WellYouKnow wrote:If you go back in the thread you'll see that at one point I was Ejim' s biggest supporter here.
It's not like I'd be super upset if he makes it but there are much better options for us than him.
His defence also isn't that great. He's good on switches on the perimeter and obviously thats huge in fiba ball and the main argument I could see for including him. He's not a great post defender, rebounder or rim protector.
I dont think characterizing Wiltjer as just a shooter is fair at all either. After Olynyk he's easily the most complete offensive big of all our guys. He's also probably the worst defensive big by a good margin, but I think his skill level is too high to ignore
I agree on your general analysis of Ejim's game (although obviously I view his defensive strengths as being more useful in this context), but I'm just not sure who all of these "much better options" are that would make giving Ejim a spot some sort of charity "thank you" decision.
I probably should have said that Wiltjer is a "scorer" rather than a "shooter", as you're right that he has a number of ways to put the ball in the hoop. But I would stop short of saying that he's a complete offensive player. His passing and creation for others at the offensive end has always been lacking, in my opinion (although to be fair, that usually isn't his role).
I wouldn't put Wiltjer ahead of Ejim given that he's an absolute minus player at one end of the court, but at least I think that's a fair argument since he can really light it up at times. Either way, it's probably a close race depending on what coaches are looking for. But who are these other much better options for a roster spot, if we're assuming that Olynyk, Powell, Birch and maybe Lyles grab the first 4 C/PF spots? Has Boucher really proved more at this point? The NBA rookies? I'm not trying to give you a hard time on this, I'm just not sure why you're so quick to dismiss Ejim as one of the favourites for that last spot.
One more quick point on Ejim before I jump off of this topic, and at risk of starting to sound like his agent or something - I went to the game against the Dominican Republic last summer, and I thought that he fit in seamlessly in the rotation with the Olynyk, Powell and Birch. And I think that's what you want from the 4th or 5th big spot, someone who will fit in and play well with the NBA guys.
Anyway, that's enough on that topic for me. I appreciate the debate. It's a nice position to be in that we can even have debates about worthy players, rather than scrambling to find warm bodies to fill out the roster as we used to years ago.
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