Patrick Lee Williams Comps?

[GoBlue72391]

Luol Deng on the high end, Marvin Williams on the low end.

[MrSparkle]

I'm still sticking with the Tyrus Thomas/ Marvin Williams/Michael Kidd-Gilchrist/ Stanley Johnson comparisons. He has been a underwhelming rookie.

"Siri, name 4 random basketball players."

Tyrus - Invented his own development plan, and failed to learn how to play any position or serviceable NBA job. I think most NBA players would’ve dreamt to have Tyrus’ athleticism. Jets for feet. But Scrawny and unskilled. Pat could bench press TT with one hand.

MKG - House of bricks... and injuries.

Stanley - Sure... But Very poor BBIQ, work ethic and tunnel vision. Unlike Pat.

Marvin - The lone good comparison. I myself was never sure why he didn’t have a more successful career. Checked a lot of boxes. Probably lacked that 5th gear to work on his game in off-season. Tweeners were also (way) less valuable in the 06-12 era. Probably would’ve been a meaningful player in his late prime, somewhere other than the treadmill Hornets.

Considering IQ, fundamentals and work ethic were knocks on these guys, Siri got it wrong indeed!

[GoBlue72391]

Ugh. This thread is turning into a debate about Williams quality. I stated my opinion, but I'm not trying to convince anyone. I'm more interested in thinking of players who, if you simply accept the premise even without agreeing with it, have been talented in this presumed way and yet were remarkably passive early in their careers. And then whether their careers went well, or whether they petered our.

I was trying to think of such players, but was struggling. So I thought I'd enlist the collective board mind.

Its intended to be an exercise in information gathering, not a debate.

I'm honestly struggling to think of even one. Maybe Lonzo Ball? Though his passivity is/was more of a result of a lack of halfcourt scoring ability than any inborn passivity. He's pretty much limited to a spot up shooter since he's a poor finisher, bad at drawing contact, can't consistently make FTs when he does get to the line, has no in between game, and can't post up smaller players despite being a tall PG so he's pretty much passive by necessity. Not exactly an apt comparison for PWill, since he can do some of those things.

[FriedRise]

Thaddeus Young.

[DuckIII]

Ugh. This thread is turning into a debate about Williams quality. I stated my opinion, but I'm not trying to convince anyone. I'm more interested in thinking of players who, if you simply accept the premise even without agreeing with it, have been talented in this presumed way and yet were remarkably passive early in their careers. And then whether their careers went well, or whether they petered our.

I was trying to think of such players, but was struggling. So I thought I'd enlist the collective board mind.

Its intended to be an exercise in information gathering, not a debate.

I'm honestly struggling to think of even one. Maybe Lonzo Ball? Though his passivity is/was more of a result of a lack of halfcourt scoring ability than any inborn passivity. He's pretty much limited to a spot up shooter since he's a poor finisher, bad at drawing contact, can't consistently make FTs when he does get to the line, has no in between game, and can't post up smaller players despite being a tall PG so he's pretty much passive by necessity. Not exactly an apt comparison for PWill, since he can do some of those things.

Thanks! It doesn’t matter what position they play. I’m just trying to get a sense of how unusual this is generally and what historically we can see happened over time to any players we can think of.

[beeshma]

I do see a resemblance with Snell. Snell was/is a maddening player because he has the physical tools, length, and shooting to be a top 10 SF. But you can see that mentally he's just decided not to assert himself. Joakim used to get on his case about it and Snell would just flash a shy smile and sort of shrink it himself.

With PWill, I don't see that any veteran has ever challenged him to be a leader. While that didn't work with Snell, I am curious if PWill would respond to such a challenge and mentorship. Do we have such a veteran mentor? The only one who superficially seems to be in this role is Thad Young, but I have no evidence that he plays this role in the locker room.

You brought up whether there are unofficial stories of PWill working hard to improve his game. I would like to hear the unofficial stories about which veteran is mentoring him. It doesn't have to be a Bull, remember Tatum got his mentorship from Kobe in the offseason.

[drosestruts]

In an attempt to get the topic back on track. Talented players (or seemingly talented players) who seem passive on the court:

1. Tony Snell
2. Kevin Knox
3. Mikal Bridges
4. OG Anunoby
5. Dragan Bender
6. Malachi Richardson
7. Otto Porter Jr


Of these guys, Bridges and Anunoby have turned into nice role players that are the type of guy every winning team has and wants. Otto Porter was once one of these guys. They tend to get overpaid due to their skillset, but never fully blossom (flower pun for Williams) into all-star level talent.

Some guys bounce around from team to team like Snell. I suspect this will be the path Knox finds himself on.

Guys like Bender or Richardson just don't last in the league. They seem on paper to fit the modern NBA, but they just don't provide anything that keeps them around. The above Snell/Knox group really are neutral for you on the court, Bender, despite all his promise, just seems to continually be a negative.

[GoBlue72391]

I do see a resemblance with Snell. Snell was/is a maddening player because he has the physical tools, length, and shooting to be a top 10 SF. But you can see that mentally he's just decided not to assert himself. Joakim used to get on his case about it and Snell would just flash a shy smile and sort of shrink it himself.

