Ryan Blake, assistant director of scouting for the NBA, provides teams with a report on every...

Ryan Blake, assistant director of scouting for the NBA, provides teams with a report on every player in the draft. The dossier for Brandon Jennings includes an asterisk.

Jennings, the first player to skip college and play professionally in Europe, was used sparingly by Pallacanestro Virtus Roma of the Italian League. That left talent evaluators little information on his progress. Thus, the asterisk, and Blake’s unwillingness to predict where Jennings will be picked Thursday in the NBA draft.

"I’m absolutely clueless on this," Blake said.

From an article about Brandon Jennings. I'm not prepared to say that playing in Europe hurt his draft position, but it certainly didn't appear to have helped. Here's another way that making it easier for high school players to spend a year in the D-League would benefit NBA teams - more information on a player, including potential reasons why he may not have played much.

The article also outlines a few situations in which playing in Europe really would have hurt Jennings's prospects, but I don't think they're that likely, at least in this case.

(Sorry for all the Fanshots. Just trying to make up for my time off)

over 2 years ago Jon L 1 comment 0 recs |

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Here certainly hasn't helped himself. But rather by picking the wrong team, instead of cruising around college kids

http://www.ballineurope.com/us-basketball/nba/the-final-brandon-jennings-story/

Here is a pretty damning recap of his year in Europe by an Italian journalist.

In short: It was a bad year for him playing with and against established players. As this author puts it, his season highs were not as high as he promised and came in mostly irrelevant games, and when it mattered and better players were healthy he barely played

I don’t agree in all points, e.g. he neglects to mention skills Jennings improved by all accounts, due to good (assistant) coaches in Rome tutoring him.

And I would side with Jennings that part of it was he and his agent just picked the wrong team stacked with more experienced guards. But it’s definitely worth a read of a contrarian opinion for all fans of his game and potential. Especially regarding a player who accuses other players to be “all hype”.

by Norsktroll on Jun 24, 2009 8:26 PM EDT reply actions