Eye of the Tiger: The Tidjane Salaun Thread

[fatlever]

I swear half the board would trade Tidjane away for undrafted rookie Quinten Post right now because they think he is a better player right now and be done with it.

I would trade him for cap space because he is a bad contract. There is no way his fourth year option is getting picked up. Maybe not even his third year option.

I do believe in his shooting though. I think he is a good 3pt shooter and will probably hit 35% at some point in his career. Maybe even as a career average. He also has some good foundational stuff. His motor is decent-good. His physicality is decent-good. His size is good.

It doesn't bother me at all that he doesn't jump out of the gym. Jumping is the most overrated thing in basketball.

His defense is not good however. People saying he is a good defender are totally off. He isn't even a below average defensive player.

It's pretty rare for any rookie come on even the elite defensive rookie prospects to actually be good defenders in their first year in the league. Add that to the fact that we are as a team pretty bad defensively it certainly would not be surprising that analytically he's not a good defensive player yet. However the tools are there for him to succeed as a plus defender and the very near future. Even if he doesn't improve on his pretty terrible processing of the game he can be disruptive and physical. He's a good rebounder he's not afraid to be physical, Unlike a lot of players on our team. He's got the size and length to cover multiple positions. His ceiling will be dependent on his ability to process.

If you trust the epm stats at all, his dpm for the year was 43 percentile which was about mid-pack for our team.
drtg was 111, Which was actually better than our team average of 115.

Seems like statistically and analytically he's about team average and league average defensively.
eyeball test says there's potential there But also a lot to clean up. We saw him get lost defensively loses man space out. But we also saw some really positive signs. Less worried about him on the defensive end than I am on the offensive end.

[Special_Puppy]

Right you are proving my point here, you would rather have a 25 yr old center who went undrafted because he can average 8 ppg today, rather than be patent and wait on a 19 yr old to develop.

Again the 19 yr old, who most draft analysts had a lottery grade on. I don't get it.

We should draft Johni Broom top 5 for the group of people who want instant satisfication.

This is a false equivalence.

Another raw 19 year old who most analysts had a lottery grade on is Matas Buzelis, who I’d be overjoyed to have instead of Salaun. Why? He showcased real talent and feel for the game, is a legit shot blocker, can shoot, dribble, and pass the ball enough to fit into a team concept. He broke out for Chicago towards the end of the year and established himself as a starter. Salaun couldn’t even show up in the G League.

I have no bias towards draft age. I simply want good players. Post and Buzelis are good players. Salaun is not.

Right so you have no issues with the process, you are just 100% results oriented. Got it lol

I do think it was very reasonable to think that Matas was the better prospect pre-draft (I had him ahead on my big board) so it’s not really hindsight bias. I still would have picked Clingan if I was Charlotte though

[JMAC3]

This dude must have google alerts on for the keywords Matas lol

[GoBobs]

I swear half the board would trade Tidjane away for undrafted rookie Quinten Post right now because they think he is a better player right now and be done with it.

I would trade him for cap space because he is a bad contract. There is no way his fourth year option is getting picked up. Maybe not even his third year option.

I do believe in his shooting though. I think he is a good 3pt shooter and will probably hit 35% at some point in his career. Maybe even as a career average. He also has some good foundational stuff. His motor is decent-good. His physicality is decent-good. His size is good.

It doesn't bother me at all that he doesn't jump out of the gym. Jumping is the most overrated thing in basketball.

His defense is not good however. People saying he is a good defender are totally off. He isn't even a below average defensive player.

It's pretty rare for any rookie come on even the elite defensive rookie prospects to actually be good defenders in their first year in the league. Add that to the fact that we are as a team pretty bad defensively it certainly would not be surprising that analytically he's not a good defensive player yet. However the tools are there for him to succeed as a plus defender and the very near future. Even if he doesn't improve on his pretty terrible processing of the game he can be disruptive and physical. He's a good rebounder he's not afraid to be physical, Unlike a lot of players on our team. He's got the size and length to cover multiple positions. His ceiling will be dependent on his ability to process.

If you trust the epm stats at all, his dpm for the year was 43 percentile which was about mid-pack for our team.
drtg was 111, Which was actually better than our team average of 115.

Seems like statistically and analytically he's about team average and league average defensively.
eyeball test says there's potential there But also a lot to clean up. We saw him get lost defensively loses man space out. But we also saw some really positive signs. Less worried about him on the defensive end than I am on the offensive end.

I can appreciate some of the points you are making. Statisticlly he may be better looking then he actually is though.

He is the type of guy that looks like a good defender. Nobody has read the scouting report on him because he is a nobody. Very few teams went at him or tried to pick on him.

If he gets put on an island, he is going to bite and fakes and get burned hard though. His bbiq on defense is not good, maybe worse than offense. It is only a mater of time before he gets exposed as a David Lee level matador.

If you rarely get a steal or a block it is hard to be an impact defensive player.

When other players realize he is not the scary rim protector he looks like he could be based on body habitis, it will be a layup line.

I am more worried about him on defense.

On offense all he has to do is hit the open three and he is playable.

On defense he is the weak link if you put him on the floor with four other real nba players. If you put him out there with a bunch of g league guys like we did than he can hide out while somebody else gets picked on.

[fatlever]

https://www.reddit.com/r/NBA_Draft/comments/1kpwwvf/noa_essengue_vs_tidjaun_salaun/

comments make me sad. such an awful reach at 6.

[yosemiteben]

Let's see how he looks next year

[HornetJail]

i'm legitimately terrified about this draft, it is straight up over for this iteration of the team if we have a repeat of this at #4 this year

[luciano-davidwesley]

Alright we'll give Salaun a minimal chance next year, but if he's still as uncoordinated as a drunk baby giraffe on ice after 5 games I'll be willing to call him a certified bust.

