King Biko
A King With A Concubine
I agree unless u get a deal or a chance at a player that you can't refuse
The Official 2016 NBA Draft Talk Thread
- Thread starter tremonthustler1
- Start date
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- Tags
- nba draft
I agree unless u get a deal or a chance at a player that you can't refuse
Th3G3ntleman
Superstar
defense, running an offense, controlling tempo, rebounding, leadership aren't basketball skills?thecoli.com yall
Yeah he brings all of that at a high level which is why the Wolves have been one of the more successful teams over the last few seasons right?
I AM WARHOL
Veteran
Started watching the twolves heavily after they got Wiggins. I used to think Rubio was trash since that is the narrative the media and online pushes. After watching damn near 99% of there games I've learned that man is extremely underrated. He makes them competitive in games they'd usually get blown out.
Anyway what do y'all think of jaylen Browns upside?
Anyway what do y'all think of jaylen Browns upside?
tremonthustler1
aka bx_representer
He's a bum IMO.
Me and @Wacky D argued about this plenty over the season, but his only real quality is his athleticism and his athleticism ain't anything the league doesn't already have.
good lord....I love Kris Dunn but IDK....Kris probably will never be able to do this in his life. Same with Elfrid Payton.
Recca Gatsby
LWO
Wolves need to draft Buddy and sign Ryno
I don't necessarily disagree that right now Simmons & Ingram seem to be on a tier above the rest as far as their "potential" goes but seeing people constantly say that it's a two player draft got me wondering...how often do the first two picks in a draft really end up being the two best players from the class?
Off top the only year I can think of is 92 with Shaq & Alonzo Mourning. 2007 would probably be another if it wasn't for Oden's injuries. But other than that, generally speaking it seems to be pretty rare for the two top picks to actually end up being the two best players.
Maybe it's just me being a Celtic fan trying to convince myself that getting the 3rd pick isn't as bad it seems, but idk it's just an observation.
Off top the only year I can think of is 92 with Shaq & Alonzo Mourning. 2007 would probably be another if it wasn't for Oden's injuries. But other than that, generally speaking it seems to be pretty rare for the two top picks to actually end up being the two best players.
Maybe it's just me being a Celtic fan trying to convince myself that getting the 3rd pick isn't as bad it seems, but idk it's just an observation.
Kang Deezy
Overall Nice Guy
We were saying this about okafor and towns last year yet okafor went three
Murray, hield, Dunn, and bender are all legit and their value will only go up the next month
The Next Porzingis?
Dragan Bender Is the Prospect GMs Are Salivating Over
by Lars Anderson
Artwork by Sarah Mazzetti
May 19, 2016
TEL AVIV, Israel — He was just a boy, only 12 years old, when he stood on his driveway in the countryside of Bosnia and Herzegovina and hugged his mom one last time. It was the summer of 2009, and Dragan Bender was leaving home.
His eyes wet, his heart jackhammering with fear, the boy climbed into a car with his older brother, Ivan, and his dad, Rafo.
Peering out the window, the boy could see the wooden basketball backboard and metal rim his father had built for his sons four years earlier. The handcrafted hoop held the boy's eyes for one second, two, three—he knew it was the reason he was now waving goodbye to his mom, who was quietly sobbing on the front porch.
The brothers had spent countless hours playing one-on-one on this dusty driveway in the woods, driving hard to the rim and fouling each other harder. Ivan, two years older, was bigger and stronger than his brother, so the boy began working on his outside shot.
Even if Ivan wasn't around, he would unspool jumper after jumper after jumper. Many nights, his parents would look outside and see the boy alone in the dark, a solitary figure illuminated by the moonlight, shooting a worn-out ball and dreaming big hoop dreams.
Now pulling out of the driveway, the car motored through the summer afternoon, the boy in the backseat, tears sliding down his cheeks like raindrops. But as the miles clicked off the odometer—and as his big brother assured him everything would be OK, that one day he would look back at this moment as the defining hour in his life—the boy's fright began to melt away.
"I knew I was going to have a chance to do something that very few kids in my country have an opportunity to do," Dragan said. "It was almost like winning the lottery. The sadness started to go away when I started to realize how lucky I was."
The car continued to roll over the forested hills and hollows of eastern Bosnia and Herzegovina, speeding toward neighboring Croatia. The boy looked out at the world he was leaving behind, a sense of panic mixing with excitement—the cocktail of chance-taking—as he neared his new home in a new country.