With PWill, I don't see that any veteran has ever challenged him to be a leader. While that didn't work with Snell, I am curious if PWill would respond to such a challenge and mentorship. Do we have such a veteran mentor? The only one who superficially seems to be in this role is Thad Young, but I have no evidence that he plays this role in the locker room.

You brought up whether there are unofficial stories of PWill working hard to improve his game. I would like to hear the unofficial stories about which veteran is mentoring him. It doesn't have to be a Bull, remember Tatum got his mentorship from Kobe in the offseason.

Sorry, but even in an infinite amount of alternate universes Snell could never even approach being a top 10 SF. He's very clearly a 3 and D player, nothing more. Added aggression and confidence wouldn't change that because he doesn't have the skills, tools, or athleticism to be anything more than that.

Best case scenario he might have turned out to be a solid starter 3 and D guy as opposed to a bench 3 and D guy. In terms of mindset PWill and Snell are similar, but in regards to their talent, skills, tools, athleticism, and overall quality as prospects they're worlds apart which makes the comp less helpful.

[MrSparkle]

I do see a resemblance with Snell. Snell was/is a maddening player because he has the physical tools, length, and shooting to be a top 10 SF. But you can see that mentally he's just decided not to assert himself. Joakim used to get on his case about it and Snell would just flash a shy smile and sort of shrink it himself.

With PWill, I don't see that any veteran has ever challenged him to be a leader. While that didn't work with Snell, I am curious if PWill would respond to such a challenge and mentorship. Do we have such a veteran mentor? The only one who superficially seems to be in this role is Thad Young, but I have no evidence that he plays this role in the locker room.

You brought up whether there are unofficial stories of PWill working hard to improve his game. I would like to hear the unofficial stories about which veteran is mentoring him. It doesn't have to be a Bull, remember Tatum got his mentorship from Kobe in the offseason.

Sorry, but even in an infinite amount of alternate universes Snell could never even approach being a top 10 SF. He's very clearly a 3 and D player, nothing more. Added aggression and confidence wouldn't change that because he doesn't have the skills, tools, or athleticism to be anything more than that.

Best case scenario he might have turned out to be a solid starter 3 and D guy as opposed to a bench 3 and D guy. In terms of mindset PWill and Snell are similar, but in regards to their talent, skills, tools, athleticism, and overall quality as prospects they're worlds apart which makes the comp less helpful.

Snell had no peripheral vision, and no idea what was happening on the court. Hoiberg at some point said he simplified his role to the most basic: "catch-and-immediately-shoot."

[kodo]

I'd say closest recently is Harrison Barnes.

6' 8" 225.
Athletic on paper, but we didn't see it translate in game very much.
Better shooter than expected, ended up being primarily a jumper shooter in the NBA.
Decent but an elite defender. Particularly on rebounding.
Not a playmaker. Low Assists.
Doesn't really do anything extremely poorly. Doesn't wow you in any particular facet of the game either.
Early scouting pegged as a good contributor but would neve be an Alpha. Has no presence.
Harrison Barnes at NC was mainly compared to Luol Deng, as many people are comparing to Patrick now.

Rookie Year stats:
9.2 ppg 4.1 rpg 1.2 apg 44% FG% 36% 3P% 1.2 TO

Patrick Williams
9.1 ppg 4.7 rpg 1.4 apg 48% FG% 38% 3P% 1.4 TO

[HomoSapien]

Right now, he reminds me of a young James Posey.

I do think he could be much more than Posey, but it's all going to depend on his mentality.

[dougthonus]

I think Marvin Williams is the best comp I've heard so far.

Most of the guys in this thread were pure wings, not 3/4 tweeners.

[MikeDC]

I’m struggling to think of young players, regardless of how they turned out in the end, who were very talented and diversely skilled and were extremely hard workers, but were just crazy passive once they hit the floor.
...
Mentally? I’m not sure I’ve ever seen anything like it from someone with this much ability. Even from a rookie. Plenty of time yet to fire the engines, but damn.

Before we get to examples, I think we have to establish the reason for the passivity. Your post implies it's due to his "Nature" but I think the evidence clearly points to "Nurture".

Here's what's happened.
1. He started off the season fine (Usage rate 17.6 in December. Month by month, it's fallen every month: 16.3, 15.4, 14.8, 12.5).
2. His coach has made repeated comments about how he appreciates Pat "playing within himself" and has harped on him for taking too many mid range shots.

2 is especially problematic because this was the strongest single part of Pat's game at the beginning of the season.

It's very easy to connect the dots between 2 and 1. He started off being active and doing what he does best. He's been coached to no longer do what he does best, and the direct result is that he's been increasingly passive.

So the answer is that he's passive because he's a very coachable player who's being badly coached.

So, this could go one of two ways. I think the Luol Deng example is good. They're somewhat similar as players, but here lets just focus on coaching. Skiles looked a Lu and basically said, hey man, stop with the 3 pointers, you suck at it. So he did. But, Skiles was really good at working the offense to make use the the things Lu was really good at. He'd cut, come off screens, post up, you name it. Early Lu was a guy who needed the offense working for him, but the results were pretty good.

