CLEVELAND -- Go ahead. Bet against MKG
Call him offensively challenged. Dissect his shooting hitch. Wring your hands over his ballhandling.
Wonder aloud about the sanity of using the No. 2 pick on a player with his weaknesses.
The NBA draft is a game of labels, and Kidd-Gilchrist doesn't fit many of the ones NBA scouts and draft analysts love to use on top-tier picks. But be careful.
Ask anyone who knows anything about basketball what label should adorn Michael Kidd-Gilchrist as he prepares for the 2012 NBA draft and they all, to a man, say the same thing.
Winner.
"Michael is a flat-out winner," his head coach John Calipari said. "Not because he's one of the nation's best scorers but because of his intangibles, intensity and passion."
Kidd-Gilchrist won a high school state championship as a 15-year-old sophomore. As a 16-year-old, he took home a gold medal as part of Team USA in the FIBA Under-17 World Championships. As an 18-year-old freshman, he was the heart and soul of a Kentucky Wildcats team that won the national championship in April.
In a day and age when NBA scouts, GMs and stat geeks try to quantify everything -- are labels such as "winner" or "intangibles" worthy of the same lofty draft status we attach to "long," "upside" or "scoring machine"? -- we are about to find out.
Kidd-Gilchrist's numbers certainly won't wow you. Scorer won't work as a label. He averaged 11.9 ppg his freshman year. Neither will shooter. He shot 25 percent from 3. He's worn the defender label well the past few years, but he averaged just one block and one steal per game at Kentucky this year. Efficient? His college PER was middling at best.
Neither will Kidd-Gilchrist's vitals: He measured a little under 6-foot-7 with an above-average 6-11 wingspan. Neither will give him a major advantage at the next level. While he's a very good athlete, he's not exactly elite, either.
And neither will his comps aid his stock. Ron Artest without the drama. All very good NBA players. Not All-Stars. Not No. 2 picks in the draft.
Why would anyone take Kidd-Gilchrist with a high lottery pick when he doesn't check off the typical boxes we associate with elite draft picks?
"All of my scouts love him," one GM said. "Actually, 'love' isn't a strong enough word. Our coaches, when they watch him play, beg me to go get him. I've stood back for the past few months saying, 'What about his jump shot?' 'Can he create his own shot?' 'Is he big enough to thrive in the NBA?' I've given up. I love him now more than they do. He has the ability to dramatically affect a game with and without the ball in his hands. Whenever he steps on or off the court, everything changes. He's a winner. He's a leader. That motor he has, the toughness he has, the intensity that he has … those are NBA skills, too."
Winner. Leadership. Motor. Toughness. Intensity. They all pop when you see him on the court. He also is a terrific defender who can guard multiple positions. And while he struggled as a jump-shooter, he was a very effective scorer in transition and cutting to the basket. Scouts who love him also point out that he's the youngest player in the draft. Oh, and a few old-timers say that MKG's best pro comparison may be another versatile forward named Scottie Pippen. But that's not why a team will use a high draft pick on Kidd-Gilchrist.
In all my years of covering the draft, I've never scouted a player quite like him. There's an "X factor" about him that you just have to experience.
The X factor apparently translates into workouts. Kidd-Gilchrist roared through a workout in Cleveland on Friday. The toughness and intensity were all there. So was that hitchy jump shot. But on Friday, at least it was going in. Kidd-Gilchrist shot about 85 percent from the field in the shooting drills. He's also doing a lot of work on his ball handling.
Shooting well in a workout doesn't mean you can shoot in a game. No NBA scout will be fooled by a good shooting day in a workout, especially with MKG's unorthodox shooting form. It's the effort that goes into fixing his jump shot that will impress them.
Trainer Jerry Powell, breathing heavily from the workout, sat down on the court afterward and summed it up. "With most of my clients, my job is to push them. I think Gillie pushes
me. He brings it seven days a week. He brings it to every drill. Every part of the workout. He only has one speed and it's 'Go.'"
Kidd-Gilchrist's legendary work ethic is part of the reason NBA teams are less concerned with some of the weaknesses in his game.
"He clearly needs to improve as a shooter, and he needs to tighten his handle," one NBA scout told ESPN.com. "But I've never been more confident that he'll improve those things than I am with Kidd-Gilchrist. To me, he was the most improved player in college basketball last year. He made major strides from what I saw in high school. He's so committed to his game, he's going to put the sweat equity into it. I totally believe that, and it's why I'm comfortable saying he's worthy of the second pick in the draft and that he's going to be an All-Star someday. And more important to him, I think, he's going to win a championship some day."
Right now, the next championship seems miles away.
Kidd-Gilchrist is miffed by most of the draft process. He told me he was shocked when we put him at No. 3 on our Big Board in late June. He asked me Friday whether he was really going to be the second pick in the draft. Workouts like this are a bit foreign to him.
He's anxious to get back to doing what he loves -- playing basketball. Like most top prospects, he's being held out of 5-on-5 pickup games to keep him injury-free during the process. It's the longest basketball drought he's ever experienced, and it's driving him crazy.
"I miss it," he says. "I just love to play. Basketball is my life. The training is good and I feel like it's helping me. But I'm itching to play a game."
He's also anxious about who will draft him. Unlike players who care about market size, endorsements, the weather or proximity to family or friends, Kidd-Gilchrist has just one concern.
Winning.
"I know I don't want to go to a team that's going to lose," Kidd-Gilchrist said. "I don't care about that other stuff. I just want to win. I've won my whole life. That's what fuels me. Drives me. I can't imagine what it feels like to lose all those games."
He's about to find out. The Bobcats, one of the worst teams in NBA history, own the second pick and are interested. It would be a tough fit. While Kidd-Gilchrist is an elite player, he's not the type of guy who carries a team on his shoulders by himself. With a dearth of talent on the roster, it's going to be a pretty slow road back to the playoffs.
The Wizards are in a much better position and would likely benefit from the leadership and toughness he brings to the table. Playing with John Wall and Neneshould make them dangerous.
But if there's a team that fits Kidd-Gilchrist's game, it's the Cavs. With Kyrie Irving, Tristan Thompson,Anderson Varejao, the 24th pick, two picks in the early second round and cap space, they are a team on the rise. It also doesn't hurt that Irving, Kidd-Gilchrist's former teammate in high school, is a close friend.
For the Cavs to get their hands on him one of two scenarios will have to happen. The first is that the Bobcats opt to go with a power forward and takeThomas Robinson, and then the Wizards decide to grab Bradley Beal instead of Kidd-Gilchrist. That's possible, though the odds are stacked against it.
The other scenario is for the Cavs to package the No. 4 pick and either their 24th pick or their two seconds to move up two spots to get Kidd-Gilchrist. For a team like the Bobcats that need lots of assets, it might be worth it.
For Kidd-Gilchrist, it would be a chance to win some basketball games and maybe, just maybe, turn owner Dan Gilbert into a prophet.
Two summers ago, Gilbert, in a rant after losing LeBron James to the Miami Heat, proclaimed in an email to season-ticket holders: "I personally guarantee that the Cleveland Cavaliers will win an NBA championship before the self-titled former 'King' wins one."
Other than Anthony Davis, the only player in this draft who could plausibly make that happen is Kidd-Gilchrist.
So call him offensively challenged. Dissect his hitch. Wring your hands over his ballhandling.
Me? I'm not betting against Michael Kidd-Gilchrist.
