The sixers and building a winner
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The move is difficult for anyone to execute against NBA defenses, thus the reason you don't see anyone doing it.
Well right now Saric looks like a piece, embiid is freaking exciting as hell. Simmons still is a huge talent and it sure as he'll looks like they will end up with a high pick plus the kings swap, and looks like the Lakers pick will come, but maybe not as high as hoped. But it's a good year it probably regardless.
Sergio is awesome to watch too.
Okafor is a bust. He's bench time offense, hide on d. Noel appears to be going which I'm sad about, we shall see.
Sergio is awesome to watch too.
Okafor is a bust. He's bench time offense, hide on d. Noel appears to be going which I'm sad about, we shall see.
They should be more annoyed with themselves for valuing the pick more than a #3 pick that would have allowed them to plug a huge hole in the roster. After watching Brown I'm glad they did.
Philly didn't win their 4th game last season until January 4th, and not until December 23rd the year before.
Hmmm so even without Simmons maybe not the worst team in the NBA?
Embiid is doing what my career player in NBA 2k17 does, in terms of points per minute and usage. You can't make an athletic 7+ ft player who can shoot the three, run the floor, board and block shots.
If he can stay heathy he's a legit star building block.
It seemed all but certain, and maybe it will be anyway, that they would have a shot at a very good pg draft but lakers have been better and sixers are A bad team not THE bad team.
That Kings swap working would be hilarious. Stauskas is showing some skills this year they still have an unprotected 2018 first to come and the swap this year. If it's a top pick in a good draft that's going to be funny.
Embiid is doing what my career player in NBA 2k17 does, in terms of points per minute and usage. You can't make an athletic 7+ ft player who can shoot the three, run the floor, board and block shots.
If he can stay heathy he's a legit star building block.
It seemed all but certain, and maybe it will be anyway, that they would have a shot at a very good pg draft but lakers have been better and sixers are A bad team not THE bad team.
That Kings swap working would be hilarious. Stauskas is showing some skills this year they still have an unprotected 2018 first to come and the swap this year. If it's a top pick in a good draft that's going to be funny.
Wiggins/Jabari/Embiid -1/2/3 looking pretty good a bit after people started to write that draft off. Who would be number one today? Without injury concerns Embiid probably, but I would guess as is it would stay the same.
I'd take Embiid over Parker today, and Wiggins of last season would be close, but he seems to be improving, even if he can't pass.
Embiid has the injury risk but he's the (imo) most likely guy you can build a team around.
Embiid has the injury risk but he's the (imo) most likely guy you can build a team around.
At the end of last season there were people arguing Marcus Smart over Jabari. Looks like the range he added in the 2nd half of last year has carried over.
People kind of lost their minds over Smart's strong series against Atlanta -- even before Parker took a step forward (so far) this season, he was clearly the better player of the two. Embiid v Parker is an interesting debate -- I think you'd have to roll the dice on Embiid's ceiling, but Parker's floor is awfully high, whereas Embiid's floor is "plays in fewer than 100 career NBA games."
http://www.philly.com/philly/blogs/sports/sixers/Sixers-view-Simmons-as-their-point-guard-when-ready-to-play.html
Brett Brown says Simmons will play point guard when he come back, and Bayliss will play off guard offensively but guard pg on defense. Makes sense since they have so many big men. I wonder if Simmons will guard 2s or 3s.
Brett Brown says Simmons will play point guard when he come back, and Bayliss will play off guard offensively but guard pg on defense. Makes sense since they have so many big men. I wonder if Simmons will guard 2s or 3s.
The counterpoint to this is that Wiggins may actually be bad. TL;DR version- low-efficiency high volume shooters who don't do much else tend to be over-rated, and for a guy who was touted as having great defensive potential, Wiggins is currently dead last among SFs in DRPM, and was terrible last year as well. Demakis unfavorably compares Wiggins' 2nd and 3rd year with a bunch of other wings and concludes that with the right development curve, he could be a more athletic Derozan, but a Rudy Ga-type career is a more reasonable expectation.
