Chicago Bulls: 3 prospects to avoid with the fourth pick

G Cole Anthony, North Carolina

It’s not just the injury that scares me away from Cole Anthony. It’s the fact that he looks like a poor man’s Coby White.

Another combo guard projected to go in the lottery and the son of former NBA player Greg Anthony, Cole was the head of a mediocre Tar Heel squad that was admitted by head coach Roy Williams to be one of the “least gifted” he’s been in charge of.

While the team struggled, Anthony was clearly above the rest of his teammates in terms of talent, having the “#3 nationally ranked prospect” label on him coming out of high school. He showed it in his first game, coming out with 34 points, 11 boards, and 5 assists.

Anthony went through his first nine colligate games averaging over 19 points per game in over 33 minutes per contest.

In December, he went down with a partially torn meniscus in his right knee which ultimately destroyed his team’s playoff hopes and plummeted his draft placement. Once he came back, he looked fine but not at 100 percent (which he admitted on a podcast when the season was canceled).

During his segment with the Front Office Podcast, Anthony revealed:

“I probably played the first five games fully healthy, and I played four more games after that, and my knee was already messed up at that point. I felt it; I just didn’t really pay much attention to it. I can honestly say I was about 70% playing the rest of the season — I never got back to a hundred percent.”

While I personally believe Anthony will be a pretty good player in this league, that knee worries me from the get-go. Combine that with his rush to get back and his field goal percentage (38, 34.8 from deep) and you have a player that could probably have used a little bit more seasoning in the college ranks before declaring for the draft.

His shot IQ is absolutely not NBA ready, and his natural ability will only get him so far once he’s drafted.

Again, the Bulls need to stay away from combo guards, doubly so on one that has a knee issue is his recent past. If the Bulls were to trade back, Anthony would probably be a solid pick around the back end of the lottery.

But for the fourth pick? Stay away from this kid.