herbert jones – Page 2 – Syndication Server

Herb Jones makes impressive plays on both ends of the court at NBA Summer League

Herb is showing what he can do!

Former Alabama basketball star Herb Jones was drafted by the New Orleans Pelicans in the second round of the 2021 NBA draft with the 35th pick. He joins fellow former Crimson Tide standout Kira Lewis Jr., who was drafted in the first round of the 2020 draft by the Pelicans.

Jones played over 21 minutes in the Pelicans’ summer league win over the Chicago Bulls. His stats, which consisted of 6 points, 5 rebounds, 4 assists, 2 steals and 2 blocks may not make headlines, but he is showing what he’s capable of.

Late in the fourth quarter, Jones made impressive plays on both ends of the court. He blocked a 3-point attempt and then had a beautiful bounce pass assist that led to two points for the Pelicans.

Love everything about it 😍 pic.twitter.com/wS2WeTYewT

— New Orleans Pelicans (@PelicansNBA) August 9, 2021

Roll Tide Wire will continue to follow Jones throughout the summer league and his professional career as he prepares for his rookie season.

Contact/Follow us @RollTideWire on Twitter, and like our page on Facebook to follow ongoing coverage of Alabama news, notes and opinion.

A roundup of NBA sleepers draft analysts are higher on than others

Who owns the most real estate on Davion Mitchell Island? Who is buying stock in Sharife Cooper?

Everyone loves Cade Cunningham. It’s not a hot take for an analyst to say that Cunningham is their favorite player in the class. That’s not particularly interesting to read, either.

But what is fascinating, however, is when an analyst deviates from the norm and ranks someone significantly higher than where the prospect falls in other rankings. What does that tell us about their individual scouting process and what they value? Further, what does that tell us about the potential draftee?

Some folks call it “buying stock” in a player. Others, like ESPN’s Zach Lowe or The Ringer’s Bill Simmons, call it owning real estate on a player’s island. I like to refer to it as a “draft crush” when I wind up higher than consensus in my evaluation of a player.

My process is ridiculously tedious but the results can be fairly useful. I’ve tracked the evolution of more than sixty unique mock drafts, big boards and draft models from trusted analysts and popular accounts on Twitter.

Each placement is assigned a value based on Kevin Pelton’s draft pick trade value chart. I do this because, as Pelton notes, the difference in relative value between the No. 5 overall pick and the No. 7 overall is much more stark than, say, that of the No. 45 pick and the No. 47 pick.

After composing an aggregate score based on each ranking, I can see where each analyst strays from the pack.

I’ll leave the conclusions drawn from these results up to the reader. But if nothing else, this can eventually be used as a bragging point if one writer was higher than consensus on a draftee who eventually ends up outperforming his draft position.

Final 2021 NBA Mock Draft: Latest intel, trade rumors and predicting all 60 picks

Wasn’t it just the 2020 NBA draft? How is the 2021 NBA draft already here? Crazy, maybe, but the league is about to have a ton of new faces.

The names that you’re most likely to hear at the top are Cade Cunningham, Jalen Green and Evan Mobley. But the draft will start heating up once guys like Jalen Suggs, Scottie Barnes and Jonathan Kuminga start to find their new homes.

This draft will also be unique in that there will be fewer players in attendance than usual. According to one prospect who recently spoke to For The Win, due to COVID-19 restrictions, those not invited to the green room are not allowed to come to the stage and shake the hand of the commissioner as they have been in years past.

Regardless of who is actually in the building, however, it is certain to be an exciting and life-changing night for the next generation of NBA talent.

Based on conversations I’ve had with scouts around the league, and from reports and tea leaves left in other mock drafts from trusted draftniks, below is how I project the events will unfold at Barclays Center and on ESPN and ABC at 8:00 p.m. ET on July 29.

2021 aggregate NBA mock draft 7.0: Ranking the full class of prospects

The 2021 NBA draft is less than a week away and we finally have an idea of who is in — and who has withdrawn — from the class.

The 2021 NBA draft is less than a week away and we finally have an idea of who is in – and who has withdrawn – from the class.

In order to get a better sense of where all of the prospects stand as of right now, we compiled mock drafts from NBADraft.net, CBS Sports, Bleacher Report, Yahoo, The Athletic, The Ringer, Yahoo, NBA Big Board and USA TODAY Sports Media Group’s For The Win to see where the prospects rank at the moment.

Please note that these rankings reflect the composite score to get a feel for consensus, not our own opinion.

Since our previous update last month, some of the players with the most positive momentum include Quentin Grimes, Joe Wieskamp, Vrenz Bleijenbergh, Aaron Wiggins, Justin Champagnie, Jericho Sims, Jason Preston, Josh Primo, Neemias Queta, Trey Murphy and Bones Hyland.

Among players who ranked on our previous update who have since withdrawn from the draft include Roko Prkacin (32), Marcus Bagley (39), Terrence Shannon (48), Ariel Hukporti (50), Max Abmas (53), Johnny Juzang (54), Jordan Hall (66), Carlos Alocen (69) and Ochai Agbaji (75).

The most notable omissions who remain in this class but not these rankings are Yves Pons, Scottie Lewis, Jay Huff, Marcus Zegarowski, Aamir Simms, Dalano Banton, Matt Mitchell, Jose Alvarado, Carlik Jones, Derrick Alston Jr., Romeo Weems, Balsa Koprivica, Chaundee Brown, Isaiah Miller, Jordan Schakel and D.J. Carton.

Note that for the offensive roles, we borrowed a fun idea from Todd Whitehead (formerly of Nylon Calculus) with help from our friends at Bball-Index.com to create a slightly tweaked formula from the version they use.

The goal of that is not to explain how well a player scores but rather offer context for the way that he was used on his most recent team. This should help you predict how he might be used at the next level.

