Wednesday Items

-- Some AJ Davis discussion from the local Detroit press:

It's not a lock, but there's a strong possibility Davis will get a spot on the Lions' roster because of his draft status. Taken in the fourth round, the Lions used the pick on Davis that they received from the Oakland Raiders in the trade for Josh McCown and Mike Williams.

-- Caleb Mangum isn't hitting well through his first few pro games, but he's earning praise from the Phillies for his game management:

“There’s some people I’ve seen over the years who just seem to have a natural knack to run a game and call pitches,” Compton said. “It’s an instinct. They just look at hitters, see where they’re setting up. They just kind of have a feel for it.

“It’s hard to explain. Some people just seem to have that. And he seems to.”

-- ESPN's John Hollinger unveiled a new system (it's a free Insider article) intended to quantify the pro potential of college basketball prospects. While the usefulness of the system remains to be seen, there is a lot of interesting stuff in his explanation. For example:

Though perhaps the most worthless stat for NBA analysis, there's no denying that college players who get a ton of steals tend to fare much better in the NBA than their less sticky-fingered brethren. This is the one item that gets the most weight, actually -- it's even more important than PER!

For this year's draft, that's a big positive for Mike Conley, Jr., who picked off more than two balls a game, and a big negative for players like Arron Afflalo (22 all season), Nick Young (27) and Ramon Sessions (29).