Officially Waived: The Kai Jones Thread

[JMAC3]

At least Bouknight has moments IMO where he showcases real NBA skill and it's not me holding my breath that the play is going to go hilariously wrong.

I feel like you can't have watched both of them play this season and come away with this take. If you switched the names it would make more sense to me based on how they've played this season.

What does Kai do well? He has no position. He has no usable skillset.
The development plan with him makes no sense at all.
He realistically is an athletic 5, but we don't have the room to develop him at that spot.
So we are wasting any potential he once had and he just runs around like a baby giraffe the whole game.
Even when he grabs defensive rebounds it looks unnatural.

At least if Bouknight improves his shooting he has a position, a role as a bench scorer.

What is Kai Jones longterm role? Athletic 4, who can kinda rebound, dunk and be an average defender?

[luciano-davidwesley]

At least Bouknight has moments IMO where he showcases real NBA skill and it's not me holding my breath that the play is going to go hilariously wrong.

I feel like you can't have watched both of them play this season and come away with this take. If you switched the names it would make more sense to me based on how they've played this season.

What does Kai do well? He has no position. He has no usable skillset.
The development plan with him makes no sense at all.
He realistically is an athletic 5, but we don't have the room to develop him at that spot.
So we are wasting any potential he once had and he just runs around like a baby giraffe the whole game.
Even when he grabs defensive rebounds it looks unnatural.

At least if Bouknight improves his shooting he has a position, a role as a bench scorer.

What is Kai Jones longterm role? Athletic 4, who can kinda rebound, dunk and be an average defender?

Lets just agree they both pretty much suck and it is unlikely either of them become useful NBA players.

[JMAC3]

Lets just agree they both pretty much suck and it is unlikely either of them become useful NBA players.

Or... wait for it... expecting to build a good roster with picks 11-20 is just a bad philosophy and us eventually picking guys that don't work out in that range of the draft was inevitable. (Bridges, Washington, Bouk, Mark, Kai)

Then... wait for it... building out the rest of your rotation with 2nd round picks. Richards, McDaniels, Martin, Thor and Maledon is also doomed to fail.

For as bad is Kai is right now... No player drafted after him in first round is averaging over 20mpg thus far in career and Bones is only guy averaging double figures. Hell even the next 4 picks after Bouk are pretty meh in Moody (avg under 5 ppg this year) Kispert, Duarte and Primo (yikes).

Essentially 3 guys taken after Bouk would be deemed really good picks IMO right now and I don't think any of them are homeruns. Sengun, Trey Murphy and Bones. Tre Mann and Cam Thomas are chuckers just like Bouk but their teams have given them longer leashes despite awful efficiency.

[luciano-davidwesley]

I was never a proponent of our idiotic policy to fight for the playin/8th seed every year and sign Hayward despite being nowhere near contending.

I was in team tank since Kemba left. In addition I would have dealt Kemba for picks at least one season before his contract expired.

[yosemiteben]

At least Bouknight has moments IMO where he showcases real NBA skill and it's not me holding my breath that the play is going to go hilariously wrong.

I feel like you can't have watched both of them play this season and come away with this take. If you switched the names it would make more sense to me based on how they've played this season.

What does Kai do well? He has no position. He has no usable skillset.
The development plan with him makes no sense at all.
He realistically is an athletic 5, but we don't have the room to develop him at that spot.
So we are wasting any potential he once had and he just runs around like a baby giraffe the whole game.
Even when he grabs defensive rebounds it looks unnatural.

At least if Bouknight improves his shooting he has a position, a role as a bench scorer.

What is Kai Jones longterm role? Athletic 4, who can kinda rebound, dunk and be an average defender?

His prototype is uber athletic, rim running big with rim protection but also plus lateral movement (particularly given his size) to be able to switch into smaller guys and guard the perimeter. That's a valuable package.

My comment about you not watching is more that he actually tends to have a positive impact on the floor, whereas Bouknight sucks the wind out of the team and seems scared of his own shadow.

Kai is obviously very raw, but I very much do not agree with the take that he has nothing to work with.

[Chapelchilla]

Lets just agree they both pretty much suck and it is unlikely either of them become useful NBA players.

Or... wait for it... expecting to build a good roster with picks 11-20 is just a bad philosophy and us eventually picking guys that don't work out in that range of the draft was inevitable. (Bridges, Washington, Bouk, Mark, Kai)

Then... wait for it... building out the rest of your rotation with 2nd round picks. Richards, McDaniels, Martin, Thor and Maledon is also doomed to fail.

