anyone who follows my draft writing knows how much I love Nique Clifford. dating back to his junior year, I was hopeful for him to declare in a draft class that was considered fairly shallow. I was worried his senior year return would backfire, but even in this stacked draft class, Clifford has only sharpened his play and has solidified himself as one of, if not THE best player in the Mountain West, and one of his school's greatest all time players. in this article I'm going to break down his game, statistics, and make my argument as to why I have him so insanely high on my big board and what I think his ceiling is. I'll also discuss why I think he's similar to other prospects who (sorry but I have to brag here for credibility) were some of my most accurate draft evaluations ever, and guys I have been proud to hang my hat on as a young full-time basketball analyst. in a pure space vacuum, there are few players I have ranked over him, and I legitimately believe he could be an NBA all-…

brah this site becomes more useful for gauging literacy at times LOL…

but i mean does keeping them and drafting them really do anything? i dont know lol…

got a longer thought bubble here, this time with some talk on the rookie class and how they're doing, then some usual stock updates on the actual draft class

man, the Wizards have such a bright future man. it'll still take a lot of luck, a lot of time, and a lot of proper decision making, but im still really excited for them. i made clear right after the draft that their haul was essentially perfect. Bub, Kyshawn, Sarr, and now they bagged AJ Johnson thru trade. then Bilal and Kispert as the next guys. even got some great veterans in Brogdon, Middleton, and Smart, who i hope are leading into the mentorship role. that's a very very strong starting point rebuild wise. im rooting for this team to get Flagg so, so bad. it's a perfect fit for both team and prospect that neither will find elsewhere in this year's draft. imagine a Bub-Ky-Bilal-Flagg-Sarr young core, with some chance of adding a 2026 prospect for safety. would be so, so killer. they'll need to hire a proper head coach as well…

been a miiiiiiiiinute since i wrote in this community! very excited to talk about some Rockets specific stuff. this one i just wanted to talk about some of the prospects in the upcoming draft that fit our team needs and how we should handle the luxury suite of Phoenix Suns first rounders that we own.

first and foremost- make an offer for Devin Booker. this much is obvious, even to non-Rockets fans. i won't get into the details of what that offer might look like, but that's for sure the first thing to address. historically, there's precedence that helps the Rockets out- star players simply don't get dealt for the utterly massive hauls that online mock trades often predict. but that's enough of trade talk, what about the actual pick and prospects?

there are 3 tiers of prospects Houston should be looking at. the first tier is players that could realistically be available with the PHX pick. in this tier is Khaman Maluach, Collin-Murray Boyles, Liam McNeeley, and Kon Knueppel. of course, …

just wanted to throw some names out there that usually aren't super high on the Trade Machine trending list, but i think have value for their respective teams in a trade scenario. some i think are more controversial than others, but thats what this forum is for. open discussion. also, i wanna emphasize im not saying all these players need to get shipped immediately. im just saying there's value in shopping them, some more urgently than others.

Jaden McDaniels: a lot of moving parts to why i think Minnesota should at least field calls from the league for Jaden. we've seen what he can be at his foundations, but over the last two years it's become clearer that he's struggling to differentiate his success with that of the broader team's. he isn't moving the needle for the Wolves as much as he is riding its ups and downs. they just traded KAT in the name of cap flexibility, but also have just kicked off a 5-year 130 million dollar contract for McDaniels. the production hasn't been that wit…

just a quick mock draft where I've bumped down SA to the 6th pick out of speculation. just interested in seeing what people think will be the impact on the lottery order from this injury…

i have so many thoughts about this. not the least of which is that half of the league's problem is they televise dozens of people essentially saying the contemporary NBA is trash. i love basketball, i love the NBA, and i think the "ratings" issue is at least fifty percent made up, but let's put that aside and talk about what else went wrong with this format.

number one, the BIGGEST issue, there was damn near no basketball played. it was a 3 hour program with maybe 15 minutes of actual basketball. and i do think this kinda goes both ways. for the fans who were talking about how nobody cares about the regular All-Star game format and that the players are the ones ruining it, you kinda got served, right? because the most exciting aspects of these games were those rare moments where the players really let go, had fun, and did a bunch of crazy stuff on-court. yeah, it's not Game 7 of the Finals. we get it. there's no real stakes but this kinda weeds out anybody who was seriously arguing th…

where are my Nolan Traore fans at. it’d been a rough couple months but our dude has strung together some better performances as of late. i absolutely loved this kid back in November and still do. still just 18 years old and playing professionally. and the big thing i think ppl overlook is that historically, shooting splits tend to be lower for players of his age and position in overseas pro level leagues. i really really buy into his talent.

also, not technically related to this upcoming draft, but bruh can we please chill on Reed Sheppard. i have seen some absolutely blasphemous insults on him. he is playing few games at all and when he is he’s getting like 7-10 minutes. dudes wanna talk crazy about all kinds of bs with him…

warning: this is kinda a lot of writing and effort from a truly basketball obsessed person, who needs no more incentive to post this other than fun and enjoyment.

this is one of those school lunch table conversations that you have with your homies. i find myself thinking about this a lot, and embarrassingly, i have put a lot of specific thought into this question. especially because the consensus with most fans seems to be that the current NBA HOF is too easy to get into? the current NBA HOF has just under 450 people have entered it. so this post is for you to respond with your own NBA HOF criteria. it could be anything? do you think it should be a certain number, or top percentage of all players in history? do you think it depends on rings, awards, something else? how would you go about it?

now, me personally, i think the best way to approach this is by talking about the most obvious ways to get in, and then kind of going down the list of significant NBA achievements. if somebody ac…

obvs VJ Edgecombe has been playing really well recently, which i love. it’s interesting to see his consensus stock rise so quickly back to what it was pre-NCAA season. i’ve seen a lot of ppl put him back at #3 overall which i honestly kinda like! with Jaku’s recent dip in play i can understand buying in on VJ now that his talent is finally translating to production

other notable RISERS for me: Miles Byrd, just in general. Khaman Maluach, who i was super critical of early on in the season but has since shown tremendous value from a pure defensive standpoint. Kon Knueppel, for IQ, hustle and versatility.

and for FALLERS: a lot of guys who were closer to the top. Derik Queen, for a broad range of reasons. Jakucionis, a liiiiiittle bit of a faller just because the performances have trailed off recently, but again, a very small fall. Labaron Philon huge faller for me. and unfortunately, one of my fav prospects… Egor Demin. I love that kid but at some point… you know. still high on him but…

quite tired and not ready to do a whole write up but some of my reactions to some of the other deals that have been made

Butler to GSW: ehhhh yeah. i get why GSW did it and i would’ve probably said Miami should’ve gotten more back but in reality it seemed like the options in the marketplace were just not very good to begin with. so im not too critical of anything here. getting at least one FRP, even if its not very high, in this class is a kind of a big deal, especially since they didn’t own theirs. don’t necessarily think either team is much better or much worse.

Ingram to TOR: the really big thing here is so far i can’t verify which first round pick New Orleans got back. from the preliminary reports it sounds like it’s just the Raptors 2025 first rounder straight up? i think??? but i kinda wanna get clarification on that because that’s a HUGE detail. that pick is worth actual gold to NOP if they were able to get it with no protections. for TOR its weird cuz they’re a weird team jus…