I wanted to add to this today, the day after the draft.
Watching the draft last night, I noticed multiple Purdue targets that we missed out on. Now, per this conversation that TrojanFan004 and I were having, we can't really find out later. Would these guys have developed here like they did there, and likely have gotten drafted out of Purdue? Yes, I think that is very likely. So, again, per the convo, we can't really look back and see if they made the right choice there. I'm talking about guys like Zeke Nnaji and Xavier Tillman, that we were in on, and perhaps even considered a favorite for at one point or another.
Having said that, however, a guy like Desmond Bane made me think in another direction. We maybe can't see after the fact if a player made the right choice or not, but I think we can tell if the kid was a good player or not. In addition to the short(er) arms, Bane also was really questioned because he played at such a small school, and the quality of his opponents was so weak, that the coaches just really weren't sure if he could play at a high level or not. (I had a somewhat personal interest in seeing what happened to him for a variety of reasons. 1. I was the Geometry teacher at the time of the Blue River Valley kid that he dunked on in the play that got him on ESPN and skyrocketed his awareness. I was in the thick of all of the opposite side of that noteriety. 2. My son plays and played with, on his Gym Rats team, a kid who's older brother played with Desmond on his AAU team. And they were good friends and Desmond was at that kid's house all the time, so, at the very least, the topic of Desmond often came up when we were standing around talking a various tournaments through the years. ) So, anyway, the coaches weren't sure if he could play at that high of a level - and, I think he proved that he could. So, that's something that time can tell...
