I was as shocked as anyone to see the Bulls wind up with Doug McDermott. So that begs the question, who is Doug McDermott? Well, if you're a sports fan at any level, you should already know after the season he had last year for Creighton, and him going to Creighton is no excuse for not noticing, because he was the NCAA National Player of the Year last year. The Bulls got a very good player in McDermott.
First, I'll start with comparisons made to McDermott. Adam Morrison and Kyle Korver are both very common comparisons, but both of them are based on very poor reasoning. First off, Adam Morrison is only a comparison because of race and because McDermott can score so much, averaging 27 ppg last year. However, McDermott does a lot of other things well. He's the type of guy with a good nose for the ball who will go in for that rebound, and he's actually a solid defender, despite some false reports from some draft sites. It's likely just assumed. Before I get into the next part, I'll bring up why the Korver comparisons were poor. Korver and McDermott went to the same college and both are great shooters, but McDermott, like I said before, is a more versatile type of player. While Korver was a willing defender, he was not a good defender. McDermott is a solid defender who may look very good under Thibodeau. McDermott's athleticism and quickness will also help him to be able to create his own shot. Korver could come off screens well to get open, but he couldn't create his own shot. This is where McDermott has the potential to be much better than either of those two.
I should make sure I point out that I know McDermott hasn't played a single game in the NBA, a single game for Tom Thibodeau, or anything like that. He was just drafted, and this is all speculation when I say why he's better than certain other players. Moving on, the best comparison I've seen for him is Wally Szczerbiak. Hopefully he can recreate some of Wally's best years. While many may remember Wally's worse years near the end of his career, let's remember that he was a 17-19 ppg type of guy for a while before the injury really set in. Even when he came back he had a good couple of years right after, but the injury just wore him down to wher' e he couldn't play. Knock on wood, McDermott isn't expected to have any major injuries like Wally did.
So what is this athleticism I'm talking about? Well, while in football I think combine measurements are hugely overrated, in basketball they actually have importance. McDermott measured 6'7.75" in shoes (how he'll play and how all players are measured), weighed in at 218, and has a wingspan of 6'9.25" with only 7.1% body fat. The thing that a lot of people didn't expect is that his maximum vertical was 36.5", and his maximum vertical reach was 11'7.5". In the agility drill he wound up with an 11.1, and in the 3/4 court sprint he scored a 3.29. In this year's class, his vertical, max vertical reach, agility, and sprint all put him in the top 25% or so of everyone who participated at the combine. While some of the top guys didn't participate, the sample size was still plenty large to know that he did a very good job. To compare him to the last couple of Bulls first round picks still with the team. Tony Snell was 6'7.25" in shoes and 198 lbs with a wingspan of 6'11.5" and 4.9% body fat. His max vert was 36.5" as well with a maximum reach of 11'10", 10.36 in the agility drill and 3.25 in the sprint. So as you can see, with Snell he's very close. Then with Jimmy Butler, he was the exact same height and 222 lbs with a wingspan of 6'7.5" and 5.4% body fat. His maximum vertical was 39" and maximum reach was 11'8.5". His agility drill was at 11.92, and his sprint clocked in at 3.15. Oh as for benching, didn't do it, 7, and 14, in that order, which is why I didn't include it. Still though, as you can see, as a whole they're all very comparable. McDermott seems to fall right in the middle of the two in almost every way outside of being an inch short on the maximum vertical reach from Butler, who has a 39" vertical. Both guys picked before him are considered to be fairly athletic, so obviously McDermott is as well. His ball handling skills are not quite where either one's are, but they're not horrible either, so he'll be able to drive on occasion, but will probably live on opening himself up for the jumper.
So anyway, who did the Bulls get in McDermott? They got a guy with an unbelievable amount of offensive ability who has the potential to get better as he learns the NBA game. They got a player who is not a liability in any area of the game with the athleticism to be a good player in every area. They got a ton of quality with McDermott.
Now, the second round pick is in now as well. Cameron Bairstow. A lot of mocks had him going to the Bulls. He's big power forward that hustles and can hit the jumper out to about 18'. At 24 he's about as NBA ready as he'll be, so the Bulls will be able to make a quick decision on him. However, he looks to me like a bigger and less athletic version of Erik Murphy. Rather the Bulls made the right move on Murphy or not, if they didn't like Murphy, I can't see them liking Bairstow in the end either. Of course I could be totally off, because all I did was watch some videos (the few that exist) and read about 4 reports on him last night, only bothering because of the number of sites that had the Bulls taking him. I guess he can wind up being a bigger Taj Gibson type (without the length), but don't expect much there. Best of luck to him though, I really do want him to become the best player he can be.
Now, there's only a couple of other things I want to say. First off, despite several embarrassing moments, ESPN actually did better than I expected in covering the event. They can surely find someone better than Rece Davis to be the head guy. He's just the typical "make a huge situation out of nothing" sensationalist type of journalist that I really feel has no place in journalism in general, much less in sports. However, it's what supposedly draws people to that news source, which is a very sad thing to say about our society, that we prefer sensationalism over accuracy, but then again, with networks like Fox News and CNN it's no surprise. Anyway, another thing I noticed, on the positive side, was just the demeanor of both Mark Tatum and Adam Silver. First off, Adam Silver has to be the best commissioner in sports right now, he's done an outstanding job so far. Second, neither of those guys had the same smug demeanor that David Stern had. I bounced back and forth on Stern, usually in the opposite direction of where the rest of the public was on him, but his smug demeanor was just such a turnoff to so many fans, myself included. It was like if someone disagreed with him, he was positive that he was right and they were wrong, and he wouldn't even consider anything different. It was annoying, and honestly I think he turned off a lot of fans. The whole Isaiah Austin thing still wouldn't get the smugness off of him. However, with Silver I see someone who comes off as a genuine guy, someone who seems to have a good heart and just gives off the perception of a good person, and perception is the most important thing. Then Mark Tatum came on for the last round, and I expected things to change, but they didn't, he came off as a good guy as well. That's a very welcome change to the league. Just the way both of them conduct themselves makes them look like good, regular type of people while still being highly respectable.
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