Bagley or Ayton

[Bryan_Wilson]

Originally Posted by hayth.james.g

Ayton was hardly dominant defensively.

Agreed. His defense is actually the only real knock against him imo. A guy with the tools and size he has should not have such pedestrian blocks and steals stats in college basketball. And worse he shouldn't look as poor as he does at things like defensive rotations and sadly, effort. I agree with the ayon over bagley part just not the dominant defense part. Hopefully one day but not even remotely close right now.

[Scoobay]

Originally Posted by Bryan_Wilson

Agreed. His defense is actually the only real knock against him imo. A guy with the tools and size he has should not have such pedestrian blocks and steals stats in college basketball. And worse he shouldn't look as poor as he does at things like defensive rotations and sadly, effort. I agree with the ayon over bagley part just not the dominant defense part. Hopefully one day but not even remotely close right now.

sorry to pile on but Olajuwon was an athletic, dominant defensive player in college. he worked hard to develop the post game and shooting to where it was in the peak of his career but his calling card was defense and athleticism (dunking, phi slamma jamma, etc.)

last year of college stats included 16.8 ppg on .675 fg% and .526 FT%, 13.5 rpg, 1.3 ast, 1.6 stls, and 5.6 blocks/game. that was averaging 34 mpg. the year before averaged 5.1 blocks/game in 27+ minutes/game.

Ayton is kinda the opposite - seemingly very well developed offensive game, shooting and all, but nowhere near the factor on defense as Olajuwon.

off the top of my head i can't think of someone who came in and developed a dominant defensive game at center during their NBA career. Most bigs known as rim protectors seem to come in already having that. Ewing average 3+ blocks/game in college. D Rob averaged 4, 5.9, then 4.5 blocks/game his last 3 years of college. Duncan was well over 3 blocks/game in college, etc. I will say that with Ayton we only have his freshman year for comparison whereas these other bigs i'm thinking of had 3 years of college at least. So I'm sure there's hope for him to develop that.