Official Speculation Thread Part 1 (Summer League 2014)

[Def Swami]

[tweet]https://twitter.com/stevekylerNBA/status/485907144684752896[/tweet]

[thelead]

[tweet]https://twitter.com/RicBucher/status/485904923708518400[/tweet]
That would have been so bad. I doubt it was GSW who passed on that. It was probably offered to us and we balked.

Ric Bucher is on Kyler's level. I don't believe anything he says. That said, what would we do with yet another SF? And at us adding our 1st round pick for him. Bucher is a funny dude.

[Bensational]

I know your not comparing Oladipo to MJ, Kobe, Wade and TMac

Are you saying Dipo doesn't need the ball in his hands?

What difference does it make if he's a SG who brings the ball up or a PG that does so? Once the ball is in the half court someone needs to initiate the offense, and there's no reason it can't be him.

[Def Swami]

More Ben Gordon stuff.
[tweet]https://twitter.com/JoshuaBRobbins/status/485912720626425856[/tweet]
[tweet]https://twitter.com/JoshuaBRobbins/status/485913069915082752[/tweet]
[tweet]https://twitter.com/AlexKennedyNBA/status/485913425860919296[/tweet]

[Melvinlocker]

Spoiler:

This year was a down year offensively for AN, and still, let's look at all of the folks who shot these percentages or better from all the following distances:


<5 ft.........63%....(Josh Smith - 63.2%)
5-9 ft........39%....(Derrick Favors - 38.6%)
20-24 ft.....40%....(James Harden - 40.2%)

(minimum 80 5-9 ft attempts, 60 20-24 ft attempts)

L. James
K. Durant
K. Love
D. Wade
C. Paul
J. Johnson
A. Nicholson


Source: NBA.com/Stats




Post-Up Defense (points per play)
0.63 - J. Maxiell
0.72 - K. O'Quinn
0.72 - N. Vucevic
0.76 - A. Nicholson
0.79 - E. Moore
0.86 - J. Nelson
0.87 - G. Davis
0.89 - V. Oladipo
0.91 - M. Harkless
0.95 - A. Afflalo
0.96 - T. Harris
1.00 - D. Dedmon
1.00 - S. Jones
1.20 - D. Lamb
1.29 - R. Price

Post-Up Defense (FG%)
23.80% - J. Maxiell
34.80% - K. O'Quinn
35.00% - E. Moore
35.90% - A. Nicholson
39.10% - N. Vucevic
40.00% - V. Oladipo
43.90% - A. Afflalo
44.00% - J. Nelson
48.50% - M. Harkless
49.50% - G. Davis
50.00% - D. Lamb
53.10% - T. Harris
53.80% - D. Dedmon
66.70% - S. Jones
66.70% - R. Price

Source: Synergy


Opponent FG% at Rim
45.4% - A. Nicholson
46.2% - K. O'Quinn
46.6% - V. Oladipo
49.1% - E. Moore
53.1% - T. Harris
53.6% - G. Davis
56.4% - N. Vucevic
56.8% - J. Maxiell
58.1% - J. Nelson
58.3% - S. Jones
59.0% - D. Dedmon
59.7% - A. Afflalo
60.5% - M. Harkless
63.6% - R. Price
70.4% - D. Lamb
100.0% - A. Thomas

Source: NBA.com/Stats

Thanks for the stats! I certainly won't try to refute what the numbers are saying here. It looks like Nicholson has been a great defender playing against the second and third unit big men.

The question would be, how will he perform against 1st string big men. I don't think Maxiell would continue to guard 1st string big men and only allow 23% on post ups and by the same token I wouldn't expect Nicholson to have the same level of success as our starting PF. I wish we could compare these stats against starters vs. bench players.

As far as his shooting the same principle applies, but i really wouldn't be as worried because he has proven his shooting and post ups against starters in his first year here as both a starter and 2nd string player. Also seeing his skill set, it is hard to see him being effective offensively, especially since we wouldn't need him to be a high usage player.

Anyways, your stats talked me off the ledge about Nicholsons potential, but I am not sold on him as a starter.

Actually, the first few games of the season I dissected film and tracked for myself how opposing starting PFs were faring against each of our PFs in scoring and on the glass. For the most part, Drew was matching up with the opposing starting PFs better than anyone else (BBD was out with injury), and in some cases, outplaying the opposing starting PF when they shared the court.


G1: David West
G2: Kevin Love
G3: Anthony Davis

That is so great work man. I really appreciate the thoroughness of the research you put into this. I wish more posters would do the same because it really allows for some quality discussions to be had on this forum.

Even though it is only 3 games, I think your point holds some water as I remember Nicholson a bussing opponents earlier this year and then Vaughn would just yank him due to "match ups". I don't know if that was true or not (could've been a tank move), but I I think everyone can agree that it killed Nicholsons offensive flow which is partly why he had such a bad year offensively.

On a side note, our other power forwards were just terrible in that analysis that you did.

[Magic_Johnny12]

Some of you still don't understand that we are still in collecting assets mode.

Regardless of how many forwards we have on this team you take BPA for Affalo and run.

I bet if that trade went through our draft would look a lot different.

Barnes over Fournier and Marble ANYDAY.

[FloridaHoosier]

Enjoyed seeing Shaq today at the games and listening to Isiah Thomas talk about hating Purdue and Kentucky. He had nothing, but good things to say about Orlando's future.

[thelead]

Some of you still don't understand that we are still in collecting assets mode.

Regardless of how many forwards we have on this team you take BPA for Affalo and run.

I bet if that trade went through our draft would look a lot different.

