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Cooper Draft Talk (4/2/21 Update: Enters Draft)


ellitor

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I think most Auburn fans just feel robbed only getting to see Coop play for like 10 games. One of the most dynamic PGs we've ever seen and we only get him for a fraction of a season. I look at next season where we could be one of the top teams in the league if our key guys came back next season and thats not happening it appears. We could still be a really good team next season but it will be a very different feel from this years team i think. When you have a young team and struggle due to it you get through the disappointing season by focusing on the future. But then we don't ever get to see that future. 

As a fan of Auburn i see where AU could be a top 10 team with Coop back next season. I see Coop as a fringe NBA prospect right now. Its kind of tough seeing a guy choose to grind it out making an NBA team instead of coming back and competing for a national championship. I understand why he would choose that route but the disappointment of not getting to see such an exciting player for one more season on my team is hard to put aside. I had so much fun watching Brown, Harper, Chuma, Spencer, and McClemore turn into a winning team i just want to see that again. 

I've been on the fence with the one and done types since we started getting into the conversation of signing them. It is a high risk high reward type of situation. And with all the transfers happening as well it just becomes so hard to manage a rooster when you have guys coming and going. Our roster was not managed properly this past season. The Person scandal played into that problem in a big way but also losing Okoro after one season had a big impact as well. 

In the end i want Pearl and company to sign the best players possible. I just hope we can find a better balance going forward so we don't have gaping holes on our team. 

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13 minutes ago, toddc said:

I’m one of the people on here that doesn’t watch any b-ball (since the 80’s) but Auburn, and I still know it’s a great thing for our players to go pro at the first chance. It’s great for your program, and it also attracts players who might need to play 2-3 years in a college system like CBP has built before going pro. That’s a system set up  to win a lot of games in the NCAA tournament! Common sense really and doesn’t take a high b-ball IQ to understand it.

 

I am an Auburn fan who has always watched and supported Auburn basketball. Basketball was my favorite sport for a very long time as I played it for about 20 years and coached off an on for 4-5 years. None of the posts made by people talking about Cooper's weaknesses have been harsh.

If Bruce Pearl is a good coach, and as far as I know the majority of us think he is. He would be able to develop Cooper more and help him strengthen his weaknesses. I personally believe if Cooper could strengthen his weaknesses, he will go higher in the draft after next season. If he is projected as a lottery pick then he should go, if its late first round with a chance to fall to the second he should come back. That is common sense and high b-ball IQ.

The fickleness of the NBA and the rush the young guys in as soon as possible mentality is what leads to the majority of them failing or taking 3-4 years after getting into the NBA to fully develop and get a real shot. A lot of the pros, talking heads, and casual fans of the game will insist going pro is the best route early because they can go "make their money." While everything else comes second to that.

I don't care what Cooper does or doesn't do. It has nothing to do with me or my life. I'll wish him best of luck either way and move on to watch whoever is on the team next season.

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10 minutes ago, REALTORTiger said:

He will be a colossal bust in the NBA of epic proportions.  He's not athletic, and his driving ability which is somewhat effective in college will have zero impact in the NBA.  He's an out of this world passer and his court vision is amazing but he has limited athletic ability.  He can barely dunk a basketball.

Any team that takes him high will regret it.

Also, to whoever made that bet with me, its not looking good for you. This team next year will be lucky to be .500.

And it's pretty sad that Oates has already passed us in what, two years.  

We've pooped the bed in the post Final Four run, just like we did after the NC in football.  We never capitalize.

I was wondering when you would show up.  You disappeared on us after we beat ranked Tennessee.

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24 minutes ago, gravejd said:

I think most Auburn fans just feel robbed only getting to see Coop play for like 10 games. One of the most dynamic PGs we've ever seen and we only get him for a fraction of a season. I look at next season where we could be one of the top teams in the league if our key guys came back next season and thats not happening it appears. We could still be a really good team next season but it will be a very different feel from this years team i think. When you have a young team and struggle due to it you get through the disappointing season by focusing on the future. But then we don't ever get to see that future. 

