• Follow us on Twitter @buckeyeplanet and @bp_recruiting, like us on Facebook! Enjoy a post or article, recommend it to others! BP is only as strong as its community, and we only promote by word of mouth, so share away!
  • Consider registering! Fewer and higher quality ads, no emails you don't want, access to all the forums, download game torrents, private messages, polls, Sportsbook, etc. Even if you just want to lurk, there are a lot of good reasons to register!

SF/PF Keita Bates-Diop (Phoenix Suns)

https://www.cbssports.com/nba/news/...-after-the-draft-order-is-set-by-the-lottery/

First round pick 15

WIZARDS
Keita Bates-Diop | Ohio St. | Jr | SF

Bates-Diop went from averaging 9.7 points in an injury-shortened 2016-17 season to 19.8 points in the 2017-18 season and improved in basically every way, which is why Ohio State spent much of this season nationally ranked and finished tied for second in the Big Ten regular-season standings. Not every player who returns to school to "improve his NBA stock" actually does. In fact, most don't. But Bates-Diop clearly did. And draft night will prove it.
 
Upvote 0
Wow, that seems high - but if Nik Stauskas can get picked 8th, I guess anything is possible.

There is as big of a range of possibilities for KBD as I can remember for any recent OSU player. Mid-first to undrafted, anything in that range seems like a real possibility to me. Knowing 20%+ of the picks will be foreigners that didn't play in college, you can't really trust any mock drafts that dont have about 15 non-college prospects.
 
Upvote 0
I'm no expert and haven't seen a scouting report on him, but to my eye test his biggest weakness is his ball handling, and I think that if he doesn't get drafted in the first 20-25 picks or so that that will be the reason.
i think that's fair. neither ballhandling nor 3-point shooting has been particularly outstanding for kbd, but they're both areas that can easily improve with practice. my guess is that if there is another knock on him, it's that he's not as athletic as you'd want a 6'8" pro forward to be, and that's pretty much something that can't be improved upon (much). for that reason, i think for kbd to be a meaningful player in the league, he must prove himself as a reliable shooter outside the arc. his mid-range game is very good, but the current game and the math behind it hate 15-footers. if it's not outside of 24 feet or within 6 feet, the nba shot chart is a wasteland.
 
Upvote 0
Back
Top