Bouk 'Em, Danno: The James Bouknight Thread

[UNCNYC]

Oh and Bones Hyland is another player I would love to get for Bouknight but I know that is way too much to ask. Maybe we can trade Kai and Thor and Bouk for Hyland and a 2nd and If not we can consider trading him for 2 2nd rounders.

[UNCNYC]

Last thing on Bouk is I think he is best in an uptempo system. With a different system he might thrive a bit more.

[UNCNYC]

For some reason even tho he hasn't performed well he is the only Jersey I want to buy at the moment

[SWedd523]

I would swap him for Coby White or Bamba or another underachieving young player. He's not going to work out here.

Here's my hot take:

It's not Bouk, it's the Hornets.

Kemba, Melo, and Miles have been the exceptions that prove the rule that the Hornets Organizational development is hot garbage and most would be better if they grew up on a different team.

[yosemiteben]

I would swap him for Coby White or Bamba or another underachieving young player. He's not going to work out here.

Here's my hot take:

It's not Bouk, it's the Hornets.

Kemba, Melo, and Miles have been the exceptions that prove the rule that the Hornets Organizational development is hot garbage and most would be better if they grew up on a different team.

Gotta add Cody Martin, McDaniels, and
Graham to that. 3 2nd round picks that were developed into rotation players.

Not a lot of examples of guys that left here unproductive and became productive somewhere else. Monk is the only one that comes to me that would be on that list.

[SWedd523]

I'll give you Cody, kinda, but are we really gonna include a 6/4 guy who can't find any PT and a guard shooting a career 37%

[yosemiteben]

I'll give you Cody, kinda, but are we really gonna include a 6/4 guy who can't find any PT and a guard shooting a career 37%

Graham is definitely a success story, we hit a 1st to S&T him. IMO that's pretty much by definition a success.

I'm give you McDaniels, I like him but on the court he's yet to justify being touted as a success story.

[SWedd523]

fleecing another team doesn't make HIM the success story

[Rich4114]

I think Mitch got lucky with Miles especially given SGA was our original pick and he’s been the much better player so far. They didn’t think Miles was going to develop and that’s proven by their low ball offer a year ago. The domestic incident kind of undid all of that good luck in that comparison though.

PJ was unknown and a surprise to me at the time, but he’s been solid and you cannot bitch about a starter or key rotational piece late in the lottery as much as it’d be nice to land a star there.

Bouknight looks like an epic failure and they fell for the same trap I would’ve and most fans would’ve by taking the guy expected to go higher but dropped (see Vonleh, Monk). Surprise - he dropped because the mocks were wrong and he’s not as good as we thought.

Then you look at the fact that we traded a future pick the same draft for Kai Jones who will be in his second season and can’t even start on a summer league team.

Next was LaMelo but I’m sorry I just can’t count that in this. It was the easiest pick in the history of this franchise since LJ and Zo, just take whoever is left of the big 3 between Wiseman, Ant and LaMelo. If he had the first pick he very easily may have taken Wiseman. This franchise has a long history on drafting terrible bigs since the reboot.

One more crack at it though, actually two because he managed to parlay Graham into a first rounder JUST outside the lottery. How did he use his excess draft capital? Well technically on Mark Williams but that and the prior picks led him to declare we didn’t have enough roster space for more young players so he traded a lottery pick now for a future non lottery pick that will be within close range of a second round pick.

I’d give Mitch a C on first round picks and that’s mostly due to Miles otherwise it’s an easy D.

Second round picks: Graham, Martin, McDaniels, Richards, Carey, Kulboka, Riller, Lewis, McGowens. That’s pretty damn good and I’d be inclined to give him an A- or B+ given the success rate of second rounders. Two of those guys are already on second contracts that are sizable and McDaniels is certainly an NBA rotational piece too. McGowens seems like he has a chance as well.

Mitch botched the last two drafts in the first round though and that is how teams stay where they are.

Anyway this is about Bouknight so sorry for the tangent but the point is I remained high on Bouknight and now I’m starting to come down to reality that he’s probably just another Noah Vonleh.

[BurrellFor3]

A lot of valid points and valid concerns here, but I think everyone is a little too quick to label Bouk a bust. The guy is essentially playing as a rookie again this season. He never had a chance with Borrego, and I get the feeling they didn’t do much to develop him. Add to that he missed all summer with surgery and is just getting back into game play. Lastly, Clifford seems to be really high on him, and I have to imagine a coach that lives and breathes basketball and sees him in practice every day knows a little more than us fans do.

