With the season just completed, GoldandBlack.com is taking your questions as a way of looking back on the season and ahead to next. Here's our latest installment of our extremely original, in-no-way contrived Mailbag, undoubtedly the first of its kind anywhere.
Question: Break down A.J. Hammons' decision whether or not to return for his senior season.
Answer: A lot's going to go into it, but at the end of the day, the single most important thing, obviously, is just his draft stock. If he gets assurance he'd be a first-round pick and thus be certain of receiving a guaranteed contract, I think he has to go.
(Some second-rounders do get guaranteed contracts also, but they're not assured of them like first-round picks are.)
Otherwise, he has a decision to make.
Some dynamics at play here:
• We have talked a good deal about Hammons' age and whether that should create a sense of urgency for him to leave.
Hammons will be two months shy of his 23rd birthday come draft night 2015 and two months shy of his 24th birthday come draft night 2016.
Viewing him for next year's draft essentially as a 24-year-old, history would not be on his side in that sense, not that every case is the same.
In the past five drafts, only three 24-year-olds (and again, Hammons will be an old 23, not 24) - CJ Wilcox last year, Miles Plumlee in 2012 and Lazar Hayward in 2010 - have been first-round picks, all of them at the very end of the first round, suggesting they all went into draft night as fringe first-rounders.
Now, in fairness, Hammons won't be 24 on draft night 2016, but he'll be close enough to it that he'll likely be viewed as one.
Eighteen players older than 22 have been drafted in the past five drafts' first rounds, including five in 2014.
Does it matter for Hammons? It probably would in cases where a team would be choosing between him and an 18- or 19-year-old - a franchise would probably err on the side of potential and up-side - but if they are, then what's the difference, really, between 23 and 24? Probably nothing.
Let's differentiate, though, too, between age and up-side. Hammons is "old," but I don't think anyone can look at him and say even now that he's a finished product, so he's a complicated case.
Hammons has already reached a certain age threshold, though, and there's no going back now. One more year wouldn't seem to be that big of a deal, but I can't claim to know for sure how NBA people would look at it.
I think the most important thing - and this is far from a bold statement - is that Hammons be in the best place possible as a player and a prospect as opposed to being a certain age when he comes out.
Common sense says that any team drafting a player of a certain advanced age might be doing so in hopes he can help sooner than a 19-year-old sophomore or Euro stash could. Any team drafting at the back end of a first round is probably already a solid team and one that might be just looking to fill small holes as opposed to gigantic ones.
That would suggest, at least to me, the importance of Hammons showing he can play at a very high level for a full season, because an NBA team isn't going to afford him the chance to play his way into a rhythm.
He didn't start this season particularly well for Purdue, by his standards. Last season, he really struggled to stay out of foul trouble in the non-conference season.
A bad start in the NBA can amount to the beginning of the end. Getting the second chance might be more difficult than getting the first.
If he were to come back to Purdue and play a whole season like he played the last two months of this one, how much would that help him? No idea, but you'd think more than one more year of tread on his tires would hurt him. But I do say that also not accounting for the possibility of injury or him simply not playing well enough to enhance his standing.
Again, with the age issue, I think it's a concern, but a concern that is what it is at this point whenever he goes. He's not going to wake up tomorrow and be 19 again, so it's just a matter of deciding whether coming out in a better position (presumably) as a 24-year-old is a better choice than coming out now as a 23-year-old if his intel doesn't come back showing him as a first-round likelihood. It's a matter of what he's willing to accept.
You know, Adreian Payne came back for his senior year, had a great year and was picked 15th overall as a 23-year-old.
Please understand: I want to remind that we are referring to Hammons as a 23-year-old for the 2015 draft and 24-year-old for 2016 because it'll be close to his birthday, when it reality he'll be 22 and 23, respectively, the next two Junes. We're rounding up here for the purpose of realistic analysis.
There's the quality-of-life factor here, too.
Matt Painter always says that a player making this leap has to be willing to accept the worst-case scenario. For Hammons, that scenario might be not getting drafted at all. That would surprise me, but who knows. All of this is yet to be determined based on what the NBA tells him.
That worst-case scenario, though, is the pro-basketball fringe, whether it be the Developmental League or Europe.
I don't get the sense he wants any part of either, even if his reality is that he may have to go one of those routes one day. Those can be hard, hard lives, man, and when you look at the alternative, it's one more year in the relative comforts of a major college basketball program with a little extra cost-of-attendance dough in hand and a crack to get his degree, which would be a great thing for him to do, like it is for any player.
