Deconstructing Elfrid's defense

[Audi]

I also can't shake up feeling that Hennigan did lot of bad moves with mindset that Payton is long term PG solution.

Exactly. Belief in Payton is basically why we don't have a star guard named Oladipo right now and why we have passed up on chances to upgrade the pg position.

Why is that? Leading up to his trade, Payton and Oladipo were a better duo than Payton and Fournier by like a margin of +8.

Also, what realistic chances to upgrade the PG position have we had? Drafting DSJ instead of Isaac?

[Catledge]

I also can't shake up feeling that Hennigan did lot of bad moves with mindset that Payton is long term PG solution.

Exactly. Belief in Payton is basically why we don't have a star guard named Oladipo right now and why we have passed up on chances to upgrade the pg position.

Why is that? Leading up to his trade, Payton and Oladipo were a better duo than Payton and Fournier by like a margin of +8.

Also, what realistic chances to upgrade the PG position have we had? Drafting DSJ instead of Isaac?

Oladipo -- If you don't remember seeing all kinds of commentary about how Payton and Oladipo are a bad paring because Payton needs to be next to a better shooter, then we must be connected to different internets. There has also been plenty of commentary about how first Dipo and then Fournier need to limit themselves to cuts and spot-ups while Payton handles all of the playmaking. This is even though there are only about three or four PGs in this league who can handle that kind of ball-dominant role, and Payton isn't close to being one of them.

Realistic opportunities to improve the pg position -- Off the top of my head, Jeff Teague, George Hill, and Eric Bledsoe have all been acquired via trade or free agency for prices I would have been willing to pay. If you're response to that is that they all have their own imperfections, that's fine, but those flaws are significantly less than Payton's.

[Audi]

Exactly. Belief in Payton is basically why we don't have a star guard named Oladipo right now and why we have passed up on chances to upgrade the pg position.

Why is that? Leading up to his trade, Payton and Oladipo were a better duo than Payton and Fournier by like a margin of +8.

Also, what realistic chances to upgrade the PG position have we had? Drafting DSJ instead of Isaac?

Oladipo -- If you don't remember seeing all kinds of commentary about how Payton and Oladipo are a bad paring because Payton needs to be next to a better shooter, then we must be connected to different internets. There has also been plenty of commentary about how first Dipo and then Fournier need to limit themselves to cuts and spot-ups while Payton handles all of the playmaking. This is even though there are only about three or four PGs in this league who can handle that kind of ball-dominant role, and Payton isn't close to being one of them.

Realistic opportunities to improve the pg position -- Off the top of my head, Jeff Teague, George Hill, and Eric Bledsoe have all been acquired via trade or free agency for prices I would have been willing to pay. If you're response to that is that they all have their own imperfections, that's fine, but those flaws are significantly less than Payton's.

Commentary is one thing but when the dust all settled, the stats said otherwise. It's buried in one of the threads around here, but IIRC, The Elf/Dipo pairing was like a +8 while the Elf/Fournier was -4 or something of that sort. It was pretty significant. Regardless, I think it was pretty clear at the time that money and decent play from a cheaper Fournier was the deciding factor, not Elfrid.

Teague, Hill, Bledsoe all definitely have their imperfections - the largest one being age. Hill is 31 and injury prone. Teague is 29 and honestly, not playing any better than Elf. Bledsoe 28 and injury prone. Elf is not even 24 yet and has room to improve. You don't trade that for the marginal (if at all) upgrade with those 3. Unless you aren't talking about trading Elf for them, in which case, I wouldn't be(and never have been) opposed to a vet presence challenging his starting LU role.

[Audi]

Just some fun stats:

Teague age 23
13/2/5 on 51% eFG

Hill at 23
12/3/3 on 53% eFG

Elf
13/4/6 on 55% eFG

(Bledsoe didn't really get play time until he started with PHO @ 24 yo)

[NBlue]

Exactly. Belief in Payton is basically why we don't have a star guard named Oladipo right now and why we have passed up on chances to upgrade the pg position.

Why is that? Leading up to his trade, Payton and Oladipo were a better duo than Payton and Fournier by like a margin of +8.

Also, what realistic chances to upgrade the PG position have we had? Drafting DSJ instead of Isaac?

Oladipo -- If you don't remember seeing all kinds of commentary about how Payton and Oladipo are a bad paring because Payton needs to be next to a better shooter, then we must be connected to different internets. There has also been plenty of commentary about how first Dipo and then Fournier need to limit themselves to cuts and spot-ups while Payton handles all of the playmaking. This is even though there are only about three or four PGs in this league who can handle that kind of ball-dominant role, and Payton isn't close to being one of them.

Realistic opportunities to improve the pg position -- Off the top of my head, Jeff Teague, George Hill, and Eric Bledsoe have all been acquired via trade or free agency for prices I would have been willing to pay. If you're response to that is that they all have their own imperfections, that's fine, but those flaws are significantly less than Payton's.

