A quarter into the season and Montrezl Harrell is leading the league in WS/48. Sure, I cherry picked a flawed stat to emphasize my point, but he's been great by most measures after a solid season last year. And credit where it's due, I recall the shit-poster formerly known as Brickowski was a big fan of his coming out of Lou when I had him pegged as an end-of-bench undersized big. Just another example of just how small the NBA has trended that he's playing as well as he is (and with as much burn as he's getting) at center. I feel like I re-learn this lesson every time I overrate a rim-protecting big who can't defend the perimeter. Kevin Willis should be the mascot of 90s basketball- beefy, immobile bigs are dinosaurs now, and who better embodies that than T Rex himself. Note to self- don't let Bruno Ferdinando be your new Festus Ezeli/Diamond Stone. And pay more attention to Sagaba Konate working in space.
Speaking of late bloomers, Noah Vonleh, who somehow is younger than Kyle Kuzma, should be life-coaching all of the 2016 lottery bigs. His shooting should regress, but the defense looks real and he's passing the ball well too. There's this phenomenon wherein shitty teams draft uber-young bigs in the lottery, and then give up on them too early when they struggle, only to watch them turn into useful players elsewhere. It's nice to take flyers on those guys as they're typically easy to acquire, still relatively young, and have at least learned a lot of the ancillary stuff about how to be a professional.
So take caution writing off really young guys too early. A corollary to this is that there's a bunch of teams out there now who have to be really encouraged by the way their 19 year olds have played. Doncic, Ayton and the Juniors (Jaren Jackson and Wendell Carter) are going to be really, really good.
Speaking of late bloomers, Noah Vonleh, who somehow is younger than Kyle Kuzma, should be life-coaching all of the 2016 lottery bigs. His shooting should regress, but the defense looks real and he's passing the ball well too. There's this phenomenon wherein shitty teams draft uber-young bigs in the lottery, and then give up on them too early when they struggle, only to watch them turn into useful players elsewhere. It's nice to take flyers on those guys as they're typically easy to acquire, still relatively young, and have at least learned a lot of the ancillary stuff about how to be a professional.
So take caution writing off really young guys too early. A corollary to this is that there's a bunch of teams out there now who have to be really encouraged by the way their 19 year olds have played. Doncic, Ayton and the Juniors (Jaren Jackson and Wendell Carter) are going to be really, really good.
