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The Oklahoma City Thunder may have surprised some fans and analysts when they traded up one spot to select Bennett Stirtz at #16 overall in last week's NBA Draft.
After all, OKC has plenty of guards. Shai Gilgeous-Alexander, Lu Dort, Cason Wallace, Ajay Mitchell, Alex Caruso, Jared McCain and Nikola Topic are all either an MVP, an All-Defense player, an up and coming star, a young sharpshooter or a former top 5 projected pick.
And Stirtz was not the flashiest name on the board. That would have been either Cam Carr, Labaron Philon Jr, Christian Anderson, Karim Lopez or Jayden Quaintance.
But Sam Presti and the Thunder front office knew something that most fans and analysts did not know. Stirtz has maybe the highest feel for the game in the entire draft class. He processes the game at an elite level. He has a background fortified by working himself from a Division II hooper to Drake University to the University of Iowa to the Elite Eight round of the NCAA Tournament. Stirtz is a shooter, playmaker, ball handler, shot creator and a pick and roll maestro. And all those traits in one 23 year old package may make Stirtz NBA ready his rookie season.
"In any situation, you guys know this, we're always looking to move up, and we have multiple plans to do different things if the players that we're looking to acquire are not available. In this case, it worked out for us," Presti said during the rookie introduction press conference on Friday afternoon. "Bennett is a player that has a great feel for the game, has been successful at multiple levels. I think in an NBA context, some of the things that he does will be really amplified. At the same time, I'm sure you'll hear him say this, but he's got a lot of work to do, just like every one of the guys that has ever sat up here at this table, but he's ready to do that, and he's shown he's willing to make sacrifices in order to win, and those are very important traits in the modern NBA."
OKC's General Manager is right, of course. Stirtz has a lot of work ahead to show he is ready to make an impact in the NBA. But just as he proved he was a Division I college player and then proved he was a power conference player and then proved he was a Top 20 NBA draft pick, history tells us that Stirtz will prove to be an NBA rotation player.
Don't be surprised if it happens in season one.
Continue reading...
After all, OKC has plenty of guards. Shai Gilgeous-Alexander, Lu Dort, Cason Wallace, Ajay Mitchell, Alex Caruso, Jared McCain and Nikola Topic are all either an MVP, an All-Defense player, an up and coming star, a young sharpshooter or a former top 5 projected pick.
And Stirtz was not the flashiest name on the board. That would have been either Cam Carr, Labaron Philon Jr, Christian Anderson, Karim Lopez or Jayden Quaintance.
But Sam Presti and the Thunder front office knew something that most fans and analysts did not know. Stirtz has maybe the highest feel for the game in the entire draft class. He processes the game at an elite level. He has a background fortified by working himself from a Division II hooper to Drake University to the University of Iowa to the Elite Eight round of the NCAA Tournament. Stirtz is a shooter, playmaker, ball handler, shot creator and a pick and roll maestro. And all those traits in one 23 year old package may make Stirtz NBA ready his rookie season.
"In any situation, you guys know this, we're always looking to move up, and we have multiple plans to do different things if the players that we're looking to acquire are not available. In this case, it worked out for us," Presti said during the rookie introduction press conference on Friday afternoon. "Bennett is a player that has a great feel for the game, has been successful at multiple levels. I think in an NBA context, some of the things that he does will be really amplified. At the same time, I'm sure you'll hear him say this, but he's got a lot of work to do, just like every one of the guys that has ever sat up here at this table, but he's ready to do that, and he's shown he's willing to make sacrifices in order to win, and those are very important traits in the modern NBA."
OKC's General Manager is right, of course. Stirtz has a lot of work ahead to show he is ready to make an impact in the NBA. But just as he proved he was a Division I college player and then proved he was a power conference player and then proved he was a Top 20 NBA draft pick, history tells us that Stirtz will prove to be an NBA rotation player.
Don't be surprised if it happens in season one.
Continue reading...
