What a weird and wonderful treat the NBA draft has turned out to be. On one hand we got to see an abundance of action and player movement. On the other hand, possibly the most important, we got to see a group of "Australian developed players" realise their NBA dreams. They heard their names called out in the spotlight. What a magical, life altering moment for these young guys.
Nowopinions may differ in terms of how much Australia and the NBL actually helped some of these talented individuals, some will say Lamelo was destined to show off his elite skills and go in the early lottery regardless of where he played while I have heard plenty of respected opinion makers bang the "RJ Hampton ruined his stock in the NBL" drum.
Lamelo Ball
Round 1 Pick 3
Charlotte Hornets
No matter your view on such topics the fact is Lamelo Ball has just been taken with the third pick in the NBA draft after a season in Australia's premier basketball league, the NBL.
Okay, we will move away from the Australian basketball discussion for a minute and actually discuss some basketball. What can we expect from Lamelo Balls first season in the NBA?
Alright so first, what does Lamelo bring to the table and how does it fit with Charlottes current roster? Lamelo projects as an excellent playmaker who has impressed scouts across the NBA with his ability to see plays develop before they actually do. Ball stands on the taller end of 6'6 while having great fluidity to his movement at that size, this gives him the ability to get low while dribbling while also being able to rise up too see over the defence.
The Charlotte Hornets, or also known as Michael Jordan's second worst basketball endeavour behind his often forgotten about Washington Wizards years. The Hornets have an interesting roster for Ball to walk into as they already have two borderline starting calibre guards in Terry Rozier and Devante Graham, one of which has already received quite the payday while the other being touted as a young up and coming star (very, very loose use of the word "star").
This is where Lamelo's elite size for the point guard position will come in handy, Lamelo finds himself next too an elite shooter in Devante Graham who I'm sure is salivating at the thought of Lamelo's live dribble passes finding their way into his lap, quite the contrary to the tough dribble pull ups he was forced into creating last season.
Now to jump into an even more interesting dynamic as Terry Rozier still needs minutes for this team. Rozier is a somewhat flawed player as he lacks the decision making ability to be a true point guard but lacks the size to be a shooting guard, however Rozier is an elite catch and shoot player who at one point last season was shooting 49% on more than 3 attempts per game on such possessions.
So what does this mean for Ball? it means Lamelo will not be required to chase around smaller and quicker guards as Ball will have the ability to play with Graham or Rozier due to his size while also being able to further weaponize Graham and Rozier's better qualities.
All in all its going to be an interesting year for the Illawarra product as their will surely be an equal amount of highlights and lowlights, but within that I believe the outstanding box score stats we saw from Lamelo in the NBL is only the beginning as I'm certain that the likes of Devante Graham, Terry Rozier and PJ Washington wont be missing some of the excellent opportunities from all over the court that Lamelo will no doubt be creating on a daily basis. With the defence I think its best to leave that as a wait and see, maybe the effort will lift as the competition grows more demanding? I somehow doubt that opinion.
R.J Hampton
Round 1 Pick 24
Denver Nuggets
(Via trade from New Orleans, Milwaukee)
On the other end of the spectrum we fall on RJ Hampton. While Melo was in Illawara showing off his advanced skill set RJ Hampton was in New Zealand seemingly letting his draft stock drop by the day, but was this his fault? Could he have done anything else to rise his stock?
A skinny combo guard with lightning quick speed and questions about his shooting ability and defensive capabilities, Hampton was always going to be an upside play, you could easily talk yourself into saying a better shooting performance for the New Zealand Breakers would of had him jumping a few spots, but even if he did shoot 34% or higher from three and had shown more potential as a guard defender would going 10 spots higher actually have helped him develop?
The money he has missed out on is an unfortunate bi- product of his average play in the NBL but RJ is still going to be making life changing money, not to mention he has now moved into an excellent developmental team that over the years has taken pride in collecting high upside players such as Nikola Jokic, Michael Porter Jr, Jeremi Grant and most recently Bol Bol.
Denver has a proven track record of taking risky prospects and helping them reach their potential. Denver's head coach Michael Malone is known as a tough, hard working coach who holds all of his players accountable, he also has a history of not just gifting minutes to young players, so what does this mean for our guy R.J Hampton?
Don't be surprised to see Hampton relegated to the bench for large portions of the 2021 season, Denver are competing for long play off runs and RJ doesn't exactly fit in that venture, however Coach Malone will certainly be working effortlessly to get RJ ready for when it really counts.
I can see a slow and steady first season for Hampton as he attempts to grow Into the player we think he can be, if he can find his way into that Denver second unit he could really push his case as the likes of Will Barton and Monte Morris will likely take on large parts of the offensive burden allowing RJ to really work on his off ball movement and his ability to get out and run in transition, something Denver would love to see.
Overall Hampton should be able to atleast get to the rim regularly due to his explosive Athleticism and great fluidity but with bigger bodies his finishing numbers may not be great in his first season, I expect we will hear plenty about his lackluster Defence as he adjusts to smarter more physical players and while I believe on Offense he makes a great Athletic cutting or outlet passing option for Jokic however I feel seriously pessimistic about how Denver will look defensively if they attempt to throw RJ out there without a defensive big man to clean up his mistakes behind him.
Justinian Jessup
Round 2 Pick 51
Golden State Warriors
Alright I will start this off by confirming that Jessup being selected in the NBA draft doesn't have any ramifications for his role within the NBL.
Going into the draft Jessup was a guy I thought really highly of as he has a legitimately elite NBA skill, he can shoot the ball. According to Sam Vecenie of the Athletic Jessup shot 42% on over 650+ 3-point attempts over his last 3 seasons at Boise state in the NCAA whole also having a 60% effective field goal percentage on Off the catch situations, no matter what perspective you want to look at those numbers they all say the same thing, Jessup can shoot the ball.
So what can we expect from Jessup in this upcoming 2021 season of the NBL? I think this is pretty simple, he's going to shoot the ball.
Jessup however has been criticized for having a slightly slower release on his jumpshot compared to the player archetype he is following in Duncan Robinson of the Miami Heat, not that this should be an issue in the NBL but moving forward to the Golden State Warriors hopefully within the next two season it will be a vital piece of development.
Jessup is a mediocre defender who plays hard at all times and despite his lack of Athleticism the fact that he stands 6'7 with a known ability to be engaged and give lots of effort on that end we can assume he will atleast be a neutral defender in the NBL, but don't expect him to be locking down Bryce Cotton anytime soon (or ever).
Jessup also boasts a basic understanding of 2nd level passing reads meaning he has the ability to put the ball on the ground to make a good decision, something that will be integral for Brian Goorjian's Illawara offense.
I can easily see Jessup having an outstanding 2021 campaign and I'll even go out on limb and say he will be one player that exceeds his expectations for the season, Golden State have got a good one.
Thank you for taking the time to read my article and as always please leave some feedback either on this website, at my Gmail joshgale2417@gmail.com, or in my DMs @nbl_couch on Twitter.
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