So, those things being said, if everyone wants to say he’s a bust after the season is over, that’s fair, but 3 preseason games in, way way way too early.

Now Kai jones is a different story, even though we drafted him on potential, the fact that he can’t even get on the floor in the preseason is highly concerning.

[amcoolio]

A lot of valid points and valid concerns here, but I think everyone is a little too quick to label Bouk a bust. The guy is essentially playing as a rookie again this season. He never had a chance with Borrego, and I get the feeling they didn’t do much to develop him. Add to that he missed all summer with surgery and is just getting back into game play. Lastly, Clifford seems to be really high on him, and I have to imagine a coach that lives and breathes basketball and sees him in practice every day knows a little more than us fans do.

So, those things being said, if everyone wants to say he’s a bust after the season is over, that’s fair, but 3 preseason games in, way way way too early.

Now Kai jones is a different story, even though we drafted him on potential, the fact that he can’t even get on the floor in the preseason is highly concerning.

The track record for a guy struggling this bad in his second preseason game is not good. Bouk doesn't have an NBA skill that I can see so far.

[BurrellFor3]

A lot of valid points and valid concerns here, but I think everyone is a little too quick to label Bouk a bust. The guy is essentially playing as a rookie again this season. He never had a chance with Borrego, and I get the feeling they didn’t do much to develop him. Add to that he missed all summer with surgery and is just getting back into game play. Lastly, Clifford seems to be really high on him, and I have to imagine a coach that lives and breathes basketball and sees him in practice every day knows a little more than us fans do.

So, those things being said, if everyone wants to say he’s a bust after the season is over, that’s fair, but 3 preseason games in, way way way too early.

Now Kai jones is a different story, even though we drafted him on potential, the fact that he can’t even get on the floor in the preseason is highly concerning.

The track record for a guy struggling this bad in his second preseason game is not good. Bouk doesn't have an NBA skill that I can see so far.

We’re talking about a tiny sample in the grand scheme of things. Guys go through slumps all the time, never mind after surgery and the confidence killing first year he had. Like I said, concerns are valid, but this is a unique situation imo, can’t just compare this to player a,b,c in their second year.

Valid point on the skillset, his shooting has been concerning, dribbling concerning, but defense looks much improved, and I still think he has that blow by/quick first step ability, and for some reason we just aren’t seeing it right now. Could be confidence and hesitation on his part.

[yosemiteben]

fleecing another team doesn't make HIM the success story

How is that even possibly true? Of course it does.

A team traded a higher pick for him than the one we used to draft him. We got actual value. Whether you think they should have done that is kind of irrelevant to the question of whether we had the organizational ability to develop and capitalize on him as an asset.

If we developed all of our second round picks to the point that teams traded 1sts for them, that is a successful development program, even if you think teams are overpaying.

[fatlever]

At least he has one obvious nba level skill. He is a good rebounder for his position and size.

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[Benjamin Linus]

I still think Bouknight can be a really good player. I'm willing to give him the benefit of the doubt because he is coming off of surgery on his shooting hand and he wasn't nearly this bad last season. I will say though, if we get to the second half of the season and we're way out of the playoff hunt and they start giving the young guys some actual PT and Bouknight is still struggling then, then I'll start to get concerned

[wilson115]

Needs to get his confidence back. TJ McConnell is a tough cookie, but against James he was giving up four inches and ten years and coming off an injury himself. The young phenom shouldn't have been the one looking like he's second-guessing himself every time.

[Rich4114]

Sounds like Bouknight was arrested last night for a DUI and possibly having a gun. Sounds like our organization is doing a great job “developing” idiotic young talent. Also the Monk parallels are just astounding here. He’s ahead of schedule on being suspended though.

Read on Twitter

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[yosemiteben]

Did our organization forget to remind players not to get DUIs again?

That's all on Bouk. Just unbelievable.

[Rich4114]

Did our organization forget to remind players not to get DUIs again?

That's all on Bouk. Just unbelievable.

I think when you have this many consecutive incidents with young players it shows that the organization isn’t doing enough. It’s no longer a one off. It’s multiple incidents so yes. I think they don’t have enough veterans on the team to keep these guys in check and I don’t think they’re doing enough to truly develop them on and off the court. I’m ready for an organization wide overhaul.

And just to be clear, the responsibility is still 100% on Bouknight who is supposed to be an adult and a professional but he’s 21 and obviously very immature.

[Liver_Pooty]

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