As a fan of Auburn i see where AU could be a top 10 team with Coop back next season. I see Coop as a fringe NBA prospect right now. Its kind of tough seeing a guy choose to grind it out making an NBA team instead of coming back and competing for a national championship. I understand why he would choose that route but the disappointment of not getting to see such an exciting player for one more season on my team is hard to put aside. I had so much fun watching Brown, Harper, Chuma, Spencer, and McClemore turn into a winning team i just want to see that again. 

I've been on the fence with the one and done types since we started getting into the conversation of signing them. It is a high risk high reward type of situation. And with all the transfers happening as well it just becomes so hard to manage a rooster when you have guys coming and going. Our roster was not managed properly this past season. The Person scandal played into that problem in a big way but also losing Okoro after one season had a big impact as well. 

In the end i want Pearl and company to sign the best players possible. I just hope we can find a better balance going forward so we don't have gaping holes on our team. 

This is kind of where I fall on this team too.

Like Chuma did, where he really grew and in his 2nd year grew into a 1st round NBA player, I hoped that Cooper would fall into the same category and we would get at least almost 2 years of him guiding our offense. 

I don't mind having the 1 and done player if he really comes through for us in that one year like Okoro did last year, but with Cooper only getting him for 12 games, and then not even to end the season left me with a bad taste for how well we could have played and won possibly more games with such a young team.

I hope Coop comes back, but if not next year could be another growing year with freshman guards, unless Pearl can bring in a vet GT PG/SG.

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29 minutes ago, REALTORTiger said:

We've pooped the bed in the post Final Four run,

@REALTORTiger We didn't poop in our Final 4 run. We had the eventual national champs beat without our best player (Chuma) & only lost because a horrific missed double dribble call let them escape the impending defeat. You should be on your own Bammer boards focused on how well your basketball team is doing & celebrating that instead of worrying about Auburn.

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8 minutes ago, ellitor said:

@REALTORTiger We didn't poop in our Final 4 run. We had the eventual national champs beat without our best player (Chuma) & only lost because a horrific missed double dribble call let them escape the impending defeat. You should be on your own Bammer boards focused on how well your basketball team is doing & celebrating that instead of worrying about Auburn.

I think he is referring to our 'post' Final Four teams that pooped, not the actual Final Four run.

But he's not correct on that either. We had a 25 win team the year after our FF4 run, and they started to play their best BB at the end of the season. But Covid shut us down so we will never know how well they may have played in the NCAAT.

But no one can say we pooped on our post FF4 team.

And to compare our teams to this year's ALabama team, is ridiculous, since Oats inherited in his 2 years, a veteran team, that didn't lose most of their best players(Jones, Petty) to the NBA last year, while we have lost 3 in the last 3 years (Harper, Okoro, Okeke) to the NBA. 

Now this year's team after losing around 8-9 veteran players in 2 years, was going to leave us with a super young team (Youngest in college BB), and who knows how well this team might have played if not for losing 2 of your quality guards for most of the season.

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If Cooper goes and is drafted it’s good for him and actually good for the program, at least in the long run. Hate to potentially jinx but......sign/reclassify Scoot and we’re gonna be “ok”

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1 hour ago, gravejd said:

I think most Auburn fans just feel robbed only getting to see Coop play for like 10 games. One of the most dynamic PGs we've ever seen and we only get him for a fraction of a season. I look at next season where we could be one of the top teams in the league if our key guys came back next season and thats not happening it appears. We could still be a really good team next season but it will be a very different feel from this years team i think. When you have a young team and struggle due to it you get through the disappointing season by focusing on the future. But then we don't ever get to see that future. 

As a fan of Auburn i see where AU could be a top 10 team with Coop back next season. I see Coop as a fringe NBA prospect right now. Its kind of tough seeing a guy choose to grind it out making an NBA team instead of coming back and competing for a national championship. I understand why he would choose that route but the disappointment of not getting to see such an exciting player for one more season on my team is hard to put aside. I had so much fun watching Brown, Harper, Chuma, Spencer, and McClemore turn into a winning team i just want to see that again. 

