Note: This is the third piece in a series of features making a case for each top prospect as the No. 1 pick. Last week I made the case for Karl-Anthony Towns and D'Angelo Russell. Today we discuss Emmanuel Mudiay. I took an initial look at Mudiay's season in China here. Today we go in depth on what has been happening since he returned to the U.S. in March.
LOS ANGELES -- In a world of draft stock and hype, Emmanuel Mudiay is invisible.
Out of sight. Out of mind.
That's what happens when you spend the year playing 12 games in China, most of them far away from the view of NBA scouts, and even farther away from NBA decision-makers like general managers, coaches and owners. Mudiay hasn't played a game of 5-on-5 since early March. He skipped the draft combine, leaving NBA folks even more frustrated. No physicals. No interviews. Nothing.
After I tweeted I was at the 360 Gym in Reseda on Friday to watch Mudiay work out, my phone began buzzing with texts and phone calls from all over the NBA. I was one of the first people outside Mudiay's inner circle to see him play basketball in months.
Everyone had the same question. How did he look?
The answer? Better than he looked in practices and games at the Nike Hoop Summit in April 2014, when a number of GMs had him pegged as a top-two prospect in the NBA draft.
So good, in fact, that I have no doubt had he stayed at SMU and played for Larry Brown instead of heading to China, he'd be No. 2 (where he debuted on Big Board 1.0) right now, just weeks from the draft.
As he begins NBA team workouts (he visited the Lakers on Saturday and will meet the Knicks on Tuesday), the question is, can he still make a strong case to be the No. 1 pick?
Just 14 months ago, Mudiay was a serious contender for that spot based on his raw athleticism, size and speed. He had just finished a week of practices and a game at the Nike Hoop Summit, where he was on the court with Jahlil Okafor, Towns, Justise Winslow, Stanley Johnson, Kelly Oubre, Myles Turner, Tyus Jones and Clint Capela. Hundreds of NBA scouts and executives were in attendance.
Mudiay had 20 points, 5 rebounds and 5 assists, and a number of GMs believed he had the potential to be the top player in the draft.
Teams salivated over the idea that Brown could smooth out Mudiay's rough edges at SMU and make him a star.
But in July, Mudiay shocked everyone by announcing that he would forgo his freshman season at SMU, play professionally in China and sign a lucrative deal with Under Armour.
No one in the NBA was thrilled with the arrangement. Scouting Mudiay in China would be much more difficult. Young American players such as Brandon Jennings and Jeremy Tyler struggled when they skipped college to play pro ball overseas as 18-year-olds. Nevertheless, virtually every team I spoke with believed that at the end of the day, Mudiay's exodus to China wouldn't have a negative effect on his draft stock.
Dante Exum, who didn't play a minute of college ball and spent most of the season working out at a gym in Los Angeles by himself, had just gone No. 5 in the 2014 draft. Exum was thought to go possibly as high as No. 2 to Milwaukee. And Exum, for all of his talent, didn't have the upside that Mudiay had.
But there were two unforeseen developments.
One, Mudiay sprained his ankle in November, nine games into the Chinese league season. Just a handful of NBA scouts and an even fewer number of NBA execs had been able to make the trip to China to see him before he was injured. Most executives and scouts were planning on heading over in early December. But Mudiay played in just two more games -- in the playoffs in March -- and even then he was a last-minute addition. To my knowledge, no significant NBA decision-makers were able to get there in time to see him play.
Second, teams didn't factor in "recency bias," which occurs when we are swayed by the most recent information received. In essence, people tend to devalue information received in the past and overvalue the most current data. It comes up all the time in NBA scouting. Opinions from decision-makers are often swayed by how a player performed in March Madness, for example. And the NCAA tournament usually is the last time a team has seen a prospect play.
So while everyone loved Mudiay in April 2014 (the last time they saw him play), someone like Ohio State's D'Angelo Russell ranks ahead now. Last season, most NBA folks didn't have Russell ranked as a first-rounder. A year later, unable to see Mudiay play a game and after the terrific season Russell had, they now believe Russell is better.
The memory of Mudiay's play has lost urgency and weight. It's also difficult to quantify what Mudiay did in China in those 12 games he played when you factor in his age, the system in China and the relatively small sample size.
