Apologies in advance for the small text on the table below.  You can see the entire cache of numbers here on a document we saved at Google Docs (fully sortable).  Alternatively, check the list (also sortable) over at DraftExpress, who we owe our eternal thanks to for providing these initial numbers.   

So what we’ve done here is color code highlight the best five (light green) and worst five (beige) performances in each category.  For basketball purposes, we’re assuming that height, weight and length are good things, body fat is a bad thing, and athletic ability in terms of vertical jump, agility and sprint times are valued.  For example, Brook Lopez was one of the tallest, heaviest and longest players at the camp (as expected), but his lane agility time of 12.77 seconds makes Shaq look like a gazelle (ok, maybe not that bad…). 

Anyway, for now we wanted to throw the numbers up and start digesting them.  We’ll have our thoughts on some of the surprises at the bottom later this afternoon.  Enjoy. 

Thoughts:

The Lonny Baxter Award.  The biggest surprise that we saw this year was that Michael Beasley stands only 6’7 in socks (6’8 with shoes).  How is this possible?  How can the most dominant big man in the history of freshmen all-time only stand at 6’8 in his Nikes????  Can Beasley play 3 at the next level?  Chicago must be asking itself the same question.

Yes, Baxter Really Is Two Feet Tall

Well, it’s a good thing they’ve got the option of the next Jason Kidd in Derrick Rose then, right?  Oh wait, Rose is only 6’1.5 in socks ( 6’2.5 with shoes), a solid couple of inches shorter than Kidd, and more on par with Isiah Thomas and Chris Paul as comparisons.  The good news is that Rose can fly outta the gym with his 40″ vertical leap and his 3.05 3/4 court time, both third best in the camp this year.

One more player suffering from shrinkage this year is Joey Dorsey (6’6).  The Mouth of the South is lucky that he has such an unbelievable plastic-man wingspan (7’11) for his size, or he wouldn’t even be getting a sniff from the professional ranks. 

Legit Bigs.  Brook Lopez and Javale McGee are legitimately 6’11 in socks, David Padgett isn’t far off (6’10.25), while DeAndre Jordan is just shy of 6’10.  McGee, Lopez and Jordan all have wingspans of 7’6 (Lopez is a half-inch shy) and utterly ridiculous reaches of over 9’5.  The most intriguing big man is John Riek, the postgraduate high school student who certifiably stunk up the camp, but comes in at 6’10.5 with a nearly 7’9 wingspan and a reach reported (but unverified) at 9’10.  Ummm… ok. 

Feeling a Little Doughy.  Kevin Love said that he’s dropped fifteen pounds since the F4, but his body fat percentage (12.9%) belies a ways to go.  His size was a little shorter than expected (nearly 6’8), but his vertical leap was better than expected (35″), so he may end up being ok at the next level, given his already skilled face-up game.  The Tubbiest Player Award goes to Kentrell Gransberry, who clocked in at 17.4% body fat.  It showed in his ups as well, as his at 27.5″ was one of the lowest five of the camp. 

Best All-Around Athlete.  This is a tough call, but we’re going with Eric Gordon.  He has a top five vertical leap of 40″, which is simply eyepopping, he was also in the top five in the 3/4 court sprint (3.1 seconds), and he managed to bench the 185-lb bar fifteen times, which is significantly more than some other young guards (OJ Mayo – 7; DJ Augustin – 2).  Derrick Rose is also a consideration, as he can also get way up and is speedy all over the court.  But We’ll give second place to DeMarcus Nelson, who finished in the top five in both the lane agility drill (10.54 seconds) and the 3/4 court sprint (3.13 seconds), in addition to having a 38.5″ vertical leap and benching the bar nineteen times.  We give the nod, though, to Gordon based on his relative youth and the possibility of those numbers getting significantly better.

E-Giddy Is All Kinds of Athleticized

Other Minutiae.   Jerryd Bayless is a great athlete, but his wingspan is astonishingly short (6’3.5) for a 6’2 guy.  Don’t expect Bayless to ever become a tremendous on-the-ball defender with those arms.  Sonny Weems and Joe Alexander are two more players who tested well athletically, as Weems finished in the top five in the agility and sprint drills, while Alexander finished in the top five in the bench press and sprint drills.   This combine was not good to DJ Augustin – he appeared small and weak based on the numbers.  Shouldn’t a 5’10 sophomore be able to do more than two bench presses at that weight by now?

It sure is boring without basketball on the tube…

• Alabama PG and former all-american Ronald Steele made the smart decision and is heading back to Tuscaloosa for his senior campaign.  Oops – maybe not yet. 
• Arizona’s Nic Wise has decided to stick it out at UA – he had previously said he was transferring.  Since Lute finally got to the end of his divorce fiasco, maybe the good folks in the desert can get back to worrying about basketball this year. 
• More OJ Mayo scandal – getting an Attorney General involved is never a good thing (unless Elliot Spitzer is springing for the booze and hos). 
• Gary Parrish points out that former Iowa St. reject and D-League star Mike Taylor’s solid week at the NBA Predraft Camp in Orlando last week fashions him a sort of trailblazer for knuckleheads who can’t stick with college programs but still want a direct route to the NBA.  Um, good luck with that. 
• How similar is this year’s draft class to the 1996 class? 