And so began the basketball odyssey of Dragan Bender, one of the most tantalizing prospects in this summer's NBA draft.
The boy is a young man now.
It's a sparkling spring evening in Tel Aviv—a cool breeze blows off the Mediterranean Sea; the orange and lemon trees fragrance the air—and Dragan Bender is walking down a city street. He possesses an athlete's easy, graceful gait.
At 7'1" and 225 pounds, Bender is fence-post thin, even though he attacks every meal as if it were his last. This afternoon one of his buddies gave him a box of Napolitanke chocolates, a Croatian delight, causing Bender to beam like a kid who had just blown out his birthday candles. "This is the best gift I've ever got!" he said, tearing the box open.
Bender continues to stroll through the golden glow of the Mediterranean dusk. People on the street stare and point at Bender—he's become a mini-celebrity in Tel Aviv, often being stopped for selfie requests—until he slips through a door and enters Nokia Arena, home of the Maccabi Tel Aviv basketball team.
In the locker room, Dragan pulls on his yellow Maccabi practice uniform, laces up his size-18 high-tops and steps onto the court. At 18, Bender is the youngest player on Maccabi, a powerhouse team in the Euroleague. He's also the reason why flocks of NBA general managers and scouts have flown 10 time zones to the Middle East to simply watch this team practice.
Tonight Mitch Kupchak, general manager of the Lakers, sits in the otherwise empty stands, his eyes locked onto Bender. Down on the court, the players warm up. In the layup line every forward and center on Maccabi dunks the ball over and over—except Bender, who on his trips to the rim lays the ball in with an oh-so-gentle finger roll.
"Top players from Croatia and Bosnia and Herzegovina play basketball to express beauty," said Maurizio Balducci, Bender's Italy-based agent, who is also watching the practice. "This is how [the late] Drazen Petrovic played and Toni Kukoc played. Dragan is very much from this culture. And dunking in a layup line when you are 7'1" is not an expression of beauty."
A scrimmage begins. In one sequence Bender, playing power forward, blocks a shot, grabs the rebound, leads a fast break and then dishes the ball to a teammate for an easy layup. A minute later, Bender drills a 25-footer from the corner. On the next possession, he swishes a three-pointer from beyond the top of the key.
After a short break, Bender beats the defense down the floor, gracefully catches a 30-foot outlet pass and lays the ball in. A minute later, he hits another long-range bomb. A few Lakers scouts, sitting next to Kupchak, scribble words feverishly in notebooks. Kupchak rubs his right forefinger on his lips, like a man beholding a complex piece of art.
Midway through practice, Kupchak speaks to a Maccabi staff member. "The kid can really run," Kupchak said. "How high do you think he will go?"
"He's worth a top-three pick," the staffer said. "He's that special."
According to NBA scouts, Bender is indeed on the short list of candidates to be a top-three pick in the draft on June 23, along with the likes of forward Ben Simmons of LSU and forward Brandon Ingram of Duke.
Bender's recent sample size is small—he played in only 10 games with Maccabi this season in the Euroleague and averaged 8.6 minutes per game and 1.5 points—but it's worth remembering he's younger than most NCAA freshmen and has been playing and practicing against professionals in their 20s and 30s.
"It's not uncommon for someone Dragan's age to not get playing time on upper-level teams in the Euroleague," an NBA scout said. "The coaches in that league are under pressure to win every night, and it takes time to work an 18-year-old into a rotation of seasoned guys who are NBA-backup-quality players. Trust me, there is nothing wrong with Dragan."
It's not unprecedented for young international players with little experience to be selected in the first round of the draft. Mario Hezonja, for example, was picked fifth overall by the Magic in 2015 after he started only two games for Barcelona of the Euroleague in '14. But it is rare.
At times in his brief career Bender has flashed brilliantly on the court, leaving scouts in wide-eyed wonder. In one game at a FIBA junior tournament in Turkey in 2014, for instance, he scored 34 points, had 14 rebounds, two assists and zero turnovers in a game against players who were one and two years older than him.
Then in February 2015 he was named the MVP of the Basketball Without Boarders Global Camp in New York—a invitation-only camp organized by the NBA—after a ruthlessly dominating weekend filled with blocked shots, long-distance threes and rim-rattling finishes.