Then you had Vinny Del Negro come in, and he had a much more lassez-faire approach to offense. He really valued guys who could and would create for themselves. So you got a lot of early Derrick Rose and, Ben Gordon, and John Salmons doing a lot of individual creating and Lu, who never really had the handle and first step for this, was routinely seen to be "underachieving" based vs. the higher usage trajectory he was on with Skiles.

Then, you had Thibs, who was the only one of these three guys to both implement some things to play to Lu's strengths (Skiles did, Vinny didn't) and to really encourage some growth (I don't think Vinny really did much here, but he at least gave Lu a green light to shoot, vs. Skiles who actively took that away).

Donovan is basically doing the worst of both. He's stopped Pat from doing something he does well, and has implemented an offense that's designed to give a lot of freedom for really smart and experienced (high bball IQ) players with a lot of creation abilities.

-----------

Adding to the examples, I see basically two ways this could go.

Deng is an example of the first way. He'll change his game to fit what the coach wanted. A couple further examples, related to Billy Donovan would be Victor Oladipo and Domas Sabonis. BD wanted both of them playing ancillary and very narrowly defined roles. Domas was a guy he wanted rebounding and shooting 3s and nothing else. Oladipo got a little more usage, but still a huge decline from his prior and he was expected to be much more of a spot up guy than he ever should have been.

But basically, all of those guys were more "passive" but immediately lost their passivity when a coach came along who decided to play to their strengths instead of treating them like a spare part.

The second way it could go is that Pat learns the wrong lessons and gets forever gun-shy. I don't think this happens, but you could point to guys like Andre Roberson or Terrance Ferguson as worst case scenarios.

[DuckIII]

I’ve also seen multiple quotes from BD talking about how they encourage Patrick to be more aggressive on offense and spread his wings more. So Mike, I’m not sure the scant evidence clearly supports your position. It’s at best ambiguous.

That said, I’m not saying you’re wrong. And I never took a position on nature vs nurture. I’m not sure what the hell is going on. It’s bizarre to me. It’s part of why I started this thread.

[MikeDC]

I’ve also seen multiple quotes from BD talking about how they encourage Patrick to be more aggressive on offense and spread his wings more. So Mike, I’m not sure the scant evidence clearly supports your position. It’s at best ambiguous.

That said, I’m not saying you’re wrong. And I never took a position on nature vs nurture. I’m not sure what the hell is going on. It’s bizarre to me. It’s part of why I started this thread.

Except the quotes aren't the only evidence, there's a whole season of declining usage and lots of seasons of evidence of how Donovan coaches his teams. Incorporate in that evidence and properly discount the fact that most every coach will make the normal anodyne coach comments about how guys should "be more aggressive", and it doesn't seem so surprising to me. Just my $0.02.

[bad knees]

Harrison Barnes, both as a direct response to the OP's question, and as to what I see PWill's career amounting to, at this very early stage. Hope he proves me wrong.

On the passivity front, I think it's a legit concern. PWill has said that he has never been the best player on his team, even in high school. So he always has deferred. That's a pretty deep rut to climb out of.

On the other hand, I also think that passivity was a normal reaction given PWill's situation this season. He, and everybody on the team, knows: (1) that he has been gifted developmental minutes all season - the most by far of anyone; (2) the team is generally trying to win; (3) his play has not helped the team win on most nights. It would take a Denzel-level of chutzpah to be aggressive in that situation.

Only time will tell.

[Jeffster81]

I have grown to hate comps. Nothing good comes from them. Comps = fans expectations of said player and if player does not live up to those expectations then fans become disgruntled, disappointed and straight up label him a bust, regardless if he is a bust or not. Again, nothing good comes from comps, especially comps for still rookies who is still getting to know NBA basketball.

[beeshma]

I'd say closest recently is Harrison Barnes.

6' 8" 225.
Athletic on paper, but we didn't see it translate in game very much.
Better shooter than expected, ended up being primarily a jumper shooter in the NBA.
Decent but an elite defender. Particularly on rebounding.
Not a playmaker. Low Assists.
Doesn't really do anything extremely poorly. Doesn't wow you in any particular facet of the game either.
Early scouting pegged as a good contributor but would neve be an Alpha. Has no presence.
Harrison Barnes at NC was mainly compared to Luol Deng, as many people are comparing to Patrick now.

Rookie Year stats:
9.2 ppg 4.1 rpg 1.2 apg 44% FG% 36% 3P% 1.2 TO

Patrick Williams
9.1 ppg 4.7 rpg 1.4 apg 48% FG% 38% 3P% 1.4 TO

This is a great comp.

[beeshma]

Sorry, but even in an infinite amount of alternate universes Snell could never even approach being a top 10 SF.

Snell had no peripheral vision, and no idea what was happening on the court. Hoiberg at some point said he simplified his role to the most basic: "catch-and-immediately-shoot."

Yeah, I got a bit carried away.
Wasn't intending to argue that, just wanted to talk about demeanor and response to veteran mentoring. Because I think that will lead to finding a good comp to PWill, and a way to fixing his passivity.

[TheStig]

I think OG is the guy Pwill comps to at the moment.