Over the next couple of weeks, we’re going to be rolling out our profiles of several of the top expected prospects in the 2008 NBA Draft. Figuring that we’re not the only ones who’ve thought of this, we decided to enlist some help by asking several of the best school-specific bloggers in the land to give us the up-close-and-personal profile of the players they’ve spent all year watching. For example, we probably watched OJ Mayo play 12 times this year, but we were limited by his games that were on national television and other competing games at the same time. These bloggers know these players – their strengths, their weaknesses, whether they become Black Mamba or channel C-Webb in the clutch, and what kind of team they would best fit with at the next level.

With that said, our first submission is from the most excellent USC blog, Conquest Chronicles. They’re clearly a football-centric blog over there at CC, but they do a solid job supporting and analyzing Tim Floyd’s program in addition to Pete Carroll’s.  Here is their post on the always-controversial OJ Mayo.

Player Profile – Ovinton J’Anthony (O.J.) Mayo

Ht: 6-4 / 6-5
Wt: 190-200lbs
Position: PG, SG
Date of Birth: 11/05/1987

OFFENSE –

Positives:

* Consistent in 3-Point Range.
 
* Ability to create and make big plays.
 
* Good ball handler and a great passer.

* Strong Basketball IQ.   

Negatives:

* Mid-Range Game – Solid, but could use improvement.

* Can be turnover prone – more turnovers than assists.

* Sometimes forgets he is on a team, tries to do too much on his own.

* Takes a lot of shots.

DEFENSE –

Positives:

* He has solid lateral movement and a nice wingspan, which helps him stick with quicker guards.

* His size allows him to guard bigger PG’s and SG’s. He will become a lock-down type of defender.

* His extensive AAU experience makes him a seasoned vet against top-notch players.  

* Knows how to play aggressive defense without getting into foul trouble.

Negatives:

* Tends to gamble and play over aggressively at times.

* Not strong off picks.

* Tends to float at times and let his player gain positioning for put-backs.

* Can struggle against physical/aggressive guards.  

ANALYSIS –

Not since LeBron James has a player been as hyped as much as O.J. Mayo has. The amount of press and exposure that Mayo garnered in the years before he ever set foot on a college court is staggering. Playing high school basketball from the time he was in seventh grade, Mayo had been dubbed by the media as the next big thing. As a high school senior, he averaged 29.6 points, 5.0 rebounds and 4.9 assists.

He is an immediate impact player that can play both PG and SG. As a freshman at USC in 2007-08 Mayo averaged 20.7 points, 4.5 rebounds and 3.3 assists. He recorded a 44.2 percent field-goal percentage and shot 40.9 percent from behind the arc. Mayo routinely makes highlight plays as he can seemingly score at will. He possesses poise and great all around skills; he is a fierce competitor. Mayo plays the game with a tremendous amount of confidence, desire and intensity. He has a great knowledge of the game, as it comes naturally to him.

Mayo led the Trojans in scoring, steals (51), three-pointers (88 ) and assists (109), while setting the single-season USC freshman record for points (684) and three-pointers. His total points were the second-most ever in a season for a USC player, and he ranks third in three-pointers in the school’s history. Mayo’s 20.7 ppg average is the second-highest in history for a freshman in the Pac-10, trailing only California’s Shareef Abdur-Rahim who netted an average of 21.1 ppg in 1995-96. He failed to score double-digit figures just once in his 33-game career.

Mayo is capable of guarding either the one or two position at the NBA level, and is particularly effective on the perimeter where he can force the issue. He proved himself on the defensive end of the court in a Dec. 4 overtime loss to Memphis, where he limited Derrick Rose to just nine points and four assists. Sometimes Mayo gets tunnel vision and wants to break down the whole defense by himself. Granted, he can get on a hot streak, but as the point guard, he needs to remember his teammates. He can sometimes get too enamored with the three-point shot.

Most feel that Mayo is a physical specimen with the ideal NBA body that most every team covets. He possesses the athleticism, versatility, and, most importantly, the talent needed to succeed at the next level. Most notable was the fluidity in which he executes his step-back and pull-up moves, particularly the agility and power in which he glides around with his sharp cuts, hops and strides to create space for himself on different parts of the floor, showing very little wasted movement and looking absolutely natural and incredibly confident executing very difficult sequences that will make him extremely difficult to defend at the next level.

Because Mayo has been hyped for such a long time, expectations at the next level could be unrealistic, so expectations should be tempered and his coaches at the next level need to keep Mayo from overextending himself to do too much. Those who watched him closely at USC say he could be one of the elite scorers in the NBA right off the bat and has the potential to become a special player for years to come.