adidas Nations Experience: 2010/11 High School Prospects August 20, 2008 This was our first look at the oddly spelled Adreian Payne (#23 Scout, #14 Rivals, Unranked ESPN), and we can definitely tell what the recruiting services (some of them at least) see in him early on. “All arms and legs” was the way one NBA executive described him—which tells you a little bit about both his strengths and weaknesses. He has really nice size (maybe closer to 6-10 than the 6-8 or 6-9 he’s listed at), a freakishly long wingspan, and a frame that should be able to add weight in time. He’s incredibly skinny at the moment, to the point that it really affects the way he can operate on the court.
Payne is a very quick and athletic big man who does a little bit of everything right now, but doesn’t seem to really know what his game is all about just yet. He can run the floor extremely well, put the ball on the deck a little bit, finish around the basket (if strength is not an issue) with an emphatic dunk or with his left hand, bounce off the ground (often consecutively) for blocks and offensive rebounds, and even occasionally hit a surprising pull-up jumper.
The problem is that he’s exceptionally raw, but no one seems to have let him in on that little secret yet. He’s not an efficient player at all just yet, being very turnover prone, and his decision making seems to have the longest to go from what we can tell. Payne’s shot-selection looked brutal at times, throwing up some awful bricks on contested looks, and getting himself into serious trouble by trying to do too much with the ball in his hands. He tried to block pretty much every shot that he could too, looking fairly off with his timing, and getting himself out of position to compete for the defensive rebound.
Still, you can’t help but be intrigued about what this guy might develop into considering his natural physical tools and just how incredibly young he still is, so we definitely need to stay tuned and see how he develops over the next few years. [Read Full Article]
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