Marvin Bagley has been really good to start this season....

[bstein14]

Ok, we all know I've beat the dead horse that Bagley wasn't worth that contract... but I've always thought he is fine as an NBA rotation player as your 9th or 10th guy. If Duren ends up being a legit 32+ MPG starting center then you've got Bagley back there for 16 minutes a night and that's perfect for me.

To start this season(and the preseason too honestly), Bagley has been a bucket out there super efficient and scoring in bunches in limited minutes.

11 PPG and 6 RPG in just 14.7 MPG all while shooting 65% is super efficient and when you combine with with what Duren has given us we're getting 48 MPG of great center play. It feels like Bagley is often too big/strong for opposing backup bigs.

Of course once again its a super small sample size, but if he can keep up anything close to this type of production I'll be eating crow about him not being worth that contract because even 15-18 MPG as a sub quickly and efficienctly putting up double digit points is a great asset to have coming off the bench.

[theBigLip]

Good post. Totally agree that he has been solid. Also, he got hurt early last year and I feel that really had an effect on his entire year. His contract really isn’t that outrageous either. If he keeps doing what he’s doing, he’ll probably get another one.

[vege]

On offense yes, he is talented, on defense he's still a disaster.

On offense I really like him and Ivey, they've been doing some great things together.

Ivey/Burks/Bagley are the bones of an excellent 2nd unit. Sadly Joe Harris is a disaster, but once we got everyone health we should have a top tier 2nd unit adding Morris and Livers to those 3.

[GreekAlex]

On offense yes, he is talented, on defense he's still a disaster.

On offense I really like him and Ivey, they've been doing some great things together.

Ivey/Burks/Bagley are the bones of an excellent 2nd unit. Sadly Joe Harris is a disaster, but once we got everyone health we should have a top tier 2nd unit adding Morris and Livers to those 3.

I’m giving Monty the benefit of the doubt. I think that he can coach them up on defense and potentially try to game plan around their deficiencies by implementing rotations that support their weaknesses.

After seeing everyone buy in, I’d like to give the team at least half a season with their new coaching staff before making decisions.

[Kalamazoo317]

Good teams with good coaching get players to buy into roles and excell within those roles. We're seeing flashes of that throughout the roster in the early going, and Bags definitely qualifies.

[Cowology]

My view on Bags hasn't changed; solid bench player.

He's flawed, like every other bench player, but he gives you efficient offense and is decent on the glass. He shouldn't be playing 30+ mpg, but 16-24 is reasonable. There will be games where he's cooking and he plays a bit more. IF he develops a more consistent 3pt shot then his value goes up, but even being able to step back to 16-18 feet allows him to co-exist with with either of our 2 bigs. The contract isn't even as a big a deal as everybody made it out to be.

[MrBigShot]

Having to watch a single minute of wiseman last year made me appreciate bagley more. We outbid ourselves for him, but he has good chemistry with cade, and what he does do, he does decently

[vege]

Ausar make a lot of winning plays that don't always show on the box score. Bagley and to a much lesser extend Ivey are the opposite. They make plays that lose us games. Bagley is bad.

I described a couple of those things in today's game thread, just to illustrade why I hate him as a player. I don't think that can be fixed, so it would be great to see him gone asap.

[mattyj]

Interesting that Wiseman not even getting junk time minutes

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[whitehops]

given our current alternatives bagley has been playing well. he hasn't changed - he is still a huge liability on defense but his and burks' offense off the bench have been huge considering the starting lineup has really struggled on that end.

i wasn't happy about his contract but at this point i'm glad he's the one on the books next season and not wiseman.

[Snakebites]

He’s still too bad defensively to start.

But yeah, I’ve been happy with him in the role he has. He is who he is- has the limitations he has. I think this is about the best a team can ever expect from him.

[Billl]

I'm still not sold. He's been fine in the role he has now. Not sure how that role would translate to a winning team in the playoffs though.

[Cowology]

I'm still not sold. He's been fine in the role he has now. Not sure how that role would translate to a winning team in the playoffs though.

Some guys look better on bad teams. They are able to play hero-ball and stuff a chart with meaningless stats. Those are usually guards, or sometimes wings, who are able to dominate the ball.

On the other hand, some guys look better on good teams because they are able to settle into a more limited role that better suits their ability. I think Bagley falls into the latter group. When the team is bad, his faults are magnified more than his contributions are valued. He's never going to score enough to make up for the bad feels when you are losing. If you count on him for more, you will be disappointed.

But limit his role, put him in positions where he can be successful and the guy is capable of putting up something approaching 6MOY type numbers.

You bring in guys like Korver or Reddick to fill a specific role. You expect them to score. Nobody is expecting them to be defensive stoppers too. Some guys just fill a role, and on winning teams that is OK. It can and does work. All the time.

The bar for Bagley has always been too high from this fan base.

[tmorgan]

We’re definitely running a weird setup right now with defense-heavy starters and even more offense-heavy bench guys. It’s interesting, but it’s limiting Cade’s ability to playmake and he’s not handling it well at all. I get the feeling we’ll change it up a little soon, likely with Ivey starting for Killian and then later Bojan starting for Ivey (unless Ivey gets cooking, then Bojan starting for Stew).

[Mr Peanut]

Shhh you're not allowed to say good things about Bagley in this forum.

He's doing well in a role that suits him, limited minutes off the bench. Should reduce his likelihood of injury also.

[Kalamazoo317]

If they're going to swap out Hayes from the starting lineup, not sure why it wouldn't be Burks, who's got the best +/- on the team by far.

[bstein14]

Less good in the two games following this post for sure.

[Kalamazoo317]

Less good in the two games following this post for sure.

I thought he played hard, rebounded well, had some solid stretches of defense, and scored well enough in his spot start for Duren. Bags wasn't the reason we lost that game.

[Laimbeer]

fwiw, his advanced stats so far are the best of his career in a limited sample size. Hard to believe he is only 24. If he breaks out, we have him under contract for 2024-25 as well. So we could have some upside on him yet.

[Billl]

This loss wasn't bagley's fault, but he was pretty bad. 3-10 from the floor 0-2 from deep and 5 turnovers. That's really bad for a guy who really doesn't handle the ball that much. His defensive shortcomings are less noticable when he's down low though. Unfortunately for him, there just aren't that many teams that play traditional centers all night.