Uncoordinated guys rarely become functional NBA players.

[JMAC3]

Tidjane
Height: 6' 8.75'' without shoes
Weight: 217.4 lbs
Wingspan: 7' 1.5''
Standing Reach: 9' 2''

vs Carter Bryant
Height: 6' 6.5'' without shoes
Weight: 215 lbs
Wingspan: 6'11.75
Standing Reach: 8'10'

Tidjane taller standing reach than Raynaud, Fleming, Queen, Sorber and Danny Wolf from this draft class.

[JMAC3]

Sam Vecenie Big Board 2024

1 Alexander Sarr
2 Reed Sheppard
3 Stephon Castle
4 Donovan Clingan
5 Zaccharie Risacher
6 Cody Williams
7 Devin Carter
8 Carlton “Bub” Carrington
9 Dalton Knecht
10 Ron Holland
11 Tidjane Salaun
12 Matas Buzelis
13 Nikola Topić
14 Jared McCain
15 Robert Dillingham
16 Kyle Filipowski
17 Zach Edey
18 Tristan da Silva
19 Isaiah Collier
20 Yves Missi

Just a reminder that Tidjane was considered a lottery talent, for the fans on here that want to always misremember him as some dude that had a 2nd round grade.

[bravor]

Its not necessary a bad take i think. In a 'normal' draft, he should have been some 2nd rounder profile (because he has a ton of development to do quite obviously, and it was the case as well before the draft in our league).

On a side note, his sister (Janelle) performs pretty nicely for her WNBA debut with the Golden State franchise

[Bassman]

Some of those posters on the Reddit link had key points. Salaun was hyped as the draft neared. His last highest projections were into the late lottery because some scouts and one particular GM who had too much wine during his trip to France got caught up in his measurables and “hustle”. In a weaker draft Peterson was too stupid to trade back for some assets because he feared the Spurs would take him. There was chatter of their interest by writers so undoubtedly it was circulating amongst teams. Spurs are both incredibly lucky and smart. I think they had no intention of drafting Salaun 8th. I believe they goaded Peterson to take him far too high so it would push down attractive players to them. They obviously had some convos with teams interested in players around their slot, so they dealt Dillingham to the Wolves for two future firsts.

[MPM]

“For what it's worth: I had Tidjane Salaun 16th on my board, but I've also been told three other teams were ready to take him in the top 10 if Charlotte didn't."

- Hollinger

[Bassman]

“For what it's worth: I had Tidjane Salaun 16th on my board, but I've also been told three other teams were ready to take him in the top 10 if Charlotte didn't."

- Hollinger

Wish we had taken Clingan or Buzelis and watched one of those “other three teams” deal with Tiddy.

[SWedd523]

“For what it's worth: I had Tidjane Salaun 16th on my board, but I've also been told three other teams were ready to take him in the top 10 if Charlotte didn't."

- Hollinger

Wish we had taken Clingan or Buzelis and watched one of those “other three teams” deal with Tiddy.

You know damn well in that universe Clingan destroys every bone in his foot ("Why did Charlotte take the huge guy with an injury history?!") and Tiddy is another Coulibaly ("Spurs find another gem!")

[MPM]

“For what it's worth: I had Tidjane Salaun 16th on my board, but I've also been told three other teams were ready to take him in the top 10 if Charlotte didn't."

- Hollinger

Wish we had taken Clingan or Buzelis and watched one of those “other three teams” deal with Tiddy.

Time will tell. You'd be crazy not to question the Salaun pick at this point but you'd also be crazy to suggest he wasn't a mid to late lottery consideration on draft night - think the consensus mock was around 11. Not the massive reach it's made out to be. FWIW, I liked Salaun more than most here but was pretty convinced we'd take Matas at 6 when Holland was disappeared by the Pistons. Would've been fine with that. I was Castle/Holland then didn't really care. My two no-go's were Reed and Clingan, who I still don't get the love for.

Agree with Swedd though. Sometimes it feels like it doesn't matter who we pick - they won't develop or they'll snap a leg off at the knee in summer league.

[EmpireFalls]

I am very confident Salaun would’ve been this terrible anywhere he went. You could choose any franchise. He doesn’t know how to play basketball, no development team in the world can fix that

[HornetJail]

Salaun being THIS disastrous is mostly him, but also part of the surroundings. Our offense isn't putting anybody in a position to succeed (from LaMelo all the way down, it works for nobody).

About 27 other teams in the league would've stashed him in the D-League after a disastrous October/November, then tested the waters again in March/April if they were out of the running, or would've just got some random garbage time burn throughout the season like Jaylon Tyson, Dillon Jones, etc on contenders.

He will get another season to show something because Peterson isn't giving up on his first ever pet project this fast. But if Salaun ever figures out how to play basketball, it won't be here imo. He's so far away, actually regressed in many ways as the season went along. I don't see us ever benefiting from having him on the court during his rookie contract. The likely scenario is either his 4th year option or his QO declined. And then he goes somewhere else, and that teams either reaps the benefits of whatever developments he's made, or he just doesn't have it and washes out and heads back to France. Maybe comes back to the league in his late 20s like Yabusele.

I'd be very surprised to see his NBA career shape up any other way.

[Heelsfan119]

Tidjane was what I expected. He had a few good games and some bad ones. In a draft that was absolute garbage outside of Castle, it’s not too bad to swing for the fences. Plus, the guy’s a worker, lets seen what he does in year 2.

[yosemiteben]

Continually strikes me as surprising that folks have completely given up on Tidjane. He doesn't turn 20 until August.