So if a fair compromise is in between DeRozan and Gay how does this make him remotely close to "actually being bad?" He's still only 21 years old, he's not supposed to understand defensive schemes yet while playing with other 21 years olds who also don't and without having learned from veteran teammates to boot. We know how one player not in sync with the others can ruin a defensive sequence so I don't put a ton of weight into defensive metrics in a situation such as this. Wiggins clearly has the physical and mental tools to be a very good defender down the road.
Well, the claim is that while he could eventually develop into a DeRozan-type, currently, he is in fact actually bad.
I've always said that the best thing the Cavs ever did for LeBron was surround him with high character vets for his first couple of years. It was everything else they did wrong after. Minnesota did get Garnett for a year and change, but they seriously needed to move the Kiddie Corps bench filler for vets to help teach the kids to win. It never ceases to amaze me how many teams get that part wrong.
That article just reads like a guy who hates Andrew Wiggins. He had him 7th on his board and was somehow vindicated because Marcus Smart, Exum, Aaron Gordon, Nurkik and Capela are all clearly better than Wiggins. And Parker too, ftm, who he had 8th.
I think Wiggins in current form is totally overrated and the fact his overall game hasn't improved much is scary, but it does look like he improved his 3 point shot this year. If he's really a 40% shooter from 3 point range, he doesn't really have to do much of anything else to be a productive player. A bust? Nonsense.
I think Wiggins in current form is totally overrated and the fact his overall game hasn't improved much is scary, but it does look like he improved his 3 point shot this year. If he's really a 40% shooter from 3 point range, he doesn't really have to do much of anything else to be a productive player. A bust? Nonsense.
It is such a disservice to young talents to not have the necessary guidance and leadership from veteran teammates. This isn't new either. It spans back decades and decades in this league.
I will now bang my head on the wall for not getting to see Len Bias realize his considerable talents after spending the early party of his career with a bunch of future HOFers.
4s or 3s is the expectation. 2s would be almost too much to hope for at his size.
I think he might be able to guard 3s fine and if so that allows minutes at 4 for whoever. Saric or anyone to come.
I think Demakis should definitely be wary of confirmation bias based on his pre-draft rankings, but the numbers don't lie. I was mildly surprised at how highly some here seem to rate Wiggins, given the discussions we've had in the past about high-volume scorers like Gay who don't do much else (pour some out for Knucklecup, who somewhere undoubtedly still thinks that Rudy can't fail and that his soft seven will eventually embrace monogamy), and I thought the piece was worth sharing.
Wiggins obviously has the physical tools to become a plus defender and the form to become a plus shooter, and you're right that if he's shooting 40% from three, he's well on his way (even if his TS% is actually down this year), but how good of a player can he be if he remains a poor rebounder and poor passer?
As far as calling him a bust, it's too early and that draft was too shitty for me to say that, but if they hadn't scored with KAT the next year, I suspect a lot of Wolves fans would have regretted not drafting Embiid.
This was good from Dan Levy about the huge minutes crunch when everyone is healthy. http://billypenn.com/2016/11/30/sixers-coach-brett-brown-and-the-fight-to-get-his-big-men-playing-time/
Jimmy Butler, Klay Thompson. along with most traditional twos in NBA history?
But Wiggins is a three. A three who rebounds like a two, distributes like a four, and is a major defensive liability.
Look, the kid won't even be 22 for a couple of months. He has loads of time to develop into a great player, but I don't see much evidence that he's even a good player right now.
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Both those examples are exceptional defenders, and I believe efficient scorers typically. If Wiggins is an excellent defender and volume scorer with some efficiency, sure the passing and rebounding isn't going to make him bad. But he's not efficient, he's not a decent defender, let alone elite, so the other flaws matter.
He's young and can improve, esp defensively given his coach and tools. But it's far from a given.
