How did he stock rise so high?

http://scout.scout.com/a.z?s=75&p=8&c=1&nid=915788

uh, he grew 6 inches from his senior year.

uh.. he was 6'8, 175 his senior year in HS.. do you mean .6 inches?

r u sure?

maybe he just learned how to jump?

Because he played well against Duke.

Yeah, that's pretty much true. He was about 6'7" and 180 pounds coming out of high school (Measurements will vary depending on the source. The article at the top says 6'8" 175.). That's a major reason that he red-shirted his first year at LSU. He was hurt as well, but I don't think that would have changed the plan any.

Michael Jordan was cut from his HS basketball team twice. I guess your prospects can change as you get older and more mature.

He was a freshman trying out for the varsity team.

He got his sophomore year too.

IIRC he grew quite a couple of inches by the start of his junior year, and obviously he worked on his game a lot. That's a little different though because that's still in high school. Michael was a McDonald's All-American his senior year and broke the scoring record in that game. You don't see college players in their first year make a jump like that too often.

Plus he was recruited into North Carolina.

But ya, Thomas may have been a 3 star prospect but you have a lot of shoots and misses. He could have been playing at a small time school without many guys knowing him or had some other sort of issues that kept him down.

I know he worked real hard to add weight while still staying explosive and really turned himself into a top notch prospect in just one season.

Wasn't Scottie Pippen a manager throwing guys towels his first year of college? Who cares what Thomas was ranked in high school, he jumps out of the building, blocks shots, runs like the wind, has a shot that is better than people think, and is only going to get better. Having him and Wallace is only going to help a guy like Gordon on defense. The Bulls are on the rise. Getting rid of Krause and bringing in Pax was a stroke of genius by the Chairman.