He didn’t lose anything. JB has already done the work. The decision makers are well aware of who he is and what he can do. The NBA game and college game are very different. Way more space to operate in the NBA. Also take into consideration that he is about to spend the next 6-7 months training his ass off before he even touches an NBA court. That entails an actual meal plan, on court training with an actual NBA skills trainer and off court strength and conditioning like he’s never seen before.
Hurley Should Have An Honest Talk With Bouk
- Thread starter jibsey
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I disagree with you, I had him going 6th when he came back from injury. Hope I'm wrong but I think he lost money.
Abe, there’s a lot of emotion built up on this forum and the ugly side of it is coming out. Don’t listen to these basket cases. Looking forward to following Bouks long a prosperous NBA career.
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Look at the scale I posted - its marginal moving up and down a few spots.
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His private workouts with NBA teams will have more effect on his draft status than his play in March. He didn't make or lose any money with his "recent play."
You are assuming a trajectory with no dips/events in it and various conclusions that are not guaranteed. Respectfully, you need to rewatch the last three games and everything that’s happened since he arrived at UConn. Chief has always been a big James supporter, particularly in September of 2019, when many here telling him to go pro now weren’t supporting him.On the ESPN draft rankings - Bouk is 13th.
The rookie scale shows if he gets drafted 13th - he will make just under $10M for the first 3 years.
2020-21 NBA rookie scale contract figures for first-round picks
Rookie Wire took a look at the rookie scale salaries for each of the first-round picks ahead of the 2020-21 season.therookiewire.usatoday.com
Up or down a bit doesn't move the needle that much (relatively) - and getting out now means he is one year closer to the real deal (if he is good enough to get a second contract). He 100% should go.
Staying another year - lets say he moves up to 6 - and then his deal is worth 15M in the first 3 years (pretax of course). Just isn't enough upside to justify waiting. IMO he would need to drop into the mid 20s to justify staying another year.
That doesn't mean I think he is going to be an amazing pro - lots of draft picks aren't. But this is about money. He should go.
After-all he was the first dam break recruiting kid, so he will always be special to me.
To Chief, this is a no brainer. Another year is in his best interest as a person and Chief would be pushing him out the door next spring after a consistent year of growth and success as a person. Quick money is often a trap. James needs to do long term investing in himself.
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Agreed wholeheartedly brother
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We need to look at this rationally. If you have guaranteed $10M coming your way, and if you wait a year it could be more or it could be less, what's the point of not taking the money now.
It doesn't make sense. That level of money, outside of playing basketball, is most likely unavailable to him as a normal human being in the workforce. He can't give up earning years. You just can't. The old NBA it was get as much money as you can in your first contract, which is why Donyell had to go when he did. But now? What are the chances he gets hurt again, his draft stock plummets, and he ends up being a 27th pick? That means the insurance won't kick in because he can still play. It's dumb. Is the money life changing? Then take it.
It doesn't make sense. That level of money, outside of playing basketball, is most likely unavailable to him as a normal human being in the workforce. He can't give up earning years. You just can't. The old NBA it was get as much money as you can in your first contract, which is why Donyell had to go when he did. But now? What are the chances he gets hurt again, his draft stock plummets, and he ends up being a 27th pick? That means the insurance won't kick in because he can still play. It's dumb. Is the money life changing? Then take it.
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Still haven't addressed if he gets injured next year or has another terrible post season. He will be a year older and he is injury prone. If I am part of his team I would suggest he go pro. if he is projected as a lottery to mid first round. That is a no brainer. Quick money? you mean millions of dollars??
Also, the NBA scouts will take into effect his whole season not just the last 3 games. Dropped 40 on a top 15 team at the time plus averaged 19 a game.
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He will be remembered as the guy who got UConn back to the1st round of the draft, if not the lottery. That is huge for recruiting. Hurley doesn’t have to point to Napier and Kemba anymore. Recruits were 8 and 11 years old, respectively when those guys were drafted. It may be fresh in our minds, but UConn’s relevance to the NBA draft is essentially an unknown the kids in high school. Bouknight is changing that which is a great thing.
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Re: losing money...
NBA teams put almost no stock in March performances. They simply don't. It's a sucker play for dumb franchises. Some kids may get a slight bump but few will fall. Individual workouts are far, far more important, almost to a fault. Teams want to see how kids will look up close, how they perform in drills that mimic how they'll look in their system.
Teams want to see how Bouk looks attacking closeouts and in catch-and-shoot situations. That's going to be his role early in his NBA career. Offball floor-spacer and scorer. He's going to be used very differently in the NBA than Hurley used him. This is why I'm confident in him being a good pro: he's dynamite in space and he's going to get a lot of it in the NBA. Bouk will go mid-to-late lottery, he'll be joining a team with at least one good vet. Anyone from Beal to Lavine to Zion to SGA to Fox to Ja. He's not going to be asked to carry a big load.
