there are plenty of guys in the league without a jumshot, athleticnes and height. But a great player knows what to do. i think that a coach is more willing to trust a player than knows what to do than a player with the tools that doest have an understanding of the game

not one of these attributes you have listed actually = nba calib. player that ‘stick’

……..

It is a combination of things ranging from the player’s mindset, drive to competitive spirit.

Of course he has to have a jumper all though it’s not necessary (i.e. Sergio ), basketball IQ is completely irrelevent (i.e. #25 ) but can make up for what a player lacks in physical abilities (i.e. Batum). Essentially, I would def. state that there are more “sticking” NBA players that have a limited bbiq and have/will have a decent career.

Speed and quickness are also something that can make a player stick (Monta Ellis) but a decided lack in speed and the antithesis of quickness (i.e. Steve Blake and Yao Ming) can be beneficial and that player can have huge longevity and staying power on a team (sadly) .

Height is something that is a modern requirement. If you want to play center… you better be at least 6’10 but you have to be in bed w/ the league Dwight Howard to be effective. For a small forward or shooting guard you better have height, but really… you better be able to at least be a streaky shooter.

Sophia

If a guy is all around decent at basketball, but doesn’t excel in any one part of the game, he’s likely to get looked over. If you look at just NBA player that has been in the league for a few years, you’ll see they have SOMETHING that keeps them there. It may be their rebounding, shot blocking, hustle, 3-point shooting, defense, quickness, etc. Doesn’t matter. they have to be great at at least one thing. A great example would be someone like Shane “The no-stats All-Star” Battier. Looking at his numbers tells nothing about him. He’s made his career by studying his opponents and doing his best to keep them from scoring (complimented by decent long range shooting). Another example would be Kevin Love. He’s not the biggest, strongest, or fastest, but he works his butt off and knows the game, thereby giving him a relative rebounding advantage.

If no one else is using it, can I have the Captain Obvious title?

If you can score against a legit defense (chairs don’t count), I think you’re more likely to get a shot at the NBA. Between 2 prospects I think the guy who is a 10% (random number) better scorer is going to get the spot over the guy who is a 10% better defender all other abilities being equal.

1. It’s easy to identify. Basketball IQ, defense, intangibles, work ethic, etc are all very nice things to have, but most of those are really hard to demonstrate in just a handful of workouts. If you can put the ball in the hoop consistently and hopefully in many ways, you’re more likely to get noticed even if the skill is more common.

2. It’s always useful. There isn’t a team in the league that would turn down a cheap scoring threat off the bench.

3. In a 10 minute or less per game reserve role, how much help is a non scoring threat going to provide. Another guy may have a great BB IQ or play solid defense, but the returns on that are never going to be as great as the guy who can come in and put up 6-8 points.

There are guys like Brent Pettway who can jump out of the gym but can’t do much else and guys like Gerry Macnamara who accomplished huge things in college but just don’t have NBA quickness/hops.

that is most important in deciding an nba player it would be height. I know some small players have made it into the league but for every small player there is 10 absolute stiffs that were only drafted because they were 7 feet. Like they always say “u can’t teach height” and height trumphs all in the nba.

IQ makes up for a lot of shortfalls in other areas.

The sum of the average of all player attributes plus health and opportunity must be at least as high as the least-valuable player in the league.

Go wild, math geeks.

skill?

That can be taught, to a degree. Having a good head will make up for a lot of athletic shortfalls. Considering the audience here, though, (former playground, HS, college players) it’s pretty obvious that any of us would pick BB IQ, as that’s the one decent attribute in the game that we all have. And if we have it and an upcoming college player doesn’t, that means that we could have been a better prospect if WE JUST HAD THE LEGS.

Honestly, I think it’s will and competitive drive along with toughness, which all falls under the larger heading WILL.

but it’s kind of a dumb question. The thing keeping them back is different for every person, and I don’t think there’s any one thing that’s at all predominant.

They try to score on 3 people, don’t know what passing is. I think if you are smart and have the talent you have a good shot. If you are a dumb player you aren’t making it to the NBA unless you are 7 feet tall.