Barnes over Fournier and Marble ANYDAY.

No, no, no... what you don't understand is that they wanted US to give THEM a FIRST ROUND PICK as well...

[Melvinlocker]

More Ben Gordon stuff.
[tweet]https://twitter.com/JoshuaBRobbins/status/485912720626425856[/tweet]
[tweet]https://twitter.com/JoshuaBRobbins/status/485913069915082752[/tweet]
[tweet]https://twitter.com/AlexKennedyNBA/status/485913425860919296[/tweet]

Wow... He sounds like he is gonna be a locker room cancer

[Magic_Johnny12]

Some of you still don't understand that we are still in collecting assets mode.

Regardless of how many forwards we have on this team you take BPA for Affalo and run.

I bet if that trade went through our draft would look a lot different.

Barnes over Fournier and Marble ANYDAY.

No, no, no... what you don't understand is that they wanted US to give THEM a FIRST ROUND PICK as well...

No, no, no what you still don't understand is the pick that was probably on the table was the pick we sent to Philly for Payton.

So instead of Payton we could have had Exum/Smart plus Barnes and still had #12 and the future 2nd we sent to Philly.

[BadMofoPimp]

Appears Lowry is going to resign with Tornonto.

[orlando1214]

Some of you still don't understand that we are still in collecting assets mode.

Regardless of how many forwards we have on this team you take BPA for Affalo and run.

I bet if that trade went through our draft would look a lot different.

Barnes over Fournier and Marble ANYDAY.

No, no, no... what you don't understand is that they wanted US to give THEM a FIRST ROUND PICK as well...

No, no, no what you still don't understand is the pick that was probably on the table was the pick we sent to Philly for Payton.

So instead of Payton we could have had Exum/Smart plus Barnes and still had #12 and the future 2nd we sent to Philly.

I'd take Fournier over Barnes anyways. Only advantage Barnes has over Fournier right now is that he has a somewhat recognizable name because he plays for a good team and comes from UNC. The stats are not the different despite Barnes playing 9 minutes more. Fournier's advance stats are also better. Also Fournier is better ball handler, something we desperately need right now. Why not fill a need instead of building a logjam at SF and forcing us to trade someone?

I'm not going to even touch the draft stuff though, I'm very happy with the players we got and we won't know if we made the right decision passing on any players for a long time.

[orlgbfsu]

Barnes sucks and they wanted us to add a first round pick along with borderline all star AA no thanks

[thelead]

Some of you still don't understand that we are still in collecting assets mode.

Regardless of how many forwards we have on this team you take BPA for Affalo and run.

I bet if that trade went through our draft would look a lot different.

Barnes over Fournier and Marble ANYDAY.

No, no, no... what you don't understand is that they wanted US to give THEM a FIRST ROUND PICK as well...

No, no, no what you still don't understand is the pick that was probably on the table was the pick we sent to Philly for Payton.

So instead of Payton we could have had Exum/Smart plus Barnes and still had #12 and the future 2nd we sent to Philly.

You are assuming what that pick would have been; and how do you know that Exum and Smart are better than Gordon???

[bigdogdylan5]

Appears Lowry is going to resign with Tornonto.

Didnt they agree too terms like a couple days ago??

[Magic#1]

We'll see in a few years whether the alleged Golden State offer is better than what we got. If it was a future first with no protection, then that would be hard to turn down even though GS is surely going to be very good. Barnes is way better than we're giving him credit for but he isn't the shooter Fournier is and we do need Fournier's shooting badly. I'm sure that offer was dependent on whether GS got Love though.

[Blue_and_Whte]

It's tough to say without knowing who is starting, but I keep seeing B. Gordon third on people's depth charts... there's just no way. You don't pay a player $4.5 million to be a third stringer. At this point, can we even be positive he won't start on opening night?

unfortunately i have a feeling he will be starting at sg while victor starts at pg.

We didn't trade Afflalo so that someone older could start in his place. They want the young guys to start and get a lot of minutes, Gordon is just a veteran presence to come off the bench, that's all he is, doesn't matter how much he is paid. I mean don't you think the Magic would have just paid Jameer if they wanted a veteran to start? I'm still convinced Dipo and Fournier will be the starting guards, with a chance that Payton takes over starting at Point Guard later on in the year.

once again minutes are earned not just given out. Fournier isnt getting the starting role just because hes younger.

Sent from my SM-G900P using RealGM Forums mobile app

[thelead]

unfortunately i have a feeling he will be starting at sg while victor starts at pg.

We didn't trade Afflalo so that someone older could start in his place. They want the young guys to start and get a lot of minutes, Gordon is just a veteran presence to come off the bench, that's all he is, doesn't matter how much he is paid. I mean don't you think the Magic would have just paid Jameer if they wanted a veteran to start? I'm still convinced Dipo and Fournier will be the starting guards, with a chance that Payton takes over starting at Point Guard later on in the year.

once again minutes are earned not just given out. Fournier isnt getting the starting role just because hes younger.

Sent from my SM-G900P using RealGM Forums mobile app

While I agree with the premise of your argument, the alternative in this case is Ben Gordon of 2014 not Ben Gordon of 2006.

[MagicStarwipe]

How many times must the media lead you astray before you don't believe every single thing that comes out of their mouth?

[OrlandO]

[tweet]https://twitter.com/RicBucher/status/485904923708518400[/tweet]
That would have been so bad. I doubt it was GSW who passed on that. It was probably offered to us and we balked.

There's a reason Bucher now works at bleacher report instead of espn. He has no reliable sources. In fact, his sources just recently made stuff up that made him look like a fool...