As I said, many of our fans think Bouk hurt his stock when many other lottery picks also had underwhelming tournament performances, as I highlighted a few pages back. Keon Johnson, Cade, etc.
NBA teams put almost no stock in March performances. They simply don't. It's a sucker play for dumb franchises. Some kids may get a slight bump but few will fall. Individual workouts are far, far more important, almost to a fault. Teams want to see how kids will look up close, how they perform in drills that mimic how they'll look in their system.
Teams want to see how Bouk looks attacking closeouts and in catch-and-shoot situations. That's going to be his role early in his NBA career. Offball floor-spacer and scorer. He's going to be used very differently in the NBA than Hurley used him. This is why I'm confident in him being a good pro: he's dynamite in space and he's going to get a lot of it in the NBA. Bouk will go mid-to-late lottery, he'll be joining a team with at least one good vet. Anyone from Beal to Lavine to Zion to SGA to Fox to Ja. He's not going to be asked to carry a big load.
As I said, many of our fans think Bouk hurt his stock when many other lottery picks also had underwhelming tournament performances, as I highlighted a few pages back. Keon Johnson, Cade, etc.
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I don't think he was ever going to go 6th. Cunningham, Green, Suggs, Mobley, Kuminga are all locks to go ahead of him, and at least one of Williams, Johnson, Moody or Barnes are too.
I'm in the minority, but I don't think what happened this weekend changes things at all. (I see as I type this that Lefty2one is basically saying this.) He's going to get healthy and crush his workouts and no one is going to give 2 ____ about the tournament by the time the draft rolls around. A game in which the other team is loaded up to stop him because no one else on the court is a threat is just not a scenario that provides much useful intel in terms of projecting him at the NBA level.
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He was never breaking into the top 5 but I had him ahead of everyone in that next tier. There's more questions after the last couple weeks and I'm guessing more question marks about him for NBA teams than there are for the other players in that second tier.
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I don't think it's unreasonable to have Bouknight 6th. Everyone after the Top 5 (and even some in the Top 5) has plenty of question marks. Like I keep saying, the consensus SG before Bouk posted 11/3/2 and shot 27% from three...like he's some lock to be a good pro.
i read many of the replies. He's gone. He truly doesn't have the body for #2 in the NBA. He's more like Quickly and Fox. but he's not a great ball handler. Wish him well.
Cunningham already has a pro body. Huge difference.
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Bradley Beal, CJ McCollum, Luis Williams, Jamaal Murray are all NBA 2's and Bouk is taller than all of them. He will fill out with an NBA training regiment
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Almost more alarming then given his weaknesses.
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People don't realize that the workouts, interviews and medicals are just as important as any March performance. A couple post-season games are a reason to dig a little deeper on the kid, not let him fall to 20th in the draft.
If Bouk blows his interviews, workouts, and has some medical issues, well... then he might go 20th. But there's no reason to think that he will. He's going to absolutely crush individual workout compared to most prospects--that's where he thrives.
Regarding losing money, he might have lost a chance to up his value even more if he had a monster tournament leading us really far. Even then though, there's a lot of time between March and the draft and once that excitement and emotion goes away teams generally look at other things more. But I definitely don't think he dropped his stock from where it was
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This is getting a lot of air play from that AllState commercial during March.
I would like to revisit this narrative that Bouk is injury prone, because, I feel this is an unfair or skewed narrative of him. Since being at Uconn, he has had one injury that sidelined him in 2 full seasons, and that was a hyperextended elbow which required surgery to remove bone spurs. The injury itself was not due to him driving and absorbing contact, which would be a concern had he gotten injured that way, but it was a result of someone maliciously (debatable) diving on his outstretched arm. I don't care who you are, but every single person would have gotten injured on that play, even if you are the most durable basketball player in the world. The surgery is debatable, but who knows what was going on in there from previous years that they discovered when they did the MRI.
Prior to that, his only injury that we are aware of was the torn MCL in highschool, which I will point out, he recovered exceptionally well from, and has never had a knee issue since then, which speaks to his durability in that sense.
So, I question this "injury prone" narrative. Surely we can't say cramps are a factor of being injury prone, especially considering the only time he cramped up was after coming back from injury and trying to go full speed, and not properly hydrating before a game, combined with still getting back in gameshape.
Someone, please point out something different to me, or I'm going with the narrative that he is not injury prone.
Agreed, the other stuff is important too and it could cut different ways for a player. Chief used to vacation in a summer home next door to a former FBI agent, who did the Indiana Pacer background checks. They are given a handful of possible picks and do an extremely thorough investigation of all aspects of their lives.
As far as cramping up, I am sure they will look into all aspects of that. He hadn’t played a game in 6 days and the cramping started after playing just 21 minutes. He had been back from an elbow injury for a few weeks of practice so it wasn’t like he had no opportunity to built up conditioning. It got a lot of eyeballs.
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