Written by Noah Poinar

---

Do you remember when John Wall was considered the sovereign standard of new-wave point guards?  Do you remember simply hoping Kyrie Irving would be half the player Wall was?  Do you remember coming to the sudden realization—about a month or so into the season— that Kyrie Irving was, and is, the indomitably better point guard?  Do you remember when a lot of people were deprecating the Cavs for taking Irving over Derrick Williams?  

 

During last Wednesday’s lottery, I found myself in the .01 percentile.  I was actually happy that the Cavs wound up with the fourth pick.  Sure, like everyone else I was huddled around a ouija board, with my fingers crossed as I waited to see if the Cavs were going to land that prized No. 1 pick.  But all along, I wanted nothing to do with the second pick, nor did I want much to do with the third.  

When it comes to Michael Kidd-Gilchrist, I'm in the minority.  I’d take his services if the league handed him over to the Cavs free of charge, but I’m not comfortable using a top ten pick on the guy.  If the Cavs fancy MKG—and I suspect that they do—he’ll probably end up being a Cavalier.  The only way this doesn't happen is if another teams gets to him first, and that seems to be what will happen with either Charlotte or Washington taking him 2 or 3.  (Hence, why I was completely cool with the Cavs getting the fourth pick.)  I’m really hoping Washington takes him at 3.  He’s a perfect fit next to John Wall.  In fact, as far as small forwards go, he is John Wall. 

I don’t like the Cavs taking Gilchrist for the same reason I wouldn’t want to trade Kyrie Irving for John Wall.   Simply put, Irving is better.   "Better" isn't the word I am looking for though; rather, Irving just has the higher basketball IQ. (and a jump shot.)  Basketball IQ part is what John Wall lacks most.  It's his biggest flaw.    Compared to Wall, Kyrie seems to know the game on an entire different level.  He looks as if he's been in the league for three years now.  That's really the main difference between the two point guards, and it's a BIG difference.  As of right now, that's the advantage Barnes looks to have over MKG.   He's got his flaws, but he's one of the more knowledgeable in the college game.  You'd expect this from someone who's been in college for two years though, so I'm not exactly knocking Gilchrist.     

Look, I like Gilchrist, but at this point, seeing as how it's very unlikely he becomes a Cleveland Cavalier, you might as well make an honest attempt to convince yourself that he won't be that great.   

Maybe Doug Gotlieb can help  out.  He has Gilchrist ranked as his 12th best prospect.  I copied and pasted what he wrote.  If you don’t have ESPNInsider you owe me an eighth of a cent for the gesture. 

“He played a lot of 4 in college, has a funky jumper and probably translates into a defensive specialist who can rebound and score in transition, but not really wow anyone on offense. If he's closer to 6-5 (instead of 6-7, his listed height at UK), which is shooting guard size, then what is he? A great kid to have on your team who will fight and scrap and become a double-digit scorer, but not an NBA All-Star, and maybe not a consistent starter.”

Ok, so maybe saying Gilchrist won't be that great is going a little too far.  The truth is that he probably will be good.  Really good.  The thing is, there's a good chance Harrison Barnes ends up being better.  So really, all along I've never been high on the Cavs taking MKG only because Harrison Barnes happens to be in the same draft class.    

According to Chad Ford (on ESPNCleveland 850), the Cavs were extremely high on Barnes last season.  High enough to definitively say that, had he entered the draft, they would have taken him at No. 4 if he was on the board.  But odds are, he probably wouldn’t have fell to No. 4 last year.  This year we can all but assure he will.  If he and Bradley Beal are both there, do the Cavs have the vigor to pass on Barnes?   Sounds like a no brainer, I know.   But being able to nab the guy who you were so high on last year is the most karmic of all opportunities.  They could've potentially drafted this guy last year if he had declared.  That would have meant no Irving.  Now they might have the opportunity to get both.    

Ultimately, getting the fourth pick in this draft might turn out to be serendipity at its best.  Definition of serendipity: the phenomenon of finding valuable or agreeable things not sought for.  But really, it could end up being so much more.  There’s a really good chance Harrison Barnes is the best talent in this draft.  

I can’t help but to feel as if we’re missing the boat on Barnes.   

The 20 year old North Carolina product remains one of the more misunderstood prospects in years.  Technically, big boards should have him right behind Anthony Davis, but for a variety of mixed, flawed, and biased reasons he’s far from viewed that way.  

 His biggest “flaw,” if you can legitimately call it that, is that he failed to live up to the prodigal hype, where everyone had him pegged as the next Kobe Bryant.   His shortcomings overshadowed the fact that, not only is he one of the safest picks in this draft, but still probably the most talented and well put together; just as he was coming out of high school two years ago.          

When we think of Harrison Barnes we think of the player who never hit his projected ceiling, and we’re left remembering how hellacious he performed in the waning moments of his college career in the NCAA tournament.   These focal memories make it easy to glaze over his rather stellar college career.  And it was a pretty stellar career, all considering.  We forget that he once scored 40 points in a game; that he scored 18 or more points in each of the four games UNC played in the 2011 tournament; that during the final 2 month stretch he carried his team on his back to a improbable #2 seed—when earlier in the year it looked as if they might miss the field of 68 completely.  He also hit a few game winners along the way (which I only mention because we’re all about that stuff these days).  Everything I just mention happened in his freshman season too.

 alt=""

 

So what did he do in his second year?