This year's numbers:

Jeff Teague 29y/o: 12.8 - 6.9 - 2.9 14.37 PER 29mpg .427 shooting 19M next year nad in 2019-20 then UFA
Eric Bledsoe 28 y/o: 17 - 4.2 - 3.6 18.23 PER 30.4 mpg .444 shooting 15M next year then UFA
George Hill 31 y/o: 10.3 - 2.7 - 2.8 14.15 PER 26.6mpg .454 shooting 19M next year 18M team option 2019-20

EP 23 y/o: 13 - 6.3 - 4 PER 18.24 28.6 mpg .520 shooting RFA


So, just to be clear, EP is the youngest, has the highest PER, the highest field goal percentage as well as the second highest assists and scoring while being, by far, the cheapest player on the list. Totally makes sense from an offensive perspective why everyone hates him so much...

[Catledge]

Commentary is one thing but when the dust all settled, the stats said otherwise. It's buried in one of the threads around here, but IIRC, The Elf/Dipo pairing was like a +8 while the Elf/Fournier was -4 or something of that sort. It was pretty significant. Regardless, I think it was pretty clear at the time that money and decent play from a cheaper Fournier was the deciding factor, not Elfrid.

Teague, Hill, Bledsoe all definitely have their imperfections - the largest one being age. Hill is 31 and injury prone. Teague is 29 and honestly, not playing any better than Elf. Bledsoe 28 and injury prone. Elf is not even 24 yet and has room to improve. You don't trade that for the marginal (if at all) upgrade with those 3. Unless you aren't talking about trading Elf for them, in which case, I wouldn't be(and never have been) opposed to a vet presence challenging his starting LU role.

When I say commentary, I'm referencing lines of arguments in this forum, and it was an extraordinarily common assertion that Payton was struggling because of Oladipo. I'm sure faith in Fournier played a role, but ignoring the perceived fit strikes me as convenient reasoning, something which is again extremely common among his backers. For instance, one such backer used to insist that PER and ppg were meaningless stats, but now it's the foundation of all of his arguments.

As to the age argument, I've been saying for a long time that building a team where all of the high-usage players are young is a recipe for disaster. Shockingly enough, disaster is what followed.

And you guys are welcome to make all the assertions about, say, Bledsoe being worse than Elf that you want, but in all likelihood, Elf and his much lower salary will be traded soon, and we'll see if we get a return that matches what the Bucks gave up for Bledsoe. I think that is very unlikely.

Edit: I should add that I've never once said that I want EP to be traded, just benched until he shows he's ready for a starting role. If he ever has the breakout many are predicting, or even if he just continues his steady improvement for another three years or so, then he can be our starter. But just handing him minutes and expecting that to magically turn him into something he's never been is how you get a player who has no idea how to fit into a system at either end.

[NBlue]

Commentary is one thing but when the dust all settled, the stats said otherwise. It's buried in one of the threads around here, but IIRC, The Elf/Dipo pairing was like a +8 while the Elf/Fournier was -4 or something of that sort. It was pretty significant. Regardless, I think it was pretty clear at the time that money and decent play from a cheaper Fournier was the deciding factor, not Elfrid.

Teague, Hill, Bledsoe all definitely have their imperfections - the largest one being age. Hill is 31 and injury prone. Teague is 29 and honestly, not playing any better than Elf. Bledsoe 28 and injury prone. Elf is not even 24 yet and has room to improve. You don't trade that for the marginal (if at all) upgrade with those 3. Unless you aren't talking about trading Elf for them, in which case, I wouldn't be(and never have been) opposed to a vet presence challenging his starting LU role.

When I say commentary, I'm referencing lines of arguments in this forum, and it was an extraordinarily common assertion that Payton was struggling because of Oladipo. I'm sure faith in Fournier played a role, but ignoring the perceived fit strikes me as convenient reasoning, something which is again extremely common among his backers. For instance, one such backer used to insist that PER and ppg were meaningless stats, but now it's the foundation of all of his arguments.

As to the age argument, I've been saying for a long time that building a team where all of the high-usage players are young is a recipe for disaster. Shockingly enough, disaster is what followed.

And you guys are welcome to make all the assertions about, say, Bledsoe being worse than Elf that you want, but in all likelihood, Elf and his much lower salary will be traded soon, and we'll see if we get a return that matches what the Bucks gave up for Bledsoe. I think that is very unlikely.

IMO Bledsoe is CLEARLY better than EP and its not debatable. But Bledsoe is also earning 15M next year and then is an UFA and he is gonna be 29. I think he was a great acquisition for the Bucks and they got him for a song but part of that was the situation between Bledsoe and the Suns. EP is totally different as a team getting him would want to develop him from where he is right now. I'd prefer that team be us but I doubt it will be.

