Evaluating point guards as they make the leap to the NBA is difficult enough, but the 2020 draft class complicates things even more without dominant clarity.
There is the flash and the ridiculous positional dimension of LaMelo Ball, the basketball IQ on the roof of Tyrese Haliburton and the mystery of the international player Killian Hayes.
The second tier of players in the position – Cole Anthony, RJ Hampton and Theo Maledon – are also intriguing.
The biggest question, however, is why the Bulls are still buying a guard. There are three main reasons.
First, they swapped two players who could manage the position in Derrick Rose and Jimmy Butler. Secondly, they focused on the fact that Kris Dunn lived up to his hype as the fifth overall choice in the 2016 draft when they started their reconstruction. Third, when Dunn didn’t leave the scene, they enlisted Coby White in seventh place last year, even though he is a natural shooting guard.
What Arturas Karnisovas, executive vice president of basketball operations, and general manager Marc Eversley need to decide is whether they have enough internal guard points to look elsewhere in this fall’s draft.
The price to pay for Dunn’s qualifying offer went up to $ 7.1 million, thanks to the wage cap change introduced by the coronavirus, so that the Bulls could have another season with him, especially if they wanted to build their own. team around the defense. And while the first white is raw to guard the spot, perhaps it has a high ceiling there.
Whatever the path chosen by the Bulls, however, one thing has become very clear: they need consistency to guard the point.
Here are the best protections available in the draft, should the Bulls decide that it is the best option:
1. LaMelo Ball
It wasn’t the development journey most prospects take – from California to Lithuania, from Ohio to Australia, while living in the shadow of Daddy LaVar’s Big Baller – but Ball, 18, made it .
At 6-7, Ball – the younger brother of the pelicans guarding Lonzo Ball – controls the game with its speed change and disturbing vision of the field. His external footage is underway, but he is an available defender and a big rebound. It is a triple double waiting to happen every time he goes on the field.
2. Killian Hayes
Do you need a left-handed finisher with an improved outer jumper? Hayes, an eighteen year old who grew up in France and plays in Germany, is your boyfriend.
Hayes is not the athlete that Ball is, but he has shown he can see the floor, play and get his own basket when needed. Scouts think his right hand will come, as will his toughness at the end of the defense, and Karnisovas is expert in terms of international players.
3. Haliburton tyrant
It may be the best solution for the Bulls’ backcourt because it is there to allow the scorers to score, first of all. Haliburton, who played at Iowa State, is a winning player who knows where and when to get teammates the ball.
Sometimes he has struggled to beat the best athletes from dribbling and must be more willing to get in touch, but it would make the life of shooting guards Zach LaVine much easier, especially in the later stages of the games.
4. Cole Anthony
Anthony will immediately improve a team’s bench, but it’s a terrible choice for the bulls. Not only does he share the same university pedigree as White – North Carolina – but he also tries to shoot first and ask questions later.
He is the fourth best playmaker on most boards, but the Bulls have enlisted a player like him last season.
