The Troy Brown Thread

[Ruzious]

At this point, there's no reason not to play Brown 15 or so minutes a game at the 3 behind Oubre and have Otto permanently at the 4.

[I_Like_Dirt]

After the first 3 picks NBA GMs have no demonstrable ability to rank players in order of their likely performance in the league.

I disagree with this. The problem is that you don't actually see any particular team's list for the draft and there are a lot of factors that go into these kinds of rankings. Teams only get one pick, and so having one single player rated too high can mean other teams don't rate them as highly and the team in question winds up picking a bad player when they otherwise had the draft reasonably ranked. More than that, it's more than just picking the player nowadays - it's also giving them an opportunity to succeed rather than trying to pigeon-hole them into a certain need your team may have. Part of that is player development but the other part is roster management so that players aren't actually buried and coaches have no choice but to play them.

Toronto is a great example of this - not just a team that drafts really well late in the draft under Masai Ujiri but they had Cory Joseph, a hometown guy, playing and thriving as their backup PG. They moved him to Indiana because if they didn't they wouldn't have given opportunities to guys like Delon Wright and Fred Van Vleet. They had Patrick Patterson succeeding for them and let him walk and that made room for guys like Siakam and Anunoby to play. This doesn't mean you don't need vets but it does mean you don't actually need that many vets if you scout and develop players properly. Houston, Golden State, San Antonio, Denver, Boston - a lot of teams are doing it. Houston didn't just dump Melo for nothing - they dumped Melo to let Gary Clark play more which is huge.

The problem is that the teams that are actually at identifying talent, developing it, and creating opportunities for it, tend to be the teams at the top of the league. This invariably skews the results in the draft significantly while middling teams or worse are paying the poor man's tax as they wait for their turn to win the lottery. It's still better to draft in the middle of the 1st round than the end of the 1st round. When good teams do that you get guys like Kawhi Leonard and Klay Thompson. And even if you don't get a star you get a pretty good player like Jakob Poeltl. Certain teams are running circles around the league with their ability to leverage the draft. The Clippers just relieved Doc Rivers of his duties as GM (he was awful) and left him as coach (he's a good coach) and were smart enough to remove the possibility of him overplaying his son and basically give him a roster where he had to play his two rookies. The Wizards have no such forethought at management. Coaches will almost always play veterans more. It's on the GM to manage the roster so that doesn't happen to the team's detriment.

As it is, Brown really should play. You achieve that by not having so many veterans on the team. Not that any of these guys (besides Rivers and Smith) are bad, but having Dwight, Rivers, Kief, Green, Yawn and Smith on the team - they're all going to play to varying degrees. A team committing to that many veterans is committing to not playing younger/developing players, particularly if they already have two allstar guards. Brown isn't going to be amazing out of the gates but he would be fine if Ernie were replaced with a competent GM who would move some of the vets out of the way.

[Eli Babak]

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Absolutely no reason not to play him over Rivers. They have no problem giving DNPs to Ian "16M/year" Mahinmi and it's very likely Rivers isn't part of the team next year. At least give him a chance, you don't lose anything: Rivers is trash and doesn't help winning games.

[nate33]

Absolutely no reason not to play him over Rivers. They have no problem giving DNPs to Ian "16M/year" Mahinmi and it's very likely Rivers isn't part of the team next year. At least give him a chance, you don't lose anything: Rivers is trash and doesn't help winning games.

Agreed.

I'm more charitable than most with respect to Brooks' rotation decisions. I can see why Brooks initially placed Rivers higher in the rotation hierarchy. Rivers was an established NBA player who started for a half-decent team last year while posting mediocre numbers - numbers good enough to be a rotation-caliber player. Also, I'm sure Brooks was concerned about the spacing issues with playing Brown.

And I was willing to be patient about the Rivers experiment. Rivers clearly started poorly, but as a 6-year vet and former starter, it was understandable that Brooks wanted to give him a chance to play through what might have been merely a slump. Brooks is hyper-conscious of his players' confidence so he's not the type of guy to have a quick hook just because a player has a few bad shooting nights in a row. Rivers was giving effort and obviously trying out there, he just wasn't making shots. Fine. Give him some time to work it out.

But it's been 25 games now. Statistically, Rivers has never been a good player in the past and he just barely reached "rotation-caliber" last year, so it's not like he has a long record of success. And he has been horrible this year. At some point, you've got to acknowledge that a player is what he is. And Rivers just isn't very good.

Brown is likely to be more productive than Rivers right now. And even if he isn't, he'll be close; and that's good enough when you factor that Brown is the future and Rivers is a rental who will be gone after 57 more games.

[FAH1223]

I'd rather let Brown sink and/or swim in the rotation. I'm glad he's playing in the G-League. But he can also create off the dribble and make some plays. I'm not sure if his shooting has improved since the summer but the best shooters on the team aren't making much right now anyway.

[Chocolate City Jordanaire]

After the first 3 picks NBA GMs have no demonstrable ability to rank players in order of their likely performance in the league.