[Catledge]

Commentary is one thing but when the dust all settled, the stats said otherwise. It's buried in one of the threads around here, but IIRC, The Elf/Dipo pairing was like a +8 while the Elf/Fournier was -4 or something of that sort. It was pretty significant. Regardless, I think it was pretty clear at the time that money and decent play from a cheaper Fournier was the deciding factor, not Elfrid.

Teague, Hill, Bledsoe all definitely have their imperfections - the largest one being age. Hill is 31 and injury prone. Teague is 29 and honestly, not playing any better than Elf. Bledsoe 28 and injury prone. Elf is not even 24 yet and has room to improve. You don't trade that for the marginal (if at all) upgrade with those 3. Unless you aren't talking about trading Elf for them, in which case, I wouldn't be(and never have been) opposed to a vet presence challenging his starting LU role.

When I say commentary, I'm referencing lines of arguments in this forum, and it was an extraordinarily common assertion that Payton was struggling because of Oladipo. I'm sure faith in Fournier played a role, but ignoring the perceived fit strikes me as convenient reasoning, something which is again extremely common among his backers. For instance, one such backer used to insist that PER and ppg were meaningless stats, but now it's the foundation of all of his arguments.

As to the age argument, I've been saying for a long time that building a team where all of the high-usage players are young is a recipe for disaster. Shockingly enough, disaster is what followed.

And you guys are welcome to make all the assertions about, say, Bledsoe being worse than Elf that you want, but in all likelihood, Elf and his much lower salary will be traded soon, and we'll see if we get a return that matches what the Bucks gave up for Bledsoe. I think that is very unlikely.

IMO Bledsoe is CLEARLY better than EP and its not debatable. But Bledsoe is also earning 15M next year and then is an UFA and he is gonna be 29. I think he was a great acquisition for the Bucks and they got him for a song but part of that was the situation between Bledsoe and the Suns. EP is totally different as a team getting him would want to develop him from where he is right now. I'd prefer that team be us but I doubt it will be.

Like I said in my edit before I saw your post, I'm happy for EP to develop as part of our second unit until he earns a starting role. That's how it's supposed to work.

Also, while I understand the point about relative salaries, cap space isn't very useful if we're such a dumpster fire that nobody wants to come here.

[JudBuchler]

The hilarious thing about the videos is how you can tell nobody even seems to be communicating that a pick is coming leaving payton out to dry completely.

totally pathetic on the author's part, but then again he is just probably another moron that never played basketball in his life trying to comment on it.

[pepe1991]

Why is that? Leading up to his trade, Payton and Oladipo were a better duo than Payton and Fournier by like a margin of +8.

Also, what realistic chances to upgrade the PG position have we had? Drafting DSJ instead of Isaac?

Oladipo -- If you don't remember seeing all kinds of commentary about how Payton and Oladipo are a bad paring because Payton needs to be next to a better shooter, then we must be connected to different internets. There has also been plenty of commentary about how first Dipo and then Fournier need to limit themselves to cuts and spot-ups while Payton handles all of the playmaking. This is even though there are only about three or four PGs in this league who can handle that kind of ball-dominant role, and Payton isn't close to being one of them.

Realistic opportunities to improve the pg position -- Off the top of my head, Jeff Teague, George Hill, and Eric Bledsoe have all been acquired via trade or free agency for prices I would have been willing to pay. If you're response to that is that they all have their own imperfections, that's fine, but those flaws are significantly less than Payton's.

This year's numbers:

Jeff Teague 29y/o: 12.8 - 6.9 - 2.9 14.37 PER 29mpg .427 shooting 19M next year nad in 2019-20 then UFA
Eric Bledsoe 28 y/o: 17 - 4.2 - 3.6 18.23 PER 30.4 mpg .444 shooting 15M next year then UFA
George Hill 31 y/o: 10.3 - 2.7 - 2.8 14.15 PER 26.6mpg .454 shooting 19M next year 18M team option 2019-20

EP 23 y/o: 13 - 6.3 - 4 PER 18.24 28.6 mpg .520 shooting RFA


So, just to be clear, EP is the youngest, has the highest PER, the highest field goal percentage as well as the second highest assists and scoring while being, by far, the cheapest player on the list. Totally makes sense from an offensive perspective why everyone hates him so much...

Jeff - 4th best player on his team, at best he was 4th best player on good team in Atlanta
Bledsoe -4th best player on his team
George Hill -4th best player on his team in Indiana when they were contenders ( hell even Lance did more ,so that moves him as 5th option ).


Also George Hill always was elite spot up shooter and never traditional PG , when he was with Spurs he wasn't even starter.
Bledsoe was elite backup for Chris Paul before going to Suns, on Suns he was basically off guard where Dragić played PG most of the time.
Teague is playing ok season, behind Wiggins, KAT,Butler who combine for 45 FGA per game.

