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pepe1991 wrote:

Xatticus wrote:

pepe1991 wrote:
But Payton fans being wrong all along is something factual.
He indeed hurt Magic defense and did not help offense.
He indeed never improved as shooter.
His efficiency ( eFG%) stayed pathetic after 5 years.
He is career liability on offense and defense.

At age of 25 only contract he could get was 1 year guaranteed money ( with second year only $1m guaranteed) from team projected to have the worst record in nba.
Pelicans are third team in 3 years that wanted no part of him going forward.

So maybe "negative Nancy " type posters were actually objective and on point all along, and his fanboys were simply wrong?
As i said, it's not even debatable, posters here who had " Payton is championship point guard" threads and who claimed he is better than Tony Parker at 22 were simply - flat out wrong.

Unlike case with Elfrid Payton, virtually nobody ever claimed that Gordon sucks. But that he will, or will not be star player.

Ahh... here we are again. I keep trying to let this die. Almost everything stated here is incorrect.

Payton's eFG% climbed every season he was in Orlando:

14/15: .433
15/16: .456
16/17: .493
17/18: .547 ...so pathetic

That's the damnedest example of stagnation that I've ever seen.

The whole Parker/Payton argument was created by YOU. Even as Payton was clearly demonstrating improvement as a 3-point shooter (37% in his final season with Orlando), you were arguing that he still couldn't be a good offensive player because he didn't take enough of them. In the very same thread, you listed a number of examples of elite point guards and Tony Parker was among them. This despite the fact that Tony Parker was rather notorious for eliminating the 3-point shot from his offensive game. It was a hypocritical argument and you got called on it. You have since morphed it into 'a horde of Payton fanboys said Payton was better than Tony Parker!'

You just can't seem to help yourself. You keep bringing this up at every opportunity. What does any of this have to do with Aaron Gordon?

So Payton is good, according to you?

Also his eFG with Suns was pathetic - 44,7%
and with Pelicans 47,5%
Since he left Magic , in year and half, guy made 35 threes total. His "recepy" for 3s is never shoot them. Needles to say he was wide open on every attemp.
After cutting 3s last year he cut all mid range shots as well. 96% of all his shots were either inside 10 feet or 3s, yet even that didn't help his efficiency.

It was well documented fact that Payton was one of the worst decision makers on defense in whole league and player that would make your pick&roll defense worthless with constant mental errors , as part of his departure ( and new coaching ) Magic defense saw incredible growth.
But even as part of addition by substraction, with taking him off roster Magic defense went from league's 27th "best" -110,5 to 106,8 , with ranked them 10th best.

That's huge.

The whole Parker/Payton argument was created by YOU.

viewtopic.php?f=25&t=1539082&hilit=elfrid+payton+tony+parker

Enjoy yorself.
From Soul calling me troll ( that got him 11 likes, your included) , posters claiming he is not finished product at 23, that his improvment will be huge ,walking triple double and all other nonsense.
Oh ,and it's pretty obvious that i DID NOT START PAYTON - PARKER comparison ,rather just react to one after poster wrote it.

Elfrid Payton is possibly one of the top 3 pure point guards in this league

That's direct qoute from opening post of thread called "Elfrid Payton is a championship point guard".

And this is qoute from you

For clarification, I've never been off of the Payton bandwagon. I also am not trumpeting what he has been doing of late as the foundation for that, as I'm rather ambivalent on the topic of triple-doubles. It's nice to rack up counting stats, but they provide only a rudimentary understanding of a player's contributions. And frankly, ten is really an arbitrary number that only has meaning because it is the basis for our numeric system.

I've been asking for the offense to run through Payton for the last couple seasons, and I've been baffled as to why we've been trying to force it through Fournier and Vucevic. I want to see an aggressive Elfrid Payton in transition as much as possible, because that is where he was exceptional in college. He is far and away the best facilitator on this team.

I can appreciate the need for any player to be a threat on offense, just as I don't believe anyone's offensive contributions absolve them of their defensive deficiencies. What I take exception to, however, are declarations that Payton will never be such a threat and must be moved. He has clearly improved significantly in his offensive efficiency and i'd be very reluctant to part with any young player that is showing genuine signs of figuring things out. If he regresses next season, then we can have this conversation.

