Everything you need to know about Brandon Knight

[mercury]

i just heard scottie pippen say he thinks knight is the greatest player to ever play. take that for what it's worth.....

Scottie is gay.. he just saw knight on flashback night (short shorts).

[yargs]

billups was a shoot first PG too. he learned, over time, to run a team and be a better distributor. the days of a true pass first PG are over IMO. the game is different today and i think you NEED a PG with a scorer's mentality. you also need that guy to have the ability to organize the team and get them to run their offense at times too. knight IMO has more than enough basketball smarts to do that and do that really well. he's still very young (19) and will grow into the position. but he has all the tools we want and need for him to be a really good one.

and you're right- he has the moxie and the big shot ability. he's fearless in the clutch and that is a huge quality to have especially in a kid so young. not to mention he's really young but he is NOT one of these kids who is so into himself (eh-em, *LEBRON*) that he pursues the glory more than the win. knight is a team first guy and is very humble while still having the passion and drive to be a great one.

can't wait to see this kid get started.......

To me, I see very little of chauncey billups in brandon knight other their potential ability to lead a team and their ability to hit an outside shot (although they both take their shots at different spots on the floor). I also think they both create an atmosphere of "winning" which I think rubs off on teammates although it took chauncey some time to learn this. Knight won multiple championships in high school, would have won one in the ncaas perhaps if he took the last shot instead of lamb, considering he hit game winners against both princeton and #1 seed Ohio St., and was that national player of the year twice in high school...the 2 players previous to knight that won that award as juniors were Greg Oden and Lebron James).

Regardless, Knight is much quicker and uses it to get inside the paint differently than chauncey. Billups uses his physical advantage to get inside the paint and really wasn't a guy that created off the dribble that much (hence he didn't turn the ball over). Knight takes risks and has the ability to make more things happen with the basketball than billups. He doesn't always make the smartest play but that's because I think he was asked to be more of a scorer than he actually is.

Although I like that knight set the record for freshmen at kentucky in points and 3-pt field goals (and they've had some pretty good freshmen) I still don't think he's "only" a scorer. Calipari is a coach that asks his point guard to do what's best for his team. When Derrick Rose was a freshman under calipari he was asked to pass the ball since they had so many other scoring options on that great memphis team. Now in the pros he's become much more of a scorer than "unselfish point guard".

With kentucky heading into last year their top 4 scorers left for the NBA (wall, cousins, patterson, bledsoe) which left a gaping hole to find someone that could put the ball in the basket. Terrence Jones was supposed to be that guy and in some ways he failed miserably (to the point where calipari called him a "selfish mother fucker") leaving his point guard being asked to carry more of the scoring load and be more selfish than a calipari-coached point guard usually is.

And knight did a commendable job although I never got the impression that he was completely comfortable in that role (he had some piss poor shooting efforts yet didn't stop shooting). Still, I think he's smart enough to understand that if you play on a roster full of shooters you probably should pass the ball to some of them (and the pistons do have guys that can hit jump shots).

It will be fun to watch. At the very least we'll have someone other than stuckey being asked to run the team which is potentially the best bit of news I've heard in decades.

Having said that, despite all the good I'm still not completely sold on knight yet as he seems to lack that incredible quickness and burst of a derrick rose, chris paul, isiah thomas or some of the best point guards. He also needs to improve his handles a little. Still, you've got to like a guy with his belief in his ability to succeed and finding a point guard with legitimate skills, espcially a guy that can shoot like him. Not many people get drafted anymore that actually have identifiable skills at their position, most are drafted on potential.

[Atticus771]

I'm good Gla, no worries. Stuckey isn't likely to go anywhere. He's a good compliment to Knight, in my opinion. If you watched the Joe D/Gores presser on Pistons.com, Joe seemed pretty excited about that tandem. So, I hope the BG/Rip fans are OK, because one or both of them are more likely to depart, in my estimation.

Rip to Utah looks good to me right now. They have a glut of bigs just like we have a glut of guards.