So what's your point ? That Elf belongs in same category as guys who were backups when their teams were good?

They make lot of money because in past they were much better versions of themselfs.

Market for Elf as starting PG is : Orlando, Knicks and Suns. That's literally it. Nobody else could have any interest in him .

btw i really really hope you don't use PER as useful stat. By per Kanter is better player than Cousins, Jokić, Adams and Embiid.
By PER Jeremy Lamb is better than Klay Thompson.
by PER Payton is better than Dragić. That's twilight zone right there.

[JudBuchler]

6 blocks last 4 games

The PER argument is not to tell who is better, but clearly it can tell you that a guy is efficient in a lot of ways.

Kanter is a beast on rebounds, good offensive player , lamb instant offense.

[OrlandO]

Elf has definitely toned down the effort on the defensive end. His rookie year he couldn't score, so he'd play with more energy on the other end...



Now that's a pesky player. These days he will still go for the initial sneaky steal, but he is not relentless with it like you see above.

[NBlue]

Oladipo -- If you don't remember seeing all kinds of commentary about how Payton and Oladipo are a bad paring because Payton needs to be next to a better shooter, then we must be connected to different internets. There has also been plenty of commentary about how first Dipo and then Fournier need to limit themselves to cuts and spot-ups while Payton handles all of the playmaking. This is even though there are only about three or four PGs in this league who can handle that kind of ball-dominant role, and Payton isn't close to being one of them.

Realistic opportunities to improve the pg position -- Off the top of my head, Jeff Teague, George Hill, and Eric Bledsoe have all been acquired via trade or free agency for prices I would have been willing to pay. If you're response to that is that they all have their own imperfections, that's fine, but those flaws are significantly less than Payton's.

This year's numbers:

Jeff Teague 29y/o: 12.8 - 6.9 - 2.9 14.37 PER 29mpg .427 shooting 19M next year nad in 2019-20 then UFA
Eric Bledsoe 28 y/o: 17 - 4.2 - 3.6 18.23 PER 30.4 mpg .444 shooting 15M next year then UFA
George Hill 31 y/o: 10.3 - 2.7 - 2.8 14.15 PER 26.6mpg .454 shooting 19M next year 18M team option 2019-20

EP 23 y/o: 13 - 6.3 - 4 PER 18.24 28.6 mpg .520 shooting RFA


So, just to be clear, EP is the youngest, has the highest PER, the highest field goal percentage as well as the second highest assists and scoring while being, by far, the cheapest player on the list. Totally makes sense from an offensive perspective why everyone hates him so much...

Jeff - 4th best player on his team, at best he was 4th best player on good team in Atlanta
Bledsoe -4th best player on his team
George Hill -4th best player on his team in Indiana when they were contenders ( hell even Lance did more ,so that moves him as 5th option ).


Also George Hill always was elite spot up shooter and never traditional PG , when he was with Spurs he wasn't even starter.
Bledsoe was elite backup for Chris Paul before going to Suns, on Suns he was basically off guard where Dragić played PG most of the time.
Teague is playing ok season, behind Wiggins, KAT,Butler who combine for 45 FGA per game.

So what's your point ? That Elf belongs in same category as guys who were backups when their teams were good?

They make lot of money because in past they were much better versions of themselfs.

Market for Elf as starting PG is : Orlando, Knicks and Suns. That's literally it. Nobody else could have any interest in him .

btw i really really hope you don't use PER as useful stat. By per Kanter is better player than Cousins, Jokić, Adams and Embiid.
By PER Jeremy Lamb is better than Klay Thompson.
by PER Payton is better than Dragić. That's twilight zone right there.

Yes, PER is absolutely a useful stat. But, like all of the others, you have to take it fwiw. Which, btw, is why I didn't just cite PER but several other stats as well. My point is that EP is playing at a comparable offensive level to the other players listed as a clear upgrades while being substantially cheaper and younger. Did you read the thread that you quoted?

[drsd]

Leading up to his trade, Payton and Oladipo were a better duo than Payton and Fournier by like a margin of +8.

Respectfully I believe this is because Fournier has been out of position all year. If the Magic had a good SF, then
a Payton / Fournier pairing could have been tested. But we are only an hour away for one or both being non-Magicians.


..

[___Rand___]

wow geez. Didn't Vogel teach him how to defend? Skiles was here too. Is it the coach, the players?

[pepe1991]

lock Payton related threads now ?

[basketballRob]

Leading up to his trade, Payton and Oladipo were a better duo than Payton and Fournier by like a margin of +8.

Respectfully I believe this is because Fournier has been out of position all year. If the Magic had a good SF, then
a Payton / Fournier pairing could have been tested. But we are only an hour away for one or both being non-Magicians.


..

Vogel has said that he's not a SG, he's a SF.