 

Well, first, he made the choice to return for his second year.  In doing so he became a year older; the roster talent around him became better—four of the five starters will likely be drafted in the first round this year; point guard Kendal Marshal got injured smack dab in the middle of the tournament and Barnes ended up looking like shit and probably lost a couple thousand $ on his first rookie contract; and all in all, despite posting slightly better numbers, he never actually made the leap that we expected him to make from his first season to the next. 

This forces me to ask, what “leap” were we waiting for?

Last year there were a number of Cavs fans foaming from the mouth at the prospective chance to land either Barnes, Perry Jones III, or Jared Sullinger?  (That was probably just me foaming though)  As you may recall, the three of them were frightened away by the impending and unavoidable NBA lockout, so they went back to school for their sophomore seasons.  This year the three of them declared for the draft only to find that we think less of them now.  Way less.  They didn’t show any significant improvement from one year to the next, so we reacted by slamming their stock.  

Really though, that’s what’s expected any time a guy returns to school after having had a successful freshman campaign.  Draft-stock-wise, nothing good can ever come from it. 

There has never been a projected top five draft prospect who returned for a second season and ended up actually improving his stock.  Never.  That’s why guys like Harrison Barnes don’t return for their sophomore years.  It’s why John Calipari forced MKG (against his own will) to enter the draft.  The fact of the matter is it rarely happens.  This, mostly because NBA lockouts rarely happen.   

Take Perry Jones III.  Along with Barnes, he was considered to be a probable No. 1 selection last year.  This year he’s been the punching bag of every draft scout.  They keep knocking him because he often “disappears” for long stretches of the game, and is too passive.  They blame it on both the lack of proper coaching and Jones’ absence of a killer instinct.  Really though, he’s just a talented player who spent the last two seasons playing college ball.  A talented player who stayed in school one year too long.  A talented player who, much like Harrison Barnes, should be drafted ahead of Kansas’ Thomas Robinson, but most likely won’t.

 

Because of all of this, we have a wing player, Michael Kidd-Gilchrist—who doesn’t have an outside game and really didn’t have a set position in college—rated ahead of him.

 

Chances are that you’re one of the many enamored with Michael Kidd-Gilchrist, and not Barnes.  You aren’t the only one.  Plenty of scouts and league executives feel the same way about the Kentucky freshman.  A lot of this has to do with his talent, a lot has to do with his tender age of 18, but most of it has to do with his being a top recruit that played under John Calipari.  

Calipari’s two visibly noticeable goals as a coach in the collegiate game are (1) annually fielding a talented enough team to compete for a National Championship by targeting a slew of talented one and done’s and (2) putting those one and done’s in the best position to maximize their natural talent, funneling them directly to the top the NBA draft.     

You’d be surprised how few coaches do this.  Virtually none of them do, which is why so many people despise John Calipari for all of the underlying mitigations that his method has brought to the game.   He runs his program(s) like it were an NBA team, producing high end, NBA-ready talent on a annual basis.  Or at least, sometimes, perceived-to-be-ready NBA talent.   

 

The opposite can be said about North Carolina’s Roy Williams.  Correction, we can say the opposite about nearly every other coach/program on the college level for that matter.  Like Kentucky, UNC is annually littered with talent.  Unlike Calipari, Williams manages and coaches his talent like, you know...like it were a college basketball team.  This involves utilizing the 30 second shot-clock to your advantage by working the ball around trying to find the best best, and it involves scripted plays.  Lots and lots of scripted plays.  (The underlying reason we don't see many dominant stars at the college level.)   This isn’t a bad thing, it just has the tendency to knock a volume shooter like Barnes off his game and hurt his stock and his personal Brand.   

 

But perhaps brand maximization wasn’t at the forefront of Barnes’ mind.  If it were, he probably would have ended up at Kentucky or some mediocre Big 12 school where he could have been the scoring machine that he was born to be.  Or he would have done the most obvious thing and declared for the draft last year.     

 

With Barnes, there’s no question regarding the authenticity of his height and the whereabouts of his jump shot.  There’s no asking, “Is he a three or a four at the next level?” either.  He’s the prototypical NBA wing with a pure blend of size and necessary skill.  As an added bonus, he seems to be a humble, laid back and an all around good guy; always the deal breaker.    

 

When it boils down to it, what Harrison Barnes was able to overcome and accomplish is pretty remarkable considering how his career began.  If anything, he proved that he was one of the more consistent, top level talents in the college ranks.  Compared to Sullinger and Jones, he hasn’t slipped nearly as much.  He’s slowly but surely making his way back into legitimate top 5 conversations.  He’s only in this conversation because, unlike any of the other teams in the lottery, the Cavs are the only team with a point guard who is likely a top 10 overall talent in three to four years.  If there’s one thing all the scouts can agree on it’s that Barnes would benefit most from a good point guard.