Bad craziness, man. It starts with Chris Taft.
DraftCity is saying that Chris Taft’s stock in the draft is falling. Right now, they put him at #14 (Minnesota), but think he could slop further.
Chris Taft has been holding numerous private workouts over the past week in a gym in New York City, taking advantage of the fact that many of the NBA decision makers were in town for the draft lottery. DraftCity has spoken to a couple of people who watched him in those workouts, and the feedback has been almost unanimous: he’s incredibly overrated.
A few select comments:
“I can’t believe how lazy he looked out there. Does he not get it?”
…
“Taft has some of the worst body language I have ever seen from a player his age.”“Teams are calling up his coach at Pitt, Jamie Dixon, and they are not really liking what they’re hearing about his work ethic and basketball IQ.”
Teams generally do not like to share information with top prospects with each other, but in this case when they are all watching the disaster unfold in front of their eyes, it’s hard not to. Isiah Thomas was reportedly one of the spectators and all he could do was “shake his head in disgust.”
Hard to believe he is blowing it this bad.
But wait, it gets better. A couple days ago I noted a fairly moderate review of Taft’s workout by ESPN.com’s Chad Ford. Apparently it was too negative for Taft’s agent (Insider Subs.).
Banned. That was the word from Chris Taft’s agent, Billy Ceisler, after Insider’s lukewarm blog report from Taft’s workout for several NBA teams.
I was scheduled to be back in the gym again on Wednesday to watch two of Ceisler’s other clients, Antoine Wright and Charlie Villanueva, but got a call late Tuesday night from an agitated Ceisler, who said I was uninvited because of my review of Taft (see below).
There are three problems with that.
First, the review of Taft wasn’t negative. He worked out in a gym by himself. Taft looked fine, but because of the structure of the workout, he wasn’t able to really show off what he is capable of doing well – dominating in the paint. No one wants to see big guys like that shoot jumpers or hook shots over a 6-foot trainer.
I said I didn’t think he helped or hurt himself. I’ve talked to three other NBA scouts who’ve been in the same gym over the last three days and they’ve all said the same thing.
Second, I don’t believe that hiding players – or, in this case, shielding them from criticism – really helps them in the long run.
Ceisler is just trying to do his job – protect the interests of his clients. However, experienced agents know that limiting access only to people who will write positive reviews is a bad idea, because it diminishes the credibility of any positive reviews a player may receive.
This is not looking good for Taft’s future. He’s not showing much, and his agent is an idiot. Someone close to Taft better do something to get him to start socking away a chunk of that signing bonus.
