Game 22: Boston Celtics ( 11-10 ) @ Phoenix Suns ( 12-9 ) l Sunday l 12:00pm l NBATV l FSNAZ

[bwgood77]

It's hard to understand all the Ayton apologists. Clearly most of us see when he not giving proper effort. Not only that but the media comprised of former NBA players often point out his passiveness. Add on that his coach has to call him out (up) in the 4th quarter to get him engaged is ridiculous. We all see what he is capable of doing. It is whether he will bring it game-to-game on his own volition.

The expectations of him are just absurd. He is killing it compared to the other bigs in his draft class. You know Bamba well...how would you compare them? Would you take Bamba over him? Bamba started playing when he was 6. Ayton started the year before Booker was a rookie.

What other bigs from his draft class would you prefer? WCJ? JJJ? Bagley?

It's pretty rare guys have 18/12 as a 2nd year player or even what he did as a rookie....like Towns, Duncan (21/11), AD (21, 10) but worse as a rookie. Embiid didn't even play his first 2 years and only 31 in his 3rd with 20, 8. Jokic 16/10 and 10/7 as rookie. Gobert 8, 9 and 2, 3 as a rookie.

I don't know if fans were frustrated with these players, but likely not so much with many of them, and he compares pretty well even to the first 3....though Towns scored a lot in year 2....but that's about it.

Sure he could do better as could others on our team but given where he is as a big in the league, among his contemporaries, overall he's been impressive, even though he could do a little better at some things...which goes for everyone....except for maybe Bridges.

[LordCovington33]

Rooting hard for you guys to do well over the coming months. Great to see it all gelling together. Some playoff action will be exciting. Cheers.

[bigfoot]

It's hard to understand all the Ayton apologists. Clearly most of us see when he not giving proper effort. Not only that but the media comprised of former NBA players often point out his passiveness. Add on that his coach has to call him out (up) in the 4th quarter to get him engaged is ridiculous. We all see what he is capable of doing. It is whether he will bring it game-to-game on his own volition.

The expectations of him are just absurd. He is killing it compared to the other bigs in his draft class. You know Bamba well...how would you compare them? Would you take Bamba over him? Bamba started playing when he was 6. Ayton started the year before Booker was a rookie.

What other bigs from his draft class would you prefer? WCJ? JJJ? Bagley?

It's pretty rare guys have 18/12 as a 2nd year player or even what he did as a rookie....like Towns, Duncan (21/11), AD (21, 10) but worse as a rookie. Embiid didn't even play his first 2 years and only 31 in his 3rd with 20, 8. Jokic 16/10 and 10/7 as rookie. Gobert 8, 9 and 2, 3 as a rookie.

I don't know if fans were frustrated with these players, but likely not so much with many of them, and he compares pretty well even to the first 3....though Towns scored a lot in year 2....but that's about it.

Sure he could do better as could others on our team but given where he is as a big in the league, among his contemporaries, overall he's been impressive, even though he could do a little better at some things...which goes for everyone....except for maybe Bridges.

You're missing the point. If he was regularly engaged in games he would be a 25/15 player. Instead, he runs around 1/3+ of the game with his head up his azz.

[bwgood77]

It's hard to understand all the Ayton apologists. Clearly most of us see when he not giving proper effort. Not only that but the media comprised of former NBA players often point out his passiveness. Add on that his coach has to call him out (up) in the 4th quarter to get him engaged is ridiculous. We all see what he is capable of doing. It is whether he will bring it game-to-game on his own volition.

The expectations of him are just absurd. He is killing it compared to the other bigs in his draft class. You know Bamba well...how would you compare them? Would you take Bamba over him? Bamba started playing when he was 6. Ayton started the year before Booker was a rookie.

What other bigs from his draft class would you prefer? WCJ? JJJ? Bagley?

It's pretty rare guys have 18/12 as a 2nd year player or even what he did as a rookie....like Towns, Duncan (21/11), AD (21, 10) but worse as a rookie. Embiid didn't even play his first 2 years and only 31 in his 3rd with 20, 8. Jokic 16/10 and 10/7 as rookie. Gobert 8, 9 and 2, 3 as a rookie.

I don't know if fans were frustrated with these players, but likely not so much with many of them, and he compares pretty well even to the first 3....though Towns scored a lot in year 2....but that's about it.

