Gary Parrish of CBS Sports.com says it is a little too early to discount Kentucky’s Skal Labissiere just because of his recent bad games.
He also brings up a comparison to a former #1 pick that you might be familiar with.
The Kentucky freshman was celebrated coming out of high school and projected to be a top-three pick in the NBA Draft, perhaps even the first overall selection. But he only scored three points in the second game of the season. And he only got four points in his fourth game. And when the Wildcats played another blue-blood program in December, another school that also has championship banners hanging from the rafters of its home arena, he finished with just two points and two rebounds in 19 minutes on the court.
You probably think I’m writing about Skal Labissiere.
But I’m not.
Those words above are about Karl-Anthony Towns.
So let this serve as a reminder that it’s a long season, and that we’re still not even a quarter-of-the-way through it, and that, with few exceptions, freshmen have their ups and downs and often look completely out of place and, yeah, overrated relative to their draft projections. It was once true with Kansas’ Andrew Wiggins, who is now the reigning NBA Rookie of the Year. And last season it was also true with Karl-Anthony Towns, who looked lost at times early, turned-in that two-point, two-rebound effort against North Carolina, and then went on to become the No. 1 pick of the 2015 NBA Draft. He’s now averaging 13.9 points and 9.2 rebounds for the Minnesota Timberwolves.
As for Labissiere, undeniably, he’s struggled the past two games. He only had six points and one rebound in Thursday’s loss at UCLA. He got two points and two rebounds earlier this week against Illinois State. But the 6-foot-11 forward has also scored at least 13 points in half of UK’s contests, and he had a 26-point performance in last month’s win over NJIT.
In other words, chill.
I can’t promise Labissiere is definitely going to break-through, start playing tougher, begin to rebound better and actually become a top-three pick like Wiggins and Towns. But what I can tell you is that it’s too early to speak definitively on the subject, one way or another. That’s something everybody should’ve learned from Wiggins two years ago, then again from Towns last year. And it’s something everybody would be wise to remember now.
You also have to consider what this kid had to endure to get to play at Kentucky.
And if you saw the team he played with last year you would also know this level of basketball is like going from driving a Chevette to a Rolls Royce.
It is different.
