• Josh Selby is a lottery talent

  • By Chad Ford | May 13, 2011 8:13:34 AM PDT

On Thursday, I wrote Part 1 of my impressions from my time with Impact Basketball in Las Vegas. Here are five more thoughts from Sin City:

1. Josh Selby is a lottery talent

Last year I was wowed by the play of Avery Bradley and Lance Stephenson at Impact. Both Bradley and Stephenson were high school phenoms and lottery-type talents who struggled as college freshmen in their respective programs.

This year Impact has a similar player -- Kansas Jayhawks guard Josh Selby. Like Stephenson, he was considered one of the top five high school players in the country. Like Stephenson, he really struggled as a freshman. And like Stephenson, NBA teams have questions about his character.

Selby was, in a word, awesome in the workouts I saw in Vegas. At Kansas, Selby looked wild, out of control and oddly unathletic. He struggled to create space from himself and made a number of bad decisions with the ball and in his shot selection.

In Vegas he once again resembled the superstar we saw in high school. He was explosive athletically, got to the basket at will and shot the ball very well from range.

In 3-on-3 games, the UCLA Bruins' Malcolm Lee -- a terrific perimeter defender -- struggled to stay in front of Selby, who finished above the rim with a number of impressive dunks. Selby showed off an impressive floater and has the ability to create space with his crossover and then step back and nail the J. He really resembled Golden State Warriors guard Monta Ellis.

So how could Selby be so good here and so mediocre at Kansas? ESPN Insider David Thorpe had an excellent post concerning Selby in late January that sums up the thinking from a scout's perspective.


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