Between now and the June 28 NBA Draft, SUPERSONICS.COM will break down one of the top 15 prospects in the draft per day, getting audio analysis from Sonics Director of Basketball Operations Dave Pendergraft and commentary from Sonics play-by-play broadcaster David Locke and SUPERSONICS.COM's Kevin Pelton. Today, Gonzaga forward Adam Morrison.
Pendergraft's take:
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Locke's take: Dominant. That is the only word that needs to be mentioned when it comes to Adam Morrison. In our exclusive interview on SUPERSONICS.COM with Rick Sund, that is exactly what Sund points out.
Sund’s point is that to dominate at the pro level you probably have to have been dominant somewhere else.
This year’s draft is without dominant players expect for one - Adam Morrison. Every game you watched Morrison play he was the best player on the floor. Every game the game revolved around how he was playing and what he was doing. The jump from the college game to the NBA has never been greater and you need to obviously separate yourself from the talent of the college game.
Scouts are comparing Morrison to Tom Chambers. Scouts can’t stop talking about his ability to make contested shots. One scout talked to me about how he can move his launch position of his jump shot and maintain his fundamentals. He is not sure he has seen that done better.
Morrison will score in the NBA. Morrison will be obsessed with getting better.
Morrison blows the Locke three-part test out of the water. He was the man for every second he played at Gonzaga. There was never a moment where he didn’t have the pressure and when he wasn’t the focus of the defense.
Morrison was just as dominant the first time through the West Coast Conference as he was the next. Thought the talent of the conference is not equal to other top notch conferences he didn’t struggle when his team went to the next level.
In big games, he is bar none the best player in the draft. Against Washington and two players projected as good defenders in the draft (Brandon Roy and Bobby Jones), he dropped 43. Against Michigan State he did the same. In the NCAA tournament game with UCLA he was 10-of-17 from the field for 24 points. In the opening round he busted for 35. He was slowed slightly against Indiana when he had just 14 points and nine rebounds.
Morrison's diabetes is an issue for all the teams. However, if I was an NBA team I would sure make sure there is some reason to believe he will struggle with the transition to the NBA, because is a draft absent of non-commodities I find it hard to believe Morrison doesn’t go #1.
Pelton's take: Scoring is a skill. That sounds obvious, because scorers are skilled players, but my point is that it's not just the ability to finish in the paint or get to the free-throw line or shoot from the perimeter or even create shots, but a mindset as well. Morrison has it. You can make him work for his points, as WCC opponents did during the conference tournament, but he's still going to find a way to score (he was 19-for-27 from the free-throw line during those two games).
So I'm not concerned about whether Morrison can score at this level. The other stuff - now that's a concern. In particular, defense. Morrison's work ethic at that end is an issue, but I'm not sure even if Morrison was completely focused on becoming a great defender that he could do so. One of Morrison's most striking attributes is an upright running style, and he seems to struggle to bend his knees. That is always going to make it difficult for him to move his feet and stay in front of NBA-caliber athletes.
Chambers is one example of many that demonstrates a player need not be even average defensively to be an All-Star, but the teams picking in the top three of this year's draft have to ask themselves whether another player could be a more complete contributor than Morrison.
