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Dat2U wrote:Landry Fields stinks. That is all...

No, you're wrong. Landry Fields is a very good and very promising young NBA wing player. That is all....

Actually... I find it curious that people here seem not to see what a good young player Fields is. I can't figure out what you don't like -- or rather, I can see it, but... I don't get why you want to draw a conclusion from it. It's his 3-pt shooting last year, which obviously was bad. But the year before it was quite good: he shot 39+% on 3-pointers. So... I can't imagine drawing any conclusion about him on that basis.

Especially given that as a rookie his TS% was 59% -- among the very best 2 guards in the league. You might want to compare the numbers he put up in 2010-11 to the numbers James Harden put up that year. You'll be surprised at what you see.

Of course you may not want to go off of those numbers; you may just look at how many points he scored, and that does it for you. Guys who score a lot are better than guys who score less. Except... come on, we all know that's not true!

So... what's the problem w/ Landry Fields? The guy's terrific. Better yet, if I'm wrong you'll be able to tell me so at the end of the season.

I'm not as sold as you are on Fields, but his four year college career showed (more or less) a progression of 3 pt shooting improvement that makes me think that last year might have been a little bit opposing teams adjusting for him, and that he can likewise make adjustments to get his shooting % a little closer to his college standard, if not reach the same level as his rookie year.

(EDIT) PS: His PER went from 13.5 to 12 and his WS/48 went from .100 to .85. It wasn't that big a drop, and his assists and steals were up, but his rebounding and FT% showed significant drops as well.

Deon Waiters vs Brad Beal and Waiters is starting to heat-up....helps to be running with Irving.
http://www.nba.com/playerfile/dion_waiters/index.html

Beal
http://www.nba.com/playerfile/bradley_beal/index.html

I'm officially depressed. Seems like a requirement for drafting a 2/3 extremely high is that they must be elite at getting to the cup. Waiters is Wade like in getting to the rim. Beal seems like he has trouble getting to the rack in an empty gym. Irving/ waiter >>> wall/beal, but one thing the cavs don't have is savvy overpaid vets...hey gilbert, you're not going anywhere cause you don't have veteren leadership, ha!

The skepticism about Fields really is as simple as that: he's had one good year, and one bad year. While it's not common, there have been plenty of guys who've surprised their rookie year, only to never again live up to that performance. Dejaun Blair, Tyreke Evans, possible Roddy Beaubois, etc.

It's obviously plausible to construct excuses for Fields' dropoff, but you can't ignore that half the evidence is cause for concern.

It's too early to get that down on Beal after 2 games and 43 minutes. 13 field goal attempts.

fugop wrote:The skepticism about Fields really is as simple as that: he's had one good year, and one bad year. While it's not common, there have been plenty of guys who've surprised their rookie year, only to never again live up to that performance. Dejaun Blair, Tyreke Evans, possible Roddy Beaubois, etc.

It's obviously plausible to construct excuses for Fields' dropoff, but you can't ignore that half the evidence is cause for concern.

I think it goes a little beyond that. When a player has one season that is better than any of his other seasons based largely on his shooting improving, and that one season, the one change was that he was suddenly running in Mike D'Antoni's system, then you have to be a little careful about projecting those numbers in any other situation. Wilson Chandler got paid under similar pretenses and he's been pretty awful on the Nuggets - granted in a relatively small sample size. Fields is a useful player but very replaceable and not some young star on the burst that's about to maintain his crazy levels of efficiency unless he plays for Mike D'Antoni again and can pick up his same old role.

Nivek wrote:It's too early to get that down on Beal after 2 games and 43 minutes. 13 field goal attempts.

Agree, just wish he wasnt so down on himself.

I_Like_Dirt wrote:

fugop wrote:The skepticism about Fields really is as simple as that: he's had one good year, and one bad year. While it's not common, there have been plenty of guys who've surprised their rookie year, only to never again live up to that performance. Dejaun Blair, Tyreke Evans, possible Roddy Beaubois, etc.

It's obviously plausible to construct excuses for Fields' dropoff, but you can't ignore that half the evidence is cause for concern.

