Kentucky two guard James Young looks like a NBA lottery pick. That said, he needs to be consistent and play up to his potential. As James Young continued to develop, so did the Wildcats during the course of the season. It still boggles the mind how they lost to scrubs like South Carolina and Georgia in midseason but managed to make it to the national title game (is NBA style tanking spreading to college basketball now?).
Anyways, Young and done the “succeed-and-proceed” now, so this is how we size up his game, and where we seeing him ending up tonight, and why.
John Calipari on getting James Young to drive more and getting him to get to the line more …
“No question. I think James, I don’t know the percentage of 3-point shots opposed to 2s but James Young is 6-7 and a great jump-shot shooter. If he ball fakes and gets in the lane, he can make one-dribble pull-ups, he can get fouled and go to the free throw line. There is so much more that he can do to help this team than just stand still and shoot jumpers. We need that from him and that’s his growth, that’s a part of what he has to do to help this team to be great.”
Here’s where we have James Young in our latest NBA Mock Draft (full mock here)
14. Phoenix- James Young, G/F, Kentucky, 6-7, Fr.
The Suns biggest focus with their three first round picks will be adding talent to their wing. James Young has great size for an NBA wing and one of the smoothest strokes in this draft class.
Go here for more on James Young
Anyways, ESPN analysts Fran Frischilla, Jay Bilas and Tom Penn joined the media on conference call yesterday, and a reporters brought up James Young at least three times on each call. I’m not joking. Apparently, some reporters have a VERY DISTURBING man-crush on James Young. Nothing else can explain this extreme obsession that a few people in the media have with him. I guess they just fetishize him; or Kentucky in general.
Bilas: “With regard to James Young, Young’s another lefty who’s a really good athlete, good catch and shoot guy. I think he can put the ball on the floor a little bit and attack the basket. I think he’s an athletic finisher, too. But he, this year with that team, he relied more as a catch and shoot guy.
I think he’s a pretty good defender. He’s active and can get steals. Athletically, he’s very impressive. So he’s probably like I think he’s a lottery pick. Top 16. But you could see him falling out of that. It just kind of depends who likes him. But I like him.”
You know what, I can’t find the rest of the Young quotes right now, and i’m not staying up till 4 am on NBA Draft Eve to worry about it. It’s not that important. I have a long night tomorrow or work at the Bulls practice facility in Deerfield. This is all the James Young analysis you get. It’s plenty enough for you. Deal with it.
Paul M. Banks owns The Sports Bank.net, an affiliate of Fox Sports. He’s also a frequent guest on talk shows across the world. Banks has been featured in hundreds of media outlets including NFL.com, Forbes, Bleacher Report, Deadspin, ESPN, Washington Times, NBC and the History Channel. President Barack Obama follows him on Twitter (@paulmbanks)