Regression and Progression of Future Stars

Who's Down?
John Wall - It's hard to really voice a complaint about the future No. 1 pick in the 2009 NBA Draft, but his play has been particularly un-stunning over the course of conference play. His assists and scoring are down, and in particular he has been unable to be effective in transition. Wall is still the best player on one of the best teams in the country, but he has to find a impose his will on a game even when the other team is playing a zone.

Xavier Henry - Henry's play has been pretty average over the course of conference play. His scoring and rebounding are down, and he is in a dismal shooting slump. His play forced coach Bill Self to keep him on the bench for an extended period in the second half of the Kansas-Kansas St. game Saturday. It will be interesting to see how Henry is used over the remaining conference games, because Kansas certainly has the talent and depth to relegate Henry to the bench during stretches of certain games.

Who's Up?
Demarcus Cousins - Cousins has been an absolute monster for Kentucky over the past few weeks, and is likely going to lock up his third straight SEC Freshman of the Week. Cousins has still been rebounding the ball with great tenacity, but has become the Wildcat's go to scorer. His agility is unparalleled at his body size, and he has the foot speed and touch around the rim to be a prolific scorer for some time. He seems to be much more comfortable receiving the ball in the post, displaying a unique skill set of patience, vision, head fakes, and spin moves that make him unguardable at the collegiate level.

Avery Bradley - Although Texas has been slumping over the course of the past few weeks, Bradley has displayed a very unique all around game for a freshman. In a win over Colorado, Bradley scored 29, grabbed 9 boards, and handed out 3 assists with only one turnover. Four days later, against Iowa St., Bradley scored 24, grabbed 6 boards, had 6 assists with no turnovers, and had three steals. In those games, he went 22 for 28, and 7 for 8 from behind the arc. Bradley has been showcasing a great feel for the game at the college level. While I don't believe he possesses the NBA star type talent of Wall or Cousins, Bradley is just as ready to contribute to an NBA team, and could become a lock down defender who fills up the stat sheet night in and night out. I think any NBA team that picks up Bradley in next year's draft (if he comes out), is immediately a much better team. Personally, I'd love to see him land with OK City and start right away with Westbrook and Durant. He and Westbrook would both be capable of playing off the ball and running the point, which would give them great versatility in the backcourt with bringing in Harden and Sefolosha off the bench. Tasty.

The Talent Pipeline Flows Into Lexington

John Wall, the number one ranked prep basketball player in the country, committed to the University of Kentucky at 3am in the morning today. I had completely prepared myself to not get that down when Wall decided to attend school at either Miami or Duke. By not allowing myself to get to excited about Wall in Lexington, I had sort of trained my mind to believe he was not going to come to UK. Why was this easy for a normally rabidly absurd fan of Kentucky Basketball? Well, we already had the number one recruiting class in the country and things had turned around so quickly for us that it was hard to think things could keep rolling.

Wall's recruitment had been dragging on for several months with the leaders seeming to be Duke, Miami, and UK. Florida and a few others were possibilities, but never had much of a chance. The length of his recruitment seemed to make most forget how important he could be to a team next year, especially a talented team such as Kentucky. Let me give you a rundown of my take on Wall:

I think he is the most purely talented prep player since LeBron James. This is no knock on Derrick Rose, but I think Wall, as a fifth year senior in high school, is better than Rose as a senior in Chicago. Their athleticism is very similar. But, I think Wall is quicker from end to end. Their jump shot is similar. But, from what I read, Wall can get hotter from behind the arc. They both have great handles, but Wall is ambidextrous. Really, he's equally as good with either his left or right. I think Wall is a better passer and defender at this point. The only area I give an edge to Rose is a stronger upper body.

Wall's commitment makes Kentucky the team to beat next year. They have more first round NBA talent than any other team in the country, maybe twice as much as any other team in the country. Now, just because we are talented doesn't make us a lock for the Final Four. It does make us the most exciting team to watch in college basketball next year.

Finally, here is my poster list for the upcoming season. The poster list is the listing of guys I most want to see John Wall dunk on next year.

Poster List:

1. Edgar Sosa
2. Jarvis Varnado
3. Terrence Jennings
4. Brian Zoubek/Kyle Singler/Mason Plumlee
5. Tyler Zeller/Ed Davis
   

John Wall: Purveyor of the Secret Manna; Guardian of the Star Chamber; Slayer of Cryptids

I thought you should know that the guys over at freedarko felt the need to blog about how amazing fifth-year high school senior John Wall is. If you don't check out freedarko very often, then (1) you're missing out and (2) you should know that these guys rarely, if ever, blog about anything other than the NBA. I don't think they even really did anything on the NCAA tourney this year. And, if they did put up a post on March Madness, I'm guessing they just made fun of it.

Anyway, if you're interested, here's the link.

Oh, and in case you're too lazy to access the article, let me give you a little taste.

It starts off:

"It is almost impossible to explain how awesome John Wall is."

This from a blog that, as the New York Times noted, somehow managed to work the Fibonacci Sequence into an examination of Tim Duncan's career numbers. And yet for some reason, the task of describing this Wall kid's myriad talents gives them writer's block.

Also, during the course of the rather short article, Wall is compared to:

(1) Derrick Rose; (2) a Chris Paul-Lebron James hybrid being; and (3) Jesus Christ.

Oh, and the fellas over at freedarko, in their search for John Wall trinkets on the interweb, stumbled upon a rather confusing blog that freedarko's Bethlehem Shoals likens to "a masterpiece of high-concept psychedelic caveman prayer." As it turns out, this is the very same blog that plagiarized Captain Montana's A Plea to John Wall approximately one week ago. Needless to say, the Mariners of Roundball Portfolio don't take too kindly to such acts of digital piracy. If we encounter the marauding raiders of radiolaluna on the high seas, there will be hell to pay.

