Eye of the Tiger: The Tidjane Salaun Thread

[JDR720]

Right now, he's basically JT Thor with more hustle. He could (and probably will) improve, but he has to improve a lot to even be a reliable 9th man at this point. He's just... not very skilled or athletic. And nobody can really argue otherwise on those points.

[luciano-davidwesley]

Those drives...... wow not good

Dude needs to get back to making good cuts off ball to get open for easy assisted baskets like he was doing last year in France. His self creation is non existent.

Also less 3 jacking and more movement off ball for catch and shoot or pick and pop opportunities.

[yosemiteben]

Why are we acting like having 9 boards, 4 assists, and 4 steals is something that people with no basketball skills regularly do? It's not like all world production, but it's also not like he posted goose eggs and sat in the corner?

Here is Thor's G league game log from his rookie season: https://stats.gleague.nba.com/player/1630550/boxscores-traditional/?Season=2021-22&SeasonType=Regular%20Season

Note the lack of any game when had 4 assists OR 4 steals.

Hell, here's his G league game log from this season: https://stats.gleague.nba.com/player/1630550/boxscores-traditional/?Season=2024-25&SeasonType=Regular%20Season

Still no game with 4 steals, and only 1 game with 4 or more assists.

[MasterIchiro]

That settles it, Cavs should trade for Salaün and upgrade their 15th roster spot if they're serious about getting past the Celtics.

If Thor can't pass nor steal in a Gleague game, he doesn't deserve to be an end-of-bench guy like Salaün does.

4 assists. Wow. That's amazing. I guess I was wrong about Salaün.

His career is obviously heading in a completely different direction than Thor.

No comparison.

Case closed.

[yosemiteben]

Nice to see your dedication to improving the quality of the discourse around here.

[MasterIchiro]

Weird

[Walt Cronkite]

Weird

It’s a pretty condescending tone to your post. You have good ideas and passion, is it possible to channel that so your posts are less petulant to your peers?

Even writing this, I have basically no doubt your response will be aggressive and/or egregiously sarcastic. Something to escalate a conversation into a fight. Not everything has to rev up into an argument, ease off the gas a bit man, we are peers.

[MasterIchiro]

Weird

It’s a pretty condescending tone to your post. You have good ideas and passion, is it possible to channel that so your posts are less petulant to your peers?

Even writing this, I have basically no doubt your response will be aggressive and/or egregiously sarcastic. Something to escalate a conversation into a fight. Not everything has to rev up into an argument, ease off the gas a bit man, we are peers.

I'm going to use the same words others use. Weird, dumb, odd. They've all been normalized by our peers.

[Walt Cronkite]

I just want to know what was going on in that draft room... Like what exactly was the vision here?

That he’s a hard working blank slate with a pretty good body that a coaching staff can develop into a productive part of the team down the line would be my best guess.

[Walt Cronkite]

What exactly is there to have faith in? There haven't even been glimpses of an actual skill or ability in there. It's been asked many times in here, "what does he do?" And nobody has answered a damn thing except that he's young and needs time. Even the worst rookies we've ever had, at least had a skill you could point to, or notable physical gifts

People have answered many times in this thread. He has a high motor, gets steals and rebounds, doesn’t back away from a tough defensive assignment and isn’t trigger shy. Most of his games haven’t been great, but there have been moments. How long did posters give MKG to improve his shooting? He just played his first gleague game (the team won, not that winning matters) and had the second best +/- on the team and a pretty full stat line. 9 boards, 4 assists with 1 TO, 4 steals, made 2 threes. Are we acting like LaMelo and other players haven’t airballed 3s? It’s embarrassing, but it happens.

[Walt Cronkite]

Weird

It’s a pretty condescending tone to your post. You have good ideas and passion, is it possible to channel that so your posts are less petulant to your peers?

Even writing this, I have basically no doubt your response will be aggressive and/or egregiously sarcastic. Something to escalate a conversation into a fight. Not everything has to rev up into an argument, ease off the gas a bit man, we are peers.

I'm going to use the same words others use. Weird, dumb, odd. They've all been normalized by our peers.

Use those words to your heart’s content. My point is about the tone of your posts.

[Hornet Mania]

The FO wanted to take a big swing with their first draft pick knowing they had the longest leash at the beginning. In addition the draft was **** so it made some sense to shoot for the moon if it was mostly going to be role players and busts anyway. Add to that the organization didn't feel any urgency to make the playoffs and lose their 2025 pick (in a much better draft) it's easy to see how they talk themselves into the Salaun pick.

Personally I was surprised and didn't like the pick at the time, but I also knew if it did pan out it was going to take a season or two. The Swarm is the best place for him. I'll save the 'told you so' for 2027 and hope he proves the doubters, myself included, wrong in the meantime.