When you need an improvement in one skill, a huge improvement in another and hope for improvements in passing and rebounding. What you have is an inefficient volume scorer with upside.
many players who played guard in the eighties and nineties would be forwards today.
And there were tons of guys in that wing position who pretty much were not terribly rounded w/re to playmaking and rebounding. I'm not saying that they were huge successes but they definitely had a lasting place in the league. Guys like Anderson and Scott come to mind but you could also throw in Mashburn and Finley.
Virtually all those guys were 3-4 year college players so the comparison isn't completely, since Wiggins' current season matches up with their rookie (or senior seasons).
The promising thing with Wiggins is that his efficiency is holding steady while he's taking on a bigger and bigger role in the offense.
Yeah, he's not going to be Tracy McGrady and I know that's what people were hoping from him, but I'd bet on him being a pretty good player overall.
And there were tons of guys in that wing position who pretty much were not terribly rounded w/re to playmaking and rebounding. I'm not saying that they were huge successes but they definitely had a lasting place in the league. Guys like Anderson and Scott come to mind but you could also throw in Mashburn and Finley.
Virtually all those guys were 3-4 year college players so the comparison isn't completely, since Wiggins' current season matches up with their rookie (or senior seasons).
The promising thing with Wiggins is that his efficiency is holding steady while he's taking on a bigger and bigger role in the offense.
Yeah, he's not going to be Tracy McGrady and I know that's what people were hoping from him, but I'd bet on him being a pretty good player overall.
I think those arguing against Wiggins are coming from the perspective that "pretty good" is a failure for Wiggins based on his pre-draft hype. If he were a Celtic I think a lot of people would be let down by him being "pretty good".
Yea, that's a pretty big stretch.
His rookie year he would have been surrounded by Rajon Rondo, Brandon Bass, and Gerald Wallace.
And Avery Bradley. Followed by Lil' Zeke, Jae Crowder, and then Amir Johnson, Jonas Jerebko, etc.. In Minnesota he's been surrounded by his fellow kids, which leads to a lot of boneheaded play. They had a little over a year of Garnett which helped some, but aside from that the other two vets have never managed to play for a .500 team. (Also while Brandon Bass wasn't very talented, he was a vet with a track record of playing for winning teams, which is not a net negative.)
I am not discounting the fact of the benefit of having a solid veteran presence. But if you are going to trot out guys like Bradley, Thomas, Crowder, Johnson, and Jerebeko (really?) as evidence of solid character vets, then there is a pretty simple response with similar vets for the Wolves in Thaddeus Young, Kevin Martin, Corey Brewer, Ricky Rubio, Tayshaun Prince, etc.
Just to be clear, your argument here is that 26 year old Avery Bradley and 27 year old Isaiah Thomas are "character vets," that would have had a more positive impact on Andrew Wiggins' development than playing Kevin Garnett, Mo Williams, Tayshaun Prince, and Andre Miller did?
No no no, it is guys who played for a winning team like Thomas did in Sacramento, and Jerebko in Detroit.
The big logjam working out great. Noel gets 8 minutes, complains to press, coach announces that Noel isn't going to be in the rotation, but it isn't because he spoke out to press. Really building that trade value.
Don't even get me started.
Move the best player on the team out of position and bench the second best player on the team to play Okafor at center more. Where his defense and lack of effort fuck the team.
Meanwhile the knock on effects mean playing Saric out of position and less time for competent players. Let alone when Simmons comes back.
Either trade noel or fuck yourself.
I love that Hinkie got fired for lack of communication and relationship with the players. The players all liked him, you think they like colangelo right now? And of course no contact or anything with the press.
I am so fucking pissed off with ownership and management all so predictable and Bullshit.
Trade Okafor for a bag if fucking balls.
Extend Noel. Draft a couple of good player s next year (say fultz and monk would be OK) and move fucking on.
A+hhhhhhhhhh
Move the best player on the team out of position and bench the second best player on the team to play Okafor at center more. Where his defense and lack of effort fuck the team.
