His
PER is pretty pedestrian for a guy who is the center of the offense and one who has the liberty to take as many shots as he would like to. PER isn't the be all end all statistic and a poor one doesn't necessarily mean a poor draft rating or someone who can't get drafted, but it's much better to have a PER greater than 20 if the goal is to be drafted.
ETA: But whatever, if Tyus wants to go pro, go for it. I just don't think he'll get drafted in the 1st or early 2nd. My bet would be undrafted. If people are suggesting he's a 1st rounder, I'd like to see an argument for it.
I'll go ahead and make an argument for Tyus being a first round draft pick, because I think he's been fantastic this year, and this thread is absolute garbage.
There are maybe 10 or so college players with so much talent that they should be able contribute in the NBA. These guys will be the first 10 picks in the draft. After those 10, the odds are against every other player turning into someone who can consistently contribute at the NBA level, so essentially what GM's do is play the lottery and hope the guy they choose (who has 100-1 odds of making it big) hits.
Tyus is in a group of maybe 50 or 60 players who have a small chance to contribute in the NBA. When you are in this group the difference between being drafted at the tail end of the lottery and not being drafted at all is incredibly small, and little things can lead to huge jumps in draft stock. We've seen it before. The 6 OT game pushed Flynn from an undrafted player to the lottery. 10 amazing minutes against Virginia pushed Malachi from undrafted to the first round.
Battle will probably have the measurables that the NBA wants, and he's going to have plenty of chances to convince an NBA GM (it only takes one) that he's the player they should be taking a chance on. Would it surprise anybody if Tyus put up 30 against Virginia on Saturday, or against Duke? That might be all it takes.
My feeling is that its about 50-50 whether Battle is a first round draft pick or not, but going by who is on draft boards now is meaningless. Battle might not be the chosen one in this moment in time among the 50 or 60 players fighting for a first round pick, but the draft isn't right now, and Battle will have good measurables and more opportunity than many to impress.
As for his PER, I want to say that all stats are meaningless without context. Battle is the only player on that list who gets triple teamed as a normal strategy by opposing teams. There is a huge amount of defensive focus on him because we don't have many good options, and he is forced to shoot a lot anyway (again, because we don't have many good options). Nobody in college basketball right now is capable of being efficient under those circumstances, so you have to take PER, shooting percentage, and 3 point percentage with a huge grain of salt.
As for rebounds, our front line is doing a great job rebounding, so we are not overly reliant on our guards this year. I see 5 good rebounders on SU at most times, but only one guy can actually grab the board. More times than not that's Moyer, Brissett, Chukwu, or Dolezaj, and that shouldn't be held against Battle, those guys are suppose to do the bulk of the rebounding.
As for assists, ideally yes, Battle would be a better passer, but lets not forget that he's a sophomore getting his first experience being "the man." In situations where we have a primary scorer who doesn't have a lot of experience Boeheim often times encourages them to just focus on what they do best. Carmelo Anthony had the ball in his hands more than Battle does and averaged similar assists. Same with Dion Waiters. If Battle did come back, and still had relatively few assists as a junior, that would be a problem, I see it as less of a problem this year.
As for turnovers, yes we want Battle to make fewer turnovers than he does, but again he is facing a pretty much unprecedented level of defensive attention. A few extra turnovers are going to happen when the defense can get away with hounding one guy and our supporting cast has not made defenses pay nearly enough for choosing to hound Battle.
Bottom line, the most valuable skill a basketball player can have is being able to put the ball in the basket against a defense that is set up to stop you. Battle is the best we've had at this since Carmelo Anthony. He's had a great year. There are flaws in his game, certainly, but in the hundred plus year history of SU basketball, you can't name me a player who didn't have any obvious flaws (except maybe Derrick Coleman who was the #1 pick in the draft) the standards Battle is being held up to are unreasonably high at the moment.