Our own Kevin Pelton created a statistical Chinese CBA-to-NBA translation of his stats in March. Pelton's conclusion? Mudiay's performance in China confirmed him as a top-5 pick.
What isn't clear is how well Russell would've fared in China. He's a better shooter and largely considered a better passer, but would he have held up as well in a league with much more physicality?
Russell was both initially underrated and improved dramatically as a freshman, but there's no evidence that Mudiay was underrated and no evidence that he didn't improve during his stint in China. In fact, when talking to Brown and an NBA scout who did see him in China, it's pretty clear that Mudiay might have been slightly underrated in July and that his experience in China was a plus.
The comps that SCHOENE (Pelton's projection system) made for Mudiay (Derrick Rose, John Wall and Jrue Holiday) all suggest that he's going to be a stud. After watching him for myself in a workout on Friday, I believe it to be true.
While I think Towns is the best prospect in this draft, Mudiay is the next most intriguing physical prospect. He does incredible things for a player his size. And as far as the experience in China? Mudiay has developed both physically and mentally in ways that will be hard for the other top players in the draft to match.
The physical gifts
The first thing that stands out about Mudiay when he took the floor on Friday was his sheer size. He measured at 6-foot-5½ with a 6-10 wingspan at his workout with the Lakers. He has added nine pounds of muscle since I saw him in April.
Physically, he already looks like an NBA veteran. And he's just 19.
Mudiay said the change to his body came out of necessity. The Chinese Basketball league is filled with NBA veterans and very loose officiating. He just got beaten up over there.
"The biggest adjustment for me was the physicality," Mudiay told ESPN.com. "It was ridiculous. They miss a lot of calls over there. I had to spend a lot of time in the weight room every single day. I dedicated myself to working on my body. At this point, I'm not trying to separate myself by saying this, but a lot of kids my age don't pay attention to their body this early. So by me going over there, that's another plus. By me focusing on my body, I feel like I'm more ready than most for the league."
The strength training hasn't just made him stronger. It also has made him more explosive. While Mudiay was always considered a good athlete, he wasn't necessarily a powerful one. His athleticism showed up more in quickness than elevation. But after watching him go through the workout in Los Angeles, he has definitely improved his vertical.
Compare him with the other elite point guards in this draft -- Russell, Cameron Payne, Tyus Jones, Jerian Grant, Delon Wright -- none has his combination of size, strength or athleticism.
Mudiay also picked up an incredible work ethic in China. He powered through the workout on Friday in ways that few young prospects can typically handle. I asked him about it after the workout and he credited his time in China.
"I learned a lot over there," Mudiay said. "Their work ethic is just ridiculous. They work so hard ... I did two-a-days in China, going hard, going hard every day. I came back here and understood what it was going to take. I take everything serious. It's a job now. It's not playing around like when you're a kid. I want to feed my family."
When it came to the skills portion of the workout, Mudiay showed improvement there as well, especially on his jump shot.
Last year, Mudiay's jumper was one of the biggest concerns scouts had about his game. Although he had made major strides during his senior season, it still was considered more of a liability. Mudiay shot 34 percent from 3 in his 12 games in China (13-for-38), though his sample size was very small. More of a concern is the fact he shot just 57 percent from the free throw line.
Shooting has been a major point of emphasis since he hurt his ankle in November, and on Friday, his stroke looked much improved. Mudiay is never going to be Stephen Curry. But his jump shot goes in -- a lot. He went through several stretches in the workout on Friday where he hit 4-of-5 in spot-up shooting from NBA 3-point range, from every position on the floor. He was even more accurate as he got to the college 3 and midrange game.
He still needs to quicken the release of the jumper and work on consistency, but he's not a non-shooter in the mold of someone like Rajon Rondo. As for his free throws, that definitely needs more work.
An NBA scout who watched him in China said: "His shot is OK. It's not broken. He can hit shots from anywhere on the floor. It's more about shot selection. At times he was forcing shots."
As for the other things -- ballhandling, quickness and creativity -- Mudiay has it. He's going to impress the Lakers, Knicks, Sixers and Timberwolves in workouts. He'll impress them to the point they'll all seriously rethink where he is right now on their boards.
