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Michael Kidd-Gilchrist Will Be The Best Player In This Draft. Period.

fieryprophet

By fieryprophet,
in Charlotte Hornets

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fieryprophet Contributor

fieryprophet

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First off, this is a very poor overall class. There are maybe three or four franchise star potential players, max. I don't know what has gotten into the water in college basketball over the last few years but there's just not as many truly great players coming out like there used to be.

Out of those, Davis is the one with all the attention but his best attribute is. . .shot-blocking. Granted, a feared post defender is nice to have in the NBA, but with the plethora of wing shooters in the league combined with the dearth of quality big men that skill will only help so much. Look at Dwight Howard, and how even though he is the game's best post player he couldn't bring a championship to Orlando and the moment he became disgruntled the team collapsed.

If Davis had only grown to 6'6" during his infamous spurt he would be an afterthought in this draft, because his skills as a guard were barely noteworthy, and the novelty of his play as a center or power forward is that he brought along some of those guard attributes. But he's still basically a mediocre guard in a center's body, and there's no telling how his game will change as he puts on the weight he'll need to play at the NBA level.

That Kentucky team didn't belong to Davis, either. He got the highlights, but the leader was Michael Kidd-Gilchrist. Of all the players on that team nobody made the game-to-game strides and improvement that MKG did, and it's no surprise that Calipari (whose been noted to field talented teams that eventually fold) finally got his first championship with MKG leading the fold and refusing to let the hype get into his teammates heads.

The biggest knock on Kidd-Gilchrist is his shooting. Let's be frank; much like the "mechanics" issues Cam Newton was dogged about before the 2011 draft, MKG's shooting is nowhere near as bad as advertised. It has also shown steady improvement since his high school days, and with his extreme work ethic I have little doubt he can turn into a quality NBA shooter. The player he most reminds me of is a skinnier version of LeBron, whose own jump shot took time to develop and is STILL streaky at times. Outside of the shooting, however, you get a player that can impact almost every aspect of the game at a high level, and can also lock down three or four different positions on the floor on defense. While the Bobcats are in desperate need of scoring, there really wasn't a player in this draft that was a surefire bucketstuffer at the NBA level without also being a major liability at other ends of the floor. Beal had the rep but not the resume, and most of the other high scorers had less than quality competition.

Also, Kidd-Gilchrist is one of the very few players in this draft that has actual athletic potential to exceed his frame. While he would be slightly under-sized at the four he is a monster at the three, and has excellent rebounding ability at that position. Outside of James and a few other SFs in the league the Bobcats would likely have the most athletic player at that position on the floor most nights for the first time in a very long time. This isn't like last year's selections of Kemba, who, although a personal favorite of mine, is undersized and usually outmatched at his position, MKG will be able to impose his physical presence on his opponent.

Finally, let's be completely honest: the Bobcats could have drafted young Michael Jordan tonight and they probably wouldn't improve much next season. The gulf in talent is just too wide in the new "everybody form superteams" NBA trend. Even the Thunder still sucked even with Durant until they were a few drafts into their rebuilding. The Bobcats are in phase two of five seasons, and the only way to pull a team out of that abyss is to always take the best, highest-potential players you can get when you draft. MKG is a continuation of that trend, and I fully believe that, due to his fiery work ethic and extreme competitive desire he will end up being the best player in this draft.

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fieryprophet Contributor

fieryprophet

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You're probably going to hell for that one.

Shouldn't have capitalized the G.

God isn't even the name of the deity of the Christian faith. The word "God" is derived from the Sanskrit "hu" which means "invoke, call upon." All the texts that were translated into Old English invoking God's name were invoking the Jewish Yahweh, or "Jehovah" in English, and somehow the phrase "elihu Yahweh" or "I call upon God" actually became the name for God in English. So all this time we've been calling "God" by the verb originally used to invoke his name.

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fieryprophet

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I just think most of the complaints have this idea that there was actually a player in this draft we could take and turn respectable immediately (like Cam Newton did for the Panthers.)

Outside of Cam Newton himself entering the NBA draft (and let's face it, Cam's probably terrible at basketball :P) that wasn't going to happen. But grabbing an athletic freak with a similar national title background, extreme competitive fire and world class work ethic that all are very reminiscent of Supercam is a pretty damn good start.

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