I think it goes a little beyond that. When a player has one season that is better than any of his other seasons based largely on his shooting improving, and that one season, the one change was that he was suddenly running in Mike D'Antoni's system, then you have to be a little careful about projecting those numbers in any other situation. Wilson Chandler got paid under similar pretenses and he's been pretty awful on the Nuggets - granted in a relatively small sample size. Fields is a useful player but very replaceable and not some young star on the burst that's about to maintain his crazy levels of efficiency unless he plays for Mike D'Antoni again and can pick up his same old role.

Skepticism is warranted anytime a guy has a drop off like Fields did. Here's how I had him rated in YODA for each of his college seasons:

- FR: Don't draft
- SO: Don't draft -- actually rated worse as a soph than he did as a freshman
- JR: latter part of the 2nd round
- SR: late 1st round

His offensive efficiency was the same (good) in both junior and senior seasons. This was a good sign considering his usage rate went up significantly. One red flag was his subpar free throw shooting in college.

I think he'll be a useful player for several years. Obviously more useful the closer he gets to his rookie form.

NBA talent evaluation: Where the Big East Player of the Year becomes a 2nd round "sleeper" possibility for Rookie of the Year.

Crowder has lived up to your fairly lofty predictions. Kudos to you both.

Crowder is the posterboy for slept on rookie hype this season, no doubt. He was before the draft even (along with Will Barton).

NBA pundits are impressed with Crowder early on, already calling him a steal. Everybody's catching on, even the non-stat-heads seem to be a fan of his game so far.

But how good is he really? Was he merely drafted lower than he should have been? As in, is he actually a top 5 or top 10 player in this past draft, or is he merely say, the 15th best player in the draft (and thus, still a steal given where he was drafted). In my opinion, that remains to be seen.

For reference, here's what the Wages of Wins crew came up with for their player projections right before this year's draft: http://wagesofwins.com/2012/06/25/2012- ... -rankings/

Their top 3 are: 1. Anthony Davis, 2. Jae Crowder, 3. Bradley Beal.

The year before their top 3 were: 1. Kenneth Faried, 2. Kyrie Irving, 3. Kawhi Leonard

That's just a small snapshot of their projections, but at first glance, it definitely bodes well for their credibility, even on a small scale.

Keep in mind this is just one website's projections. But they are a good group of NBA stat-heads, whether you agree with all of their theories or not. So for now let's just look at their projections.

Here's a quote about Crowder made about 2 weeks ago from the NBA Geek, basically a sister site of Wages of Wins, even though it's just one guy's work. "This guy will be a huge star (in production if not recognition). No question in my mind. You know this if you've been reading my blog, but it really amazes me that he's still kind of a "secret". He shouldn't be any more of a secret than Faried was. In other words, all the signs are there that he is exactly what he looked like in college, which is 'freakishly good'. Yet, he's 6'3". We need to just get over it and move along. If he gets all the baskets and all the rebounds, why are we all so damn hung up about this?"

They aren't just saying that Crowder was undervalued, they're saying that he was one of the elite players in this draft.

So far Crowder has played 7 games in the NBA. Everybody's impressed, like I said earlier. But are his stats all that great so far? I'm not convinced. Again, it's a very small sample size, one way or the other, so I'll wait before I anoint him a star or a bust.

Some of Crowder's stats so far:
21 MPG
Usage Rate: 16.1%
Offensive Efficiency Rating: 103
Defensive Efficiency Rating: 106
Wins Produced Per 48 Minutes: .016

Obviously there's more to the story, both good and bad, but those were some of the most interesting stats in my opinion.

Thus far, Crowder has not been elite, statistically speaking. He's been far from it. Statistically speaking, he has not only been a below average player, he's dangerously close to being one of the few players who actually causes his team to lose games when he is on the floor.

To put this in terms we might understand around here, the only Wizards who have been worse (cost their team more wins) so far this season are Booker, Pargo, and Seraphin. This speaks volumes, however, to this merely being too small of a sample size.

