Vernon Macklin

Vernon Macklin - Macklin is two years removed from the NBA, and has been on a tour. He has played in Turkey, the D-League, the Philippines and China's secondary league, and does the same thing in all of them. He pushes, he bruises, he drops righty hooks from the post, he never leaves the paint, and he fouls. Macklin is 27 years old and slightly undersized for the centre spot that his groundedness and reliance on the post demand he play. Lacking finesse, skill, a foul stroke, rim protection despite his long wingspan, and three inches of height, he is not likely to make it back to the big leagues. But old school post bruisers are always needed somewhere else.

Accompanied by the visual image of an ecstatic and possibly drunk Knicks fan dancing like a grandparent at a wedding, Vernon Macklin from Florida is announced as a surprise pick at #52 by Detroit, a surprise because there's no one thing he does to an NBA standard. Macklin is strong, aggressive, a solid shot blocker and rebounder, and who has a fairly consistent right handed hook on offense, but he's a rather undersized centre with no great physical tool such as wingspan, leaping ability, secondjumpability or foot size to overcome this. He is a solid future Polish league centre, but not an NBA player, and he's also about to turn 25.

The Gators try play defense at every position. Erving Walker may be small for a point guard, but he's quick, works hard, and is disruptive; Kenny Boynton may be small for a shooting guard, but he's quick, works hard, and is disruptive. Chandler Parsons is big for a small forward, and yet he's quick, works hard and is disruptive. Alex Tyus bounds about with great energy, even he doesn't have the cliched energy player dreads any more. Vernon Macklin is an immovable object in the middle. And Patric Young, the freshman off the bench, is a future SEC DPOY. He really is, and you can quote me. Florida have always landed good big men, and with Young in the mix, they're right back at it.

Speaking of big men, Macklin has had a good season, showing the offensive game he never previously did. The fifth year senior now has precisely one move in the post - the right handed hook shot. It works, too. And very very occasionally, he'll counter it with a lefty one, too. He also provides strong post defense, some shot blocking and good rebounding numbers, alongside God awful free throw shooting, no jumpshot, and absolutely nothing outside of 10 feet on either end. So even with his one move, he's limited. Tyus is also limited - his threats to transfer to a program that would let him play small forward never amounted to anything. Maybe he realised that it wouldn't make much sense, given that he could neither dribble nor shoot. As it happens, Tyus takes a few jumpers these days, using an unnecessarily high release with about four redundant movements in it, and they do not go in much. Nevertheless, he is still a capable finisher in the paint, brings his energetic roaming defense, does a valiant job on the interior despite being overmatched physically, and grabs some rebounds.