anotherhomer wrote:Raps in 4 wrote:He's the player whose development I'm most excited to watch right now. Scottie has been a huge disappointment all season and is getting close to being a finished product, which is to say, he's close to cementing himself as a Draymond Green clone. Dick has taken a step forward offensively, but he'll always be a sieve on defence. JaKobe still allows me to dream that he'll become a productive player on both sides of the ball.
scottie isn't a finished product but i say he's close to 80% of his ceiling, so shouldn't expect much more from him on the offensive end
I hate to jump on a slight derail but I'll finish with JaKobe....
But I don't think its as much that he's a "finished product" vs we're getting a better sense of his ceiling. Maybe it's just semantics but when you say he's close to being a finished product to me that means you're barely expecting much improvement, if any and I don't think it's that black & white. He's only 23-24 years old and I'm obviously not saying he's the same person as say DeMar or Pascal but look at both of those guys, they arguably had their most growth as players between 24-27 years old, they starting making more refinements to the things they already did well and with time eventually their shooting improved. In DeMar's case of course that stayed within the mid-range but nonetheless you think of young DeMar, he was just a straight line driver or a dude that would catch an alley oop but in time he seen had some touch in the mid (just as Scottie is doing this year too, that's new, keep that in mind) but he kept working an adding more to his game and eventually became a master of the mid. Pascal was basically just a toss ahead in transition or could go over each shoulder in the post but his handle and almost everything was laughable but he ofc added the spin, then kept adding counters and worked on his ballhandling to drive to the basket, always tried to work on his shot, started adding some pull ups....
Those guys were very basic players at the age of 23, DeMar didn't even show he could score 20ppg (he averaged 18ppg at 23), Pascal was averaging 7.3ppg at 23, then 16.9ppg at 24. I'm not saying that Scottie will even follow the same exponential growth because obviously if that were the case he'd be ahead even as a scorer of BOTH guys at the same age and if he followed the same he'd have a MVP trajectory, nonetheless I still think he's going to make improvements. He's still literally finding his game, he likely will never be a MVP caliber player buuuut he will likely start figuring out his strengths, refining what he does, continue to improve his shot (
esp from the mid range is my guess) and eventually hope to be at a passable level like Pascal as 3pt shooter, in time just with some of those refinements he'll get to 23-24+ppg but reading defences better & know more of the game to become a better passer. He still be INCREDIBLY valuable and far from a finished product BUT I think we're letting (or let go) of this notion he might become a "Jokic" like hub when
he's looking like more of a Scottie Pippen and I think Ingram's play style is going to bring more of that out of him and will actually help him grow more as a player because we stop trying to get him to be a player he's not. He can't take over like Jokic but I think he can/will be an excellent running mate ala Pippen and that's where he's gonna show his value. Even if he's not as advanced offensively as we'd all like he's style MILES ahead of Draymond as a scorer.
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Buuut as for JaKobe lol I've already said it plenty of times but I like him more than Gradey, so far.
Gradey to me has yet prove he's not another "TRoss" or "Gary Trent Jr", where these guys go on hot streaks and go ballistic for a handful of games and other times you'd forget they were on the court if you didn't hear Devlin point out that he's 0 for 5 on his first few shots lol. If he was CONSISTENTLY like we seen him to start the season, of course he'd be better but that was literally like 13 Game Bargnani/Dick and for the most part he's been inconsistent and badly exposed and even hunted out defensively.
While JaKobe's shot has been a bit inconsistent (although gradually improving), he CONSISTENTLY brings energy! (period). You can count on him defending, making hustle plays and just ready to attack. If Gradey's first few shots don't fall, it's like his confidence comes apart and even dwindles to nothing when teams start going at him defensively. JaKobe is at least engaged every single night, I just trust a player with that kind of consistent fire and effort to not only help my team more but get better because they don't get rattled, they just keep working and while I don't think JaKobe will be a star per say, I think one day he will break out like Norm Powell because he just brings that energy almost every time