Sure he could do better as could others on our team but given where he is as a big in the league, among his contemporaries, overall he's been impressive, even though he could do a little better at some things...which goes for everyone....except for maybe Bridges.

You're missing the point. If he was regularly engaged in games he would be a 25/15 player. Instead, he runs around 1/3+ of the game with his head up his azz.

No he wouldn't. That would make him the best rebounder and probably best C in the league. He's not there yet. Plus no one is getting him the ball in good position...they don't utilize him nearly enough for him to come close to averaging that...and when they finally DO try to get it to him, more than half the time they are bad passes.

It's early in his career. People need to have some damn patience.

[Revived]

Ayton's a glorified role player.I expect a middling career.If you just look at the stat sheet, you'd probably like him.Watching games, he's timid, and soft.That's the thing that irks me the most about Ayton.He's unique.The guy can coward his way to 16 pts & 15 rebs like nobody else.

I think he certainly has the tools to be more than just a role player and he’s only like 22 still so we’ll see. But yeah his stats don’t always represent his actual stats and that’s why you have guys like Tom Chambers, Eddie Johnson, and basically all Suns players and coaches on him quite a bit even with the nice stats.

In many of our games, the opposing fans aren’t very impressed with him either. A Pacers fan from our game recently said how soft he is and then a Pistons fan said how overrated he was and now Celtics fans chimed in as well

Ayton is the softest big in the league. I would hate to have that guy on any team I support.

viewtopic.php?f=8&t=2049507&start=420#p88646391

This is actually good news for us because if his value is this bad around the league then it should really help us when it comes to his contract extension in a few months.

[Revived]

Every breath he takes is being nitpicked to death. Maybe stop associating personal expectations with the value of a player. 16/11/3/1 on 64%, you'd guess he has something like 2/2/2 from the comments. All I'm seeing is he's a presence in the middle on both ends. Not gonna hate on him cuz he's not Luka (and yeah I was actually on the Luka bandwagon since I'm from Europe and he played for my fav team here)

even if he averages 30/15 because it’s all spoon fed baskets. His baskets are always among the top assisted buckets in the league and even then he still doesn’t know how to play the pick and roll well and doesn’t take advantage of easy matchups. We have brought in PG after PG, that too all among the best passers the league has, and he’s still making many miscues.

I don’t think he’s regressed this season but he’s been wildly inconsistent. And again, not talking about his stats. For those who only look at the stats will never know it but if you watch the games, you’ll see it. The Suns players, and coaches don’t care about his stats and that’s why he gets yelled at the most in basically every game this season. To Ayton’s credit, he knows it too and that’s why he listens to them screaming at him instead of responding with “Oh why are you yelling at me I average 20/10 a game!!”.

He had some farts today but didn’t think he overall played very bad. But we drafted him to be the guy that can easily give us 25-30 on the nights when the 3 doesn’t drop and he hasn’t been able to do that yet and it’s been 3 long years with a demand for contract extension coming up in 4 months.

Why do you continually make so much stuff up? He's 60th in assisted field goals among Cs...probably more like 40th among Cs who play a good number of minutes, and he's 10th in assisted field goals just on our team.

You have no clue what you are talking about here.

Ok definitely an exaggeration on my part to say "in the league" as I don't take into account the bigs or scrubs that barely play any minutes.

A better comparison would be to other highly drafted bigs with similar talent but have used it like KAT and Embiid. KAT’s FGs assisted were at 64% at Ayton’s same. Embiid’s FGs assisted were at 53% at Ayton’s same age (and just 48% in his yr 3 like Ayton). Dwight Howard in his 3rd season was at 55%. Not a top drafted player but a guy like Jokic was at 54% at Ayton’s same age.

Ayton is currently at 69% prior to the Cavs game. And of the other 31%, I wonder how much of those just offensive rebound putbacks. Probably at least a third.

Ayton has a huge luxury on the Suns in that he doesn’t need to create his own shot in every game or even in half the games. Just the games and times when we’re super cold from 3. We’ve already had games like that this season.

And not sure what happened to his hands this season but it’s been awful. He actually had very good hands the last 2 seasons but this season many rebounds he should easily get slip out and many passes that he should catch end up as turnovers.

