Workout 6: Marcus Bagley, Arthur Kaluma, Elijah McCadden, Filip Rebraca, David Singleton, and Oscar Tshiebwe

2 comments

1. Ngl I forgot Marcus Bagley existed. Surprised he didn’t come out in the draft a couple of years ago. He was shooting threes close to 40% iirc.

2. Oh boy that’s incredibly gross.

   1. Oscar Tshiebwe

   Look, someone’s got to be first. Tshiebwe has exactly 1 niche use case. He has effectively 0 offensive skill, as a non-passer, non-handler, non-finisher, and only an average midrange jumper to justify himself. He’s a weak defender with poor feel and no leaping ability so he’s not at all a credible rim protector. But he is the best rebounder in this class, even if that’s clearly not going to translate against serious opposition since he’s undersized and can’t jump, and he is able to slide laterally at a level only DaRon Holmes, Adem Bona, and Victor Wembanyama beat among C’s (Which is to say it’s not a major selling point but he can at least do it) which means he has some small potential to crush small ball units and that’s about it. Overall, not worth a draft pick, probably an okay two-way who will murder the underequipped G League but unlikely to ever be usable at the NBA level.

   2. Marcus Bagley

   Look, I get it. Bagley played 17 games in 3 seasons. The first 2 seasons he mostly missed while injured, and the 3rd he was basically suspended by his team for throwing a fit about playing time. He also wasn’t exactly great in year 1, the one year he actually did play meaningful amounts of time, shooting only 34.7% as a guy who was primarily a shooter. But he did show really, really good shot prep abilities during that freshman year. Like potential best in class at the process of shooting before the point where he actually touched the ball. He also had an elite level HS career, which we might be able to conceive of recapturing. I’m not advocating for any serious investment here — wouldn’t even give him a two-way — but this workout group is abysmal so he is the 2nd best just off the strength of those two things.

   3. David Singleton

   Singleton plays acceptable, if slightly below average defense, makes his 3’s (extremely efficiently) in acceptable, if slight below average volume, and that’s pretty much it. He’s not exceptional, but there are worse role players to have around. His average case is almost certainly higher than Bagley’s, but there’s just no upside here, and the 5th guy on UCLA has occasionally hidden some mind-numbingly bad decision-makers which may be the case here. Overall, also an E10 guy.

   4. Arthur Kaluma

   Depending on who you ask on most boards, Kaluma would either be 1st in this class or 2nd behind Tshiebwe, and potentially in line for a second. This fact will be taught in journalism classes for years to come as the product of journalistic dishonesty. Kaluma is a legitimately awful player whose feel caused me to throw out multiple entire games worth of tape because the guy I wanted to watch on the opposing team was his matchup and every single good thing the other guy did was because Kaluma screwed up so badly that all he had to do was walk it in. The only reason Kaluma is ranked as highly as he is is that DraftExpress have repeatedly ranked him excessively high while failing to disclose that Kaluma plays for the Ugandan national team, which Mike Schmitz (formerly DraftExpress, now of the Portland Trailblazers) consults heavily for. Never mind that they started pushing his name for hype exactly when he agreed to play for the Ugandan National team. Kaluma is a poor dribbler, a poor shooter, a poor finisher. and a poor defender, whose only positive traits are his good but not elite athletic tools and his finishing. He’s 4th on this list because the other two guys are just absolutely nothing, but good organizations do not put any serious resources into Arthur Kaluma. I would not want him on the G League team for anything more than the base salary, and even that would be on an extremely tight leash.

   5. Filip Rebraca

   Rebraca’s most noteworthy trait is having been born in Sombor, home of Nikola Jokic. For actual basketball stuff, he’s a post-bound 6’9″ C with no shooting range, so while he has extremely moderate amounts of passing and shotblocking skill (neither of them good enough for him to be relevant or make a whole end of the court prospect level), he’s just a guy with clearly no shot at the NBA. You’d rather bet on Kaluma’s tools, even though Kaluma’s totally incompetent at basketball, basically. Basically, back of the G League roster and no E10, but every G League roster needs bigs so he ranks ahead of the other guy.

   6. Elijah McCadden

   McCadden is another unskilled athlete — gets to the rim and finishes there, but his shot is comically broken with the ball going all the way behind his head, so every team is just going to sag 15 feet off. He’s not a particularly good passer, nor a particularly good defender, and in spite of his skill as a finisher and the rate at which Memphis ran, he only put up 11 dunks this season (which, to be clear, is a good number, it’s just not the elite one he would need to be relevant). I probably would not even bother with a G League spot here — just too many good guards out there.