Jaylen Hands (Nets)
Taking umbrage with a second-round pick is probably a waste of my time (and yours too for that matter. Sorry, I’ll make this quick), but what in the world has Jaylen Hands shown to suggest he’s not the 10th man for the Fort Wayne Mad Ants? Yes, he was highly recruited out of high school and was hilariously dubbed (in hindsight) the Lonzo Replacement at UCLA back in 2017. Since that title-invocation and last year’s stroke of noteworthy irony where his hands were measured as the smallest at the combine, I seriously have not read or watched a single nugget of Jaylen Hands content.
He simply isn’t an NBA player, and, frankly, I can’t comprehend the logic behind picking him–even in the second round. Lu Dort was on the board! For goodness sakes, take him! At least he seems like the second coming of Marcus Smart. Meanwhile, there is no surer thing in the universe than Hands not playing in a single non-G-League American professional basketball game.
In 2022 the only team he’ll be a part of is possibly UCLA’s The Basketball Tournament (TBT) team, and he’ll have to sweat out the tryouts for that club too. I don’t know, maybe he’ll get a call from Ice Cube next summer and receive a 3-on-3 invite. Here’s what I do know: Hands isn’t an NBA player. His best basketball playing days could very well be ahead of him, but they’ll proceed in the G-League or overseas. In five years, he’ll be back on draft highlight tapes as Branislav Ratkovica dunks over him on his way to being selected in the lottery. Hands doesn’t have high bust potential, he has guaranteed bust potential. And I’m not afraid of this prediction biting me in the rear.