Mental speed and physical speed. Horsepower. The ability to move a 6’-6", 230 lb body around with the same reaction time, speed and agility as a guy who is 5’-7" and 123 lbs.

“Stick-to-it-ive-ness”

D: dogged perseverance; resolute tenacity

This applies to most professional sports. These athletes are often simply more willing than others to stay with the sport instead of pursuing other endeavors. They’re willing to put in longer hours and harder workouts to continue improving where others become complacent or content with their skill level.

I think the hardest thing for 90% of the players that come into this league is that they are no longer the star. All their lives they have been the best and all of the sudden they aren’t. That is an extremely difficult transition to make. Most guys are used to being the bigger, stronger, faster player and then they aren’t and they have to fill a different role to make it in “The League” Sometimes it means working harder then they ever have, sometimes its an ego check, sometimes it’s developing skills that they didn’t use before, sometimes its studying extra hard to learn the game that was seemingly so natural before, but whatever it is, there are tons of guys with equal or even greater talent not in NBA because they could not or would not adjust. Most of the time I think it is because they all have aspirations to be a star in the NBA and when they get here they can’t let that go, coach asks them to fill a role position and they just can’t get over the fact that they think they should shoot that big shot or make that critical drive, I mean they have all their lives. It all about making the adjustment.

I’d set aside athletic ability, because no one can choose their height or things like that.

A true love for the game is going to make other areas of your game better. The desire to improve is going to give you another VERY important quality – a work ethic.

The love of the game and good work ethic are going to allow players with at least decent physical ability get better in other important areas:
BBIQ, shooting, fundamentals, strength/quickness

If you are not outstanding in any 1 skill, the love of the game is going to allow you to accept your role better and do what it takes to win for the team/game.

The ability to make good decisions quickly. Think of the amount of time you have to reach to a rotating defense. Shoot, pass or dribble? Which one, and where to. What distinguishes NBA players from non-NBA players is that they can evaluate these decision and react with lightning speed in a fraction of a second.

That is what I learned from bedge.

I can be good at anything I try to do. I can be GREAT at anything I want to do.

I think it’s the same with these guy’s, unfourtuantly there are the few that are just blessed with the ability to do what they do, (I’m thinkin starberry here) but all and all, it’s their determination that gets em to the nba, it’d be their attitude that keeps em there.

mind you there are the few that just are just blessed with a body/skill.

lebron, maubury….etc.

the jordans, and kevin durants though…..alot of hard work.

think of guys like Ben Wallace, who went un-drafted. It’s not like he couldn’t play, he just needed someone to give him the opportunity to play (and in his correct position). He’s listed at 6’9… maybe with shoes on. Few thought he could play cuz he’s really the size of a sf but without the speed. But we all know how that worked out.

and if you don’t: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ben_Wallace

It’s kind of like Sergio. We all know he is an NBA caliber player…. but for some reason it’s not all coming together here in Portland. Well that reason is Nate McMillan that he needs to be able to play HIS way and not be told that he needs to be doing this or that. He’s just not going to get that kind opportunity here. And if this is all his NBA career is, it’s going to be looked at as a failure. He needs to be sent somewhere he can run and play totally free. Then he’ll become the player that sticks.

There are all kinds of great players, they just have to be put in situations that allow them to play their game.

one could make arguments for decision making and work ethic, but I don’t really think either of those entirely distinguish these groups.

The real answer is the potential for the full package. You get guys who are fast and athletic but too short… or guys that can shoot and thats it.

The problem is that there are obviously plenty of NBA players (often not getting time in a rotation) that fall into this same thing. Obviously.. someone believed a guy like Morrison would make a decent baller but is there any reason to believe he won’t become a fringe player when his rookie contract is up?

