2026 NBA draft thread

[Winter]

He will be around 6'4" in shoes. I don't see any issues with his measurement.  I don't see elite athleticism as a must for a PG either.  Elite athletes and PGs are a relatively newer phenomenon and even there truly elite athletes playing PG like Westbrook are rare.  Kyrie , Steph are not considered great defensively and it's their offensive skill more than raw athleticism that sets them apart. Even Westbrook for all his athletic prowess, was never a great defensive player.

If you go slightly back, there are tons of PGs who were not great athletes, but knew how to take care of the ball and run a team. 

The questions surrounding Philon are going to be wrt his shooting ability and if his 2nd year jump is a indicator of true potential or an aberration. If it's the former, he could well turn out to be one of the best guards in this class.  Elite athlete or not.

I don't actually disagree with the details of your post here, but we now measure a lot of very specific information regarding agility and strength. It's important to know if players have the strength to break through screens, have explosive first steps, or are strong enough back up opposing players in isolation. I agree that it sometimes makes no difference to a PG who can run a team well. But if those measurements didn't matter at all, then the data gurus wouldn't be measuring them. I suspect they are important for draft placement more than anything.

I don't really know that much about Philon's overall game because I haven't watched much video on him... and I didn't think he was a real option for where we picked. My personal feeling is there doesn't seem like there's a lot of space between any of the many PGs in the first round. Philon may very well turn out to be good. But I suspect there's been enough game video, analytics, and testing to know that he's probably not going to be as good as the PGs above him in his overall impact on the team. All of them have been testing well in almost every aspect (except for Flemings wingspan).