For as bad is Kai is right now... No player drafted after him in first round is averaging over 20mpg thus far in career and Bones is only guy averaging double figures. Hell even the next 4 picks after Bouk are pretty meh in Moody (avg under 5 ppg this year) Kispert, Duarte and Primo (yikes).

Essentially 3 guys taken after Bouk would be deemed really good picks IMO right now and I don't think any of them are homeruns. Sengun, Trey Murphy and Bones. Tre Mann and Cam Thomas are chuckers just like Bouk but their teams have given them longer leashes despite awful efficiency.

Bridges and PJ are excellent picks in that range despite Miles being an idiot. Mitchell and SGA also went where we could have got them in those drafts. Mark may be a NBA starter, we can't say yet. Not even sure you can write off Kai yet. Everyone of those second round picks is a good result for the second round. I am not sure what you are expecting there?
Miles getting in trouble on the eve of free agency ruined the chances we had to be good this year. Then Lamelo going down twice iced it. Not sure what results we could have expected with the 4 best 2 way, NBA sized players (Ball, Hayward, Miles, Martin) on the team not playing together for 90% of the season. Every team in the league would be terrible with the 3 best starters and their best bench player out. Tanking this season is a great idea at this point. Next season with the best players back, a trade or two, perhaps shedding a bad contract along way, growth from the young guys AND a high draft pick plus a second first rounder = we should actually be pretty darn good.

[fatlever]

Lets just agree they both pretty much suck and it is unlikely either of them become useful NBA players.

Or... wait for it... expecting to build a good roster with picks 11-20 is just a bad philosophy and us eventually picking guys that don't work out in that range of the draft was inevitable. (Bridges, Washington, Bouk, Mark, Kai)

Then... wait for it... building out the rest of your rotation with 2nd round picks. Richards, McDaniels, Martin, Thor and Maledon is also doomed to fail.

For as bad is Kai is right now... No player drafted after him in first round is averaging over 20mpg thus far in career and Bones is only guy averaging double figures. Hell even the next 4 picks after Bouk are pretty meh in Moody (avg under 5 ppg this year) Kispert, Duarte and Primo (yikes).

Essentially 3 guys taken after Bouk would be deemed really good picks IMO right now and I don't think any of them are homeruns. Sengun, Trey Murphy and Bones. Tre Mann and Cam Thomas are chuckers just like Bouk but their teams have given them longer leashes despite awful efficiency.

The difference between Kai and those dudes picked after him.... we didn't have a pick. We specifically gave up a future 1st to draft Kai. It's not like we had a pick to burn and just picked Kai from the leftover bin of garbage.

The correct move was to do nothing and save that future 1st.

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[Robot Rock]

Kai has a lot more potential in this league than Bouknight, who's not a long-term free agent solely because he's on a cheap rookie deal.

[fatlever]

Kai has a lot more potential in this league than Bouknight, who's not a long-term free agent solely because he's on a cheap rookie deal.

Agree. I'd take Kai 99% of time over Bouk. Kai at least has size, tools, attitude, work ethic to maybe develop into a high lever role player.

I just don't see Bouks role on a good team. As of now, his high end projects as a high volume, low efficiency, iso scorer off the bench, with little to no other valuable skills. That's not really a profile most quality teams a looking for. He's shown nothing to make anyone think he'll ever be a good defender, 3pt shooter, creator... the typical skills most team want at least one of in a bench guard.

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[JMAC3]

His prototype is uber athletic, rim running big with rim protection but also plus lateral movement (particularly given his size) to be able to switch into smaller guys and guard the perimeter. That's a valuable package.

My comment about you not watching is more that he actually tends to have a positive impact on the floor, whereas Bouknight sucks the wind out of the team and seems scared of his own shadow.

Kai is obviously very raw, but I very much do not agree with the take that he has nothing to work with.

A rim running PF? barf. This is Zeller, Frank, Biz all over again... playing a Center at PF to start their career.

Kai fouls guys or gets blown by when he gets switched on scoring wings, I would hardly say switching is a skill of his at this point.

The team would be smart to send him to the GLeague and let him play Center for the rest of the year once we call up Mark.

[yosemiteben]

Kai fouls guys or gets blown by when he gets switched on scoring wings, I would hardly say switching is a skill of his at this point.

I really don't think that's true. He did this to Barrett not that long ago

Read on Twitter

[fatlever]

No one is arguing Kai is a good player or a good pick. I think we are just stating that if given the choice of Kai or Bouk, we will take Kai.

