Plaisted sucks...plain and simple. Very athletic but full of himself and has no skills from outside of 8 feet from the basket. And when down low if they take away his left side hes done for. There was one game of his that he impressed me and that was against UNC, but we still lost so who cares. He was such a weenie when it came to rebounding...I never saw him crash the boards with much effort. If the ball didn't bounce straight too him he would just watch the ball go into another players hands instead of fighting for it... Plaisted is destined for Europe to become a has-been...or a never was. I won't miss you and your freakin' huge nose, Trent. I wish you luck though, I just think you will regret not staying for one more year to maybe take advantage of the resources available too you. Such as amazing coaches, trainers, and one more year of seasoning... Hey maybe the Bulls will take a chance on you though with the #1 pick just like the Bucks took Bogut with the #1 pick a few years ago (I bet the bucks are kicking themselves now that they see D-Will and CP3 emerging as superstars and Bogut nothing more than a role player)...Adios Amigo!

craigoscarson wrote:

Conosticator wrote:

Hengst wrote:

http://sports.espn.go.com/nba/draft2008/columns/st

no plaisted in the first round, what a surprise :dry:

Your acting as if Trent needs to be lottery pick to justify his decision. I'm sure he knew all too well that he wasn't getting the type of coaching he needed at BYU to improve his chance of playing in the NBA. Therefore it made no sense for him to stick around for another year of the same lack of developmental opportunity. At some point one has to consider the opportunity to provide for one's family vs playing the game in exchange for a scholarship.

I'm more concerned about future potential BYU players. If Trent is able to quickly address those missing components in his game, what does that say about the quality of BYU's coaching of their big men? Don't take me wrong here. I'm support Coach Rose, but I do see three weaknesses in his coaching style:

I don't want to see another big man come to BYU and show good ability his Frosh year and then only minor improvement (if any) after that. If the player is serious about his game, I imagine it would be frustrating to not get the type of coaching needed to improve his game.

I don't get this neccessity for a big man guru on the coaching staff. If anything I think the best thing a big guy gets out of a good school is their athletic trainers and facilities; BYU is top notch there. My guess is that Trent didnt' take much advatage of having a guy like Jay Omer there at his disposal.

Very rarely does a basketball coach make a guy a better pro prospect; especially true if you consider the majority of top picks are freshmen and sophs; many guys become better pros than they were college players (ex: vince carter, michael jordan, dwayne wade, etc.) Does this mean that they weren't properly coached in college? (No)
So lets' take that leap about worrying about recruiting....What school has a lock on producing great big men? Do you honestly think that Michael Beasley went to Kstate because of their great history with big men?
Since when did Ohio State become the place that Greg Oden was going to become a great big?
Why would anyone attend Duke if you were basing your decision on the type of pros they produce? Aside from Boozer and Brand, (and possibly Deng) nearly every all american from Duke has been a bust in the league. J Williams, Reddick, Laettner, Ferry, Duhon, Langdon, (don't even get me started on Chris Burgess) etc. etc. etc.
While you're at it, name me a big man that Roy Williams,Bobby Knight or Dean Smith made good pros. Eric Montross anyone? Brendon Haywood? Greg Ostertag? (Honestly the only 2 guys I can think of off the top of my head that consistently produced solid NBA worthy big men are John Thompson Sr. and Rick Majerus)

Stanford has produced big man after big man, (Madsen, Borchardt, Collins twins, now the Lopez boys) and being family friends with their asst. coach Nick Robinson, I can tell you that they don't have a big man guru.

Great players are born, not coached and carved out of stone. They either get the most out of less by working their tails off (like a Steve Nash) or have developed enormous skill to go with their fabulous genetics (Kevin Garnett). Very rarely does a nobody come to school (especially a 7 foot nobody) and leave school a somebody. There is too much AAU and spring, summer hoops. The coaches know who the players are long before they end up at school. Some fall through the cracks (Nick Fazekas, Stephen Curry, Paul Milsap, JC Carrol, etc.) but that's extremely rare. Usually you know a future NBAer from day 1. They only improve or digress from that point. The great Utes of the last 15 years were great the day they stepped foot on campus (Van Horn, Bogut, etc.) The great Cougars have been the same (Ainge, Durrant, Smith). I'm sorry but coaching NCAA hoops is not about producing better pros, it's about building good college hoops teams.