But I don't get why people are already labeling Crowder as a steal. I get why pre-draft he stood out as a potentially huge steal, numbers-wise. I liked him them, and I still like him now. 7 games is too soon to judge any player. But let's not get ahead of ourselves as say Crowder has already started living up to these lofty projections. He hasn't. Yet.

Ruzious wrote:I'll be very surprised if Davis doesn't win ROY in a landslide.

After him, Andrew Nicholson is in a situation where he should get a lot of opportunity, and he can score - so he has a chance to be 2nd while playing on a very bad team. And Jared Sullinger could make significant contributions to a good Celtics team.

Davis and Lillard are going to be neck-and-neck the entire season.
http://www.nba.com/rookie-ladder/

is Beal a better pick than Harrison Barnes?

Is it possible to know the answer to that question 8-9 games into each player's career?

Nivek wrote:NBA talent evaluation: Where the Big East Player of the Year becomes a 2nd round "sleeper" possibility for Rookie of the Year.

Everybody here seemed to nail that pick. I didn't know enough about him to make an accurate judgment, just realized on you guys, and you totally nailed it collectively and individually on many levels. I'm horrified at how horse crap NBA scouting is. It's like the NFL draft in the sixties, they really seem totally clueless. To hear that when it came to euro players, they simply assumed they sucked, then when Vlade, Drazen and friends blew up, they couldnt draft enough of them etc? Freaking morons. I am more than willing to admit my issues, and one of them is apparently giving too much respect to management. At times I distrust CCJ even with his track record, or you with your system, somewhat buying into the idea that they are doing the metrics, and in the business for a reason, and there's a reason we aren't, but at this point, I'm viewing most 50+ GM's as the equivalent of 1900-1970's style legacy IVY kids like W. Just idiots that managed to get in via some connection, and stay in through an old boys network, like how Loria was allowed to drop a nuke on the expos, and then basically piss all over Miami and treat their populace (admittedly not my favorite), as his own personal septic tank.

I gave EG the benefit of the doubt on Vesely even though i wanted a trade up for Valunciunas because I hated the Kansas twins, didnt think we'd go after Kawai, and figured we could get Faried, or somebody else in the teens. And now here we sit, with Vesely likely to go down as one of the worst picks of the 2011-2020 era when we're only 1.5 years into that era. Hugely embarrasing.

Even worse to see the satoranksy pick when there were at least 1-2 likely starters with potential stud about them available, and another 5-6 great sleepers available. Satoransky isn't the clusterflutch that Vesely appears to be, he could end up being valuable, but my god? What the hell is wrong with our F.O., and with the NBA in general? Its ridiculous. The NFL and MLB and even NHL are vastly more difficult to scout and evaluate, and yet they all do a better job than the NBA. It's pathetic.

Oh and btw, feeling very confident in my, "#$&&$T#@! Freaking Detroit got the steal of the draft! Thoughts from last summer. I cannot believe he fell into their freaking laps at that point in the draft. When a guy has a 50/50 chance at being a Dwight Howard type? It's inexcusable to allow him to nearly fall out of the top 10 entirely.

Knighthonor wrote:is Beal a better pick than Harrison Barnes?

And it's also worth mentioning this:

Both Beal and Wall, the only picks that weren't disastrously idiotic in the first four years of the shouldabeenarebuildsince'09, got their start with inept, pathetic, disastrously bad supporting casts.

Wall was surrounded by me first, no BBIQ morons with little talent.

Beal is surrounded by a bunch of backups, and d leaguers, and total hacks at PG.

Both scenario's are highly likely to impact your productivity and effectiveness.

I am not even slightly worried about the kid. If he stinks with a healthy wizards team 150 games into his career, then I'll worry.

closg00 wrote:

closg00 wrote:

dangermouse wrote:Its Davis' to lose really when you consider his time with Team USA etc. If Beal gets minutes I think he will be in that top 3 range for sure.

I would be surprised if Davis were to win ROY. Given the position that he plays and his current body-weight that he has, it could take him a couple of years to body-up NBA guys. Davis looks skinnier than Greg Monroe.

I would put Lillard as front-runner to win Roy, he has the easiest path to win if they give him the keys.

Lillard wins unanimously, it was an easy early call.