I've been on the fence with the one and done types since we started getting into the conversation of signing them. It is a high risk high reward type of situation. And with all the transfers happening as well it just becomes so hard to manage a rooster when you have guys coming and going. Our roster was not managed properly this past season. The Person scandal played into that problem in a big way but also losing Okoro after one season had a big impact as well. 

In the end i want Pearl and company to sign the best players possible. I just hope we can find a better balance going forward so we don't have gaping holes on our team. 

I love it when folks can self-scout like this. :thumbsup:

Big, big difference between "he should" and "I wish he would". Absolutely zero wrong with the latter. 

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1 hour ago, ellitor said:

@REALTORTiger We didn't poop in our Final 4 run. We had the eventual national champs beat without our best player (Chuma) & only lost because a horrific missed double dribble call let them escape the impending defeat. You should be on your own Bammer boards focused on how well your basketball team is doing & celebrating that instead of worrying about Auburn.

Pls don't feed the trolls

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39 minutes ago, gravejd said:

Pls don't feed the trolls

@gravejd I'm not. I'm trying to get him to go away on his own. Since there's no rule for someone solely posting negative opinions about AU (even though no true AU man or woman would do that)  to be banned I'm trying to convince him to leave us the hell alone & find something better & more productive to do in his free time.

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11 minutes ago, ellitor said:

@gravejd I'm not. I'm trying to get him to go away on his own. Since there's no rule for someone solely posting negative opinions about AU (even though no true AU man or woman would do that)  to be banned I'm trying to convince him to leave us the hell alone & find something better & more productive to do in his free time.

A troll is a troll is a troll. I G N O R E   T H E M.

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9 hours ago, gravejd said:

I think most Auburn fans just feel robbed only getting to see Coop play for like 10 games. One of the most dynamic PGs we've ever seen and we only get him for a fraction of a season. I look at next season where we could be one of the top teams in the league if our key guys came back next season and thats not happening it appears. We could still be a really good team next season but it will be a very different feel from this years team i think. When you have a young team and struggle due to it you get through the disappointing season by focusing on the future. But then we don't ever get to see that future. 

As a fan of Auburn i see where AU could be a top 10 team with Coop back next season. I see Coop as a fringe NBA prospect right now. Its kind of tough seeing a guy choose to grind it out making an NBA team instead of coming back and competing for a national championship. I understand why he would choose that route but the disappointment of not getting to see such an exciting player for one more season on my team is hard to put aside. I had so much fun watching Brown, Harper, Chuma, Spencer, and McClemore turn into a winning team i just want to see that again. 

I've been on the fence with the one and done types since we started getting into the conversation of signing them. It is a high risk high reward type of situation. And with all the transfers happening as well it just becomes so hard to manage a rooster when you have guys coming and going. Our roster was not managed properly this past season. The Person scandal played into that problem in a big way but also losing Okoro after one season had a big impact as well. 

In the end i want Pearl and company to sign the best players possible. I just hope we can find a better balance going forward so we don't have gaping holes on our team. 

Well said.  That's the biggest reason I was frustrated with Powell.  He was the glue guy that was supposed to provide consistency.  I didn't expect him to be a number 1 or number 2 option on offense, but the guy you could count on to give it 100%. The way that played out is very disappointing.  I could overlook it better with Cooper coming back. 

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Well, obviously I want him to stay for the sake of next year's team (though it does seem we have a couple of viable backup options), but the only way I would say that staying is not the best option for him is if his camp doesn't think he can improve much as a basketball player. From what I've heard, this year's draft would be the better one to go in based upon draft placement, because this draft is supposedly light on point guards. And I don't pretend to know enough about basketball to judge whether he has it in him to fix his shot and get better at defense with another year in college, but logic tells me that he CAN get fairly significantly better prepared for the NBA, and that increases the viability of him remaining in the NBA once he gets there.

But, if he's already relatively close to his ceiling, then he should go. No ifs, no ands, no buts. Auburn will be fine. We were fine when we had to pick up J'von McCormick, and we'll be fine with whatever point guard Bruce picks up...so long as the freakin' NCAA doesn't delay his arrival with an asinine eligibility issue.

