The Gradey Dick Thread Part 2

[Tha Cynic]

Tons of team passed on Whitmore. Which means one of two things.

Injury concern
Personality concern

Now teams could be wrong , happens all the time. But we generally don’t see the results of those concerns until later on.

Also teams later in the draft probably didn't do their full research on him thinking he would be gone well in top 10. When you see him then drop that low teams who didn't do their research probably didn't want to take a chance. It's not surprising that the team to pick him up was a team who would have looked at him with their first pick. Wouldn't he surprised if he also didn't give workouts to teams later in the draft.

I'm less concerned with not drafting Whitmore and more concerned with why they drafted Dick who is the type of player you should easily be able to trade for if you wanted. There are now 3rd stringers who have elite shooting potential and don't play. One good thing is he does have a great feel for the game. Yes I hope his body catches up to that.

[earth007]

Needs a lot of work this offseason. I wonder what an extra 10-15 lbs of muscle would do for him, because a lot of his issues seem to stem from having an underdeveloped body. It's already impossible to defend because of the rules, so when you couple that with his lack of strength, it's a killer.

Even during the Hawks broadcast, Dominique Wilkins mentioned how Gradey needed to get in the weight room.

That doesn't explain his broken shot. I think our organization tried to "fix" his shot because he didn't have textbook mechanics. Now it is even more broken and his confidence is shattered to pieces. When players come to this organization now, shooters forget how to shoot, good players forget how to play wining basketball and they shine after leaving the organization. It is possible there is something seriously wrong with the organization from top to bottom.

[Raps in 4]

When players come to this organization now, shooters forget how to shoot, good players forget how to play wining basketball and they shine after leaving the organization. It is possible there is something seriously wrong with the organization from top to bottom.

What are some examples of these players?

[grimlock]

Needs a lot of work this offseason. I wonder what an extra 10-15 lbs of muscle would do for him, because a lot of his issues seem to stem from having an underdeveloped body. It's already impossible to defend because of the rules, so when you couple that with his lack of strength, it's a killer.

Even during the Hawks broadcast, Dominique Wilkins mentioned how Gradey needed to get in the weight room.

That doesn't explain his broken shot. I think our organization tried to "fix" his shot because he didn't have textbook mechanics. Now it is even more broken and his confidence is shattered to pieces. When players come to this organization now, shooters forget how to shoot, good players forget how to play wining basketball and they shine after leaving the organization. It is possible there is something seriously wrong with the organization from top to bottom.

People put way to much emphasis on data/technology and really suck ad adapting to the nuance of human emotion.

The IBM Watson approach to everything makes it hard to adapt to fringe cases. Disney and Netflix both took a data/algorithm approach to content creation over the last 5 years. I.e “data shows people like Ryan Renolds” which resulted to a flurry of Ryan led shows. These data guys took over for Bob Iger after he left, leading to a pretty big collapse in subscribers, and a never ending barrage of marvel movies because data says so. What did Disney do? Brought Iger out of retirement to help bring back a sense of humanity to the company.

Masai is best when his feet are on the ground. Interacting, inspiring and leading. I wouldn’t doubt for a second that all these technologies which sound sexy have done little to improve performance, but instead created a sense of anxiety for young basketball players that are trying to understand the game and cement their position in a rotation.

[MikeM]

We had a chance to tank for Wemby. Decided to compete. Still sucked. Doubled down to drop our position further with Poeltl. Still ended up with 13th. Whitmore falls to us and STILL blow it.

[AkelaLoneWolf]

Needs a lot of work this offseason. I wonder what an extra 10-15 lbs of muscle would do for him, because a lot of his issues seem to stem from having an underdeveloped body. It's already impossible to defend because of the rules, so when you couple that with his lack of strength, it's a killer.

Even during the Hawks broadcast, Dominique Wilkins mentioned how Gradey needed to get in the weight room.

That doesn't explain his broken shot. I think our organization tried to "fix" his shot because he didn't have textbook mechanics. Now it is even more broken and his confidence is shattered to pieces. When players come to this organization now, shooters forget how to shoot, good players forget how to play wining basketball and they shine after leaving the organization. It is possible there is something seriously wrong with the organization from top to bottom.

lol a prospect doesn’t develop the way you want them to so the whole organization sucks? He’s shooting well from the corners. Right now it seems we’re trying to run him off DHO. Maybe on purpose to get him reps. It’s not his strong suit so he will struggle.

[AkelaLoneWolf]

We had a chance to tank for Wemby. Decided to compete. Still sucked. Doubled down to drop our position further with Poeltl. Still ended up with 13th. Whitmore falls to us and STILL blow it.