Meanwhile, you can learn the latest updates on every single prospect who has been included in recent mock drafts by scrolling below.

HoopsHype’s Alberto de Roa contributed research to this report

2021 NBA Draft Big Board 5.0: Final rankings of the Top 100 prospects

With just over a week left until the 2021 NBA draft at Barclays Center in Brooklyn, it’s officially the most wonderful time of the year!

That means that after a slew of surprising early entry withdrawals impacted the worlds of both college and international basketball, the next generation of NBA talent is getting closer to entering the league. As players finalize their place on big boards in front offices, I wanted to offer my opinion on how I think those rankings should look.

Note that our list is certainly going to look different from the lists at ESPN, The Athletic, Bleacher Report and other publications. Player evaluation is an inexact science. Part of the process is being willing to admit when you were wrong about a player.

But avoiding group-think and ending higher than consensus on a player is how an NBA team ends up selecting them in the draft. With that in mind, here is who I would target if I were running a front office.

Herbert Jones: ‘I don’t care about how many points I score, I just want to have a long career’

Herbert Jones, a 6-foot-7 wing from the Alabama Crimson Tide, is considered to be one of the most versatile defenders in the 2021 NBA draft.

Herbert Jones, a 6-foot-7 wing from the Alabama Crimson Tide, is considered to be one of the most versatile defenders in the 2021 NBA draft.

Jones, the reigning Conference Player of the Year and Defensive Player of the Year in the SEC, increased his three-point percentage from 7.1 percent as a junior all the way to 35.1 percent as a senior. He was the only player in a high-major conference to record a block percentage above 4.0 percent, steal percentage above 3.0 percent and assist percentage above 20.0 percent this past season.

He recently caught up with HoopsHype to discuss how he improved his shooting, how football helped him play better basketball as well as earning Academic All-District honors.

Please note this interview was minorly edited in its transcript for clarity.

New cohort of projected prospects to the Celtics arrive with Early Entry deadline passage

With the Early Entry eligibility deadline passed, a new crop of mocks projecting players for Boston’s No. 45 pick have come out.

With the passing of the 2021 NBA draft’s deadline for Early Entry prospects to pull out of the coming annual event and still retain their NCAA eligibility on July 7, a clearer picture of who will be taken where begins to come into focus.

Particularly later in the second round where the Boston Celtics will potentially make their only current selection of the 2021 draft, having dealt away their No. 16 overall pick in the deal moving on from starting point guard Kemba Walker. And with that clarity comes a crop of new mock drafts with a new group of players one of whom may well end up in a Celtics uniform on opening day next season.

Let’s take a look at the field of projected candidates for Boston’s No. 45 pick.

As the Celtics continue to reshape the organization, an internal and external candidate to work under new team president Brad Stevens have emerged. https://t.co/IBDXMJFFZJ

— The Celtics Wire (@TheCelticsWire) July 9, 2021

2021 NBA Mock Draft 6.0: Predicting all 60 picks after the combine

While most of the basketball world is focused on the NBA Finals, scouts and draftniks are in the midst of a very busy time of year as well.

The most crucial dates leading up to the draft are the NCAA men’s basketball tournament, the early entry application deadline, the lottery, the combine and the early entry withdrawal deadline. All have since come and gone, which means that we’re somehow already in the home stretch before the big night in Brooklyn on July 29.

Prospects are still frantically traveling around the country, visiting with teams for both individual and group workouts in front of key decision-makers. Still, others are currently playing for their national team on the FIBA circuit.

But as far as the public is concerned, the only new information that will be released between now and the draft will be filtered through whatever is reported by journalists. As such, until intel starts rolling in, this mock draft offers the most informed projections yet.

While these predictions are based on my conversations with NBA scouts and executives around the league, as well as my own scouting and information-gathering, they’re subject to change dramatically over the course of the next few weeks.

NBA Mock Draft 5.0: All 60 picks updated after the 2021 lottery

Learn who we think will get selected with each of the 60 picks in the 2021 NBA draft.

The 2021 NBA draft order is set and the Detroit Pistons have won the lottery, taking home the No. 1 overall pick on Tuesday evening.

Of course, these projections are subject to change even over the next few days, as the NBA’s combine is currently underway in Chicago. Prospects are often able to separate themselves and improve their draft stock if they stand out during five-on-five scrimmages that will take place later this week.

Note that there are several players who are currently “testing the waters” (e.g. Texas Tech’s Terrence Shannon Jr., UCLA’s Johnny Juzang, St. John’s Julian Champagnie and Oral Roberts’ Max Abmas, etc.) that were omitted from this mock. Such players will have until midnight on July 8 to decide if they wish to return to the NCAA and improve their draft stock or remain in this class.

Unfortunately, collegiate national champion Jared Butler was omitted from our mock after news broke earlier today that he is “not permitted to play or practice” in the NBA, per The Athletic’s Shams Charania, unless his heart condition is deemed as cleared.

We will continue to release more mock drafts as we gather more intel, but until then, here is how we project the draft to shake out on July 29.

2021 NBA Draft Big Board 4.0: Top 100 prospects pre-combine and lottery

Now that the early entry list is officially out and combine invitations have been sent out, the 2021 NBA draft class is starting to finalize.

Now that the early entry deadline has passed and combine invitations have been sent out, the 2021 NBA draft class is starting to finalize.

Last year, the NCAA tournament and the combine were both canceled due to the pandemic. That made evaluations much tougher for scouts and front offices around the league. This year, the pre-draft process feels somewhat normal again for top basketball prospects who are set to join the pros.

As a new class of players prepares to turn professional, here is how we would currently rank this class based on what we have seen from them so far, with some of my picks that are higher than other experts have them ranked.