A new sort of Dame?

Player comparisons are inherently unfair because each individual talent stands on his own merit. After having typed that (and I will phrase the following carefully), can Sacramento State's Mikh McKinney join Damian Lillard and prosper as yet another guard coming from the Big Sky Conference to the National Basketball Association?

Hmmmmmm:

Lillard is 6-foot-3 195 and McKinney is, let's say, a 6-footer, 170. Granted, there have been very few players the weight of the latter in the NBA.

Lillard averaged 24.5 points per game during his junior season, finishing second in the nation. He then turned pro and became the sixth pick in the 2012 draft..

As a senior, McKinney is scoring 18.8 points on 13 shots a game. He's shooting 54%, 41% and 77% respectively. Add 5.3 assists, 2.7 steals an outing and the simply-must-be-acknowledged ability to carry his team.

In a way though, no numbers really matter for any prospect as the question boils down to this: can he add enough value to an NBA team?

McKinney, in a somewhat similar vein to Lillard, was pretty much ignored by four year recruiters coming out of high school. After a redshirt year and then a season of basketball at Ohlone College, he mysteriously still wasn't in any sort of great demand. His offers weren't multiple.

McKinney candidly admits to being a different player and person than he was in his prep days and very grateful for having been coached by John Peterson and Brian Katz.

How this eventually goes down is going to be fascinating. There might be a few college coaches, had they signed him, still coaching where they were when McKinney was available to them or maybe even being in better positions elsewhere.