Miami Heat draft series: Walter Clayton Jr. | Five on the Floor

Miami Heat draft series: Walter Clayton Jr. | Five on the Floor

Welcome to the latest episode of Five on the Floor on the Five Reason Sports Network. Thanks for joining us on your favorite podcast app on Apple Podcast on Android, Spotify or the Five Reasons YouTube channel. We recommend streaming us on Spotify, Apple Podcast. Been a little slow of late. Also, check out Off the Floor. That’s our Discord server. Two bucks per month. You can find the link right here in the description. It’ll get you right there. Get access to 10 different channels, our stage shows, which have come back and lots more. Also, the host updates and a draft channel. our guest today. He’s on there constantly. So check it out. This is off the floor. Also check out the great sponsors of the Five Reason Sports Network includes Prize Pick. Use the code 5 FIV. Put down your five. You get 50 to play right away. Prize Picks, official fantasy sponsor of the Five Reason Sports Network. You can play in Florida. You can play between all the different sports. So MLB, NHL, and more in addition to the NBA. And you can play up to six players together. So check it out. Prizepix.com. But here’s the key. Use the code to get your $50. FIVE. And now today’s episode. [Music] [Applause] Mercy luxurious heat nation. Yeah. Mercy down the [ __ ] Five on the floor. Drive for my dogs. Here’s a thing. You can check the score. Hustle hard. Couple stars wearing bubble frog kept the floor plan got it all van y’all seen the block stop in one hand and paputs here y’all can hang it up. Welcome to five on the floor a daily insider show on the Miami Heat and the NBA featuring Ethan Skolnick, Greg Sander, Alex Toledo, Brady Hawk, and others from the Five Reason Sports Network. Also, make sure to subscribe to Off the Floor for the most heat anywhere. Welcome back to five on the floor. Here’s today’s floor plan. I’m Ethan Skolnick and follow me J Skull and Five in Sports. I got Digital Adele. You can follow him at Digital Dell. And as I mentioned, you can find them on Off the Floor. Also, we will be on playback for the NBA Finals, which start on Thursday, Indiana at OKC. not necessarily the finals everybody predicted, especially from the east side. Uh should be I I think entertaining basketball. These are two of the fastest paced teams in the NBA. They were the two fastest paces paced in the postseason. Um and of course uh you know they’ll be covering the Lakers in Boston on ESPN from Cancun. Uh but Indiana OKC for for basketball fans should be fun. Uh Adele and I have been doing a draft series getting into some of the the themes, the players, everything else coming up before the draft at the end of June. He will be having a draft party at the arena. We will have coverage from the arena. Be telling you more about that as we go forward, but as June starts, start zeroing in on particular players. We’ve done a little bit of this already. Uh but Greg Sanders reported way back in March that the Heat had their eyes on Walter Clayton Jr. Now, this was before he led Florida to the national championship. You and I have talked to Dell about him before. Um, but with some of these guards going back to school, which is another episode that we did, we recommend everybody listen to that. He may become more attractive at that spot to them at 20. And yet, I know you have some concerns about how much this would actually move the needle for the Heat. So, let’s talk about him. Uh, this is I don’t hate I hate bringing up names like this, but it’s reminds me a little Shabbaz Napier. Um, helped lead a team to a national championship. Of course, the Heat drafted him in part because LeBron wanted them to. And, uh, they probably would have taken Clint Capella if not actually in that draft. And he reminds me of him because he won. uh he was the major factor in winning, but also there are some physical limitations that may u cause him not to be at a star level in the pros. So, let’s get into those. What do you think of him? Walter Clayton Jr. is a dynamic three-point shooter. I mean, all the advanced metrics are in his favor when it comes to college basketball, and you compare him to any of these other prospects, but also he has an advantage that he’s 22 years old. Um, so on draft night he’s going to be 22 uh years old. He’s a senior, 6’2, 200 pounds. So he’s well 199 pounds, so basically 200. Very sturdy, very fast in a straight line. His handles aren’t spectacular. They’re good enough for college. And his shot diet is really tough. Now, he’s really good at it at the college level, especially at the college three-point range. I mean, he’s got NBA range also, but I mean, on that tough shot diet, it’s going to be tough. Just some of the statistics coming in terms of his shot diet in college, he shot 42% on 45 threes in transition, 40% on 75 spot-up threes, 39% on 23 threes off of screens, 36% on 14 threes in isolation, and 36% on 42 threes off of dribble