Ben Pfeifer

my 2026 NBA draft top 100 big board is live @ES_sportsnews, featuring scouting reports, stats and superlatives for all prospects. a ton of work went into producing this, shoutout to everyone who made it happen. check it out! essentiallysports.com/nba-draft/2026…

Announcing the databallr summer internship I am hiring up to 5 people at $20/hr Looking for talented hs/college students interested in any of the following: sports analytics, design engineering, codex, applied ai, ml, data viz, computer vision, webapps, mobile apps, social media, games. The structure of the internship is: We will find on a project that you are interested in that also benefits databallr. You will build it this summer. I will provide mentorship, ideas, tools, and resources to help you accomplish that. There will be group calls several times a week where I will share workflows and knowledge. 80% of your time will be spent on your main project. The other 20% of your time will be spent learning new tech. One day a week, the group will learn and build on top of the latest open source projects together. Looking for people who are smart, creative, focused, collaborative, open-minded and looking to go nuclear this year. I enjoy teaching and mentoring people that are willing to put in the work. Send resume, any of your work, and why you'd be a good fit: databallr.internship@gmail.com You can tag up to three people in the replies and if you are the first to tag them, and i hire them, you will get a $200 referral fee.

@SMDConner yeah that’s an indefensible decision among many other awful calls

@bjpf_ backdating the picks is genuinely fucking insane adam silver really fucked the league up with this one 🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥

specifically the traded picks note

@Money_Maikel absolutely

@bjpf_ Is this similar to Mikel now??

funnily enough, all of the even slightly “advanced” analytics projected maxey as a far better shooter than his college efficiency indicated

@AWildSoos most teams employ people wildly smarter than people on twitter but those people may not necessarily have ultimate decision making power

@bjpf_ It’s really surprising how backwards some front offices can be, when we are well into the 2020s and the analytics revolution. There are random niche substack writers who might have a better understanding of scouting than some of the people working in NBA franchises

@Will_Rucker3_AD @yonseihawaii @LoganPAdams totally different positionally/role/dev track wise imo, hard to compare

@yonseihawaii @bjpf_ @LoganPAdams He’s better than Cenac

whichever team drafts henri veesaar should continue to feature him as an inverted pick-and-roll creator, as the heels did with he and caleb wilson this year. enjoy this elbow get in particular rare for players with true center height/weight to pass and handle like veesaar

@IWannaKnowBall yeah it all is relative to volume, maxey ranks in the 75th percentile or above in mid range shooting volume throughout his career and above 60th percentile efficiency in 4/6 seasons, which i would call a very strong profile

@bjpf_ from 2022 to 2026 NBAdotcom says hes a 41% midrange shooter. If I take out the one season he shot 35% hes closer to a 43% shooter. Either way, I did not know that was efficient for midrange, I thought you had to be high 40s to be efficient there specifically so i did not know.

@IWannaKnowBall he's been an efficient mid-range shooter throughout his career and was in college too, especially relative to shot difficulty/type. and yeah, mid-range pullup shooting volume is a strong translation indicator for 3pt off dirbble shooting growth

@bjpf_ what do you mean? that the fact he even took those meant something? because I thought his midrange game is like notoriously one of his weakest aspects, the stats bear that out atleast.

@alexnesnidal i doubt he will be a defensive liability at least in the RS

@bjpf_ Love Veesaar’s offensive upside in the league. If he can somehow not be a liability on defense, he’s an excellent late first pick in this draft. I think he’s the best offensive center in the draft by a pretty good margin

@IWannaKnowBall off the dribble

@bjpf_ what is midrange otd

@LoganPAdams yeah sure, just feel a lot of people reduce defensive translation to stl/blk/foul numbers when that's falsely analysis

Of course, it’s an arbitrary cut-off for sure, but its worth noting those guys aren’t valuable on the basis of defense (aside from Ajay, though with the aide of one of the best defensive rosters/schemes in modern history, and Hart, a borderline historic rebounder for his size). No single indicator is a fool proof marker for anything, but exceptions require context and don’t invalidate surrounding evidence.

The irony of analytics is that they appear super advanced and inaccessible but Maxey’s shooting profile was pretty straightforward. Good FT shooter (83.9%, 0.342 FTr), solid 3Pr (0.322), good at the rim (65.1%) and elite on floaters. All that is free to access and easy to understand when it comes to evaluating touch. The real reason Maxey was an iffy prospect to some was he was an Acuff-type defender without the historic PTS/AST & 40%+ 3P percentage staring you down.

@LoganPAdams yeah exactly why i push back against the idea that maxey is an acuff-type defender

I see it as more of an overall translative flaw for Acuff rather than the reason he’s a bad defender. Not only is Acutf funcitonally small, but his feel for positionings, combined with a wholesale lack of effort, is why he’s been rendered incapable of making defensive plays. Maxey’s feel and effort was there and he was athletic on the ball, but I don’t think he had the off-ball feel someone like Kingston Flemings has, and that’s what shows in the STL%.

@LoganPAdams also plenty of players beyond that 25th pick cutoff (hart, shamet, brogdon, ajay, etc) that didn't get steals at some point in college

@LoganPAdams sure but i don't think the steal rate is why people think acuff is an awful defensive prospect or at least it shouldn't be a main component, maxey was good on tape and acuff isn't

@DraftCasual yeah no doubt shot versatility/range are key indicators as well

@bjpf_ 21% Deep 3Rate was why his 3P% cratered… Maxey was just taking tougher 3s in college. Similar to Egor Demin last season. x.com/draftcasual/st…

Through 4 games in this series, Devin Vassell is averaging 17 points on 67% TS and playing some of the best defense of his career. I wrote about how he's become everything the Spurs needed him to be after years of losing and shifting roles: jacksonjfrank.substack.com/p/devin-vassel…