This thread has invited criticism of Payton's game, but it's really a curious time to be ratcheting up that criticism given his improvement on the court.

Amount of bullying from some posters because myself and few others went through about freaking Payton was crazy. Literally people , you included, called us trolls for sharing different opinion on fundamentally flawed player that was piss poor defender, piss poor shooter and terrible decision maker with lazy motor .

Maybe just admit you were wrong and move on? Because you make yourself look pretty bad . Elfrid Payton is pretty bad player, fringe nba player actually. You defending him for 4 + years does not look good for you. Don't do it to yourself, it's worst than Biyombo fans who were celebrating "Congo twin towers" .

What does it has to do with Gordon? Read where Payton's name was mentioned, it wasn't even me who brought it up. But fendilim telling Magicstarswipe "I think part of this is because some posters feel offended when they are being presented facts and statistics contrary to their beliefs." . Witch could also be applyed to you and your over a top Payton love for years that never had any legs. Since i actually respect you as poster, your blind love for such a poor player was always odd, to say a least.

Firstly, I'm fairly certain that I've never called you a troll. I find it rather hypocritical though that you accuse others of bullying and the thread that you cited for evidence was Soul calling you out for insinuating that the OP of that thread was trolling.

The third post into the thread:

pepe1991 wrote:Is this trolling thread?

That thread, for what it's worth, was not the impetus for the whole Payton/Parker affair. You had been riding Payton that year, despite his efficiency, because you had already reached the conclusion that he was Orlando's problem. You honed in on his low 3PAr because you really couldn't attack his efficiency metrics at that time. You listed a bunch of elite PGs and Tony Parker was among them, even though he eliminated 3-point shots from his game rather early in his career. It was a minor misstep that undermined the logic of your critique of Payton and the thread you linked was borne out of it.

Yes. I believe Elfrid Payton is a very talented PG. I think it's rather dubious to label him a fringe NBA player considering that he has started about 85% of his games since entering the NBA (100% since leaving the Magic) and he is the front-runner to take the starting job for New York at this point. He has skills that our current roster is begging for. He can get into the paint at will and he can spread the ball around. It's unfortunate that Vucevic didn't learn to set a screen in the four years that Payton was on the roster, but the past is the past.

This doesn't really look like a fringe NBA player:
https://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/carmelo/elfrid-payton/

This doesn't mean that I don't have concerns regarding Payton's game. I do wonder how coachable he is and I wonder why he doesn't always play with the same fire that he does when someone challenges him. Asserting that our defense has been rectified simply by the departure of Payton is a fallacy though. Our 1/5 pick-and-roll defense was abysmal this year. That was the specific criticism of Payton. He is gone, but the problem remains. Vucevic is too slow to do anything but sag into the paint and Augustin is just a miserable defender in general.

I don't care what you belive.
He still is below average PG.
He still can only land starting job on team that is rebuilding/tanking. And i highly dobut he'll start on Knicks now anyway.
After 5 years he never played on team that won more than 35 games.
Three teams in a row , Orlando, Suns and now Pelicans had no desire to resign him when they had chance.
Only offer he was able to get is 1 year $8M from Knicks who had probably one of the worst offseasons in their history, after they failed to sign every single star, semi star or even high quality role player under a sun.
His second year of a contrat is only guaranteed for $1M , so it's clear that his contract is structured in a way that team can dump him for salary releaf purpose. Not to mention that Perry is only reason why he and Hezonja got Knicks offers, as he was part of inner circle of people who drafted them. What a miserable executive that guy is...

During 2017-18 when he "improved" his TS% and eFG% Magic just happend to went through some of biggest disasters in their whole , at times 5 years long rebuild, having 12-32 record with him as starting PG.
In a second he was gone win percentage of 27% with him, jumped to 34% by just letting him walk ,without adding anybody.
SO Magic finished second part of a season with 13-25 record. Menaging to win 1 more game without him, in period where they played 8 games less than they played in period with him.

