“He’s undersized, he’s one of those players you can’t really say what position he is,” Bell said. “He’s a force on defense. I think I can do that, be exactly who I was in college. Defending, shot-blocker, one guy who can guard multiple positions, that’s exactly what teams like about me. That’s what they’ll ask me to do.”
Of course, there are significant differences between Bell and Green, but as we head into the NBA Draft on Thursday, comparisons are the name of the game. In draft war rooms across the league, scouts and executives will seek to avoid the lure of the NBA comp, but they’ll find the temptation too tricky to avoid.
“As a scout, you try to avoid that way of thinking,” one scout told Sporting News. “It’s too easy. It boils a guy down into something that you can comfortably know, and that’s not a good thing because you can overlook flaws or strengths once you put a player into that box. The thing is, a lot of times you will have general managers or owners who sit down and they want to know the comparisons, they want to know who they’re drafting by looking at someone already in the league.”
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That can go tragically wrong. One of the great all-time examples of the ills of comparison shopping goes back 15 years to Georgian big man Nikoloz Tskitishvili, the No. 6 pick of the Nuggets in the 2002 draft. Back then, Nuggets honcho Kiki Vandeweghe was enthralled with the proposition that Tskitishvili would be the second coming of Dirk Nowitzki, a skinny European teenager who, with time, would blossom into a transformative star.
He was playing in the Italian League at the time, coached by Mike D’Antoni, who had been a Nuggets front-office employee and had yet to make his mark as an NBA coach. D’Antoni told the Associated Press, “He’s two or three years away. Hopefully, Denver will have some patience because he could be something special.”
He wasn’t a few years away. He wasn’t the next Dirk. He wasn’t even the next Uwe Blab. He played 172 games for four teams in four NBA seasons, averaging 2.9 points on 30.4 percent shooting. As Eastern European exports go, his success level ranks right around the Yugo.
The tendency of NBA-types to compare tall European players to Nowitzki has slowed over the years, but it has not dissipated entirely. Arizona’s Lauri Markkanen, likely a top-10 pick on Thursday, will get the full Dirk treatment, especially if he is chosen by the Mavericks.
“It’s a major trade-off with him, because offensively, at 7-feet tall, and I think he’s going to turn 20, his ability to shoot the ball is off the charts,” said ESPN draft analyst Fran Fraschilla. “He’s an absolutely 10-plus kid. People I know have just watched a workout earlier in the week, and they’ve raved about him. But the defensive issues are going to be prominent. But he is a kid, he cares. So the comparisons to Dirk are going to be unfair, but it’s going to be there.”
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That brings us back to Bell and Draymond Green. One of the critical factors in the success of the Warriors over the last three seasons has been Green’s ability to defend with versatility. Because he is a center who can handle guards, the Warriors are able to switch on nearly every matchup, which offers few easy paths for opposing ball handlers.
Bell could have that ability, too. He was fourth at the NBA Draft Combine among all players in shuttle run and lane agility time, showing off his tremendous footwork. He measured 6-8.5 in shoes, but his wingspan was 6-11.75. There’s reason to think Bell could approach Green’s effectiveness on the defensive end.
The difference is, when he was coming out of Michigan State in 2012, teams overlooked how good Green was offensively. He shot 38.8 percent on 3-pointers as a senior. He his assist rate in college was 26.0 percent. It was clear that Green could not only defend, but was an elite passer for his position and a good shooter. Bell showed neither of those aspects in college (his assist rate was 10.8 and he made three 3-pointers in three seasons).
Bell is not the only player in this draft who has been hung with the Draymond Green mantle, either. It’s been attached to Nigel Hayes and Caleb Swanigan, too. But Hayes is not nearly the rebounder or shooter Green was coming out of college, and Swanigan is not nearly the defender.
“I am not trying to compare myself to anyone, really,” Hayes said. “I am my own player. That sort of thing is something other people do, maybe if you have not seen me play that much. But it is not like I go out and try to be like this player or that player. I just try to get the most out of myself.”
There are other facile comparisons that will be presented in the next few days. Lonzo Ball’s freshman season does compare favorably to Jason Kidd’s freshman season. Jayson Tatum’s year at Duke does not line up at all with that of Paul Pierce, to whom he’s been compared. But Villanova guard Jason Hart did put up similar numbers as Malcom Brogdon, another four-year point guard who was productive enough for the Bucks to be a Rookie of the Year finalist.
But be advised: Comparison shopping at the NBA Draft is unwise.
“It’s a shortcut,” the scout said. “It happens, even with people who know better, because it is natural. But in the end, it’s a pretty useless exercise.”