I disagree with this. The problem is that you don't actually see any particular team's list for the draft and there are a lot of factors that go into these kinds of rankings. Teams only get one pick, and so having one single player rated too high can mean other teams don't rate them as highly and the team in question winds up picking a bad player when they otherwise had the draft reasonably ranked. More than that, it's more than just picking the player nowadays - it's also giving them an opportunity to succeed rather than trying to pigeon-hole them into a certain need your team may have. Part of that is player development but the other part is roster management so that players aren't actually buried and coaches have no choice but to play them.

Toronto is a great example of this - not just a team that drafts really well late in the draft under Masai Ujiri but they had Cory Joseph, a hometown guy, playing and thriving as their backup PG. They moved him to Indiana because if they didn't they wouldn't have given opportunities to guys like Delon Wright and Fred Van Vleet. They had Patrick Patterson succeeding for them and let him walk and that made room for guys like Siakam and Anunoby to play. This doesn't mean you don't need vets but it does mean you don't actually need that many vets if you scout and develop players properly. Houston, Golden State, San Antonio, Denver, Boston - a lot of teams are doing it. Houston didn't just dump Melo for nothing - they dumped Melo to let Gary Clark play more which is huge.

The problem is that the teams that are actually at identifying talent, developing it, and creating opportunities for it, tend to be the teams at the top of the league. This invariably skews the results in the draft significantly while middling teams or worse are paying the poor man's tax as they wait for their turn to win the lottery. It's still better to draft in the middle of the 1st round than the end of the 1st round. When good teams do that you get guys like Kawhi Leonard and Klay Thompson. And even if you don't get a star you get a pretty good player like Jakob Poeltl. Certain teams are running circles around the league with their ability to leverage the draft. The Clippers just relieved Doc Rivers of his duties as GM (he was awful) and left him as coach (he's a good coach) and were smart enough to remove the possibility of him overplaying his son and basically give him a roster where he had to play his two rookies. The Wizards have no such forethought at management. Coaches will almost always play veterans more. It's on the GM to manage the roster so that doesn't happen to the team's detriment.

As it is, Brown really should play. You achieve that by not having so many veterans on the team. Not that any of these guys (besides Rivers and Smith) are bad, but having Dwight, Rivers, Kief, Green, Yawn and Smith on the team - they're all going to play to varying degrees. A team committing to that many veterans is committing to not playing younger/developing players, particularly if they already have two allstar guards. Brown isn't going to be amazing out of the gates but he would be fine if Ernie were replaced with a competent GM who would move some of the vets out of the way.

I enjoyed reading this awesome post, i_l_dirt!

The Wizards have no such forethought, indeed.

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[Illmatic12]

Brown’s shot is looking NBA ready. Rivers and Oubre are out of the picture and the runway is clear. #FreeTroy

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[prime1time]

I'm liking what I'm seeing. Smart move by the team to send him to the G-League.

[Halcyon]

His shot form looks pretty good to me. If he can be a 35%+ 3 pt shooter, I think he'll have value in this league.

[nate33]

Brown’s shot is looking NBA ready. Rivers and Oubre are out of the picture and the runway is clear. #FreeTroy

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With the exception of his shooting, Brown has the ball-handling skills and decision-making skills to be a shooting guard, rather than merely a small forward. If his shooting is coming around, he should be exactly the type of player we need to fill out our rotation. We've got 9 guys and lots of versatility:

PG - Wall
PG/SG - Sato
SG - Beal
SG/SF - Brown
SF - Ariza
SF/PF - Porter
PF - Green
PF/C - Morris
C - Howard

[DCZards]

With the exception of his shooting, Brown has the ball-handling skills and decision-making skills to be a shooting guard, rather than merely a small forward. If his shooting is coming around, he should be exactly the type of player we need to fill out our rotation. We've got 9 guys and lots of versatility:

PG - Wall
PG/SG - Sato
SG - Beal
SG/SF - Brown
SF - Ariza
SF/PF - Porter
PF - Green
PF/C - Morris
C - Howard

Need to keep Bryant in that rotation. Kid has shown that he deserves minutes...and a chance to develop.

[truwizfan4evr]

We should be better on defense we a pretty long and athletic team.

[FAH1223]

He going back to the G-League! Playing Las Vegas today...

[nate33]

He going back to the G-League! Playing Las Vegas today...

Does that mean Otto Porter is ready to play?

[FAH1223]

He going back to the G-League! Playing Las Vegas today...

Does that mean Otto Porter is ready to play?

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[Eli Babak]

He going back to the G-League! Playing Las Vegas today...

Does that mean Otto Porter is ready to play?

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Yay, more Chasson Randle and probably Ron Baker as well.

[Ruzious]

He going back to the G-League! Playing Las Vegas today...

Does that mean Otto Porter is ready to play?

No, they're just afraid Brown might pick up bad defensive habits by watching the Wizards play up close.

[AFM]

I heard they're going to trade him for Vince Carter, need that veteran presence pronto.

[queridiculo]

I heard they're going to trade him for Vince Carter, need that veteran presence pronto.

Smart move, the Wizards aren't going to be able to resign him anyway.

That's what I call forward thinking asset management.

[closg00]

Saw him clang a couple of shots badly the last game