Masai: "Scottie isn't a shot maker right now but that will grow. You build around him for his winning mentality"

[dTox]

Lowry at 23 may not have been as talented as Scottie but he had that feature about him that I just don't see in Scottie, the bull dog, never give up, always give 110% on the court type of player. The skills showed up later for Lowry because of those reasons. Scottie seems to half ass it every other game, where he decides to try hard or play smarter in certain games, that rarely translates to future massive growth in development like you saw with Klo, I hope to be wrong. I used to be a huge Scottie Stan, but I am also a realist, doesn't mean that I am turning on him or want him gone, but you just have to call a spade a spade sometime. He just isn't the type of player you build around, but he can be a long term piece, that, I do have hope for.

[tsherkin]

He just isn't the type of player you build around, but he can be a long term piece, that, I do have hope for.

And that's it right there. We can be critical of him, but there are things about him which are still valuable, so we should be in a rush to toss him away.

[YogurtProducer]

Lowry at 23 may not have been as talented as Scottie but he had that feature about him that I just don't see in Scottie, the bull dog, never give up, always give 110% on the court type of player. The skills showed up later for Lowry because of those reasons. Scottie seems to half ass it every other game, where he decides to try hard or play smarter in certain games, that rarely translates to future massive growth in development like you saw with Klo, I hope to be wrong. I used to be a huge Scottie Stan, but I am also a realist, doesn't mean that I am turning on him or want him gone, but you just have to call a spade a spade sometime. He just isn't the type of player you build around, but he can be a long term piece, that, I do have hope for.

The feature Lowry had that Scottie doesn't is the possession game.

Lowry absolutely valued every single possession. Knew how to protect the ball, how to get the ball in quick on inbounds for easy points, best player at the 2-for-1 I have seen, etc. He was an incredibly smart player who just understood how to win basketball games.

Scottie just isn't that. 99.9% of NBA player are not.

[mrdressup]

You need multiple all-star level talent that is more than just borderline AS talent. You need a top guard. You need stretch bigs that are defensive gems. Things are starting to round out for us, but there are still questions about how high we could go with these players. Is there really someone on our team who could be the best player in every playoff series as a contender. Can a team be lifted by committee? I don't see us as contenders in the next 5 years. It's going to be 4-5 years before we win a playoff series again, because just making it to the playoffs is a recipe for a first round exit. When will be a top 4 team in the East? That's debatable, but it has a lot to do with teams ahead of us falling off.

[tsherkin]

You need multiple all-star level talent that is more than just borderline AS talent. You need a top guard. You need stretch bigs that are defensive gems. Things are starting to round out for us, but there are still questions about how high we could go with these players. Is there really someone on our team who could be the best player in every playoff series as a contender. Can a team be lifted by committee? I don't see us as contenders in the next 5 years. It's going to be 4-5 years before we win a playoff series again, because just making it to the playoffs is a recipe for a first round exit. When will be a top 4 team in the East? That's debatable, but it has a lot to do with teams ahead of us falling off.

I think we should start by modulating our expectations.

We aren't building a title team. Not right now. You can just wash that expectation unless you have a top-5 player in the league, or you someone manage to accumulate so much talent that you can get by with a top-10 to top-15 guy.

So what we are more honestly doing is trying to rebuild into something akin to the DDR/Lowry era. And that's approximate 50-60 wins per season (+/- 2 wins), second round appearances, the odd ECF appearance. That's competitive, it's fun, that's a good time. And that's 6, 7 seasons of that. Obviously in the actual stretch, we snagged Kawhi for a one-year rental and won a title, but that's literally a one-off opportunity, not to be expected.

I don't think anyone sane would mind another 7 years of regular appearances past the first round and winning 50+, right? So what specific talent we need does change when that becomes the goal.

[YogurtProducer]

You need multiple all-star level talent that is more than just borderline AS talent. You need a top guard. You need stretch bigs that are defensive gems. Things are starting to round out for us, but there are still questions about how high we could go with these players. Is there really someone on our team who could be the best player in every playoff series as a contender. Can a team be lifted by committee? I don't see us as contenders in the next 5 years. It's going to be 4-5 years before we win a playoff series again, because just making it to the playoffs is a recipe for a first round exit. When will be a top 4 team in the East? That's debatable, but it has a lot to do with teams ahead of us falling off.

I think we should start by modulating our expectations.

We aren't building a title team. Not right now. You can just wash that expectation unless you have a top-5 player in the league, or you someone manage to accumulate so much talent that you can get by with a top-10 to top-15 guy.