And, another year playing with a team he likes and cares about, with a chance to be pretty good.
That's a compelling angle here.
It would have been easier, I think, for Hammons to leave last year's team more than this year's, since he gets along so much better with this group than he did the last two. It was one of the great stories of this season how he and Isaac Haas bonded and brought out the best in each other one way or another, and this entire group was just so much more nurturing, for lack of a better term, of its sometimes-quirky center. It was really interesting to watch and made him a much happier player, I thought.
There are a lot of reasons to stay, more probably than there were a year ago, but Hammons would be negligent to not explore his options.
If you're a first-round pick and you're assured of it, you need to strike while the iron's hot, get that guaranteed money and get to that second contract as quick as possible. You have to.
But if you're not, you have to be careful to do everything you can to put yourself in the best position possible to not just make the NBA, but to stay in the NBA.
We'll see what Hammons' stock is. That's the tell-tale here, the only thing that matters.
The reality is that Hammons has to make a good decision for him and his family alike and will go into the process in all likelihood with very little certainty.
The unfortunate part for prospective draftees these days is when the season ends, so does their body of work. It used to be where players could work out for teams, get feedback, then make their decision. The deck is now stacked against the players in the process. Hopefully, this changes in the future.
I have no idea what NBA people think of Hammons right now, but when you have folks like Chad Ford writing that he essentially had "the same season" this year that he had last year, that's not good, because it's not true and hopefully for his sake, not a reflection of perception among decision-makers. Hammons didn't play great in Maui, a big-time early showcase to set perception going into the season, and that couldn't have helped get him off on the right foot. He also didn't play well at Vanderbilt against Damian Jones, with a bunch of scouts present.
Again, I have no idea what NBA people think of Hammons right now, and I'd always warn about basing opinions off web-site projections.
All that matters is what NBA people think and tell Hammons and his group. If he is given a guarantee he's a first-rounder, he's gone, as he should be. If he's told he's a second-rounder with the possibility of the first round, then we'll see. If he's told he's told second round all the way, well, I guess we'll find out what he's willing to accept.
Copyright, Boilers, Inc. 2015. All Rights Reserved. Reproducing or using editorial or graphical content, in whole or in part, without permission, is strictly prohibited. E-mail GoldandBlack.com/Boilers, Inc.
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Question: Break down A.J. Hammons' decision whether or not to return for his senior season.
Answer: A lot's going to go into it, but at the end of the day, the single most important thing, obviously, is just his draft stock. If he gets assurance he'd be a first-round pick and thus be certain of receiving a guaranteed contract, I think he has to go.
(Some second-rounders do get guaranteed contracts also, but they're not assured of them like first-round picks are.)
Otherwise, he has a decision to make.
Some dynamics at play here:
• We have talked a good deal about Hammons' age and whether that should create a sense of urgency for him to leave.
Hammons will be two months shy of his 23rd birthday come draft night 2015 and two months shy of his 24th birthday come draft night 2016.
Viewing him for next year's draft essentially as a 24-year-old, history would not be on his side in that sense, not that every case is the same.
In the past five drafts, only three 24-year-olds (and again, Hammons will be an old 23, not 24) - CJ Wilcox last year, Miles Plumlee in 2012 and Lazar Hayward in 2010 - have been first-round picks, all of them at the very end of the first round, suggesting they all went into draft night as fringe first-rounders.
Now, in fairness, Hammons won't be 24 on draft night 2016, but he'll be close enough to it that he'll likely be viewed as one.
Eighteen players older than 22 have been drafted in the past five drafts' first rounds, including five in 2014.
Does it matter for Hammons? It probably would in cases where a team would be choosing between him and an 18- or 19-year-old - a franchise would probably err on the side of potential and up-side - but if they are, then what's the difference, really, between 23 and 24? Probably nothing.
Let's differentiate, though, too, between age and up-side. Hammons is "old," but I don't think anyone can look at him and say even now that he's a finished product, so he's a complicated case.
Hammons has already reached a certain age threshold, though, and there's no going back now. One more year wouldn't seem to be that big of a deal, but I can't claim to know for sure how NBA people would look at it.
I think the most important thing - and this is far from a bold statement - is that Hammons be in the best place possible as a player and a prospect as opposed to being a certain age when he comes out.
Common sense says that any team drafting a player of a certain advanced age might be doing so in hopes he can help sooner than a 19-year-old sophomore or Euro stash could. Any team drafting at the back end of a first round is probably already a solid team and one that might be just looking to fill small holes as opposed to gigantic ones.