"Dragan is more advanced at his age than Kristaps Porzingis was when he was 18," a longtime NBA scout said. "Dragan has great length, and he can block shots. He can run the floor, and his ability to finish at the rim is exceptional. His shot is getting better all the time. On defense, he has the ability to guard the 4 or the 5. He needs to gain weight and strength, but his potential is jaw-dropping."
An hour after practice, Dragan walks out of the arena and into the Tel Aviv night. The seaside city is known as the party capital of the Middle East—the lasers and beats at the downtown clubs go until dawn—but Dragan has never been lured by Tel Aviv's temptations and forbidden fruits. He may only be 18, but he's an old 18.
"I've seen a lot and experienced a lot in my life," he said. "Plus, I'm too busy to go out."
Dragan unfolds himself into his small four-door sedan and cruises along a street close to the Mediterranean. He points to a stretch of white sand beach where he runs many mornings.
He drives past one of the tiny gyms in Tel Aviv where he practices one-on-one with his personal coach, Mladen Sestan, who has tutored Bender for the last six years.
Six days a week, the two will find an empty court in the city, and then Sestan, a longtime basketball coach in Croatia, will help Dragan refine his stroke, shore up his post defense, expand his back-to-the-basket offensive game and offer counsel on life in general.
Sestan will move to the United States with Bender when he begins his NBA career, which means Dragan will have a posse totaling all of one when he enters the league.
Behind the wheel of his car, hurtling through the darkness, Dragan sees his high-rise apartment building in the distance, a glittering tower outlined against the black Middle Eastern sky. Most nights, before crawling into bed, Dragan flips open his laptop to catch up on homework assignments that have been emailed to him by his high school teacher in Croatia.
Dragan is fascinated by military history—the subject of World War II especially lights a fire in his mind—and he is on track to earn the equivalent of a U.S. high school diploma this summer.
"It's important to finish school because my parents always taught me to finish what you start," Dragan said. "They also taught me the value of hard work. I saw them struggle. I know struggle."
Dragan's father—who is 6'5" and played volleyball in high school—rose at 5 every morning for his job as an electrician on the railroads in Bosnia-Herzegovina. His mother, Bernada, who is 6'0", picked fruits and vegetables in local fields.
Dragan's parents, who until recently had never before been on a plane, wanted what all fathers and mothers crave for their children: a better life.
That was why in August 2009 the Bender brothers—Ivan, then 14 and 6'4," and Dragan, then 12 and 6'1"—stuffed their clothes and their hopes into two suitcases and journeyed far, far from home.
The legend couldn't take his eyes off the boys. It was as if he were seeing two younger versions of himself.
In June 2009, Nikola Vujcic traveled to a run-down gym in Capljina, Bosnia-Herzegovina, to check out two young brothers who he had heard were lighting up a youth league in a remote part of the country. As soon as he entered, all heads turned.
A 6'11" forward with a soft shooting touch, Vujcic was a five-time All-Euroleague player between 2003 and 2007. He was also something of a hoops deity in the Balkans; he helped Maccabi Tel Aviv capture two Euroleague championships.
In 2005, Vujcic opened a basketball academy in Split, Croatia. It was a boarding school for kids who displayed potential on the hardwood. One of the coaches at the academy—Mladen Sestan—heard from a friend about the Bender boys. He tipped off Vujcic.
"When I saw Dragan play for the first time, he was tall and very coordinated. He was playing point guard," Vujcic said. "Ivan was the same way: tall and coordinated and athletic. I met with their parents. They were poor and wanted to give their kids a chance to make a better life. So the parents and the boys all agreed to come to the academy."
After a five-hour drive from their home in rural Bosnia-Herzegovina, Rafo Bender dropped off his sons at a small house in Split. "Think before you act," Rafo told Ivan and Dragan, hugging them tightly. "We are so proud of you."
Then, in an eye-blink, he was gone. The Bender brothers lived in a house with two other teenagers enrolled in the academy. A middle-aged woman also had a room in the house, and she often cooked hot meals, but the boys were in charge of their own laundry and keeping the place clean.
"Basically," Vujcic said, smiling, "they had to do the things that would get them ready to be married."
Most mornings began at 6:30 on the court with drills and one-on-one coaching. The Bender boys would practice for about two hours, then attend school for about six hours, and then return to the gym at 8 p.m. for a two-hour night practice. The brothers tried to be in bed by 11.
Dragan, the youngest at the academy, struggled with homesickness. "You have to fight through your fears," Vujcic told him. "Nothing in life is easy."
