🏀 KuBuckets Archive

Creating a topic for stories in the coming days for Joel Embiid and his decisions.

!Joel Embiid ↗

Embiid tweets he still hasn't made NBA decision yet ↗

After a Yahoo! story Thursday morning said that Kansas center Joel Embiid would be turning pro, the freshman sent out a tweet that seemed to refute the report.

Keegan: For Our Sakes, Embiid Should Stay at KU ↗

I hope that Kansas University freshman center Joel Embiid returns for a second year. My motives are pure, as in purely selfish.

I have decided to stay on kubuckets for one more year before I take my talents to south beach.

@VailHawk You know with this whole internet thing you could move to South beach and still be connected??{[Sarcasm font]}

I believe that it is inevitable that Joel is going to go. there are a couple of good reasons that leads to delay the announcement. The longer he delays the more people talk about him And and up the excitement about his decision. The moment he announces they have to move on to a new topic to talk about. Also if you get the impression that he is really considering coming back to college in maybe the NBA front offices will think is injury is not that big of a deal.

Sorry for horrible grammar on mobile device.

@Blown thx for your input but try and stay on topic! We've moved on to my announcement and how I'm taking my time pondering a good response to @JRyman

My "team" is researching whether or not they actually have the internet in south beach. I need at least a 28.8 connection but I suspect they only have 14.4.

Stay tuned

@VailHawk I also heard you are not doing autographs anymore???? Is this true?

@VailHawk Make sure you have sand protection on your laptop or mobile device. That and that salt air can really cause some damage to an actual keyboard.

You may want to take your blogging to the Southwest, the air is dryer there.

@VailHawk Well that's good; if you were an OAD I might have advised against recruiting you ...

@bskeet-After the "Smart debacle" there is no way he should be professionally advised to return. He is still way too high on the board for that to even be a possibility. But with other top recruits (Turner) still unsigned I feel relatively confident that Bill is in the loop for the alternative, regardless of the news presented to the general public. I personally think in his heart, Joel really wants to come back, but the pressure to leave is far greater than we could ever imagine, ever...
..... in millions of years...($$$$) !!

I also idealistically feel it is not really fair for a kid to have to make a decision regarding the way of life for, potentially, his entire family. But in all honesty & perspective, many of our ancestors were in exactly those circumstances when they were young people, many at even the age of children making life & death judgments, i.e.; he Civil War, WW11, Vietnam, etc. Is a shame a kid can't just be a kid anymore, & tho I would like to be a little younger & still have more of life's adventures afore rather than in arrears, I 'm thankful I was blessed enough to be young in a much simpler place in time. In all honesty I am just not jealous of the futures of young people in general. In fact I'm actually quite apprehensive about it.

@globaljaybird I don't think Smart is a good comparison. Smart was going to get drafted on intangibles. Embiids qualities are quite tangible. 7ft. tall, good foot work, nimble, 7ft. tall rapidly advancing offensive and defensive game, 7ft. tall.

I think Jared Sullinger would be a better cautionary tale. But I also think better role models would be multi-year bigs who stick in the league like: Shaq (wasn't big enough as a freshman) Tim Duncan (needed to work on fundamentals) Hakeem (actually was raw). There are way more quality bigs who spent 3 years in college than 1.

Unfortunately the trend is toward shorter college careers so they don't get exposed. The players get drafted on potential not production. This also leads to a crappy NBA with talented players with no classic college coaching to draw upon. You can't tell me Dean Smith didn't help mould Michael Jordan. You can't possibly convince me that continuity in coaching and on court playing time can be replaced by bench time and lots of practice. I don't care how good your trainers are.

2-3 years of Bill Self, Coach K, even Calipari will prepare these guys much better for the next level.

I have seen the numbers. Yes most players can only improve the first contract by %25 which doesn't cover the lost year of pay. However, the real money is in the second contract (ask Paul Pierce or Greg Ostertag). It doesn't matter if they sign for less money because they stayed an extra; year as long as you are truly a stud. If you are trying to hide a deficiency then go pro while you can you aren't getting a second contract anyway (Selby, JuJu).

As Bilas said earlier in the season, "He's the real deal."
Embiid is a stud he doesn't have to go this year if he doesn't want to. He will still be a top 5 pick next year as long as his back problems are exactly as reported. If his back is worse than reported and he can hide his injury during his physical he'd better go.

@dylans Great post, good points. Stress fractures can almost be mystical. Remember Bill Walton was in the L for roughly 13 years &on the DL for appx 11 of those years with repeated stress fractures in his feet (foot)? If the goods are damaged he really has little choice. But wow, what he could become for us to enjoy should he return?!

