shot creator. Then dunderhead Thibodeau gave him a max contract. My concern is that Ryan Saunders continued the practice of giving Wiggins the ball to close out quarters -- which usually ended in getting stripped or a last second highly contested long two-point miss by Wiggins. Things like that still give me a queasy feeling about Rosas' decision to keep Saunders as our head coach.

[Lipoli390]

Michael Beasley is another great example of why it is so critical to evaluate factors related to a player's probability of reaching his potential. If your compare Michael Beasley and Kevin Durant on the metrics we've discussed for determining potential, Michael Beasley had the potential to be just as much of a star. They have nearly identical length with similar skill sets. There college stats were very similar. They even played for the same college, Kansas. But obviously, these two players differ dramatically in the qualities that determine the probability of reaching a player's potential.

Didn't Beasley play for Kansas State and Durant for Texas? Other than that yes, Beasley was a problem.

You are right. I'm not sure where my head was at with that one. False memories implanted as part of a CIA experiment? But I think I'm right on the physical and stat comparisons between Beasley and Durant, although I'm afraid to check. :)

[apollotsg [enjin:6592798]]

I do a lot of this type of work actually - I take quantitative data and combine it with the qualitative data to make meaningful information become useful in context. This is why I ask - its actually pretty easy for me to pull in NBA reference.com and start to work the numbers in a database. These intangibles are the hard thing, the qualitative points are hard to identify as they are usually not obvious, some are - injuries, new coaches, new teammates, life events.

I also have had several jobs that required the learning of a physical task, then practice to enhance that skill set so I have a very tiny insight into what it means to learn a physical skill and what it takes to be good. (I was a professional skydiver when I was young - some people got it, some didn't - some worked at the task and others didn't - I always wondered why I was better than other team members because I didn't possess any special skills or desired it more than any of them so I assume we all had the same potential but the outcome was not the same despite the same team members and same practice over many years.)

There are a bunch of mysteries that I don't understand - I am not a scout so I can't tell if a guy shooting form is off etc - I think that is the type of qualitative info that needs to be added to a quantitative database to form a realistic career arc window. The "why" a number is what it is.

[Q12543 [enjin:6621299]]

Michael Beasley is another great example of why it is so critical to evaluate factors related to a player's probability of reaching his potential. If your compare Michael Beasley and Kevin Durant on the metrics we've discussed for determining potential, Michael Beasley had the potential to be just as much of a star. They have nearly identical length with similar skill sets. There college stats were very similar. They even played for the same college, Kansas. But obviously, these two players differ dramatically in the qualities that determine the probability of reaching a player's potential.

Didn't Beasley play for Kansas State and Durant for Texas? Other than that yes, Beasley was a problem.

You are right. I'm not sure where my head was at with that one. False memories implanted as part of a CIA experiment? But I think I'm right on the physical and stat comparisons between Beasley and Durant, although I'm afraid to check. :)

Durant was a lot longer, Beasley a lot stronger and more athletic. Remember that Durant had one of the worst combines of any prospect on the athletic tests. He's not very fast, can't jump high, and couldn't bench 185 lbs even one time (Beasley did 185 lbs 19 times). But his shooting touch, "shake", and length were elite...still are obviously.

[khans2k5 [enjin:6608728]]

Michael Beasley is another great example of why it is so critical to evaluate factors related to a player's probability of reaching his potential. If your compare Michael Beasley and Kevin Durant on the metrics we've discussed for determining potential, Michael Beasley had the potential to be just as much of a star. They have nearly identical length with similar skill sets. There college stats were very similar. They even played for the same college, Kansas. But obviously, these two players differ dramatically in the qualities that determine the probability of reaching a player's potential.

Didn't Beasley play for Kansas State and Durant for Texas? Other than that yes, Beasley was a problem.

You are right. I'm not sure where my head was at with that one. False memories implanted as part of a CIA experiment? But I think I'm right on the physical and stat comparisons between Beasley and Durant, although I'm afraid to check. :)

Durant was a lot longer, Beasley a lot stronger and more athletic. Remember that Durant had one of the worst combines of any prospect on the athletic tests. He's not very fast, can't jump high, and couldn't bench 185 lbs even one time (Beasley did 185 lbs 19 times). But his shooting touch, "shake", and length were elite...still are obviously.

Beasley was also 6'10 in college and magically shrunk 3 inches at the combine so I wouldn't really take into account any measurements he had in college. He was a specimen who just ended up being too small to play the same way in the pros.

[apollotsg [enjin:6592798]]

Beasley was also 6'10 in college and magically shrunk 3 inches at the combine so I wouldn't really take into account any measurements he had in college. He was a specimen who just ended up being too small to play the same way in the pros.

His teammates have always called him a nut - I think he is a bit crazy based on the funny videos I have watched of him. I suspect he would be a great bench guy, just not who you build your team around because his priorities are very different from Durant (regardless of his physical comparison).

[Monster]

Beasley was also 6'10 in college and magically shrunk 3 inches at the combine so I wouldn't really take into account any measurements he had in college. He was a specimen who just ended up being too small to play the same way in the pros.

His teammates have always called him a nut - I think he is a bit crazy based on the funny videos I have watched of him. I suspect he would be a great bench guy, just not who you build your team around because his priorities are very different from Durant (regardless of his physical comparison).

Beasley is an example of the mental aspect of potential. Several people including Jon K said he is actually well liked but...dude is different and has some weird stuff in his life. Physically the thing that held him back was he had various nagging issues. The comp for him was a Melo who also had various injuries which ai think was part of what kept his career from being more than what it was. Watching Beasley play the guy had/has skills and talent to be a star player it just never came together because of other stuff.

OJ Mayo is another interesting case of a guy that sadly things didn't end up not going well although he had some good early success in Memphis. I always felt a little confused about how he seemed to be so much more hyped than Harden and the difference in their careers ended up being pretty vast in terms of the players they would become.

[Q12543 [enjin:6621299]]

A lot of people, including a lot from the old ESPN board, thought Mayo was going to be the star and we made a huge mistake getting Love.

Back to Wiggins....His 1st to 2nd year leap as a scorer was actually quite impressive and he was really aggressive going to the hoop, drawing lots of fouls and making some monster dunks. While he wasn't going to be that jack-of-all trades superstar, he certainly seemed like a guy that could be a #1 type scoring option. And then he sort of leveled out the next year, then has only gotten less effective (in terms of volume and efficiency) since then. It's really unusual to see a guy fizzle out like this considering the lack of injuries.

[crazy-canuck [enjin:18955461]]

A lot of people, including a lot from the old ESPN board, thought Mayo was going to be the star and we made a huge mistake getting Love.

Back to Wiggins....His 1st to 2nd year leap as a scorer was actually quite impressive and he was really aggressive going to the hoop, drawing lots of fouls and making some monster dunks. While he wasn't going to be that jack-of-all trades superstar, he certainly seemed like a guy that could be a #1 type scoring option. And then he sort of leveled out the next year, then has only gotten less effective (in terms of volume and efficiency) since then. It's really unusual to see a guy fizzle out like this considering the lack of injuries.

Jimmy butler and thibs.