That would suggest, at least to me, the importance of Hammons showing he can play at a very high level for a full season, because an NBA team isn't going to afford him the chance to play his way into a rhythm.
He didn't start this season particularly well for Purdue, by his standards. Last season, he really struggled to stay out of foul trouble in the non-conference season.
A bad start in the NBA can amount to the beginning of the end. Getting the second chance might be more difficult than getting the first.
If he were to come back to Purdue and play a whole season like he played the last two months of this one, how much would that help him? No idea, but you'd think more than one more year of tread on his tires would hurt him. But I do say that also not accounting for the possibility of injury or him simply not playing well enough to enhance his standing.
Again, with the age issue, I think it's a concern, but a concern that is what it is at this point whenever he goes. He's not going to wake up tomorrow and be 19 again, so it's just a matter of deciding whether coming out in a better position (presumably) as a 24-year-old is a better choice than coming out now as a 23-year-old if his intel doesn't come back showing him as a first-round likelihood. It's a matter of what he's willing to accept.
You know, Adreian Payne came back for his senior year, had a great year and was picked 15th overall as a 23-year-old.
Please understand: I want to remind that we are referring to Hammons as a 23-year-old for the 2015 draft and 24-year-old for 2016 because it'll be close to his birthday, when it reality he'll be 22 and 23, respectively, the next two Junes. We're rounding up here for the purpose of realistic analysis.
There's the quality-of-life factor here, too.
Matt Painter always says that a player making this leap has to be willing to accept the worst-case scenario. For Hammons, that scenario might be not getting drafted at all. That would surprise me, but who knows. All of this is yet to be determined based on what the NBA tells him.
That worst-case scenario, though, is the pro-basketball fringe, whether it be the Developmental League or Europe.
I don't get the sense he wants any part of either, even if his reality is that he may have to go one of those routes one day. Those can be hard, hard lives, man, and when you look at the alternative, it's one more year in the relative comforts of a major college basketball program with a little extra cost-of-attendance dough in hand and a crack to get his degree, which would be a great thing for him to do, like it is for any player.
And, another year playing with a team he likes and cares about, with a chance to be pretty good.
That's a compelling angle here.
It would have been easier, I think, for Hammons to leave last year's team more than this year's, since he gets along so much better with this group than he did the last two. It was one of the great stories of this season how he and Isaac Haas bonded and brought out the best in each other one way or another, and this entire group was just so much more nurturing, for lack of a better term, of its sometimes-quirky center. It was really interesting to watch and made him a much happier player, I thought.
There are a lot of reasons to stay, more probably than there were a year ago, but Hammons would be negligent to not explore his options.
If you're a first-round pick and you're assured of it, you need to strike while the iron's hot, get that guaranteed money and get to that second contract as quick as possible. You have to.
But if you're not, you have to be careful to do everything you can to put yourself in the best position possible to not just make the NBA, but to stay in the NBA.
We'll see what Hammons' stock is. That's the tell-tale here, the only thing that matters.
The reality is that Hammons has to make a good decision for him and his family alike and will go into the process in all likelihood with very little certainty.
The unfortunate part for prospective draftees these days is when the season ends, so does their body of work. It used to be where players could work out for teams, get feedback, then make their decision. The deck is now stacked against the players in the process. Hopefully, this changes in the future.
I have no idea what NBA people think of Hammons right now, but when you have folks like Chad Ford writing that he essentially had "the same season" this year that he had last year, that's not good, because it's not true and hopefully for his sake, not a reflection of perception among decision-makers. Hammons didn't play great in Maui, a big-time early showcase to set perception going into the season, and that couldn't have helped get him off on the right foot. He also didn't play well at Vanderbilt against Damian Jones, with a bunch of scouts present.
Again, I have no idea what NBA people think of Hammons right now, and I'd always warn about basing opinions off web-site projections.
All that matters is what NBA people think and tell Hammons and his group. If he is given a guarantee he's a first-rounder, he's gone, as he should be. If he's told he's a second-rounder with the possibility of the first round, then we'll see. If he's told he's told second round all the way, well, I guess we'll find out what he's willing to accept.
Copyright, Boilers, Inc. 2015. All Rights Reserved. Reproducing or using editorial or graphical content, in whole or in part, without permission, is strictly prohibited. E-mail GoldandBlack.com/Boilers, Inc.
https://purdue.rivals.com/content.asp?SID=892&CID=818514
