Thamel

[Inyatkin]

Ok...I'll bite. Which of the Kentucky players will be NBA Stars?

So far, with all the one and dones, they have three players who may qualify. Anthony Davis is a no brainer. John Wall has been fantastic. Demarcus Cousins is very good as well.

I see no one on this year's UK team who are as good as any of those.

Randle is good, but I think he isn't big enough, nor have deep enough range or defensive skills, to effectively play the NBA 4 or 5, nor the ball handling ability to play the 3. He's a tweener. I think he can have a good, but not great, career.
The Harrisons lack elite athleticism. Sure, they're big, but they'll get abused by NBA 1s and 2s worse than by Napier and Boatright.
Willie Cauley-Stein and Poythress can be good bench players, but they aren't going to be stars. I'd wager Dakari Johnson won't be either.

Which leaves Young. He's their only hope, I think, to be an NBA star. But he's no sure bet like the three stars I named above.

Young has the best shot, but he's got to play both ways or else an NBA team won't be able to keep him on the court. He was clueless on defense most of yesterday.

 

[UConn9604]

In hindsight, I wonder if Thamel's intransigence on this is more an effort to protect his job, or to reconstruct truths in hindsight. I mean, he's an "expert" at Sports Illustrated who picked us to lose to St. Joe's, and get waxed by Florida, and then to get waxed by Kentucky.

There *must* have been some reason why his predictions were wrong, right? It couldn't possibly be that we were the best team.

 

[NHUConnfan]

I mean, c'mon guys. Nearly all of Kentucky's starters (counting Cauley-Stein in replacement of whatever-his-face-was) are going to be NBA pros. Bazz and Daniels are the ones with a chance at UConn with an outside shot to Boatright depending on how well he plays next year (Brimah and Nolan are still to young to tell).

The fact is, most of those Kentucky players can jump to the NBA next year. But they aren't going to do it with a championship ring...and in the end, THAT IS ALL THAT duck*ING MATTERS!

 

[uconnfan68]

While I do agree with you, there are slight digs all over at us, but let's remember the gist of the article: He is RIPPING Cal in a way that no one else does very often, and in a way that we as UConn fans and Squid haters agree with...

If you look at the comments, the UK fans are livid, and I can't say that I wouldn't be too if this was my team's coach. I hate Squid more than anyone, and I loved reading that article. Just focus on that, which is the main point of the article. It will feel much better.

Plus, his point in taking that small dig at our talent level is that in 5 years, if that UK team has 4-5 really good pros, and we have a bunch of journeyman, people are going to look at Squid the way we do at Rick Barnes or Ben Howland with those talent laden squads that came up short. That's really what he's getting at.

Thamel is a talking about another . I couldn't be happier that UK fans are pissed off.