"He's so impressive," trainer Joe Abunassar said after the workout. He compares Mudiay to a young Chauncey Billups or Baron Davis. "I've been doing this for a lot of years. So many of the kids we train don't know how to work. You have to push, push, push. Emmanuel, from day one, knew how to work. He knows how to prepare. He wants to get better. He already acts and carries himself like a pro. The maturity is incredible. You forget he's 19. You don't see that every day. And you especially don't see that when you factor in his physical tools."
Beyond his years
The on-court stuff is not the most impressive thing about Mudiay. It's the maturity he exudes when you sit down and talk with him.
There are a number of really great young people in this draft. Towns is incredibly likable and intelligent. So is Russell. But Mudiay talks like a 10-year veteran who just gets it.
When discussing his decision to skip SMU to play in China, he talked about his mother, who raised him by herself after his father died when he was 1½, who moved him from the Democratic Republic of the Congo to Dallas when he was 5, who worked 12-hour days to support her family.
"A lot of people think it was because I couldn't get into SMU," Mudiay said. "But I got cleared to go to SMU. Everything was fine there. But I decided to help my mom out. She was struggling at the time.
"People can say what they say. I don't pay attention to that. I only care what God says, to be honest with you. You are going to have critics in life. People are going to talk but you can't feed into that and I don't feed into that. I try to inspire other people by what I did. My mom had been the backbone of our family since I was born. She's been the man and the woman. She's my motivation. To see her work 7 to 7. I didn't want her to go on like that no more."
Mudiay said the decision also was a savvy basketball one. It may not help his draft stock, but what he wanted was to get better. In his mind, that meant playing against other pros, not college kids.
"I wanted to focus solely on basketball," Mudiay said. "I had grown up playing with older people and I wanted the chance to play with professionals and see how I fared. I knew I wanted to play in the NBA, that was my goal. So why not try to challenge myself by going to a pro league? They play with NBA rules in China. [They have a] 24-second shot clock. I didn't want to come into the league as a kid. I wanted experience."
As for the experience of living in China itself?
"It's different. I don't know many people who can do it. There were grown men ready to go home -- some of them did go home. At the same time, I knew I had to do it. Basketball saved me. Every time I stepped onto the court, it didn't matter where I was at. Basketball is a universal language."
And when an ankle injury forced him to miss several months, he was alone in a strange country. "That's when I had to find myself," he said.
Find himself he did. After a year in China, he's stronger, faster and more skilled. He's more confident in his ability to play with the pros.
And he's humbled.
"I was in a poverty spot in Guangdong," Mudiay said. "I wasn't in Beijing or Shanghai. Here I am from Dallas, a big city. I don't take stuff for granted anymore. When I came back, I was so grateful for what I had."
And hungry.
"It's going to mean more to her [his mother] than me," Mudiay said when I asked him what it will mean to hear his name called on draft night. "I look at it like, yes, it's an accomplishment. But the real work actually starts when your name gets called. After my name gets called, I'm at zero. You got to put in the work. It's a celebration, but to me, you want to keep this feeling for a very long time. I haven't made anything. The real game has just started."
Several years ago, a former NBA GM relayed to me a conversation he had with his top-10 pick the day after he was drafted.
The news conference was over and the GM invited the rookie into his office to chat. At some point in the conversation, the GM told the rookie that he'd be getting his first check soon, and before he could finish, the rookie responded: "Just make it out to the 'Max.' I'm going to be a superstar."
"It was at that moment," the GM told me, "that I knew I had made a mistake. We drafted the wrong person. He had no idea what type of work it would take to make that type of money. The amount of effort that the top players expend to be the best. He already thought he made it."
The rookie lasted four seasons in the NBA, and only one with the team that drafted him. He never averaged more than 10 points per game.
The good ones -- the great ones -- are always hungry. They're always aware their best selves lie somewhere beyond the horizon. No matter the destination at which they arrive, it is never final nor fulfilling.
The real work to become an NBA star happens away from the hype. It takes place in the shadows and takes years to achieve that greatness.
The process is invisible to most.
Emmanuel Mudiay gets that.
Invisible to you doesn't mean that it doesn't exist.
On June 25, he'll be invisible no more.