Eye of the Tiger: The Tidjane Salaun Thread

[HornetJail]

weird thing with Salaun is he seems to be all or nothing from downtown. Either he'll hit 3 3s in a game without a miss, or he's just completely hopeless. It's like he's confidence-driven shooter but in a weird way. Seems to be fully reliant on that first rainbow 3-point attempt to go in. If it does, then we might be in for a little fun, otherwise he goes full Anthony Bennett

it doesn't mean much and probably isn't a predictor of anything, but it's an odd observation i thought about during the game yesterday.

[JMAC3]

Read on Twitter

[Diop]

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wow, above Holland who was meant to be a defensive specialist.

he is a genuine head scratcher of a prospect. i get the hate, he looks awkward as hell, but then little positives and weird stats like this pops up.

i still see role player as his final product, but its drawn my interest at least.
better than researching injury recoveries

[HornetJail]

two MAJOR things to point out here. You can draw your own narratives however you want using "Defensive Rating", and it's absolutely worthless to compare across teams.

1. Defensive rating is different depending on where you get it from. there are multiple versions of it. nba.com's version has him 5th best on the Hornets, a fraction of a point ahead of Diabate, while bbref has Salaun ranked 13th/26 Hornets. (10 if you want to subtract the three guys that have been on 10-day contracts for us)

There is also A LOT of variance depending on which D-rating you use, for example Wong is 22nd out of 26 among hornets players using bbref's DRTG and holds one of the worse DRTG in the league, but on nba.com he is actually top 10 in the entire league of 400+ players who have played as many minutes as he has, with only Alex Caruso above him among players who played meaningful minutes this year.

2. Almost every defensive metric is a product of who is around you, and our bench unit (who Salaun is almost exclusively paired with) is full of role players who are actually decent defenders... at least compared to their peers on other teams' benches.

Salaun has looked more competent on defense lately that I would have expected. He's done some nice things. But this stat is beyond worthless lol

[JMAC3]

two MAJOR things to point out here. You can draw your own narratives however you want using "Defensive Rating", and it's absolutely worthless to compare across teams.

1. Defensive rating is different depending on where you get it from. there are multiple versions of it. nba.com's version has him 5th best on the Hornets, a fraction of a point ahead of Diabate, while bbref has Salaun ranked 13th/26 Hornets. (10 if you want to subtract the three guys that have been on 10-day contracts for us)

There is also A LOT of variance depending on which D-rating you use, for example Wong is 22nd out of 26 among hornets players using bbref's DRTG and holds one of the worse DRTG in the league, but on nba.com he is actually top 10 in the entire league of 400+ players who have played as many minutes as he has, with only Alex Caruso above him among players who played meaningful minutes this year.

2. Almost every defensive metric is a product of who is around you, and our bench unit (who Salaun is almost exclusively paired with) is full of role players who are actually decent defenders... at least compared to their peers on other teams' benches.

Salaun has looked more competent on defense lately that I would have expected. He's done some nice things. But this stat is beyond worthless lol

I would say team does affect your defensive rating, evidence by Houston, OKC defenders making up the top of most lists as two elite defenses. If anything I think it makes me feel better about Salaun being this high when we are 20th in the league. So it is very unlikely he is getting bouyed by the players around him while Ajay Mitchell plays for #1 defensive team, Da Silva plays for #2 defensive team.

[Liver_Pooty]

I truly think he is going to be perfectly fine. Is he a future all star? No. I don’t even know if anyone from this draft will make an all star game. But I think he can be a very very good role player. And a lot sooner than people think.

[Diop]

I am happy for UNCYNC that Bubb Carrington made him look like a genius this year

[EmpireFalls]

He still does at least 3-4 absolutely inexplicable things per game, no matter his minutes load.

If we can get that down to only 2-3 I’ll consider it progress.

[Chapelchilla]

He plays pretty good eyeball D if you watch him live and actually follow the off ball stuff too.

[JDR720]

Should send him to Myrtle Beach and see how he does.