[MasterIchiro]

It’s a pretty condescending tone to your post. You have good ideas and passion, is it possible to channel that so your posts are less petulant to your peers?

Even writing this, I have basically no doubt your response will be aggressive and/or egregiously sarcastic. Something to escalate a conversation into a fight. Not everything has to rev up into an argument, ease off the gas a bit man, we are peers.

I'm going to use the same words others use. Weird, dumb, odd. They've all been normalized by our peers.

Use those words to your heart’s content. My point is about the tone of your posts.

And what about the tone of yours? Do you feel your language towards me was neutral, impartial, objective? Or insulting, emotional, subjective?

[Rich4114]

At this point, I think it's a legitimate concern that Salaun might not be an NBA player. I get he's 19, raw, etc. but he is a straight up negative with the ball in his hands. And it's not a negative in the way say Josh Green is who runs around for 33 mins barely attempting offense. It's a negative as in when he does have the ball, there's a high probability something beneficial to the other team happens. I would have a lot more hope if he showed some signs of athleticism but that seems like it's in bad shape too.

Best use for Salaun I can see at this point is if we make a bigger deal where we're putting together a package of prospects and picks to land a star, he is part of that to help add value. Otherwise, we just need to hope he develops a vast amount of skills before his rookie deal is up.

[Chapelchilla]

Some of yall are completely over the top with hating on a 19 year old KID who was drafted mid lottery in a terrible draft.
Yep, he needs improvement- so does most (all?) of this draft class. Going out of the way to be abrasive and aggressive and then playing the victim when it's called out is something else.

[amcoolio]

Some of yall are completely over the top with hating on a 19 year old KID who was drafted mid lottery in a terrible draft.
Yep, he needs improvement- so does most (all?) of this draft class. Going out of the way to be abrasive and aggressive and then playing the victim when it's called out is something else.

Again, its not about Salaun specifically. This team is so badly starved for talent and they missed on the offseason yet again. Yes, this draft was extremely difficult to find a good player or may have been impossible, but that doesn't matter - the fact is they missed and here we are again waiting for the 2025 draft because this team just can't win or get lucky whatsoever. That kills a lot of people's enthusiasm or optimism... on Salaun, on the season, or whatever there is to do with this team so fans are rightfully bitching and complaining.

[JMAC3]

All this outrage because one GLeague game...

What is funny is if Salaun ends up good all these people will be mad if you bring up any old posts about them dragging him through the mud over and over and over. They will just say "glad I was wrong, now lets move on". Again funny to me that people can get riled up for 50+ posts and then have that be the end outcome.

[JMAC3]

It is also funny to me just how little people actually pay attention to other rookies while also trying to say Salaun is terrible.

Examples being Edey last 9 games, but yet most around here would say Edey is some ROY talent and think he is some sort of massive savior.
9 pts /7 rebs
5/6
4/3
4/3
8/9
2/7
6/5
4/4
2/7

Knecht, Clingan, Edey have all been very uninspiring this month but most don't actually care, because they would rather pout because they once saw one of them had a good boxscore in November and the other in December.

Salaun is the youngest player in lotto. Shocker the rookies playing somewhat decently/overperforming are older.

Jaylen Wells - 21 yrs old
Edey - 22 yrs old
Knecht 23 yrs old
Tristan Da Silva 23 yrs old
Ajay Mitchell 22 yrs old
Ryan Dunn 22 yrs old.

Meanwhile Salaun, Holland, Buzelis, Cody Williams are all 19/20 yrs old and starting slower.

If you really want to go against 15 yrs of draft history where drafting young players is a better strategy in the lottery all so you can beat your chest for the first 60 games of someone's career being good, then by all means go for it.

I will have a bit more patience and stick with the young lottery talent and not lust over a 23 yr olds scoring 8.5 ppg.

[fatlever]

I think both things can be true And people need to stop looking at this in black or white, right or wrong...
You can clearly look at this draft and see that it's shaping up to be a bit of a minefield in terms of finding a good player. And so I don't necessarily fault the front office for taking a swing on a guy with his size at his age with what appears to be at least the mechanics of a good three point shot.
But I think it's also fair to look at what we've seen so far from him and be incredibly discouraged and admit that it's hard to see When and how he becomes a functional rotational player. You have to squint really hard to see the positives so far.

[fatlever]

The fact that everyone else from the draft looks terrible doesn't change the fact that Salaun Also looks terrible.
So maybe the conversation needs to be less about - oh no, we screwed up we should have picked XY or Z, and a lot more about - damn it's really a shame that it looks like last year's draft probably is not going to produce what we would typically hope for with a number 6 pick.
I mean frankly the best thing we could have done in the draft last year was trade that pick. Last year was the year to trade a lottery pick for a future first round pick like we did in 2022. I mean if you offerd me the 20th pick in the '26 draft right now for salaun I would take that and run.