So what we are more honestly doing is trying to rebuild into something akin to the DDR/Lowry era. And that's approximate 50-60 wins per season (+/- 2 wins), second round appearances, the odd ECF appearance. That's competitive, it's fun, that's a good time. And that's 6, 7 seasons of that. Obviously in the actual stretch, we snagged Kawhi for a one-year rental and won a title, but that's literally a one-off opportunity, not to be expected.

I don't think anyone sane would mind another 7 years of regular appearances past the first round and winning 50+, right? So what specific talent we need does change when that becomes the goal.

And the specific Kawhi deal was a one-off, but acquiring a star isn't.

If you really want to, you can give a million assets to the next disgruntled star and hope he sticks around. The lucky part of the Kawhi deal was we did not have to mortgage our future to get him. It was not that crazy that a star was traded.

[tsherkin]

And the specific Kawhi deal was a one-off, but acquiring a star isn't.

If you really want to, you can give a million assets to the next disgruntled star and hope he sticks around. The lucky part of the Kawhi deal was we did not have to mortgage our future to get him. It was not that crazy that a star was traded.

Sure. But guys of that level are not frequently available, and counting on such an opportunity is foolish. Taking advantage of it if it comes up is simply good sense, of course. And we did, to great effect. But we shouldn't be building with the idea that we'll do that, because that isn't something which happens very often.

Now, packaging assets and trying to upgrade in general, I agree, a different story. But I was speaking of acquiring a superstar-level talent rather specifically.

[YogurtProducer]

Scottie is shooting 26.3% on 4.6 3's a night. Would you say... historically bad?

viewtopic.php?f=32&t=2337673

[YogurtProducer]

And the specific Kawhi deal was a one-off, but acquiring a star isn't.

If you really want to, you can give a million assets to the next disgruntled star and hope he sticks around. The lucky part of the Kawhi deal was we did not have to mortgage our future to get him. It was not that crazy that a star was traded.

Sure. But guys of that level are not frequently available, and counting on such an opportunity is foolish. Taking advantage of it if it comes up is simply good sense, of course. And we did, to great effect. But we shouldn't be building with the idea that we'll do that, because that isn't something which happens very often.

Now, packaging assets and trying to upgrade in general, I agree, a different story. But I was speaking of acquiring a superstar-level talent rather specifically.

Sure, but guys of that level are not frequently available no matter what avenue you go down, so I agree with you it is not worth trying to hinge your entire franchise around getting one.

[tsherkin]

Sure, but guys of that level are not frequently available no matter what avenue you go down, so I agree with you it is not worth trying to hinge your entire franchise around getting one.

Precisely.

That in mind, what we need to focus on is getting as good as we can, and acquiring as many assets as we can. Easier said than done, but it does pivot WHAT assets we chase. If title contention isn't the thing, we can sort of ease away from worrying about the superstar we're never going to be lucky enough to get, and we start work on building a deep team with reasonable levels of talent. Then we can start looking to flip for an upgrade if it becomes possible. And along the way, hopefully we get a nice half-decade or so of quality, enjoyable games.

EDIT: I've said this before several times, but we do have a title. And nearly half the league doesn't. So we can focus just on being good for a while, instead of worrying about summitting the mountain again.

[Tha Cynic]

I just want Scottie fully healthy and playing with the best talent possible. Cade stunk the first couple years as well and then really emerged this year when he was all the way healthy and he had a good coach and supporting staff.

I don't think of Scottie as any one thing, but he needs spacing and teammates to set him up just as much as he needs to make plays for others on offense. When he is playing with worse players he tends to force things and it can get ugly.

Additionally, next season lets not have Scottie playing with a limp or grabbing his hand from pain. The guy has to play healthy and just be monitored. I swear at one point he was running the most NBA miles and he was doing it on one leg. His shooting dropped off, but I think he has some kind of hand issue that is impacting him.

Scottie isn't particularly skilled as a scorer, but he also plays way too passively. A guy as big as him should be drawing way more contact. Instead, he settles for jumpers and always looks to pass first. It's frustrating watching him play sometimes. He needs to embrace his role as a PF.

Agree and this is how he can make his offense a lot more effective. We have seen him be effective in the games where he’s very clearly looking to dominate with force. This is the main reason why I’m hoping he just has a change in his mindset and becomes more aggressive a scorer.

A could of quick examples of where this could help are Cade and Banchero. Both have been terribly inefficient in their careers but they’re aggressive. Eventually certain things click and you just get more free throws to offset other parts of your inefficiency. Barnes though doesn’t have the mindset of a scorer so he is simply fine letting others score and doesn’t try to get himself going. This needs to change.