Dragan Bender in a Winner League match between Maccabi Tel Aviv and Hapoel Jerusalem at the Pais Arena in Jerusalem on March 21, 2016. Photo by Thomas Coex/AFP/Getty Images.
Ivan also encouraged his little brother, telling him, "You're getting better each day." If Ivan saw Dragan was sad-eyed, he would immediately try to lift his spirits by recalling their one-on-one battles on their driveway court, telling his little brother that basketball was their escape.
Sharing a small bedroom, Dragan and Ivan grew closer than ever. Long after the lights fell dark, the two would talk into the small hours of morning, fantasizing about what the distant horizons could hold for them.
"I want to be the next Kevin Durant," Ivan would tell his brother.
"I want to be the next Dirk Nowitzki," young Dragan would reply.
The Bender brothers worked on their English by watching American sitcoms such as Friends, Full House and Family Guy. Dragan discovered an old VHS tape in the house that featured footage of Toni Kukoc, the former Chicago Bulls star who was from Split.
Popping the tape in the VCR, Dragan was hypnotized by Kukoc's passing artistry, his silky shot and his ballet-like elegance in his off-the-ball movements. "I loved how he got his teammates involved in the game," Dragan said, "and just how he moved his body."
Dragan first played point guard at the academy. But then he started to grow like a springtime flower in a rain forest. By age 15 he was 6'10"—and still largely retained the ball skills of a guard.
"Dragan developed first as an outside player, and then, as he grew, we started working on his inside game," Vujcic said. "At his height, this is what makes him so unique."
That summer (2013), the Bender brothers traveled to Barcelona, Spain, to play in a Euroleague youth tournament. In one game, Dragan, who was two years younger than virtually every other player in the tournament, matched up against Kristaps Porzingis. Dragan scored 11 points against the future NBA lottery pick and, according to several observers who witnessed the matchup, held his own against the older Porzingis.
"That was the day things changed for me," Bender said. "That was when I realized I could have a shot at going places."
Ivan, then 17, earned a spot on the under-18 Croatian national team. Later that summer, the squad traveled to the Czech Republic for a tournament. Against Spain, Ivan, the team's starting power forward, was playing defense when he felt a sharp pain explode in his left knee. He fell to the floor.
Watching the game back in Croatia, Dragan texted his brother, concerned he didn't re-enter the game. In the locker room, Ivan, crying, phoned his mom. "I think I broke my leg," he said.
A week later, Ivan underwent surgery to repair a torn ACL. He didn't pick up a basketball for six months. Just 11 days after he started practicing again for the national team, he shredded the same ACL in a simple three-on-three, half-speed defensive drill.
Ivan immediately called his brother, who was in Israel. "I broke something again," Ivan said in a panic. "I broke something!"
On the other end of the line...silence. Dragan had to put his phone down. He was crying so hard he couldn't talk.
To this day, the brothers have not discussed Ivan's wounded knee, the pain too great, the realization too stinging that Ivan's basketball career may never be what it could have been.
But this silence reveals a vital thread in the Dragan Bender narrative: He now plays for his brother.
Ivan Bender slides into a booth at the Buffalo Wild Wings in College Park, Maryland. On a big screen in front of him, the final minutes of the NCAA national title game between North Carolina and Villanova are winding down.
"Croatia is a poor country, and I played for the national team, and the team was supposed to take care of my first surgery," Ivan said, his eyes focused on the action above him. "But I didn't get the best care. For the second surgery I went to Tel Aviv. The doctors did a much better job."
Now a 6'10" redshirt freshman forward at Maryland, Ivan played in 10 games for the Terps in the 2015-16 season and averaged 1.8 points and 1.7 rebounds. He hopes to one day play professionally in Europe, but he also believes he can live his NBA dream through his brother.
"My brother is more important to me than anything in life," Ivan said. "For so many years we only had each other. Now we constantly text, and we FaceTime every night. We talk about how practices are going, how school is going and how life is going. We never talk about my injuries. That's not healthy. It happened. It's over. Move on."
Just then, Villanova guard Kris Jenkins sinks a 25-foot jump shot against the Tar Hills at the buzzer to win the national championship. The crowd in the restaurant erupts like booming thunder.
Above the din, smiling like he's about to blurt out a secret, Ivan said, "That's a shot my brother would have made."
Nearly 6,000 miles from College Park, Dragan sits in a Tel Aviv restaurant, thinking about his brother.