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On 3/15/2021 at 9:02 AM, gravejd said:

I think most Auburn fans just feel robbed only getting to see Coop play for like 10 games. One of the most dynamic PGs we've ever seen and we only get him for a fraction of a season. I look at next season where we could be one of the top teams in the league if our key guys came back next season and thats not happening it appears. We could still be a really good team next season but it will be a very different feel from this years team i think. When you have a young team and struggle due to it you get through the disappointing season by focusing on the future. But then we don't ever get to see that future. 

As a fan of Auburn i see where AU could be a top 10 team with Coop back next season. I see Coop as a fringe NBA prospect right now. Its kind of tough seeing a guy choose to grind it out making an NBA team instead of coming back and competing for a national championship. I understand why he would choose that route but the disappointment of not getting to see such an exciting player for one more season on my team is hard to put aside. I had so much fun watching Brown, Harper, Chuma, Spencer, and McClemore turn into a winning team i just want to see that again. 

I've been on the fence with the one and done types since we started getting into the conversation of signing them. It is a high risk high reward type of situation. And with all the transfers happening as well it just becomes so hard to manage a rooster when you have guys coming and going. Our roster was not managed properly this past season. The Person scandal played into that problem in a big way but also losing Okoro after one season had a big impact as well. 

In the end i want Pearl and company to sign the best players possible. I just hope we can find a better balance going forward so we don't have gaping holes on our team. 

Like you I like really good players who are not one and done as I like to see teams work and grow together. Okeke, Okoro, and Cooper when we signed them did not seem to be one and done or two and done types. I thought Pearl had done a great job of finding players who could develop and become NBA players but not the type to leave so quickly. Okeke and Okoro worked really hard and elevated their games so left earlies then expected. Cooper has a unique skill set while I think he could improve his game some with another year he probably can't improve it enough to improve his draft position and with this year class not being as strong at PG this is probably best time for him to go.

I don't think it was so much that Pearl mismanaged the Roster as there were things he couldn't control.  Okoro being a one and done, Cooper being held up by NCAA, Powell getting hurt then Cooper getting hurt. Add to that the rest of the team was so young I think Pearl did about as good as can be expected.

He takes Powell and has him play PG when Cooper can't. Powell is an adequate PG for short stretches but is not a true PG as teams adjusted to him his effectiveness went down. Then he gets hurt Cooper comes in we have a burst the teams adjust to him they don't stop him but they impact his influence, then he goes down and Pearl takes a game to try JJ as PG and he does a decent job but again like Powell he is more of a backup PG.

Despite all that I saw some players improve Thor got better, Flanagan got better, JJ got better, Cambridge got better as a 6th man, others showed signs of development.  Now we have lost two key players that we didn't expect to lose Powell and probably Cooper so now Pearl has a tough job trying to find a true PG and maybe another combo guard. 

If he can find a true PG we will have two backup PG's in JJ and Alexander, Flanagan can move to 3 and I expect to see Alexander as a fixture at 2.  Jabari will add to an area that I think will be our strength next year 3-5 Thor, Jabari, Moore, Williams, and Cardwell not including Stretch unless he improves a lot. 

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19 minutes ago, AuburnNTexas said:

Like you I like really good players who are not one and done as I like to see teams work and grow together. Okeke, Okoro, and Cooper when we signed them did not seem to be one and done or two and done types. I thought Pearl had done a great job of finding players who could develop and become NBA players but not the type to leave so quickly. Okeke and Okoro worked really hard and elevated their games so left earlies then expected. Cooper has a unique skill set while I think he could improve his game some with another year he probably can't improve it enough to improve his draft position and with this year class not being as strong at PG this is probably best time for him to go.

I don't think it was so much that Pearl mismanaged the Roster as there were things he couldn't control.  Okoro being a one and done, Cooper being held up by NCAA, Powell getting hurt then Cooper getting hurt. Add to that the rest of the team was so young I think Pearl did about as good as can be expected.