To me, this sounds like Trent ducking the responsibility for not improving because in actuality: #1 not loving the game of basketball (if you dont' love it why spend 8 hours a day practicing on your own) #2 just being plain stupid and unteachable (the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over the same way but expecting different results) #3 Being lazy - (You' re 6'11", you don't shoot outside so you have 3 college years to beef up, get up to 255-260 lbs and become a glass eater yet fail to get there- there is no room in the NBA for 6'11" guys that tap dance in the block) #4 Having terrible advisors that think he's much better than the rest of the world.

Those that think that he'll get more teaching and attention at the next level are absolutely dense. It's a business there, guys are not coddled like they are in college; they're expected to be pros and act like pros-which means improving on your own. The lack of serious effort in the weight room and on his own in a dark quiet gym with no one cheering him on are his problem; I don't see how that's going to change; especially if he's going to try to blame the coaching staff for his lack of improvement.

Can you imagine someone like Larry Bird blaming his lack of success because he wasn't coached up enough?

So do you think if Trent had come back his Senior year it would have changed his draft status? I highly doubt it. The place where your draft status moves up or down is in all the camps and work-outs where you go up against other NBA-type players and get the coaching you need. If you look at the thread on Plaisted's work in one of the camps, he's given a pretty good assessment. They actually talk about his hustle and the fact that he's a good learner. If you were Plaisted would you honestly come back for another year?

Your argument doesn't even make any sense to me. You say that Trent should have come back, but point out that so many guys from big name schools did really well in college, but didn't make it in the pro's and that many guys who weren't that great of college players, but who had a lot of potential have made it big in the pro's. If anyone that's played at BYU recently had a ton of potential it's Trent. Did he reach his potential, no, but you've just proven that many guys don't reach their potential until they get to the NBA and get the coaching they need to get them there. Am I saying that Trent will go in the first round, no, but if he's drafted it will be for the amount of potential that he has. People are already talking about his athleticism. Coming back another year wouldn't have done anything for him.

Also, have you ever heard of Shane Battier or Grant Hill? They both played at Duke and have done pretty well in the NBA. Beasley went to K-State because Huggins was there.

You'd have to be crazy not to see that players can gain greatly by having a solid season with a winning team.
Do you honestly think that Adam Morrison became a lottery pick based on his workouts with the scouts?
Did Arajuo earn his contract during the season or in work outs?

Did Bogut impress in workouts or on the court in their deep NCAA runs?

And obviously you didnt' read by statements that well because even though those guys werent' great pros, they got great pro contracts. Something Trent will never sniff. My point in bringing up those programs and the players that they produced, is that coaches and programs don't make great NBA players.

To your last point, considering their college careers, Grant Hill and Shane Battier have been considered flops in the pros. For different reasons (Hill with injuries and Battier with a limited game and marginal athleticism) neither played worthy of their college accolades and draft positions; and Huggins was gone prior to the ink drying on Beasleys signature; he could have gone anywhere he wanted but was recruited by Frank Martin. How do I know? I live a stones throw from that campus.....

Again, I have to disagree with anyones assessment that coming back wouldn't have helped him. If BYU made a sweet sixteen run or better next season, you don't think he would have been a 1st rounder this year? Youre nuts if you don't think so. Many a player has earned themselves 1st round or lottery position based on the strength of one season and/or a deep NCAA run with their team.

Trent sold at the lowest his value could be. How could you not assume that there's a possibility that he could have improved his stock?