Before they took up basketball, the two boys, then eight and six, built their own pingpong table out on their front yard. Using a piece of plywood they found as their table and a two-by-four board as their net, they played for hours with paddles they fashioned out of wood scraps.
"Pingpong helped develop our hand-eye coordination," Dragan said. "Whenever we had a free moment, Ivan and I were playing."
At the age of 16 in 2014, Dragan left the basketball academy in Croatia and signed a seven-year contact with Maccabi, where his mentor, Vujcic, is the team manager.
Dragan's apartment in Tel Aviv is within walking distance of Vujcic's home. Dragan frequently heads to his coach's apartment for meals—Vujcic loves to cook Croatian dishes—and to watch and study NBA games.
"One of Dragan's problems is that he likes Toni Kukoc too much," Vujcic said. "If Dragan scores a basket, that only makes one person happy. If he makes an assist, then it makes two people happy. That was the way Kukoc played. Dragan needs to become more selfish. But he has incredible confidence. He doesn't know how to be passive on the court."
This was made clear during his very first practice with Maccabi in 2014. Fifteen minutes into a scrimmage held at Nokia Arena in Tel Aviv, Dragan charged down the wing on a fast break. The veteran players were skeptical of the baby-faced 16-year-old with the seven-year contract that included an NBA opt-out clause. But when a guard threw up an alley-oop to Bender at the rim, what happened next turned them all into believers.
"The ball looked like it was going to go over the backboard, and there was no way in the world Dragan could catch it, but then in an instant he two-hand dunked it," Brian Randle, a veteran forward on Maccabi who played at Illinois, said. "The next possession, he comes down with the ball on a fast break, does a crossover dribble, gets contact and still makes the bucket. We were all like, 'This kid is fearless.'"
He is also careful. After witnessing his brother's injuries, Dragan rarely puts himself in harm's way on the court. He will not, for example, risk a midair collision if he can avoid it. "Of course, Ivan's experience has influenced me," Dragan said.
After every practice, Dragan and Vujcic linger on the court for about 30 minutes, just the two of them. Vujcic will reach back into his memory and show Dragan moves from his past, patiently describing the art of big-man basketball to his protege. Yet, oftentimes it's as if Dragan forgets how tall he is.
"Dragan needs to understand that he's 7'1", and he needs to play big even though he has the skill set of a guard," Randle said. "The NBA game will suit him well. He can stretch the floor and create space because of his range. This will force defenders to close out on him and open up the court for his teammates. He needs work on his lateral quickness, and his post-up game needs work, but those things will come."
The clock is approaching midnight in Tel Aviv.
Dragan's day—which began at 9 a.m. with a one-on-one coaching clinic with Sestan and included a one-hour weightlifting workout and a two-hour practice with Maccabi—is nearly over. He rides an elevator to the third floor of his building, and with a backpack containing his high-tops strapped to his shoulders, he pushes open the door to his apartment.
A basketball rests on the floor—the only item that isn't neatly tucked away in his one-bedroom, one-bathroom home that is as clean and organized as a cadet's dorm room at West Point. A white rose blooms on a coffee table.
"I've been away from home for a long time, and I've had to learn to live on my own," Dragan said. "I've sacrificed a lot, but it's because I just love basketball so much. It's everything to me. I'm definitely excited to one day get to the United States, to begin the next part of my life."
But now Dragan is eager to go to bed. He plans to rise just after dawn because that's when his cellphone will ring. It is a call that he's already looking forward to, a call from overseas, a call that will be his most important of the day.
Big brother—as always—will be checking in.
Link: http://thelab.bleacherreport.com/the-next-porzingis/
Bender's got next
tremonthustler1
aka bx_representer
If you're gonna pay Anderson, go after Horford instead
tremonthustler1
aka bx_representer
Okafor went three because he ducked out of being 1
Dunn's only real value is in teams trying to trade up to get him, especially since he wants to avoid teams with young established PG's
In any event, Murray has caught up to Dunn in terms of his stock. The teams that would prefer Dunn prefer a PG, but there's only a handful that need a starting PG. I haven't even factored in the teams that already have 2 and might wanna unload one.
Dallas would probably love to get Dunn the way they got Devin Harris but they have nothing to offer
Dwight Howard
Superstar
I get all this but shooting 37% from the field is a liability any way you spin it...defense, running an offense, controlling tempo, rebounding, leadership aren't basketball skills?
Jon Horford?