He takes Powell and has him play PG when Cooper can't. Powell is an adequate PG for short stretches but is not a true PG as teams adjusted to him his effectiveness went down. Then he gets hurt Cooper comes in we have a burst the teams adjust to him they don't stop him but they impact his influence, then he goes down and Pearl takes a game to try JJ as PG and he does a decent job but again like Powell he is more of a backup PG.

Despite all that I saw some players improve Thor got better, Flanagan got better, JJ got better, Cambridge got better as a 6th man, others showed signs of development.  Now we have lost two key players that we didn't expect to lose Powell and probably Cooper so now Pearl has a tough job trying to find a true PG and maybe another combo guard. 

If he can find a true PG we will have two backup PG's in JJ and Alexander, Flanagan can move to 3 and I expect to see Alexander as a fixture at 2.  Jabari will add to an area that I think will be our strength next year 3-5 Thor, Jabari, Moore, Williams, and Cardwell not including Stretch unless he improves a lot. 

Our focus this offseason needs to be 100% finding ball handlers and people who can create offense. We need 2 at a minimum. I think JJ filled in well at PG the last couple of games but i just don't want to rely on him putting up big minutes next season at either the 1 or 2 spots. If Flan has to play any PG then we failed during the offseason to adequately fill our needs IMO. Flan works as a 2 but we are doing him and ourselves a huge disservice having him run PG. Assuming Coop goes ahead and leaves we have have this at the 1 and 2 spots

1 (PG) No one. JJ and Flan in emergency situations and AU will not be competing for anything if we are in this situation
2 (SG) Flan (would prefer him at 3 but i think he can play the 2 at a high level), Trey (True Freshman), JJ has never shown to be a dynamic scorer at AU. 

The good news is that we are already in on 1 grad transfer PG and Scoot could reclassify. If we can get the grad transfer and Scoot to come in then i like where we sit going in to next season. If Scoot does not reclassify then we have to convince a second transfer to come in and compete. I imagine getting 2 transfer at the same position is a hard sell so i won't like being in that situation. 

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1 hour ago, tigerbrotha12 said:

Why must you deliver such wretched news to me @ellitor

Because you have left and forsaken us and are spending so much time on the worst AU message board which is 247!!!! Why why would you do that to us?!?! 

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23 minutes ago, GwillMac6 said:

Because you have left and forsaken us and are spending so much time on the worst AU message board which is 247!!!! Why why would you do that to us?!?! 

I plead guilty 

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1 hour ago, tigerbrotha12 said:

I plead guilty 

I saw you posted on Rivals today. Much much better. You are forgiven!!! Lmao 😂😆

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23 hours ago, gravejd said:

Our focus this offseason needs to be 100% finding ball handlers and people who can create offense. We need 2 at a minimum. I think JJ filled in well at PG the last couple of games but i just don't want to rely on him putting up big minutes next season at either the 1 or 2 spots. If Flan has to play any PG then we failed during the offseason to adequately fill our needs IMO. Flan works as a 2 but we are doing him and ourselves a huge disservice having him run PG. Assuming Coop goes ahead and leaves we have have this at the 1 and 2 spots

1 (PG) No one. JJ and Flan in emergency situations and AU will not be competing for anything if we are in this situation
2 (SG) Flan (would prefer him at 3 but i think he can play the 2 at a high level), Trey (True Freshman), JJ has never shown to be a dynamic scorer at AU. 

The good news is that we are already in on 1 grad transfer PG and Scoot could reclassify. If we can get the grad transfer and Scoot to come in then i like where we sit going in to next season. If Scoot does not reclassify then we have to convince a second transfer to come in and compete. I imagine getting 2 transfer at the same position is a hard sell so i won't like being in that situation. 

YES. Ballhandlers. I was really surprised looking around the league, how poorly we had in players that were ball handlers. Even Flanigan was ok, but not great, and without Powell and Cooper for long stretches the ONLY ball handler we had was JJ and Flanigan who should have bee always at the 3 spot.

I agree, we have to have at least 2 transfer PG or combo guards regardless if Coop stays or goes. 

I am going to assume Scoot doesn't reclassify, so we need 2 guards for sure. 

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