So that this post doesn't end with a reference to the thieving bags of horse crap over at radiolaluna, here's some John Wall for that *** courtesy of One Entertainment.



Yikes.

A Plea to John Wall

Sorry about all the Duke hate, but this factors prominently into UK’s next season, ergo, it’s eminently important for college basketball in general. Much to the Admiral’s chagrin, I will compose another University of Kentucky-related post, but all in all it’s just another post on John Wall. John Wall is the top point guard in the country and it looks like he will be attending either Duke, Kentucky, or possibly Johnny come latelys, Kansas or UNC. It's hard to believe that Wall will end out at Miami, Baylor, or NC State now that college basketball's headliners have really entered the picture. Right now, it seems like Duke and UK are the leaders, so I'll leave consideration for the other suitors for another post and restrict this to his interest in becoming a Wildcat v. a Blue Devil. Wall is 6’4” and has an unbelievable handle. More importantly for Duke and Kentucky, he is neither Greg Paulus nor Michael Porter. UK has a chance to be a preseason top 10 team with Wall, and may be outside the top 25 without him, so Wall is an absolute must for the Wildcats. But how can you convince a young man like John to come to UK over Duke? Well I present to you, my friends, my plea to Mr. Wall. And just to show you it’s from the heart, I will be doing this post with ZERO internet research to compile this data.

Going back to the Bobby Hurley days, Coach K has signed seven (7) McDonald’s All-American point guards. Now I’m not going to sit here and tell you that those guys weren't any good in college, but if I know John Wall like I think I do, then he’s much more interested in going someplace that will prepare him to dominate in the League. So we’ll walk through Duke’s hamburger All-American PGs in chronological order.

Bobby Hurley: Hurley was undoubtedly one of the best college point guards in the last twenty years. I didn’t root for his NBA career to get derailed by a car accident, but the fact remains that he never did anything in the NBA.

Wojo: Sure wasn’t an injury that stopped Wojo from making it to the league, unless you count his chronic case of Douchism.

William Avery: Showed great potential in college, but left early, got sabotaged by Coach K during predraft workouts, and never made it onto an NBA roster

Jay Williams: One of the most talented players to ever play for Duke. Looked to be a star in the making but his career was also cut short by an injury. In interest of this non-objective exposé, I’ll mention that he struggled his rookie season, and Duke haters reveled in the frequency of offensive fouls called on him after he went down the lane like a tidal wave for three seasons in Durham.

Chris Duhon: He had a great career at Duke as a consummate winner, although he sort of plateaued and never quite reached the potential many saw in him during his freshman year. He was a second round pick by the Bulls, and notable member of the Menudo-esque Baby Bulls.

Shaun Livingston: He never played at Duke, but we’ll include him just to point out that Wall apparently has a near 50% chance of sustaining a horrendous injury by marrying himself to the Duke program.

Greg Paulus: The Sack Lodge of college basketball. This petulant Dukie is the envy of no one, and a quick glimpse into my seeing stone reveals that John Wall is hoping for a greater professional career than how Greg Paulus’s is going to pan out.

While Coach K has been wrecking the bright futures of young point guards, John Calipari has coached two point guards in the last two seasons who are likely to have better careers than any point man from Krzychewskiville.

Now UK has only inked two McDonald’s All-American point guards since the Hurley days: Wayne Turner and Rajon Rondo. Turner had limited NBA experience after a very memorable college career. So he’s sort of like Wojo, except he gets the edge for historically annihilating him in the 1998 regional final. Rondo, meanwhile, is merely starting at point for the reigning NBA champs, and is also clearly better than any of Coach K’s guys have been at the next level.

Now it could be really fun down in Durham, watching the Plumlee brothers roaming the paint and the throwing the ball to Jon Scheyer and Jon Scheyer, but play the historical averages, Mr. Wall. Restore Lexington to its Camelot mystique and prepare yourself to make a lot of money for a really long time in the NBA.

Perfect Storm Brewing in Memphis

With all eyes focused on Championship Week, Joe Lunardi, and the impending March Madness, recruiting has taken something of a backseat in the general roundball consciousness. Well, we may want to redirect our gazes (even if only briefly) to the world of blue chip recruits, AAU tournaments, and Sonny Vaccaro-type peddlers of fortune. Developments with the potential to shake the college basketball landscape are taking place in southwestern Tennessee.

On November 18, Xavier Henry, a 6-6 210-pounder rated as the third best player in the 2009 high school class and the nation's top two-guard, signed on as just the latest of John Calipari's high-profile, highly-skilled recruits. In doing so, Henry follows in the footsteps of Dajuan Wagner, Derrick Rose, and most recently, Tyreke Evans. One-and-dones (or probable one-and-dones) who selected the friendly confines of Conference-USA and Calipari's free-wheeling, improvisational dribble-drive offense to showcase their lucrative talents during a mandatory pit stop on their way to the Promised Land.

Yesterday, DeMarcus Cousins, a 6-9 250-pound native of Mobile, Alabama, decided that he would also spend a year in Memphis. Cousins is considered the second best player in class of 2009 and is widely regarded as the best power forward and post player in the country. So, if you're keeping count, that means Calipari has wrapped up two of the top three recruits from this year's graduating class. Cousins originally said he would attend UAB. However, after UAB refused Cousins' request for an escape clause that would allow Cousins to get out of his letter of intent if head coach Mike Davis should leave or be fired, he reopened his recruiting.

The final piece of the puzzle is Raleigh Word of God Christian Academy point guard John Wall. Wall, the number one player in all of high school basketball is still weighing his college options, and Memphis is on his short list. Rumor has it that Wall will reveal his intentions at the McDonald's All-American game.