handoffs. Uh 45% on 102 threes as a pick and roll player. And this is before the tournament ended uh with those stats. It was like partway through. So he’s spectacular offensively when it comes to the shooting numbers. Now he’s 6’2, but he’s only got a six Well, he’s 6’3 with shoes on. He’s only got a 6’4 wingspan. So he’s not very good defensively. He’s not really that great off the bounce. Uh he’s really good, like I said, in a straight line. uh and and taking those tough shots. No matter which way you get them, I think he’s going to be able to do that kind of stuff. And I’ve brought this up before. He reminds me a lot of Patty Mills from the Spurs days. So, okay. So, as a follow on that, and this is not Patty Mills from the Heat days. Let’s make that clear. Spurs days to go back. Um do do you remember what Tyler Herro’s wingspan was coming out of the draft? You able to find that? Yeah, I can grab it right now, but it was an inch shorter than whatever his listed height was. Um, okay. I’ll tell you right now. Let’s see. So, cuz you’re saying Clayton’s 6’4 basically. Well, he’s 6’2 without shoes. Like 6’3 with shoes. With shoes. Okay. Yeah. And Tyler was what? 2020, right? No. 2018. 20 No, 2019 actually. I I’m just I’m just I’m just asking because as we start to talk about u the Heat and whether there would be interest here, we have to talk about how players going to fit with their current best guard. Um and that’s and and you’ve been shaking your head on that because it seems like you’ve got two guys who don’t have the wingspan or the defensive chops to be able to play together. Correct. That is correct. Tyler Hero was 6’4 and a half with a 63 and a quarter wingspan. by the way. Okay. All right. So, basically, we’re talking about the same, although Tyler is actually shorter than his height. So, to that end, uh if the Heat were looking at this player, they would be looking at him as a bench option most likely, right? Yeah, he’d be a bench option during this build. As long as Tyler’s on the floor, I don’t see them two playing together because point of attack defense was an Achilles heel of this team. It really drove Bam up a wall all season. I know a lot of people weren’t going to talk about that, but when you talk about Bam struggles, but him having to cover up for the lack of perimeter defense, it was a it was a huge problem. Um, so DaVon would have to start as long that’s assuming they retain him. If they don’t retain him, you’re in a world of hurt uh point of attack defense. Well, you also have a tiny three-man rotation in the back court if if it’s Hero, DaVon, and I know Da’Von plays bigger than he is, but if it’s going to be Hero, DaVon, and Clayton June. Now, we now we don’t know first thing what’s going to happen with DaVon. The reports, by the way, we probably will do an episode on this separately. We’ve done a DaVon episode uh before. We’ve done a couple, but now that the reports are starting to come out that and I know Anthony Chang wrote a piece uh in the Herald that, you know, we could be looking at about $14 million a year. It’s a little richer than I was anticipating. Although I again he hasn’t gotten that offer yet. So we’ll see what the market is. And and my feeling on DaVon also is that other teams may look at him and think, okay, yes, he was a lottery pick, but also his progress was a product of the Heat system. And we know that a lot of those guys, it’s like buyer beware at this point for other teams. Although again, DV was a first round pick. Some of these other guys who haven’t panned out other places were not first round picks. So, we don’t know what’s going to happen with Davan yet, except that the Heat are going to extend the qualifying offer, which is what we predicted as well. And then it’s kind of where it goes from there. All right. On the other side of this, I want to get into why you think they’re interested because they’re h this is not Greg’s report is not the first time I’ve heard this, okay, that they are they are interested in him. So, we’ll get to that in a second. Uh because I want to get your view on on why they they would possibly want him. Uh before we go forward though, do want to mention our friends over at Real Estate Shop. You can find her at real estate shop with two P’s and an E real estate shopfl.com or the Fort Lauderdale Realtor on Instagram. Ashley and Javier uh for excuse me, Ashley. Amanda and Javier, my apologies, Amanda and Javier. Uh married couple that knows what your family wants in real estate. Whether you’re buying or selling in Broward County or even in Dade, they can help you out, help you find the best deal for your house. If you’re selling, they have open houses here all the time. Or if you’re looking to buy a house, they know the market better than anybody. So check them out at real estate shopfl.com. That’s Amanda and Javier and or at Fort Lauderdale Realtor, the Fort Lauderdale Realtor on IG. Okay. So why do you think the Heat would be interested just based on what you