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Hi guys, Italian fan here. I have to admit I was pretty disappointed by EJ's second season.. his scoring was still there, but I found him very passive on the court (and maybe not involved enough in the system.. he often didn't touch the ball for 4-5 possessions in a row) and not doing much in terms of passing, rebounding, ecc.
What do you expect from him in his third year? What kind of stats could he put on? How do you think VDN think to use him (I saw some interviews but it's hard to get something between all the "right things" and "right way" he uses )

It's hard to say with a new coach, but considering that, and if Griffin ends up getting double-teamed, then he could get more open looks and his stats might go up a bit, but probably not much. I think what you see is what you get with EJ, so he'll probably look about the same next season.

young players like Eric Gordon are generally expected to put a big performance in their third year in NBA.
I personally expect him to have an breakout year and average at least 19-20ppg. He sure has the ability to score in the paint and from the 3 easily, however, I'm interested to see how his ball handling skills and defense has developed.

I want to see him explode but honestly I see no reason why he would. He regressed last year and Ive seen no sign in his playmaking and dribbling improving. I expect much of the same next year. Hopefully with a higher 3pt %age though.

Well, i was disappointed as well but i'd find weird if a so-skilled scoring guard doesn't improve at the age of 21, with two seasons at 17ppg under his belt. I just hope he gets more touches on the offensive end.. in that case, even if his dribbling has not improved, he can be very prolific.

BoomFizzle wrote:I want to see him explode but honestly I see no reason why he would. He regressed last year and Ive seen no sign in his playmaking and dribbling improving. I expect much of the same next year. Hopefully with a higher 3pt %age though.

This I think.

It's not so much the stats that I'm worried about, it's the improvement (or lack of) in his basic skillset. In year 2, other teams sort of figured him out. It's up to him to add to his game, whether it be ball handling, court awareness, outside jumper, etc.

I do think this is an expected process for many young players though, so hopefully he will surprise us next year. Having Blake will help anyway, but I would really like to see his game grow.

He has the tools to be a 20 ppg scorer with a mix of being a solid defender. Only thing he needs to work on is his handles. I expect him to score 16-17 ppg in the upcoming season.

I think the addition of Blake will be big for EJ and really open things up for him. Or at least I hope so. He is kind of one dimensional, but he's great at that dimension. If he works on his dribbling, he can take his game to another level. I think he'll bounce back from his disappointing season. He may not score more, but I think he'll score at a higher percentage, and he'll probably up his assist average with passes to Blake and hopefully an improved DJ.

It all depends on Baron's style of play/attitude. Eric was pretty much out of it mentally all of last year. Eric really let Baron's selfish play affect his game. While Baron went out of his way to get Kaman the ball, he pretty much ignored Eric. If Baron wasn't passing to Kaman, he made himself the second option. When a poor-shooting pg shoots more than a sweet-shooting 2 gaurd, something's wrong. Blake's presence on the court will help Eric tremendously, since Eric will have another player on the court who will also play unselfishly and have confidence in his abilities. Eric also didn't get a lot of calls on his drives to the basket last year. Eric is more than capable of avg 21-23 ppg if he plays with a good pg. With Blake being back, I look for Eric to regain his focus and put up about 18-19 ppg this year, play good defense, shoot about 38% on 3pt fga, and 85-88% of his ft. His ast and rbds will be about the same as last year-----that is not his game. If VDN gets Baron to "play the right way", then Eric will really shine this year.

Eric can be a 20ppg player if he gets a couple more attempts per game (12.6 last season) and if he gets his free-throw shooting back to where it was in his rookie season. I don't know what was going on with him at the line last season, but he was terrible. One thing that always seemed to happen is that he would have hot streaks, but the team wouldn't even pass it in his direction later on.

Next season, there are different coaches and a different system that will be in place. Hopefully, he'll get an opportunity to shine a little more under this new regime. Part of it will depend him shaking off the sophomore slump and the other part will be on the coaches/team to get him more scoring opportunities. His ball-handling and passing could be improved as those are his primary weaknesses imo. Defense and outside shooting are not a problem at all. He's been our best perimeter defender and has more than held his own against some of the top players in the league.

As far as Blake's presence on the court goes, I feel that he's going to have a positive effect on everybody. He's a smart and crafty player who can be a monster, but is also unselfish. I'm anxious to see how much his shot has improved. If he develops a respectable shot, he'll be a nightmare on the opposing teams. He can already handle the ball, has very nice footwork, is good passer for a big, and is very explosive. So adding a nice shooting touch would pretty much seal the deal.

DunknDave wrote:It all depends on Baron's style of play/attitude.

+1

Honestly I don't see Baron as a probem. A lot of shots that Baron takes are jacked up 3 pointers at the end of the shot clock. In fact the problem with Baron is more when he is disinterested and just gives up the ball. If he is creating for other, eg setting up Eric for 3 pointers he is much more useful.

The real problem I see is Kaman getting the ball too much and using up loads of the shot clock. If you look at the USG% (estimation of plays run through them when on court) Kaman leads the way with 27%, Baron 24% and EG 21.5%. Then take into account Baron sets things up for other a lot (estimated 40% of teammates baskets while he is on the floor) while Gordon and Kaman certainly do not.

Hopefully we move to an uptempo system, stop feeding the ball to Kaman so much and then Baron can get back to hitting people on the break, which is exactly the way he likes to play. I see Gordon's passive mentality actually being because its not exactly fun to sit and watch Kaman pivot around in the post for 20s of the shot clock. Also when we traded Camby it seemed everyone gave up.

Thats very true, id much rather watch a transition uptempo game rather than lobbing it to Kaman in the post, nothing away from Kaman cause he obviously had a very good season.

mike3 wrote:Thats very true, id much rather watch a transition uptempo game rather than lobbing it to Kaman in the post, nothing away from Kaman cause he obviously had a very good season.

I think ultimately what it means is that you really need to take these other factors into consideration when evaluating Kaman, and not just look at his primary numbers (scoring, rebounding, etc.)

He can be slow, actually methodical is maybe the better word for it. It takes him time to set up and work for a good shot opportunity, it's good in at least he's not just chucking it for low FG%. He's not athletic enough to be able to work off the ball, cut, etc. to get easy opportunities. He's very much a classic low post guy.

His FG% is only adequate for a center as is though. If the Mavs wanted to trade for him I would do it. OTOH who knows what other teams might offer in a trade.

I think he would fit in well in a very defensive oriented, slow down team, which is exactly a team that would not have Baron Davis as your point guard. It's not that they can't play together or try to make it work (they obviously do), but they're just not the types of pieces you would look to put together in assembling a team. I understand of course we didn't acquire them in the same offseason, but their whole is unfortunately not equal to the sum of the parts here. If we could get reasonably close to fair value in a trade for Kaman, we would come out ahead on the court.