[Tha Cynic]

You need multiple all-star level talent that is more than just borderline AS talent. You need a top guard. You need stretch bigs that are defensive gems. Things are starting to round out for us, but there are still questions about how high we could go with these players. Is there really someone on our team who could be the best player in every playoff series as a contender. Can a team be lifted by committee? I don't see us as contenders in the next 5 years. It's going to be 4-5 years before we win a playoff series again, because just making it to the playoffs is a recipe for a first round exit. When will be a top 4 team in the East? That's debatable, but it has a lot to do with teams ahead of us falling off.

I think we should start by modulating our expectations.

We aren't building a title team. Not right now. You can just wash that expectation unless you have a top-5 player in the league, or you someone manage to accumulate so much talent that you can get by with a top-10 to top-15 guy.

So what we are more honestly doing is trying to rebuild into something akin to the DDR/Lowry era. And that's approximate 50-60 wins per season (+/- 2 wins), second round appearances, the odd ECF appearance. That's competitive, it's fun, that's a good time. And that's 6, 7 seasons of that. Obviously in the actual stretch, we snagged Kawhi for a one-year rental and won a title, but that's literally a one-off opportunity, not to be expected.

I don't think anyone sane would mind another 7 years of regular appearances past the first round and winning 50+, right? So what specific talent we need does change when that becomes the goal.

And the specific Kawhi deal was a one-off, but acquiring a star isn't.

If you really want to, you can give a million assets to the next disgruntled star and hope he sticks around. The lucky part of the Kawhi deal was we did not have to mortgage our future to get him. It was not that crazy that a star was traded.

We kind of indirectly did as we traded away draft picks and youth and also got a coach who didn’t care about development. That’s what the last 5 years resulted in. It was well worth it but we have some others who don’t get why the last years went the way it did and just like to bitch about it lol.

[tsherkin]

A could of quick examples of where this could help are Cade and Banchero. Both have been terribly inefficient in their careers but they’re aggressive. Eventually certain things click and you just get more free throws to offset other parts of your inefficiency. Barnes though doesn’t have the mindset of a scorer so he is simply fine letting others score and doesn’t try to get himself going. This needs to change.

Cade draws at a level comparable to Scottie. Paolo has been elite at drawing fouls since his rookie season.

[Tha Cynic]

A could of quick examples of where this could help are Cade and Banchero. Both have been terribly inefficient in their careers but they’re aggressive. Eventually certain things click and you just get more free throws to offset other parts of your inefficiency. Barnes though doesn’t have the mindset of a scorer so he is simply fine letting others score and doesn’t try to get himself going. This needs to change.

Cade draws at a level comparable to Scottie. Paolo has been elite at drawing fouls since his rookie season.

You’re right but in terms of aggression Cade also takes 4 more shots a game. I don’t think Barnes is good enough where he can just take lulls in the offense and then try to become a scorer at random times

[tsherkin]

You’re right but in terms of aggression Cade also takes 4 more shots a game. I don’t think Barnes is good enough where he can just take lulls in the offense and then try to become a scorer at random times

Sure. Cade is more willing to shoot. He's a pretty good mid-range shooter, which makes him this year almost a BI-level scorer. He's also a more dynamic playmaker. His problem is that he's f'g useless at getting to the rim and can't finish even when he does get there. His game outside of that is actually pretty strong. He's a better offensive player than Barnes. Any comparison of the two has to be O vs D, really, because Scottie's never going to catch Cade on O, and vice versa with D.

[Tha Cynic]

You’re right but in terms of aggression Cade also takes 4 more shots a game. I don’t think Barnes is good enough where he can just take lulls in the offense and then try to become a scorer at random times

Sure. Cade is more willing to shoot. He's a pretty good mid-range shooter, which makes him this year almost a BI-level scorer. He's also a more dynamic playmaker. His problem is that he's f'g useless at getting to the rim and can't finish even when he does get there. His game outside of that is actually pretty strong. He's a better offensive player than Barnes. Any comparison of the two has to be O vs D, really, because Scottie's never going to catch Cade on O, and vice versa with D.

This is less about Barnes catching either of those guys as he’s a much better defender and more about how he can get better on offense. I don’t think we’re at a stage where we need to scale back what he does but refine and have him focus on certain areas of the offense to get more efficient. I am more optimistic about him being better scorer with reps than others are

[ConSarnit]

I just want Scottie fully healthy and playing with the best talent possible. Cade stunk the first couple years as well and then really emerged this year when he was all the way healthy and he had a good coach and supporting staff.