know of this player? And look, this is a player we know more about than a lot of the other players in the draft because obviously he was on the best team in the country. Yeah, absolutely. I mean, the fact that he’s a guy that has a true shooting percentage of 60% at 63, effective field goal percentage at 56 3 point like the sheer number of like to be able to shoot as high of a percentage he as he shoots like 40 almost 40%. He’s projected to shoot 40% at the NBA level from three on that type of volume is just unbelievable. So, like in college, you know, he shot eight and a half, almost nine threes per game and he still ended up being almost a 40% three-point shooter. And it’s not just like he shoots one way. He doesn’t just shoot it off the bounce. He doesn’t just shoot it coming off screens. He shoots it off dribble handoffs, getting in the lane and P&Rs, Vcutting back out. He can do a lot of different things to get that three-point shot off. And it’s one of the prettiest motions I’ve seen in a very long time in terms of quickness of release, compactness, and just his balance. How he pops on balance. So, I think it has more to do with the shooting, the fact that he’s a winner, and he can run an NBA offense. Now, he’s not a great facilitator and he’s doesn’t have a great defensive IQ. Falls asleep at times on defense. has decent athletic profile, but when we talk about guys that are going to be at the 20 spot, they’re gonna have to either settle for a guy or they’re going to have to take and what I mean by settle is you may have to pick a guy five spots sooner than you have him ranked on your board, for example. Got it. Got it. But and a lot of that is some of that is is because some of the players have gone back to school as you mentioned, particularly at the guard spot. So, yeah, that’s kind of what I I expected you to say, winner and a great shooter. Now, I watching him in the national championship game and I saw him in other games as well, but watching him in the national championship game, it it he made winning plays in that game. He did not shoot the ball well, but but he helped them win the game. I So, I feel like that that game, even though he was not as effective offensively as he’s typically, probably helped his status uh with a lot of teams because he showed that he can impact the game in some other ways if he needs to. I I’m just struggling unless they’re just like looking for a basketball player who can shoot that like is a Heat culture type guy at least in terms of again playing at a big-time program that they respect. I I just I’m just hard having a hard time finding the fit with this particular roster. Like Brady’s talked a lot about they desperately need shooting. There’s no question. We don’t know that Duncan’s going to be back. He’s on the last year of his contract and uh he’s got that partial guarantee. So he very well could be thrown into a trade. Now, if they get Durant, then obviously they’ve replaced some of that shooting in a significant way, but I don’t know that Alec Burks is going to be back. He’s expressed interest in coming back, but and you know, he could on a minimum, but if some other team decides, okay, we really need a shooter, given more than minimum, I can’t really see the Heat going beyond that, right? Um, so, so I I guess this is just about again finding shooting. So, let me ask you this question. If you’re looking for a shooter in this draft, we’ve talked about needing a playmaker, but if you’re looking for a shooter, who would make more sense at 20 to you if Clayton’s available? So, I mean, if Clayton’s there and you’re looking for a guy that can do a little bit more than just shoot, though, like if they have better measurables, be able to fit in that back court. I’m really intrigued lately with Hugo Gonzalez. He plays for Real Madrid. The whole team is stacked with former NBA players, so he didn’t really play a lot during the season. I tried to watch him, no lie, like 12 different games and he played like five minutes uh per game. So, it’s very hard. Psycho is all I got to say about that. That’s it. Stalking Hugo Gonzalez. I have been stalking a man trying to get some film. But my point is he played in a playoff game. They played him for a whole half cuz they needed a spark. And I loved what I saw from him because he’s super athletic. He can shoot. He’s fluid mover. 