Meanwhile the knock on effects mean playing Saric out of position and less time for competent players. Let alone when Simmons comes back.
Either trade noel or fuck yourself.
I love that Hinkie got fired for lack of communication and relationship with the players. The players all liked him, you think they like colangelo right now? And of course no contact or anything with the press.
I am so fucking pissed off with ownership and management all so predictable and Bullshit.
Trade Okafor for a bag if fucking balls.
Extend Noel. Draft a couple of good player s next year (say fultz and monk would be OK) and move fucking on.
A+hhhhhhhhhh
I never got the love for Noel. Who is his comp? A rich mans Amir in his Toronto days? He should be pissed and trying to get moved out of town as a FA this summer but nobody will give up anything for him.....because he'll be a FA this summer.
The situation still sucks here.
The situation still sucks here.
The Comp that gets thrown out a lot is Tyson Chandler, it's not perfect, but it's not terrible.
The argument for him is that based on his first two years he can be an elite defensive 5, who can protect the rim, and has enough agility to shut down PnR. That has real value.
That's my take. Elite defensive 5 that you don't need to run much for on offense, gets points on slashing and lots etc. His rebounding is sub elite though but partly offset by his hands, his steals numbers are superb, and his ability to switch to smaller players. In a pnr league the latter is a significant offset to his rebounding.
It all depends on your team. If you need a mobile defensive 5 he's a good fit. You want a two way stud center no. But I think he can help you a lot on d and not hurt you on o. Given the priority on rum protection and pnr I think he's a very useful player. And I personally feel a good fit off the bench for Embiid.
More importantly if it's Noel or Okafor (which it may not be but hypothetical) then Noel. Frankly if it's Okafor or Holmes... I'm not sure it's Okafor.
You put him ahead of Embiid and Noel in priority for center minutes and he shoots 0-10 with 3 turnovers in 27 minutes.
I mean if he can't score on Scola...
Moreover colangelo hasn't dealt with the problem, despite it being obvious. Nor has he spoken to the press since the season began and has had brown out there talking shit.
Oh right what Hinkie was criticized for. Meanwhile we do have the joy of watching blah vets play lots of minutes... So there's that.
How would you deal with the Noel situation? He's injured, doesn't yet possess even Amir or Tyson's offensive component, and is a FA in 7 months who wants to get paid.
Nobody is trading for him and he's a bad fit with the current group. What other options are there for him? It reminds me of our own Rondo situation from years past in a lot of ways.
Nobody is trading for him and he's a bad fit with the current group. What other options are there for him? It reminds me of our own Rondo situation from years past in a lot of ways.
I keep seeing this same point made ad nauseam about Noel, and without fail, people are simultaneously critical of Noel's game and insistent that there's some giant market for him in restricted free agency that is scaring teams away from trading for him.
Noel is either an injury prone one-dimensional role-player, or he's an RFA that's about to get so overpaid that a team acquiring him in a trade will be forced not to match his offer. It's one or the other, not both. If a team thinks Noel helps them, and he fits what they're doing, they'll trade for him.
I don't understand your point about it not being both. A team can absolutely not like Noel's physical history, his limited game.....AND that if he remains on the floor this year that someone will offer him the type of deal that they woudn't want to commit to long term.
Noel has red flags to his game and isn't cost controlled.....he's essentially a rental with huge question marks both in the present and future. Teams aren't knocking down Colangelo's door for a guy like this. He's most likely going to be a deadline rental deal to a playoff team looking to add frontcourt depth garnering relatively little in return.
My point is precisely that there isn't a big market for him. Either at the deadline or when he hits RFA.
I keep seeing this insistence that teams aren't dealing for Noel because he's "not cost controlled" without any ability to identify the teams that are going to throw a big offer his way this offseason.
I keep seeing this insistence that teams aren't dealing for Noel because he's "not cost controlled" without any ability to identify the teams that are going to throw a big offer his way this offseason.
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