As a rule, most pre-draft stories, written by people who don’t cover college sports, are drive-by generalizations with some easy boiler-plate quotes and lazy correlations.
That’s not what Jonathan Tjarks has done here in his excellent piece on N.C. State’s Dennis Smith Jr. for The Ringer.
Smith went into his only college season as a candidate for the No. 1 overall pick. After his spectacular, yet brief showing in the adidas Nations camp last summer, he was projected to go in the top spot.
Just noticed this .. pic.twitter.com/uTGLnJgBrd
— Joe Giglio (@jwgiglio) September 9, 2016
Then the season happened.