Oh noes. The horror!!!

[Scase]

He looked good to me despite the misses. He looks comfortable out there.

If he misses and making shots is what will keep him in the NBA how can he look good? 1-8 looks good? You could put Reggie Miller out there now and he'd look comfortable too.

I don't think there's been a single player in the NBA that has looked as bad as him and succeeded. I know he's still young but there is a very high probability he's out of the league after his rookie contract is over. It would be sooner if not for the front office hoping they he can redeem them of their poor selection.

Of course maybe he'll prove me wrong with his motor, defense or hidden athletic talent. He's definitely shown signs of elite potential in each of these categories.

There are good misses. Hes 20 I wouldn’t ring the alarm yet

His first three completely missed the rim and nailed the bottom right corner of the backboard, that was an awful miss.

[ItsDanger]

If they passed on Whitmore because he fell unexpectedly and they just never looked into drafting him, that would be disappointing. Top organizations cover all reasonable contingencies, and falling about 8 spots doesn't qualify as some extreme remote outcome.

[LoveMyRaps]

Hezonja 2.0

[positivetension]

It takes a few years to assess a draft class and people are losing their minds halfway through Dick's rookie season.

Unpopular opinion but I still like Dick as a prospect. If he's still struggling to shoot the ball next season, then it might be time to panac.

[pingpongrac]

He missed a few bunnies and all his threes but he grabbed 7 boards, picked up 3 steals and drew 2 charges so he was at least active out there.

Did we draft this kid for his hustle?

No, but it's good to see that he is capable of producing even when his shot is off. We've seen a few games like this from Gradey recently where he either doesn't get the ball much and/or doesn't score much, but he makes an impact in other areas. His off-ball defence has been pretty impressive for a rookie recently (9 steals in the last 8 games with the majority being him getting deflections in passing lanes, becoming better with his rotations/not losing his man near as often, etc.), he's been improving as a playmaker (16 assists and 6 turnovers in the last 8 games vs a nearly 1:1 AST/TO ratio in his first 19 games) and he's making hustle plays (4 charges drawn and 6 loose balls recovered in the last 8 games while grabbing 3+ rebounds most nights).

Outside of last night where he blew a couple of layups/putbacks and missed badly on a few threes, Gradey has been pretty good offensively since getting some minutes again and he's putting up 10/6/4/2 per36 in his last 8 games. He's a +8 in his minutes where the team has been otherwise brutal (-9.6 point differential in the same span) and we're seeing a lot of encouraging things from a young player whose biggest need for improvement comes in gaining strength and getting used to the speed of the NBA game. I think he's going to be a good player within a few years.

[Harry Palmer]

Dick’s main issues right now are his shot confidence and his weight. He contributes more than shooting, but not enough to be a significant contributor if he can’t get his shot back. His mechanics look a bit different than at Kansas, not sure if they deconstructed him, but it would explain some things. But, still, while I caution thinking he’s ever going to be someone you build around, I still think he can be a top reserve/fringe starter depending on team makeup, people are rushing to judgment a bit. I get it, a shooter who can’t shoot does seem to the epitome of useless, but he can shoot, he’s just a bit broken right now.

[anotherhomer]

Dick’s main issues right now are his shot confidence and his weight. He contributes more than shooting, but not enough to be a significant contributor if he can’t get his shot back. His mechanics look a bit different than at Kansas, not sure if they deconstructed him, but it would explain some things. But, still, while I caution thinking he’s ever going to be someone you build around, I still think he can be a top reserve/fringe starter depending on team makeup, people are rushing to judgment a bit. I get it, a shooter who can’t shoot does seem to the epitome of useless, but he can shoot, he’s just a bit broken right now.

it's discouraging considering other plays available at that time

[Harry Palmer]

Dick’s main issues right now are his shot confidence and his weight. He contributes more than shooting, but not enough to be a significant contributor if he can’t get his shot back. His mechanics look a bit different than at Kansas, not sure if they deconstructed him, but it would explain some things. But, still, while I caution thinking he’s ever going to be someone you build around, I still think he can be a top reserve/fringe starter depending on team makeup, people are rushing to judgment a bit. I get it, a shooter who can’t shoot does seem to the epitome of useless, but he can shoot, he’s just a bit broken right now.

it's discouraging considering other plays available at that time

Sure, I get that. But the past is another country. Let’s not live there anymore.