There is no way you can work hard enough to get into the NBA without a significant ego. People complain that the money and fame of professional sports turns people into jerks, but I think a lot of guys wouldn’t be there in the first place if they WEREN’T jerks. It takes strange kinds of motivation to get in the gym for 5 hours per day, something that a lot of nice, normal, “Beta Males” don’t have.

a lot of times comes down to where the kid went to school. If you have two similar kids, same position, and close in athletic ability, but one kid went to Portland State, and the other went to Memphis, I think the kid from Memphis gets the contract before the Portland State kid.

can be a killer (in a good way) combination to getting someone with not as many physical skills into the NBA. The COmpetitive Drive allows a player to fully leverage the BBIQ. It shows a work ethic of seeking to improve in all aspects of the game.

I think Brandon Roy is a prime example of this. So many NBA “experts” had him tabbed as someone that had pretty much already reached his potential when he was drafted. He was considered to not have much upside. Yet his BBIQ and Competitive Drive have shown that there is still much more growth to come.

Although I think athleticism is overrated in the NBA, this is the single attribute that separates NBA players from non-NBA players. No question.

I like Ben’s question. Gotta think about it logically.

1) Ben is asking about what one factor most distinguishes players that make it to those that do not quite make it. He’s asking a question about marginal differences. The players that do not quite make it are mostly quite skilled and quite athletic. He’s not asking why he didn’t make the NBA but Shaq did. He’s asking why Maarty Luenen and Bryce Taylor didn’t make it while Aaron Brooks did. Different factors can be important in differentiating ordinary people from NBA super-stars than factors that matter on the margin. This does not mean that some type of athletic ability is not the distinguishing characteristic; it just means we need to be careful.

2) To say that there isn’t just one thing, misses the point. It is entirely possible for there to be one attribute that predicts “making it” better than other attributes even if there are several attributes that predict making it.

3) To simplify the analysis a bit, I am going to assume that Ben asked the question about who makes and who does not make it within positions. So, we are comparing Bryce Taylor to Aaron Affalo. Aaron Brooks to Tarueen Green, etc.

4) The question is basically meaningless unless we impose constraints on the type of factor or attribute that we can accept as an answer. “Greater basketball potential” is the obvious winner if anything goes. Similarly, a broad variable like “athletic ability” can only be fairly compared to a similarly broad constructs like “basketball intelligence” or “basketball skill.” More generally, it’s a lot less messy to answer the question if given a group of attributes to choose from, rather than picking one out of the air.

5) Bare in mind the comparison that Ben made: between guys in the league and guys on short contracts, in the D-league or Europe. To me, this eliminates drive as the most important factor. Similarly, I would probably have a different answer if the comparison was between the drafted and undrafted. If the comparison was drafted to undrafted, I think agility would be the best predictor (holding position constant / comparing players within position).

Okay, I talked myself into going with Basketball skill, but really I have no idea! In addition, having thought about it for a while, I can now see why people complained about the question, because the question really needs to be refined a lot to be answered empirically.

hands

Ridiculous Upside.
Really, and I’ll have a post on this tomorrow morning, is that it all comes down to opportunity.
Small school/big school, drafted/undrafted really can influence their NBA cred. The NBA would rather sign a player with NBA experience rather than a player with more potential.
There are plenty of players outside of the D-League that have all of the skills mentioned, so it just takes an opportunity to let them showcase their talent.

nebulous question as possible just to generate tons of hilarious answers~

like sabonis4ever “it”

sophia

All other measurable statistics are identical between the guys on the cusp and the guys who make it. This makes total sense in baseball, since hitting is about picking up small differences in the pitch. Guys like Bonds, Texiera etc. all seem to have 20-10 vision when they enter the league, amazingly.

 I’m less sure for basketball though. Could eyesight matter?

I almost forgot. Court vision — being able to see what is transpiring on the court and reacting to it is maybe the biggest. Think Larry Bird, Bill Walton, Magic, Roy, Paul. If you have this along with an ability to score, and you’re kinda of tall, and have quickness, and you’re willing to work hard, you’re in!

http://www.ridiculousupside.com/2009/5/13/873823/what-separates-nba-players-from

I.E. Do they look good on TV?