I have 5% faith that Kai will work out into a rotation player on a good team. I have 1% faith in Bouk.

Its like choosing between getting kicked in the nuts or having your right thumb amputated.

I'd trade both tomorrow for anything of value.

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[JDR720]

Kai has good intangibles, he just needs to learn how to play basketball.

[JMAC3]

Kai fouls guys or gets blown by when he gets switched on scoring wings, I would hardly say switching is a skill of his at this point.

I really don't think that's true. He did this to Barrett not that long ago

Read on Twitter

Oh well man if he did this once, he clearly is a great defender.... I have seen him commit a dumb foul far more times than something positive come from it. It is a good play for sure, but the larger picture is much uglier.

Oubre leads the league in deflections or something and everyone says he is the worst defender on the team.

[JMAC3]

I wish Kai would succeed, I am not rooting against him. I am just stating that it seems like this situation is awful for him.

He should be a Center, but instead we are forcing him into a position where he is just flat out not skilled enough to play. PJ isn't even an amazing player, but he is about 40x more skilled than Kai.

So if we can come to realization that Kai is a center, does it make sense to keep him? Answer there is probably no still. Because Richards is better than him, Plumlee is better than him, Mark Williams we invested more in and probably is a better player today than Kai to be honest. So is there enough minutes to play Kai longterm if we have Richards and Mark? Probably not.

I would be shopping Kai for a young wing or using him as a sweetner in an Oubre or Plumlee deal to get a young rotation player back.

[Liver_Pooty]

I wish Kai would succeed, I am not rooting against him. I am just stating that it seems like this situation is awful for him.

He should be a Center, but instead we are forcing him into a position where he is just flat out not skilled enough to play. PJ isn't even an amazing player, but he is about 40x more skilled than Kai.

So if we can come to realization that Kai is a center, does it make sense to keep him? Answer there is probably no still. Because Richards is better than him, Plumlee is better than him, Mark Williams we invested more in and probably is a better player today than Kai to be honest. So is there enough minutes to play Kai longterm if we have Richards and Mark? Probably not.

I would be shopping Kai for a young wing or using him as a sweetner in an Oubre or Plumlee deal to get a young rotation player back.

I'd never trade away a player with Kais measurements and athleticism this early. If he pans out he pans out. No one thought Richards would be one of the best offensive rebounder in the entire league and that's miraculously occurred. If it clicks it clicks. If not I doubt anyone is going to give anything worth substance to make it worthwhile. Let's just see what happens.

[Diop]

the perimeter defense is part of the reason I wanted Sims that year, but i got told that Kai is just as good but with more offensive upside.

Watch on YouTube

[Liver_Pooty]

the perimeter defense is part of the reason I wanted Sims that year, but i got told that Kai is just as good but with more offensive upside.

Watch on YouTube

Yeah except one is 24 years old and sucks, and the other is 21 and just sucks right now.

[JDR720]

The last couple players we let go all ended up better than the ones we kept. Monk >>>> Bouknight, Caleb > Cody (debatable, should've kept both) and most of us wanted to dump Nick for a bag of pretzels.

Kai was always going to be a longshot. We can't dump a project player who...shockingly...ends up being a project. If we ever want to be a serious team, we need to develop players.

And Kai is a PF, he might be the most athletic player on the team and at least has shooting potential. Can he play C too? Sure. And that makes it more important to figure out how to develop him, we need players who can play more than 1 position. It's what the modern NBA is.

I can see us dump him and in a few years he ends up being Christian Wood...another player we dumped too early.

[JMAC3]

I'd never trade away a player with Kais measurements and athleticism this early. If he pans out he pans out. No one thought Richards would be one of the best offensive rebounder in the entire league and that's miraculously occurred. If it clicks it clicks. If not I doubt anyone is going to give anything worth substance to make it worthwhile. Let's just see what happens.

The problem is he isn't playing. That is before Mark Williams starts to get minutes, which he will soon. So where does this miraculous click happen? He simply isn't good enough to play 20+ mpg at PF. Unless you plan on just force feeding him minutes for the next 2 years and being awful.

You have to think Hornets will sign a rotation player or two this summer after having time to plan around Bridges shock, we probably add 2 rookies in draft this year. It is not hard to see Kai getting squeezed out.

Plus, what player is Kai like in the NBA if he does work out? He just seems like an energy player at best as long as we keep trying to play him at the 4. Even a guy like Derrick Jones Jr is significantly more skilled than Kai is right now.