Honestly, some of you just won't believe this until Trent gets drafted late in the 2nd round or not at all; flounders in summer camp or his rookie year and is never heard from again. Then there will always be "what if..." Just like, what if Luke Staley kept going to classes so he could have returned for his senior season after busting his leg again. Or what if John Walsh had listened to Lavell and others and stayed for his senior season?

I just think that his supporting cast next year would have been good enough to trick an NBA exec into thinking that Trent was a better investment than he is. (it happens all the time-ala Morrison, Haffa, etc. etc. etc.) This argument is strictly about the kind of contract that Trent could have gotten and the length of time he could have rode the pine before getting the boot. I don't think there's much argument that he's not NBA worthy as a player; if there is, you need to go back and look at some tape. But certainly, you don't have to be a great player to get a good contract; you just have to be at the right place at the right time. It nevers hurts for that place to be deep in the NCAAs and it's one true and tested way to find yourself overvalued and with a fat rookie contract. Just ask Haffa (and he didn't even win an NCAA game)

Trent is selling in a buyers market. That's not the way to get the most out of your value. He's going to become a disposable 2nd round pick when it's entirely possible that he could have easily earned himself a 1st round contract next season. The difference between those contracts alone is worth staying the extra year; especially when the highers a team drafts you, the more the tendency is to hold onto you and attempt to salvage your draft value. The later you go, the more disposable you are and to say that Trent will be disposable is quite the understatement.

craigoscarson,

So first you say you think he could possibly go first round if he'd come back or at least improved his draft status, then you go on to say that he's not an NBA player. Interesting. So what is the difference between great college players who played on great teams (ie. Montross, Haywood, Laetner) who didn't make it in the pro's and great college players who played on great teams who did make it in the pro's?

So are you saying that teams didn't look at Araujo and Bogut during workouts to solidify their assessment of what they saw in him during the season? Why does the NBA even have workouts and camps or why does the NFL have the combine and pro-days? I highly doubt that if Bogut and Araujo performed poorly in workouts they would have been drated very high. Araujo didn't play on a much better team than Trent anyway, neither got out of the first round. You earn your contract in a combination of what you did in the season and in your workouts. Both are very important. I don't think if Trent came back for his senior year that he'd be drafted in the first round anyway, so why not leave this year and the possibility of getting injured? Comparing Plaisted and Staley is a bad comparison, BTW.

Sounds like we are having an only faith vs. only works argument. Both the college performance as well as the camps and workouts are critical to the assessment of an NBA prospect.

Also, outside the elite players (like Bird, Jordan, etc. that were cited), coaching makes ALL the difference in how a player contributes to the game. And coaching does especially contribute a great deal to how a big man develops. They work on positioning, steps toward or away from the basket and finishing touch around the basket. Those necessary techniques are developed through evaluation and controlled practice scenarios.

One example of an arguably elite big man who has improved due to coaching is Dwight Howard. The Magic brought in Ewing specifically to work with him and he has improved because of it. When he started, he was not an ambi-turner when moving to the basket and his rebounding positioning needed work. I would argue that each year has seen improvement in those areas due in large part to the work that he is doing with Ewing.

So basically we come back to the only faith vs. only works argument. The entire cross-section is important, not just one aspect.

Oh, and I don't get where people come from saying that Trent P. is a bad basketball player. Did he not develop into the elite, super dominant player that we had hoped and that he had the potential? Yeah. But he is a darn good ball player and will be missed at BYU. It still remains to be seen what will happen at the next level.

Conosticator wrote:
[quote]Hengst wrote:

http://sports.espn.go.com/nba/draft2008/columns/st

no plaisted in the first round, what a surprise :dry:

1) Limited development of his big men (need to work on facing the basket, hitting the short to mid range jumper, and getting serious about boxing out on rebounds),

2) Not using his pt guard more to penetrate and pass off or make the shot,

3) over-dependence upon the 3-pt shot (this could become a huge problem when the 3-pt distance is increased).

quote]

Don't forget to add:

4) In ability to make adjustments during a game.