What's there to add more?
During his Suns stint his TS% went to back to his old, pathetic ways, him having 48% TS. He finished season in 63rd place among PGs ( among 81 that even played ) in real plus minus.

Move to superior team with better teammates that included former allstar Holdiay and supertar Davis did nothing for him as his TS% jumped to still well below average 50%, and as usual negative RPM . This time around his real plus minus landed him #61 spot among PGs in nba.
But he is not bad playmaker, he just happends to be on bottom of all stats all the time because haters like Pepe

In his career real plus minus never had him going higher than 26 among PGs but according to you he is not below average starter because he just happends to start a lot.
Biyombo, Zaza, Paul Zipster, Ramon Sessions, Perkins, Jennings were all starters at some point of their career . Dulambert started almost 700 games in nba while being one of most painfully limited offensive players in history of this league.
Being starter, especially being starter on casual tanker does not mean you are good or you should be starting on team with any ambition to be competitive.

At the end stats don't care about your feelings.
Payton is 11 ppg "starter" with 49,9% TS, 47% eFG, negative impact on offene and defense and has 30% for 3 while making 0,4 threes a game for career.
In league where TS% is 55%, where league's eFG is 52,4% and where teams shoot 32 threes a game and on average make 36% of them.
So go figure how he holds up.

And for end that our personal stuff, you didn't call me troll, you liked post of poster who did call me a troll.
2 years later listening somebody still defend Payton as good point guard sounds like listening to a troll.

Xatticus wrote:Yes. I believe Elfrid Payton is a very talented PG. I think it's rather dubious to label him a fringe NBA player considering that he has started about 85% of his games since entering the NBA (100% since leaving the Magic) and he is the front-runner to take the starting job for New York at this point. He has skills that our current roster is begging for. He can get into the paint at will and he can spread the ball around.

Payton has a .338 career winning percentage as a starter...and this is who his in-roster competition has been:

14-15 ORL
Luke Ridnour, a 33 year old back up in his final NBA season

15-16 ORL
CJ Watson, 31 year old career back up, suffered Achilles injury in game 9 and was out for most of season
Shabazz Napier, 2nd year for a career back up who was a G-L level player at that time
Brandon Jennings, post-Achilles tear who never recovered, traded 3 times in next year and a half then retired
Keith Appling, G-L call up, now in Dominican Republic league

16-17 ORL
DJ Augustin, in 20 games he started (11/27 - 1/2) while EP was hurt Magic went 10-10 (.500)
CJ Watson, 32 year old career back up (coming off of major injury) in his final NBA season

17-18 ORL
DJ Augustin, Magic starter since Payton trade
Shelvin Mack, career back up traded 3 times in 18-19 and now in Europe

17-18 PHO
Tyler Ullis waived by Suns at year's end...out of NBA
Isaah Canaan, G-L/end of bench for 7 teams in 5 years...out of NBA
Shaquille Harrison, G-L/end of bench for tanker
Josh Gray, G-League

18-19 NOLA
Frank Jackson was in G-L until Payton's injury
Tim Frazier career back up on 7th team in 5 years, just signed 1 year vet min deal with Detroit
Andrew Harrison end of bench back up, remains unsigned

...Dennis Smith Jr is now healthy so he's really the front runner for the Knicks starting PG job...Payton is on a 1-1 with $0 guaranteed 2nd season (aka trade ballast or end of season waive for cap space).

It's unfortunate that Vucevic didn't learn to set a screen in the four years that Payton was on the roster, but the past is the past.

Vucevic has been at top of NBA in screen assists since that began being tracked...he's a very good high bbIQ screener - reads the ball handler really well and sets great angles and excellent timing plus uses his wide body well...very rarely fouls.

18-19...4th in entire NBA
17-18...20th in entire NBA
16-17...16th in entire NBA

...and that's without a high end PG/ball handler on those teams

I now have a really bad headache

This thread seems to have run its course with the offtopic discussion now + AG back and forth that started off okay but then became personal and circling the wagon on the same points. If Def wants to re-open this he can, but for now, there's just going to be bickering and offtopic posts in here so take it to the offseason thread if there is that much interest.