His athleticism and swag really remind me of a young D-Wade. Obviously he's no D-Wade, but this kid could become a serious player!
And how boy...That's exactly who he reminds me of too, but like I said in the past, I don't wanna get too crazy and set the bar that high right away. It wouldn't be fair to the kid...Honestly, I can definitely see a lot of these other comparisons being tossed around as well: A young Larry Hughes; a far more athletic Jamal Crawford; a dash of Derek Harper; some Penny Hardaway; some Tyreke Evans; a bigger 6'5"+ version of Kyle Lowry, etc...Let's all understand one important thing: he doesn't have to turn into D-Wade for this to be a good pick...Sure I'd prefer he turn out to be the next Wade but I'd gladly sign up for a replica of any of these other guys as well..Having said that, yeah, there are definitely some similarities to D-Wade..No question about it -- they're as plain as day. I discussed this weeks ago on prior Shumpert threads..We'll have to see how he develops but as of right now, all the signs (the work ethic, his character, the off-the-charts althleticism, his ability to both handle/orchestrate AND play off the ball, his defense, etc.) point toward sky's-the-limit type potential if you ask me..
I love the clip MSGhobo247 gave us btw...Thanks for sharing that one bro..Out of all the training & college highlight clips out there, this might be the most impressive, just in more subtle, team-oriented ways...Right from the opening 2 mins or so of that clip, the one thing that stood out to me was Iman's floor general/lead guard capability..You see Shump bringing the ball up, showing an excellent handle & orchestrating the offense confidently, directing traffic and being vocal----I love the one play where he had the ball up top at the end of the shotclock with the crowd screaming the countdown--5, 4, 3, 2--and instead of forcing it, he showed optimum patience and with his court vision/awareness, he hit Derrick Favors with a PERFECT pass when he sprang free & rolled to the basket down the middle (I think Favors blew the finish at the rim but the execution on the pass, esp. at that time in the shotclock, was AWESOME---the play was all Shumpert---he showed the necessary patience, waiting for that play to finally develop and never gave up on it); earlier he had at least two other great bullet, on-the-money passes to teammates underneath that were pure perfection.. Yeah, there were a couple of mistakes in there (he had one pull-up J blocked from behind and he lost the ball in the backcourt that lead to a Blue Devil dunk--if you watched carefully, this wasn't even his fault actually--Mufon Udofia had the ball & backtracked instead of forging ahead and handed Shump the ball in an impossible situation 5-8 feet from his own basket--Shump immediately got trapped and coughed it up) but there were many, many more good signs than bad to get excited about. Maybe it's me, but the stuff he showed in this clip gets me excited FAR MORE than any of his dunk highlights, impressive as those may be...I mean there were MAJOR budding PG abilities on full display in the last 6 mins of this game. And how 'bout that ever-present athletic ability, esp. on the backboard?? Keeping balls alive, tipping balls out of Duke players' hands and into his own teammates if he couldn't corral it himself, etc..Very impressive video, esp. considering the competition he was going up against. Young fella had a ton to do with that huge Yellow Jacket victory. A TON.