66. He’s one of these guys that the scouts that are on the ground at practices are going to have a better understanding than I would because I haven’t been able to see him that much. Uh a Cedric Cowardd, for example, the darling of the NFL draft. People are just blown away that this kid played division three basketball, worked his way up to division one, played at Washington State for like 16 games and then got injured. But he’s his shooting is unbelievable at 66 with a seven foot two wingspan. So someone like Cowardd I think would fit the Heat better because he’s an upgrade over your your highsmith for example on the offensive end. All right. So to close this out, we know what Heat fans are like and I can see it. They’re getting this and again they have the 20th pick which is Golden State’s pick. They don’t have their pick at 15. They could trade out of 20. They could trade up. I’m not expecting them to do that, but there are there are a lot of options that they could go as the as the board develops. But if Clay’s on the board, like we’re at 18, like we know Heat fans are not going to want any of the guys you I mean, if look, if you can’t find Hugo Gonzalez, they can’t. Okay. So that this is where we’re headed, right? We’re headed for you passed on on but but I also look I mean I’m using the Napier example. I guess Kemell Walker would be the counter to that because he had this incredible tournament and he turned into obviously an all-star player in the pros. But a lot of these guys who we see go deep in tournaments or even win championships, they get blown up and overrated a little bit by the fans in general. Correct. I mean, trying to think of others. I’m trying to think of others off the top of my head. It’s not registering. I don’t know why I can just think of Connecticut guys, but it it does it does seem like that that it’s like, okay, this guy Oh, Matine Cleaves is another one to go way back, right? He’s like the alltime example of that cuz Matine was even like he looked out of shape even in college like Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. No question. No, I mean he made he made Raymond Felton looks felt. Yes. No, I know. And and that’s but that’s the thing I think he he fans need to understand in general is that just because you saw a guy pop in college. I mean I he was they they played to his talents at Florida and that’s what they should do to win a championship and I still people are going to look back at that Duke roster in a few years and be like how did they not win a title? But and and Florida did but again uh you could have a product of just being a really good college player. Um, I’m just trying to think beyond Patty Mills because you’re going way back on this and then we’ll close this out. Is there anybody else like a 62 shooter who I know you hate comps, but I’m just saying is there anybody else who is I’ll tell you what the fans are doing and I Okay, and I see this on Twitter and it drives me nuts. Stephen Curry, right? Because of how Stop it. I I didn’t say it. I didn’t say it and it’s ridiculous, but that’s what people are doing because he has a smaller wingspan. He’s like 6’2, 6’3. He’s a great shooter. What about What about Trey? No, he’s he’s completely different than Trey Young. So, Trey is an elite passer and was from the very beginning. He’s elite facilitator and elite separator, right? That’s the difference between defender. Yes. But that’s the difference between Shabaz Napier and Kemell Walker. Ka Walker was an elite separator. Right. Right. That’s the big thing. You have to be able to get the shots off. That’s the thing. You be a great shooter. You got to be able to get the shots off. And it is one of the things that Tyler doesn’t get enough credit for that he has found ways even with, you know, not elite athleticism to get shots off. And he does it basically with with guile uh to a certain degree and with with technique uh and and everything else he does to get in those positions. and we talk about him needing a screen and all that sort of stuff, but a lot of times he doesn’t. He doesn’t if he’s he’s going to get shots off. Uh but watching Clay, it looks like somebody who may need that help. And I they don’t have the problem with the Heat is they need shooting, but they also just don’t have enough guys to bend the defense. And because of that, it’s hard to see a guy who is strictly a shooter having a ton of success for them, especially if he’s 6’2. People forget Duncan’s tall. Yes. like very tall. Tall like you can see it. Max, okay, not I mean Max was 6’5 but solid. Okay, like a physical player. This is a little bit different when you’re talking about somebody who’s 200 lb. All right. Uh Digital Adele, you can follow him there. Thank you. We’ll do more of these profiles as we go forward. But this is a name. It’s not just cuz we know the name. We we’ve we’ve we’ve registered that there’s heat interest here. We’ve registered for a while and I get it. I understand why. Uh but like I said, they need a shooter. He’s a winner. Those are two. But how he projects on a team that currently has, you know, tiny guards, I I just I’m I’m starting I I mean, we forgot they still have a year on the roster, too. So, it’s just, you know, how many small guards can you have? All right. Appreciate it, Dell. Thank you for doing this. Check out our sponsors, real estate shopfl.com, and also prize picks. Use the code FIV.

The Miami Heat like winners, and they need shooters. So does national champion Walter Clayton Jr. make sense at #20? Ethan Skolnick brings in Digital Adel.

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