[Higherwarrior]

yeah i agree- knight's game is comparable to billups only in shooting ability and 'clutch' quality (fearlessness, moxie, leadership, whatever). physically they play very differently. knight is much more athletic and quicker and is a much better finisher in the paint.

knight is not a freak athlete or lightning quick but IMO he's more than quick enough to be really good. a player doesn't necessarily have to be at the top echelon at his position in physical charcteristics- as long as he can get where he wants/needs to go and make the plays. i think that's knight. he does have to improve his ball handling and be a more consistent/selective shooter but again- i think his basketball IQ will lead him to learn this and master these qualities when surrounded with an nba roster. there will be bumps in the road but he has the determination to be as good as he can be, and IMO that will one day be an allstar quality player and a great floor general/clutch performer.

[Glenn]

Wearing uniform #0.

Changed his mind, going with #7, Ben Gordon is switching to #8.

[yargs]

yeah i agree- knight's game is comparable to billups only in shooting ability and 'clutch' quality (fearlessness, moxie, leadership, whatever). physically they play very differently. knight is much more athletic and quicker and is a much better finisher in the paint.

knight is not a freak athlete or lightning quick but IMO he's more than quick enough to be really good. a player doesn't necessarily have to be at the top echelon at his position in physical charcteristics- as long as he can get where he wants/needs to go and make the plays. i think that's knight. he does have to improve his ball handling and be a more consistent/selective shooter but again- i think his basketball IQ will lead him to learn this and master these qualities when surrounded with an nba roster. there will be bumps in the road but he has the determination to be as good as he can be, and IMO that will one day be an allstar quality player and a great floor general/clutch performer.

I agree, you and I are on the same page on this. It's not like he isn't quick or is atrocious at handling the ball (just watch what he did against princeton when everyone knew he was taking the last shot). In a way, I'm nit-picking when I say those are negatives. People just need to watch what he did in the tourney starting with his game winner against princeton, his DOMINATION against west virginia (a very athletic and good defensive team), his cold-blooded game winner against ohio state and his HUGE 3-point shot against UNC that killed the tarheels and won that game after they were clawing back all game and finally got there...only to get the dagger through the heart.

Knight won me over in that tourney. And with his basketball pedigree of success (championships, awards, big shots, etc.) I'm still a bit shocked he fell to #8. Thank god for $hitty NBA franchises like the cavs, t-wolves, raptors, kings, bobcats, etc. for being consistently bad at everything they do. There's no way this kid should have fallen to #8.

[Glenn]

Boners for everyone!

[Higherwarrior]

agreed yargs. when it matters, this kid rises to the occasion. he just has 'it'.

i said a while ago that i'd take him over irving. he has more upside IMO and the character (sorry to use that overused term!) to fulfill that upside/potential. i think he quite possibly could end up as the best player from this draft and IMO will at the least be one of the top 3-4 guys, for sure.

what i loved about his freshman year is his improvement from start to finish. he had a rough start and some rocky times along the way, but he grew, matured, learned, and improved. he figured out what he needed to do given the talent around him and by the tourney he was their floor general. you can't underestimate the guts and intangibles it takes for a guy to want be have the ball in his hands in the biggest pressure situations. only a limited few players TRULY want that and can come through in those situations. it's a very, very rare quality and that, along with his obvious physical skills and his determination to be as good as he can be (another thing lacking in MANY highly talented players) makes me as excited about him as any draft pick since....grant hill perhaps...?

he's 19 so i'm not going to put tons of pressure on this kid. but i think in time we'll all look back and be thrilled that brandon knight fell into our laps. we have a LOOOOONG road ahead to get this team where we want it to be. but it's picks like this that can change a franchise. we need to make a lot more right moves/draft picks/signings/trades. but this is a huge step forward IMO.

[BIG BEN'S FRO]

Kelly Dwyer on Yahoo draft grades:

Detroit Pistons
Additions: Brandon Knight, Kyle Singler, Vernon Macklin.
Grade: D
Ugh.
I don't understand the hype behind Knight. I understand that he has promise, a sprightly nature, and a few years to go before we can ably judge him, but that's the case for quite a few guards his age who have contributed much, much more at this age. Toss in Detroit's already-crowded backcourt and the fact that it wasa pick away from possibly adding a needed big man, and I just have to shake my head at yet another blown chance.
Singler seems like a fringe jack of all trades, and Macklin is a big man who averaged 5.4 rebounds per game last year despite working at 24 years of age.
Greg Monroe's(notes) pretty awesome, though. Let's just watch him, again.

[Fool]

Troof.