There has only been one NBA unicorn: Robert Archibald, a 2nd round pick for Memphis in the 2002 draft. A 6'11" center out of U of Illinois, he scored 52 points in his 2 NBA seasons.
Why is he the only unicorn?
The official national animal of Scotland is the unicorn.
Exactly one Scot has ever played in the NBA.
Robert Archibald, born in Paisley, March 29, 1980.
Unicorns come around every year or two. But "once in a generation" players only come around every 2-3 years.
I don’t know if Williams’ game against UNC in the Final Four will reduce his draft position, but I don’t know how highly people were rating him before the game. If I were evaluating him, my biggest concern with the FF performance would be that he and the coaching staff knew what was coming and couldn’t counteract it. Bacot and Caronlina won the battle down low decisively on the third tilt.
I am a huge fan of Mark and met some of his family at the Sweet Sixteen game. They were gracious and really fun to chat with. I can’t wait to follow his NBA career, which I bet will be a long and successful one. But with NBA teams’ ability to identify and exploit weaknesses, I have trouble seeing Mark as a late lottery pick.
Carolina delenda est
But the game is reverting to what it was. Yes, there was a 20ish year period where the only really great big was Tim Duncan, and his run of greatness ended in the mid to late teens. The other greats from his time in the NBA were Bron, Kobe, KD, and Curry. AD SHOULD have been on that list, but he's too injury prone.
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So there was a time when Bigs didn't seem important. Because the best players in the L were either freaks (Bron) or crazy skilled shooters/scorers who weren't bigs (Kobe, KD, and Curry).
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But look around the NBA now. For the last 4 years (including this one), the leading candidates/winners for MVP have been Embiid, Joker, and Giannis. All unicorns. In the current HS class, both Ware and Lively show signs of beginning to grow their own forehead based horns.
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And having a unicorn would be great, and that desire is the only reason Chet Holmgren is being mentioned in the top 3, rather than closer to 10.
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But Unicorn-hood is based on OFFENSE. Which is half the game. But it now seems like the road to the NBA title will go through Embiid, Joker, Giannis, or Ayton. With possible road bumps like Utah's C thrown in. Teams that hope to contend for an NBA title either need a Unicorn, or they need SOMEBODY WHO CAN DEFEND UNICORNS.
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Mark will be capable enough on O. But he'll eventually be able to defend Unicorns. I'm not saying he'll shut them down. But just like how Kobe hated being defended by Battier, or Bron hated being defended by Green, Mark will get to the point where those unicorns really have to work for it.
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Because it isn't their unicorn-ness that makes them special. Just like it wasn't Kobe or Bron's scoring that made them special. It was that they could do all that stuff so efficiently. If they get even a little less efficient, their teams get beatable.
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So, yeah. Some team with serious playoff plans will need a guy like Mark to defend those bruisers. At the height of Shaq's domination of the NBA (which wasn't all that long ago), there was a cottage industry wherein serious playoff teams overpaid for some tall stiffs who did little more than foul Shaq in playoff games. The game is just easier for tall folks. And teams are starting to adjust to 3pt heavy offenses. Bigs are coming back in vogue.
I read this article a couple of days ago...
Duke had an open practice on Friday, so I headed down to the gym floor to watch Williams specifically. He spent most of the practice practicing his righty hook shot and layups. But at the practice's conclusion, he stepped out to the 3-point line and took 36 shots from 3. He airballed two of them, wasn’t close on most, and went on a hot streak at the end to make 10-of-36.
There are a couple of different rules of thumb to estimate a player’s 3-point percentage in games based on his practice percentage. One is to divide that practice percentage in half. Another is to subtract 20 percent from what he shoots in practice. Either way, Williams was looking like somewhere between an eight and 14 percent college 3-point shooter. It's no wonder why he doesn’t take them.
https://www.sportingnews.com/us/ncaa...ykgxure8cl4teg
Kyle gets BUCKETS!
https://youtu.be/NJWPASQZqLc
Maybe I’m wrong, I admit that I don’t watch that much NBA to know if he’ll pan out or not. I just know from watching college games that he was pretty much a non factor against little teams in the non-conference, and he had trouble on D and O against teams with versatile forwards like Aluma from Va Tech. I was really hoping for a 15 and 10 season from him this year but he just couldn’t consistently stay on the court against certain teams.
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I suspect Mark will see fewer “no bigs” lineups in the NBA than he did in college. He struggled with no bigs on the floor because he had no clear guarding assignment. Doubt that will be as big a problem in the NBA. He needs to add some strength, though, to be able to handle an NBA big man.
UCLA's Peyton Watson has declared for the draft.
If you are saying, "who?" then you are not alone. Sure, he was a 5-star recruit but the 6-8 wing played just 12 minutes per game and averaged 3.3ppg, 2.9rpg, while hitting just 7 out of the 31 3s he attempted. He is a goodshot blocker for a wing, but still...
https://www.si.com/college/ucla/mens...-to-hire-agent
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There's always a few of these... as long as they're coming from other power programs and not us, all's good in my view
All kidding aside, any dent in UCLA's returning roster is a plus, as they have the potential to be a Top 5 team next year if draft decisions don't hit them particularly hard.
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This is an interesting one. Watson is a long, very athletic kid who just hasn't developed his basketball skills sufficiently -- or at least not sufficiently enough to suit Mick Cronin and get playing time over any of the Final Four veterans he brought back this year. In my mind he should've found more playing time for Watson this year to let him develop and contribute more. But he clearly has the frame and the athletic ability that the NBA covets.
What makes this interesting to me is what it might say about UCLA's roster for next year. Just about everybody off that Final Four team STILL has another year of eligibility if they want it. Including Johnny Juzang and Tyger Campbell and Jaime Jacquez. It's possible that Watson is just being typically impatient and wanting to get to the league as fast as he can, even if it means the G-League, or maybe it means the Bruins are gonna have a lot of really very experienced and skilled guys back yet again, blocking Watson's path to PT. Plus UCLA has a very good recruiting class coming in.