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As a Raptors fan, and obviously a general fan of the 2021 draft class, i'll give some constructive criticism here and Cade strengths and weaknesses.

Highlighted in red is cade's biggest weakness when it comes to scoring, he straight up needs to score better than 59% at the rim to reach the next level. He's never going to be the best athlete in terms of speed or strength, but he has good size for a PG/SG whichever you want to classify him as. If he can get his scoring at the rim to be around 65% he'll make a big leap.

In yellow are causes for concern but not necessarily a weakness. He did not shoot well from 16 feet - 3Pt range and it obviously needs improvement. However, even when Cade was struggling early in the season I was one of the non Piston fans who weren't overly concerned here. Cade's college numbers indicate that he'll be a good three point shooter at the least as he's indicated he's has range in the past.

I don't know if Cade we'll become good-great at long 2s though as even players like Tatum can struggle here. Cade's strength (which i''ll get to in a bit indicate he might grow in this area), but time will tell.

In green is where he shies at, for a rookie, Cade is excellent from 3-16 feet at 43%. I do not see why he can't improve in this area and become a mid range assassin.

The ultimate version of Cade shooting is probably something like 25+ points on
(65% 0-3 ft/47% 3-10ft /45% 10-16ft /40% 10-16ft / 37% 3P)

if you want to give him higher shooting percentages in the mid range I can see that happening.

While I don't think he's going to be uber elite at getting to them rim or three point shooting like say Jalen Green might be, his overall scoring game compared to Green's is much less exploitable, especially in the playoffs.



For comparison's sake here's Jalen's shooting stats.



While Jalen is much better at getting to the rim and is the better 3 point shooter thus far, quite like Harden. However, green has a major weakness in his scoring that cade just doesn't. Green is legitimately bad from 3 ft- 16 feet and I have more questions about Green in the playoffs than I do with Cade simply because of size and Game. If Jalen's 3 point shot is not falling he's going to really struggle in the playoffs as he just lacks size to get easy shots.

This is quite the polar opposite of Cade who pretty much relies of guile and size for scoring instead of sheer athleticism with green

Long term I also question Green's longevity when his athleticism fades, Cade's game will most likely age well.

Fair observations on his rookie year. The point you make fits his own apparent assessment, as he's bulked up a reported 15 lbs going into this season. It looks like he's planning to exploit his size advantage and the gravity that creates. The addition of lob threats and slashers seems to fit that model as well. There is but to see how it works. Soon we'll know more.

With better teammates around him things should get easier for him, and Burks and Ivey should be better than what he had last season. His % were better once we added Bagley, and there's a reason for that.

Him getting calls should increase his % around the rim. Refs were showing him no respect last season, and I believe that will change.

With that said, you are correct, Cade still need to improve, he have weaknesses and you did a good job showing them.

the reality is he has to get better at scoring from everywhere if he wants to get to the all-nba level. i'm not concerned about any specific thing at this point; he had to create offense in a myriad of ways with the defense's full attention on him and the level of responsibility he had is one we rarely see asked of rookies.

about the only thing we didn't see him do really was iso in the mid range, like you'd see derozan, kawhi or durant do. he made his deep mid range shots at a good clip after the all star break (42%) but they were largely in the pick and roll. the mid range iso is an important tool in playoff basketball but we're a couple years away from that so cade just improving on the shot types he took his rookie year would be a great start.

The great thing about Cade is that he clearly has the alpha dog gene that guys like Evan Mobley and Scottie Barnes don't have; that goes a long way in the NBA.

Cade is likely never going to be an ultra efficient player right at the rim because he isn't a jump out of the gym athlete, and he goes inside a bunch. It's not like he is just taking the easy ones at the rim like many shooters do. He's also the #1 focus of the defense he isn't an afterthought like Barnes in Toronto or now Mobley in Cleveland having multiple all-stars for the defense to scheme around. Part of its learning when you can go up and when you can't, and part of it is gaining some more strength to take some contact and then finish the basketball.

I'm expecting Detroit to be a top 5 or 6 team in transition PPG this season so Cade will likely benefit from that... having a young athletic backcourt mate in Ivey to help push the ball.

Cade's FG% inside 5 ft as a rookie?

Oct 1st - Dec 31st = 53.4%
Jan 1st - Feb 28th = 55.2%
March 1st to end of season = 58.1%

He's well on his way to improving himself to a 60+% player at the rim this year.

Also, the Pistons were bad as a team shooting from pretty much everywhere last year. This season, if we don't play Cade next to Hayes, and Stewart can set a screen and pop and hit the three ball at a high %, it's going to open things up quite a bit more for Cade on offense. We saw a huge jump in Cade's efficiency when paired with another shooter in the backcourt versus being paid with CoJo.

The 2 areas I'm anxious to see Cades improvement in, will be his cutting down on his turnovers and also his improving his Field Goal percentages.
I feel quite confident both will happen this season, he benefits with Burkes, Ivey and a few healthy Bigs to work with.
Defenses should be less able to pull off the triple teaming and hopefully the league officials will call the contact more honestly than the shameless rook treatment they gave our young gun last year.

Cade will put in the work, but a certain portion of his improvement this year will be due to a better functioning team with more fluid spaceing/motion. Im certain he's ready to get on with the games.

Manocad wrote:The great thing about Cade is that he clearly has the alpha dog gene that guys like Evan Mobley and Scottie Barnes don't have; that goes a long way in the NBA.

Shots fired

keepitrealhomes wrote:

Manocad wrote:The great thing about Cade is that he clearly has the alpha dog gene that guys like Evan Mobley and Scottie Barnes don't have; that goes a long way in the NBA.

Shots fired

It is what it is. There are leaders and there are followers, and neither Mobley nor Barnes are remotely close to being the leader that Cade is. And that's fine; quite fairly they're not expected to be.

Cade has the capacity for greatness. Mobley and Barnes have the capacity for good numbers.

I think it's fair to say that cade struggled with the speed and physicality of the NBA to start the season. He got himself into positions were he was turning the ball over and ending up with some high degree of difficulty shots at the rim. He didn't have anyone getting him easy buckets, so all those close shots are him beating his man off the dribble and then trying to finish over help defense.

Somewhere around a month and half left of the season though, he seemed to figure it out. For Feb, he put up 23/7/6 on 48% from the field. He was reading plays much quicker and getting to his spots before defenses could rotate. He's already very well rounded, but he's a hard worker and is going to come back every year with a new wrinkle - strength, better midrange, improved 3 etc. That won't happen all at once, but he's well on his way to being a legit #1 option to run offense through.