[Duffman100]

Dick’s main issues right now are his shot confidence and his weight. He contributes more than shooting, but not enough to be a significant contributor if he can’t get his shot back. His mechanics look a bit different than at Kansas, not sure if they deconstructed him, but it would explain some things. But, still, while I caution thinking he’s ever going to be someone you build around, I still think he can be a top reserve/fringe starter depending on team makeup, people are rushing to judgment a bit. I get it, a shooter who can’t shoot does seem to the epitome of useless, but he can shoot, he’s just a bit broken right now.

it's discouraging considering other plays available at that time

Sure, I get that. But the past is another country. Let’s not live there anymore.

You live there when there is a bigger sample size of missed player evaluations. So far it’s Flynn and Dick in the last few years. Barnes was a great pick.

[Harcore Fenton Mun]

it's discouraging considering other plays available at that time

Sure, I get that. But the past is another country. Let’s not live there anymore.

You live there when there is a bigger sample size of missed player evaluations. So far it’s Flynn and Dick in the last few years. Barnes was a great pick.

If we go back to 2014, it dun look as good. Some nice hit's, way more misses.

[pingpongrac]

Sure, I get that. But the past is another country. Let’s not live there anymore.

You live there when there is a bigger sample size of missed player evaluations. So far it’s Flynn and Dick in the last few years. Barnes was a great pick.

If we go back to 2014, it dun look as good. Some nice hit's, way more misses.

Lmao what? Siakam at 27 becoming an All-Star/All-NBA player severely outweighs a couple of bad picks in the 20s (Bruno and Flynn) as well as a few early 2nds that didn't pan out (Daniels and Koloko) on his own while OG at 23 becoming a premier 3+D wing was a massive hit too. Powell at 46 becoming one of the best bench scorers in the league and a guy who can get you 15-20 points on high efficiency most nights was a huge hit as well even if some of his best years in the NBA have come outside of Toronto. Poeltl and Delon were good picks at 9 and 20 while Scottie was a homerun at 4 and it is way too early to even judge Gradey at 13. It's pointless to bring up 3 "failed" picks at #59 or a few others at 46/47 where 90% of players picked in that range don't make it beyond their first NBA contract or contribute meaningfully for more than a few seasons anyway.

[Harcore Fenton Mun]

You live there when there is a bigger sample size of missed player evaluations. So far it’s Flynn and Dick in the last few years. Barnes was a great pick.

If we go back to 2014, it dun look as good. Some nice hit's, way more misses.

Lmao what? Siakam at 27 becoming an All-Star/All-NBA player severely outweighs a couple of bad picks in the 20s (Bruno and Flynn) as well as a few early 2nds that didn't pan out (Daniels and Koloko) on his own while OG at 23 becoming a premier 3+D wing was a massive hit too. Powell at 46 becoming one of the best bench scorers in the league and a guy who can get you 15-20 points on high efficiency most nights was a huge hit as well even if some of his best years in the NBA have come outside of Toronto. Poeltl and Delon were good picks at 9 and 20 while Scottie was a homerun at 4 and it is way too early to even judge Gradey at 13. It's pointless to bring up 3 "failed" picks at #59 or a few others at 46/47 where 90% of players picked in that range don't make it beyond their first NBA contract or contribute meaningfully for more than a few seasons anyway.

It's about a 33% hit rate. Think about that while we tank.

[pingpongrac]

If we go back to 2014, it dun look as good. Some nice hit's, way more misses.

Lmao what? Siakam at 27 becoming an All-Star/All-NBA player severely outweighs a couple of bad picks in the 20s (Bruno and Flynn) as well as a few early 2nds that didn't pan out (Daniels and Koloko) on his own while OG at 23 becoming a premier 3+D wing was a massive hit too. Powell at 46 becoming one of the best bench scorers in the league and a guy who can get you 15-20 points on high efficiency most nights was a huge hit as well even if some of his best years in the NBA have come outside of Toronto. Poeltl and Delon were good picks at 9 and 20 while Scottie was a homerun at 4 and it is way too early to even judge Gradey at 13. It's pointless to bring up 3 "failed" picks at #59 or a few others at 46/47 where 90% of players picked in that range don't make it beyond their first NBA contract or contribute meaningfully for more than a few seasons anyway.

It's about a 33% hit rate. Think about that while we tank.

When half of your picks are being made in the 2nd round – with most of those coming in the 45-60 range – you're not going to hit on every pick. 8 of 16 picks since 2014 have come in the 2nd round accounting for the majority of misses in that span.

And if you want to talk about a 33% hit rate and compare things to a baseball player, think of it this way: are you really going to complain about a .333 average while being near the top of the league in extra base hits?