I don't think of Scottie as any one thing, but he needs spacing and teammates to set him up just as much as he needs to make plays for others on offense. When he is playing with worse players he tends to force things and it can get ugly.

Additionally, next season lets not have Scottie playing with a limp or grabbing his hand from pain. The guy has to play healthy and just be monitored. I swear at one point he was running the most NBA miles and he was doing it on one leg. His shooting dropped off, but I think he has some kind of hand issue that is impacting him.

Scottie isn't particularly skilled as a scorer, but he also plays way too passively. A guy as big as him should be drawing way more contact. Instead, he settles for jumpers and always looks to pass first. It's frustrating watching him play sometimes. He needs to embrace his role as a PF.

Agree and this is how he can make his offense a lot more effective. We have seen him be effective in the games where he’s very clearly looking to dominate with force. This is the main reason why I’m hoping he just has a change in his mindset and becomes more aggressive a scorer.

A could have quick examples of where this could help are Cade and Banchero. Both have been terribly inefficient in their careers but they’re aggressive. Eventually certain things click and you just get more free throws to offset other parts of your inefficiency. Barnes though doesn’t have the mindset of a scorer so he is simply fine letting others score and doesn’t try to get himself going. This needs to change.

This is an issue and I don’t know how it resolves itself. Based on Barnes current skillset he’d need to radically alter the way he plays on offense to become a “good” scorer. He’d need to start bullying people in the post and midrange, he’d need to set way more screens and use his physicality to get to the rim.

Here’s the issue: how many players have radically changed their game in that way after multiple seasons of playing a different style? If Barnes wants to play the style he’s playing now he has to get much better as a shooter.

I just can’t recall any players making significant changes in their aggression level at this point in their career (even if it is still relatively early). This is why I think his shooting is so critical. He doesn’t want to play an aggressive game where he takes advantage of his size and strength. He is in some sense who he is going to be. There’s just not a lot of precedent for guys making major changes to their play style at this point in their careers.

In some sense fixing his shooting is probably a more reasonable ask than him making major play style changes.

[MEDIC]

You’re right but in terms of aggression Cade also takes 4 more shots a game. I don’t think Barnes is good enough where he can just take lulls in the offense and then try to become a scorer at random times

Sure. Cade is more willing to shoot. He's a pretty good mid-range shooter, which makes him this year almost a BI-level scorer. He's also a more dynamic playmaker. His problem is that he's f'g useless at getting to the rim and can't finish even when he does get there. His game outside of that is actually pretty strong. He's a better offensive player than Barnes. Any comparison of the two has to be O vs D, really, because Scottie's never going to catch Cade on O, and vice versa with D.

This is less about Barnes catching either of those guys as he’s a much better defender and more about how he can get better on offense. I don’t think we’re at a stage where we need to scale back what he does but refine and have him focus on certain areas of the offense to get more efficient. I am more optimistic about him being better scorer with reps than others are

Yup. There is enough about his game that I like at the moment. I think he is a player that can help us win next season & beyond.

That allows me to be a little more patient with his offensive development.

We have BI. We have RJ. We have IQ. We also have other young players that are trending in the right direction. I am not sure why all of the pressure needs to be on Scottie to get buckets.

Maybe the current version of Scottie fits in perfectly with this group next season & all of this fuss is just people worrying about nothing.

As far as his 3 point shooting goes.......this is supposed to be a development year. Scottie was asked to take a ton of above the break 3 pointers. Sometimes it was brutal to watch. He is not a 3 point shooter.

I think next season he will take better 3's & his % will increase once again. Maybe he shouldn't be taking pull up 3's from above the break. Nothing wrong with that.

[tsherkin]

This is less about Barnes catching either of those guys as he’s a much better defender and more about how he can get better on offense. I don’t think we’re at a stage where we need to scale back what he does but refine and have him focus on certain areas of the offense to get more efficient. I am more optimistic about him being better scorer with reps than others are

We very much are at the stage where we need to scale back what he does. He's about as bad as it gets in his current role on offense. It would be quite challenging to suck more than he has on that side of the ball.

What we need to focus on are the things we knew he was going to be good at based on his pre-draft profile. And fortunately, we have systemic reason to do that, with RJ coming up and BI coming in. And then maybe Gradey and possibly our pick.

[HumbleRen]

Make him a play finisher instead of a creator and he’ll become an instant top 20 player again.