[bwgood77]

Ayton's a glorified role player.I expect a middling career.If you just look at the stat sheet, you'd probably like him.Watching games, he's timid, and soft.That's the thing that irks me the most about Ayton.He's unique.The guy can coward his way to 16 pts & 15 rebs like nobody else.

I think he certainly has the tools to be more than just a role player and he’s only like 22 still so we’ll see. But yeah his stats don’t always represent his actual stats and that’s why you have guys like Tom Chambers, Eddie Johnson, and basically all Suns players and coaches on him quite a bit even with the nice stats.

In many of our games, the opposing fans aren’t very impressed with him either. A Pacers fan from our game recently said how soft he is and then a Pistons fan said how overrated he was and now Celtics fans chimed in as well

Ayton is the softest big in the league. I would hate to have that guy on any team I support.

viewtopic.php?f=8&t=2049507&start=420#p88646391

This is actually good news for us because if his value is this bad around the league then it should really help us when it comes to his contract extension in a few months.

I don't think his value is bad because of a few message board posts and casual fans on twitter or facebook. The coaches obviously respect him or they wouldn't play Drummond AND Allen against him to try and secure rebounds (and they still gave up 8 defensive rebounds as Ayton snagged 8 offensive boards).

And then the constant double and triple teams before he even gets the ball shows a ton of respect from coaches.

They know he can score with ease on one defender.

[bwgood77]

even if he averages 30/15 because it’s all spoon fed baskets. His baskets are always among the top assisted buckets in the league and even then he still doesn’t know how to play the pick and roll well and doesn’t take advantage of easy matchups. We have brought in PG after PG, that too all among the best passers the league has, and he’s still making many miscues.

I don’t think he’s regressed this season but he’s been wildly inconsistent. And again, not talking about his stats. For those who only look at the stats will never know it but if you watch the games, you’ll see it. The Suns players, and coaches don’t care about his stats and that’s why he gets yelled at the most in basically every game this season. To Ayton’s credit, he knows it too and that’s why he listens to them screaming at him instead of responding with “Oh why are you yelling at me I average 20/10 a game!!”.

He had some farts today but didn’t think he overall played very bad. But we drafted him to be the guy that can easily give us 25-30 on the nights when the 3 doesn’t drop and he hasn’t been able to do that yet and it’s been 3 long years with a demand for contract extension coming up in 4 months.

Why do you continually make so much stuff up? He's 60th in assisted field goals among Cs...probably more like 40th among Cs who play a good number of minutes, and he's 10th in assisted field goals just on our team.

You have no clue what you are talking about here.

Ok definitely an exaggeration on my part to say "in the league" as I don't take into account the bigs or scrubs that barely play any minutes.

A better comparison would be to other highly drafted bigs with similar talent but have used it like KAT and Embiid. KAT’s FGs assisted were at 64% at Ayton’s same. Embiid’s FGs assisted were at 53% at Ayton’s same age (and just 48% in his yr 3 like Ayton). Dwight Howard in his 3rd season was at 55%. Not a top drafted player but a guy like Jokic was at 54% at Ayton’s same age.

Ayton is currently at 69% prior to the Cavs game. And of the other 31%, I wonder how much of those just offensive rebound putbacks. Probably at least a third.

Ayton has a huge luxury on the Suns in that he doesn’t need to create his own shot in every game or even in half the games. Just the games and times when we’re super cold from 3. We’ve already had games like that this season.

He is 10th on the Suns (it's just the guards that handle behind him)...he creates his shots more than anyone else who score off of cuts or open 3s and can't really create shots.

https://www.nba.com/stats/players/scoring/?sort=PCT_AST_FGM&dir=-1&Season=2020-21&SeasonType=Regular%20Season&TeamID=1610612756

And like I said, 61st among C's...and if you scroll the list, probably 40 or so are big name Cs or guys who get a decent number of minutes....but at a minimum, half of them. He often has to create his own shots. Yes, some are putbacks, but putbacks are a good thing. (Of the Cs ahead of them, the bigger names start around #8 and then to about 15, and then after that there are a few no names or low minute guys after that...maybe 10 or a little more) so probably 40 or so pretty big name Cs with more assisted % of baskets...or you may be able to argue 35...maybe 30 if you stretched it)

https://www.nba.com/stats/players/scoring/?sort=PCT_AST_FGM&dir=-1&Season=2020-21&SeasonType=Regular%20Season&PlayerPosition=C

[Revived]

Ayton's a glorified role player.I expect a middling career.If you just look at the stat sheet, you'd probably like him.Watching games, he's timid, and soft.That's the thing that irks me the most about Ayton.He's unique.The guy can coward his way to 16 pts & 15 rebs like nobody else.

