[mbramilanParticipant]

What do you think about these two guys?

[TheBigEasyParticipant]

I haven’t seen anything from Ricardo Ledo, so I can’t tell you anything about him. But I think Brandon Paul could turn out to be quite a usefull NBA player. Not Allstar material or something along that line, but I could see him develop in an eight/ninth man of the bench to provide some scoring.

[RigelzParticipant]

Ricardo’s stock was hurted by his redshirt season.. i don’t think it’s a good idea enter the draft, after one year in college i believe he could be a first rounder. About Paul i agree with TBEasy.

[ilike.panochasParticipant]

I liked Ledo coming out of high school, his game had a mix of Jamal Crawford/Tyreke Evans. But after 1 year of non basketball action, he has the likelyhood of not getting drafted in my opinion. Not sure how he will turnout as an NBA player, he has a lot of street ball element to his game and college would have helped him learn fundementals.

[omphalosParticipant]

To be fair, you could argue that his year spent only practising with the team could improve his fundamentals more than a regular freshman season.

In training he doesn’t have to worry about winning games and won’t need to rely on bad habits in pressure situations, he can work on his game in a non-competitive environment and resist the temptation of being the “star” because being a ball-hog in training would be to the detriment of the team.

More importantly, his coach won’t have to worry about Ledo winning games, so if he has a bad habit, he’d have been able to fix it without it impacting his team’s short-term success, plus, he can discourage bad selection in training because the ultimate goal isn’t scoring/winning, it’s learning good habits.

McLemore is a classic example of a kid who was underrated out of high school, spent a full year learning with the team in training and then showed marked growth when he finally did play.

It comes down to how much he can impress people in workouts, but I find it highly unlikely that he’ll go undrafted in a draft this weak.

[cuseflynn10Participant]

If I’m a team in need of a SG, I know I’d look at Ledo in a class like this. I think he could easily pan out to be a top 10 player in this class. I’d be willing to take a chance on him with a pick between 15-30 and if he did fall to the second round, I’d be willing to trade up for him if I didn’t have a pick in the 31-40 range.

Look at it this hypothetical scenario. Let’s just pretend that both Anthony Randolph and JJ Hickson had to sit out their freshmen seasons in 2007-08. Then they both declare for the draft. Randolph probably wouldn’t have gone #14 and Hickson probably wouldn’t have gone #19. They both would have likely fell to the 20-40 range where they would be great value picks. Hickson could be argued as a top 10 player in that loaded draft class, but what if he fell all the way to 40? That would be a huge steal. And what if Randolph went somewhere around 30. He’d have gone to a winning team like Boston where he could develop behind Paul Pierce and KG. He could have been a completely different player had he fallen to Boston.

Now this hypothetical scenario is in a real life scenario, this time with Ricky Ledo. He’s definitely worth the risk for a team picking in the late first, which is likely already a playoff contender. You could potentially land a 10 player for the price of a #25 draft pick. Then again, Ledo could completely bust, but it’s worth the risk picking at the end of the first. Low risk / high reward.

[SiggyParticipant]

After 4 yrs of watching Brandon Paul I don’t think he’s an NBA player at all. He’s not a good enough shooter, but he loves to shoot and has terrible shot selection. His bball IQ didn’t improve and he doesn’t know how to play without the ball. That’s not a recipe for being a good role player. Maybe he can catch on as an athlete and defender, but I personally wouldn’t draft him.
I thought he was going to thrive in a more open system under Groce and he did get off to a nice start during their OOC schedule, but then he was the same Brandon Paul once conference play started, shooting 38% from the floor and avg’ing more TOs than ASTs.

As for Ledo, he answered none of the questions about how his game fits with others which was a big question mark surrounding him coming out of HS. He was a late first before he was declared ineligible, so I don’t see why he would still be taken in the late first after proving absolutely nothing.

[Shaquille OatmealParticipant]

I don’t know enough about Ledo to make any informed statements, but your take on Brandon Paul is exactly (almost to the letter) what I would say about him. And this is coming from someone who’s watched almost every Illinois game in the last four years.

If I were an NBA GM I wouldn’t get anywhere near a shoot first, low IQ player who never shot better than 40% during four years of NCAA play. Plus Paul’s too short to run the 2 in the NBA and was a disaster at the 1 when he played there in college. So, he’s just a decent college player who doesn’t have an NBA position, only has slightly above average NBA athleticism at best, doesn’t have a consistent shot, is turnover prone, and takes way too many awful shots. And, because he played four years of college basketball, I don’t really see how he can be expected to have a lot of room for improvement in any of those categories. I’m just not sure what would be appealing about him to an NBA team. I hope someone takes a chance on him, but I wouldn’t.

[SiggyParticipant]

Yep, I have no doubt that you’re an Illini fan. It makes me cringe when other Illini fans try to talk up B.Paul’s NBA prospects. I’m like “What have you been watching?”

[lakeshow22Participant]

Do you guys think either of them get invited to the combine?

[Shaquille OatmealParticipant]

Yeah, I just have to shake my head. I remember last year Brandon Paul’s mother was quoted as saying he should be a lottery pick. I just laughed that off (rather boisterously) since it makes a little bit of sense for a mother to be delusional about her child, but I’ve heard regular Illini fans (not biologically related to Brandon) make almost equally absurd statements about how he’ll be a starter in the league. He should be overjoyed if he even makes a team! Even Luther Head didn’t last long in the league and was never a consistent starter and he’s twice the player Brandon Paul’s ever been.

[FastAndFuriousParticipant]

Ledo im still confused about, as I’ve said before he should have did what McLemore did, went back and proved himself as a top pick.

Nobody is talking about Ledo now, and they weren’t talking about him during the season either.

The last person to do something like Ledo is Enes Kanter, but he was solidified as a top 5 pick, Ledo wasn’t even a second rounder, bad workouts will kill him, so hopefully he work outs GREAT.

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