@dylans 2-3 years of Bill Self, Coach K, even Calipari will prepare these guys much better for the next level.

A lot of scouts have said that guys that have played for Calipari have shown little to no improvement under him. Most notably Anthony Davis, he didn't have a great rookie year and he is just now starting to come on offensively in his second year. John Wall has never done much in the league but win a dunk contest, and Rose scores a lot and take a lot of shots for a point guard.

I would have used Williams, Miller or even Wright over Calipari to get guys ready for the league, not just drafted high.

@globaljaybird
Global you are dead on about being apprehensive about youngsters and the future. My guess is many of us here had parents that experienced some part of the GreatDepression and WW2. Yet they made the most of it and in comparison my youth was a gravy train and my future was mine to go get. While my teenage kids have had a ton of great experiences and made the most of them, the US isn't what it was -our debt problems among others and I worry about their future-perhaps several generations are at risk.

And of course these KU athletes are under a media microscope to boot. I feel for them-that they don't get to be kids at all

Honest question. If you were in Embiid's gigantic shoes and given that you will be one of the top 3 pick and there might be potential health issues, would you stay in college or would you go to the NBA?

To me the answer is a no- brainer, go to the NBA.

@JayHawkFanToo I agree. I would go if I was Jo Jo. Of course his situation is a bit unique since he did not grow up dreaming of the NBA but it would still be difficult to put off a big pay day for another year.

I give him a 10% chance of returning. I hope I am wrong. If I am I plan to do cartwheels around my house. He could be so so special next year if he is in a KU uniform.

@JayhawkRock78 As an adolescent, some of the most signifigant technological changes we had to navigate & comprehend were 2 channel radio (LOL stereo), 8 track tapes & reverberators, electric typewriters, FM radio, power windows, automatic transmissions, & color tv. I literally cut my teeth listening to KU BB on a 1940's Hoffman shortwave. Don't get me started about what the future holds for our Grandchildren with only about 10% of our GNP coming from our own manufacturing sector. The flippin Arabs & the Asians are holding all our markers too. We geared up Rosie the Riveter in WW11 to manufacture what it took to win a conventional war, but we can barely purchase any product anymore that is made in the US. I'd like nothing more than to hold a National Bonfire Day accordingly. My Mother worked at the old ammunition plant near Desoto KS & that is now one of the top ten (or thereabouts) most toxic waste sites in the US. Our politicians have flat sold us out to lobbyists & the almighty dollar in my eyes, & make themselves more aggrandized each second while continuing to minimize the citizen only making the taxpayers more & more supplemental & obligated to the entire process. Like @brooksmd says. "I believe in change-vote em all out." If I were thinking about starting a family in this day & age, I'm not sure that would even be a realistic goal. I should stop at once & not stray from the topic as this can be a real HOT button & I prefer to keep posters from suffering from my rants. While it "ticks me off" that Bill may or may not do this or that or the other, politics REALLY DOES piss me off !! And you can't even make a friggin R, Lee Ermy joke about being locked & loaded anymore either with the flippin NSA tracking every trite little move the general public makes. Sorry I'll refrain.

@dylans Did not intend to be a comparison of skillsets , but merely following professional advice. Surely no agent in his right mind told Smart to return while being a potential lottery pick. If that were the case, those agents need to find a new line of work.

@dylans Surely no agent in his right mind told Smart to return while being a potential lottery pick.

I don't think he is an agent but I am guess T Boone Pickens might had a hand (in his wallet) in Smart staying one more year thinking OKst could get a conf title.

@JRyman 2-3 years of Bill Self, Coach K, even Calipari will prepare these guys much better for the next level.

A lot of scouts have said that guys that have played for Calipari have shown little to no improvement under him. Most notably Anthony Davis, he didn't have a great rookie year and he is just now starting to come on offensively in his second year. John Wall has never done much in the league but win a dunk contest, and Rose scores a lot and take a lot of shots for a point guard.

I would have used Williams, Miller or even Wright over Calipari to get guys ready for the league, not just drafted high.

Those are better examples of good coaches. I don't think highly of the squid, but your examples are all oad players. And honestly the guy has been to 4 final fours with 3 different teams and has one won tournament.(don't check the record books though)

OAD players don't get the benefit of learning more than the basic system (even Cal's basic system). Any system/complicated job requires more than one cycle to master. At my job I train interns over the coarse of a summer. The job constantly evolves as the summer progresses, but year to year there are many similarities. It generally takes at least one season to break any bad habits and replace them with good habits. The interns that come back a second summer learn how to apply the knowledge that they acquired the first year. This helps them to identify both strengths and weaknesses. It truly takes three years to get into a grove in my profession as in basketball.