I think he certainly has the tools to be more than just a role player and he’s only like 22 still so we’ll see. But yeah his stats don’t always represent his actual stats and that’s why you have guys like Tom Chambers, Eddie Johnson, and basically all Suns players and coaches on him quite a bit even with the nice stats.

In many of our games, the opposing fans aren’t very impressed with him either. A Pacers fan from our game recently said how soft he is and then a Pistons fan said how overrated he was and now Celtics fans chimed in as well

Ayton is the softest big in the league. I would hate to have that guy on any team I support.

viewtopic.php?f=8&t=2049507&start=420#p88646391

This is actually good news for us because if his value is this bad around the league then it should really help us when it comes to his contract extension in a few months.

I don't think his value is bad because of a few message board posts and casual fans on twitter or facebook. The coaches obviously respect him or they wouldn't play Drummond AND Allen against him to try and secure rebounds (and they still gave up 8 defensive rebounds as Ayton snagged 8 offensive boards).

And then the constant double and triple teams before he even gets the ball shows a ton of respect from coaches.

They know he can score with ease on one defender.

It’s not just fans though, opposing team commentators and analysts (which are many times former players or coaches) have said as much. I posted clip in the Ayton thread of the Pacers announcers clowning Ayton. And the game before that there was a similar instance of them calling him soft.

The Cavs didn’t play both Allen and Drummond together because they were super worried about Ayton. They were going to try this lineup out due to the injury to Nance Jr and try and improve their defense. They could’ve played the Wizards tonight and they would’ve still started Allen and Drummond.

https://www.cleveland.com/cavs/2021/02/cleveland-cavaliers-will-start-two-center-lineup-of-andre-drummond-and-jarrett-allen-to-fill-larry-nance-jr-void.html

Ayton, along with Frank, did a good job today battling both of them for sure. Drummond and Allen is no easy task and Ayton got the best of both and some nice blocks on Drummond.

[Revived]

Why do you continually make so much stuff up? He's 60th in assisted field goals among Cs...probably more like 40th among Cs who play a good number of minutes, and he's 10th in assisted field goals just on our team.

You have no clue what you are talking about here.

Ok definitely an exaggeration on my part to say "in the league" as I don't take into account the bigs or scrubs that barely play any minutes.

A better comparison would be to other highly drafted bigs with similar talent but have used it like KAT and Embiid. KAT’s FGs assisted were at 64% at Ayton’s same. Embiid’s FGs assisted were at 53% at Ayton’s same age (and just 48% in his yr 3 like Ayton). Dwight Howard in his 3rd season was at 55%. Not a top drafted player but a guy like Jokic was at 54% at Ayton’s same age.

Ayton is currently at 69% prior to the Cavs game. And of the other 31%, I wonder how much of those just offensive rebound putbacks. Probably at least a third.

Ayton has a huge luxury on the Suns in that he doesn’t need to create his own shot in every game or even in half the games. Just the games and times when we’re super cold from 3. We’ve already had games like that this season.

He is 10th on the Suns (it's just the guards that handle behind him)...he creates his shots more than anyone else who score off of cuts or open 3s and can't really create shots.

https://www.nba.com/stats/players/scoring/?sort=PCT_AST_FGM&dir=-1&Season=2020-21&SeasonType=Regular%20Season&TeamID=1610612756

And like I said, 61st among C's...and if you scroll the list, probably 40 or so are big name Cs or guys who get a decent number of minutes....but at a minimum, half of them. He often has to create his own shots. Yes, some are putbacks, but putbacks are a good thing. (Of the Cs ahead of them, the bigger names start around #8 and then to about 15, and then after that there are a few no names or low minute guys after that...maybe 10 or a little more) so probably 40 or so pretty big name Cs with more assisted % of baskets...or you may be able to argue 35...maybe 30 if you stretched it)

https://www.nba.com/stats/players/scoring/?sort=PCT_AST_FGM&dir=-1&Season=2020-21&SeasonType=Regular%20Season&PlayerPosition=C

It’s not very often though, it’s only 31% of the time.