[Diop]

Read on Twitter

[Diop]

I can't help but barrack for this kid. I love twh attitude

[MasterIchiro]

He gets a participation award for sure.

[JMAC3]

I will say the same thing here for Salaun, typically we see a lot of artificial stat jumps to end the season in the NBA over the last 10-15 games because to be honest teams just don't care as much, teams are resting guys, a lot of teams turn it over to player development mode...

Which in the case of Hornets and Salaun I am fine with, but you can tell the coaching staff has given him a lot more freedom to play and because of that we are seeing production boosts, not sure this is the new norm of what to expect. Now with him being so young, maybe because the data would say that younger players improve at a greater pace then older players do and maybe with a full off-season he becomes this type of producer next year.

[fatlever]

I think we'll know that he's making progress when he gets to the point when he's passed the ball at the top of the key and he doesn't hold it for three or four seconds trying to think what he should do and instead just starts reacting immediately.

Pass, drive or shoot. Don't sit there for 3 seconds trying to analyze, and ultimately just end up passing the ball to the top of the key. It's that lack of processing and offensive awareness that's still bothers me the most about his game.

Is that processing and offensive awareness something that he'll grow out of as he becomes more comfortable with the speed of the game and learns more or is that just something that is intuitive and innate for most players at this level and not something typically acquired at this stage?

That is the number one thing I will be looking for in his game next season. How quickly is he processing things when he catches the ball.

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[Chapelchilla]

I think we'll know that he's making progress when he gets to the point when he's passed the ball at the top of the key and he doesn't hold it for three or four seconds trying to think what he should do and instead just starts reacting immediately.

Pass, drive or shoot. Don't sit there for 3 seconds trying to analyze, and ultimately just end up passing the ball to the top of the key. It's that lack of processing and offensive awareness that's still bothers me the most about his game.

Is that processing and offensive awareness something that he'll grow out of as he becomes more comfortable with the speed of the game and learns more or is that just something that is intuitive and innate for most players at this level and not something typically acquired at this stage?

That is the number one thing I will be looking for in his game next season. How quickly is he processing things when he catches the ball.

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Well put.
I gotta think that he gets better and faster with more experience at this level since he is still a kid basically.

[Diop]

Yeah I think experience will help fix that

[EmpireFalls]

I think we'll know that he's making progress when he gets to the point when he's passed the ball at the top of the key and he doesn't hold it for three or four seconds trying to think what he should do and instead just starts reacting immediately.

Pass, drive or shoot. Don't sit there for 3 seconds trying to analyze, and ultimately just end up passing the ball to the top of the key. It's that lack of processing and offensive awareness that's still bothers me the most about his game.

Is that processing and offensive awareness something that he'll grow out of as he becomes more comfortable with the speed of the game and learns more or is that just something that is intuitive and innate for most players at this level and not something typically acquired at this stage?

That is the number one thing I will be looking for in his game next season. How quickly is he processing things when he catches the ball.

Sent from my SM-G973U using RealGM mobile app

Connectivity and quick decision making is everything in the current NBA. Might be the most important skill for a role player to have, ESPECIALLY on a LaMelo Ball team.

This is the entire reason why I’ve been so low on him this season, he’s a possession killer and weirdly a ball-stopper. He doesn’t capitalize on advantages or keep defenses in rotation.

It’s a serious issue. Feel is the name of the game now. You cannot keep up with elite NBA offenses while playing guys like Salaun over a full 82 games. I hope he improves but it seems unlikely that he’s ever going to be anywhere near as high feel as a guy like Buzelis.

[fatlever]

Watching him play is like having a conversation with someone on a satellite feed in a different country. You ask a question, then the video stalls out for two to three seconds before the person on the other end reacts. It's like when he touches the ball his brain just glitches out for a few seconds. Cortana

[Rich4114]

Salaun moves forward with the basketball without a plan. It's a straight B-Line and then if defenders get in the way it is pure cinema.