And honestly I’m surprised he’s only 10th on the Suns. It’s well known that only Book and CP3 can create their own shot and the rest are basically 3 and D specialists even though guy like Bridges shows sometimes that he can create for himself. I figured Ayton would be top 4 in unassisted baskets on the Suns.

I’m not sure how many of the other bigs were top picks but I used Embiid and Towns as comparisons because those guys were top 3 picks so the expectations are similar. It wouldn’t really make sense to compare Ayton to say Jordan Bell (a 2nd rd pick) that plays about 18 mins a game for example. Ayton’s already better defensively than Towns but we’re talking about the offense here.

He’s shown glimpses of doing it. In the Ayton thread, I shared the video of him going right at Kleber and scoring plus drawing the foul. It’s just he’s not confident in doing it consistently or at least attempting to go 1 on 1 in the post so that it helps open up space for the shooters and separately, gives us an advantage on the nights where the 3 isn’t falling.

[bwgood77]

Ok definitely an exaggeration on my part to say "in the league" as I don't take into account the bigs or scrubs that barely play any minutes.

A better comparison would be to other highly drafted bigs with similar talent but have used it like KAT and Embiid. KAT’s FGs assisted were at 64% at Ayton’s same. Embiid’s FGs assisted were at 53% at Ayton’s same age (and just 48% in his yr 3 like Ayton). Dwight Howard in his 3rd season was at 55%. Not a top drafted player but a guy like Jokic was at 54% at Ayton’s same age.

Ayton is currently at 69% prior to the Cavs game. And of the other 31%, I wonder how much of those just offensive rebound putbacks. Probably at least a third.

Ayton has a huge luxury on the Suns in that he doesn’t need to create his own shot in every game or even in half the games. Just the games and times when we’re super cold from 3. We’ve already had games like that this season.

He is 10th on the Suns (it's just the guards that handle behind him)...he creates his shots more than anyone else who score off of cuts or open 3s and can't really create shots.

https://www.nba.com/stats/players/scoring/?sort=PCT_AST_FGM&dir=-1&Season=2020-21&SeasonType=Regular%20Season&TeamID=1610612756

And like I said, 61st among C's...and if you scroll the list, probably 40 or so are big name Cs or guys who get a decent number of minutes....but at a minimum, half of them. He often has to create his own shots. Yes, some are putbacks, but putbacks are a good thing. (Of the Cs ahead of them, the bigger names start around #8 and then to about 15, and then after that there are a few no names or low minute guys after that...maybe 10 or a little more) so probably 40 or so pretty big name Cs with more assisted % of baskets...or you may be able to argue 35...maybe 30 if you stretched it)

https://www.nba.com/stats/players/scoring/?sort=PCT_AST_FGM&dir=-1&Season=2020-21&SeasonType=Regular%20Season&PlayerPosition=C

It’s not very often though, it’s only 31% of the time.

And honestly I’m surprised he’s only 10th on the Suns. It’s well known that only Book and CP3 can create their own shot and the rest are basically 3 and D specialists even though guy like Bridges shows sometimes that he can create for himself. I figured Ayton would be top 4 in unassisted baskets on the Suns.

I’m not sure how many of the other bigs were top picks but I used Embiid and Towns as comparisons because those guys were top 3 picks so the expectations are similar. It wouldn’t really make sense to compare Ayton to say Jordan Bell (a 2nd rd pick) that plays about 18 mins a game for example. Ayton’s already better defensively than Towns but we’re talking about the offense here.

He’s shown glimpses of doing it. In the Ayton thread, I shared the video of him going right at Kleber and scoring plus drawing the foul. It’s just he’s not confident in doing it consistently or at least attempting to go 1 on 1 in the post so that it helps open up space for the shooters and separately, gives us an advantage on the nights where the 3 isn’t falling.

Honestly most bigs and in this 3 pt 3&D era, and even before that, most guys outside of the PG or primary ball handler would have mostly assisted baskets. That's really the right way to play the game.

But often Ayton has to make some moves or a fade away, or get an offensive board and putback, and these offensive boards are good. Now of course sometimes those are off his own misses, but everyone faces that at times.

The fact that so many more vet Cs and big name Cs are ahead of them is nice and shows it's not necessary. I'd actually rather he have MORE assisted baskets though and get more easy well thrown lobs up high.