reanimator wrote:TheZachAttack wrote:To me, Cade is still a bigger version of D Lo. I think that means he can be a better player than D Lo but players without elite athleticism who rely on making tough contested jump shots struggle to be efficient even if they are elite shotmakers.
Have you watched a lot of Cade? To me, his biggest issues are drawing fouls and consistently finishing over length though he shows flashes. I haven't seen much issue creating separation for jumpers. IMO a bigger Dlo is definitely underselling his skillset but I guess we will see. The kid is also going to be a pretty good 2 way player also.
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I would say that I have watched him less so in the pros than I did in college. Here's the longer comparison explanation. Open to pushback, but the underlying profile looks basically the exact same on offense and it's the comparison I have been making since mid-way through Cade's season in college based on his profile and I haven't seen anything thus far in his development since than that makes me anything but more confident in that comparison.
That being said, while I do say D Lo as a comparison. It is still a little bit loose. I think there are two main avenues where Cade could separate himself from D Lo though I'm not sure if early returns have shown he will do that yet. In any case, if you take D Lo and you give him a couple of inches, turn him into an average or above average defender who can guard or play multiple positions on offense or defense, and maybe even give him an above average ability to get to the FT line (6+ per game)... well then you've got the profile of someone who is a level up from D Lo and really what that looks like is probably a player that could be thought of as a top 30 player or at least in the conversation.
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-Both players are good to borderline elite shotmakers. Both D Lo & Cade can take and make any shot from anywhere on the court catch & shoot or off the dribble and it doesn't matter if there's a hand in his face or he's off-balance it's just whether or not he's going to hit the shot. That shotmaking, that's a very rare skill even at the NBA level. I known D Lo gets dragged a lot as a non-max player on a max contract, but in terms of just shotmaking D Lo is either in the elite group or right below that (even though he's struggled this year).I see Cade the same way. I think Cade can make any jump shot on the court and it doesn't matter who is guarding him or how hard the shot is.
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-Both players are elite shotmakers and can be playmakers as well, but I'm not sure either player is a pure PG. That's not to say that they cannot find people and make a lot of really special passes with the ball in their hands. The reason that I make the Cade/D Lo similarities is because of their shot profile. Cade struggles in the NBA and struggled in the NCAA to hit 50% on his 2pt FG. How was he not able to hit 50% from 2 even in college (and instead in the mid-40s?). Well, it's pretty simple and it doesn't mean that Cunningham is a below average shooter.
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Cunningham has some of the similar explosion/verticality limitations that D Lo has. These limitations, for D Lo, prevent him from being able to get to the rim consistently. Because he's not really able to separate at will and he's not an explosive athlete, he has had to develop into a really crafty player that uses a lot of tips, tricks, angles, and ball-screens to help him do that but more so the bigger point is what that means when you're not a player that can get consistently to the rim at will. What that means is that you end up taking a lot of mid-range 2's, or you end up taking a lot of 3-10 footer type shots, or both. In addition, you end up taking a lot of tough contested shots.
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Cade's 2pt FG% (and this is backed up by his shooting splits and percentage from distances) was in the mid-40s in college. Cade could not consistently get to the rim at the college level. I have doubts that he will ever be able to do so in a elite way in the NBA. To date, he is shooting 44-45% from 2 so I feel comfortable saying that he's struggling or at a minimum not getting to the rim a lot in the NBA. D Lo's 2 point percentage isn't below average because he's a below average shotmaker or shooter, it's the opposite. He's actually well above average in terms of efficiency especially efficiency on tough contest shots above the perimeter or mid-range near the elbows or wherever. I fully believe that Cade will be the same way.
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Players who cannot get to the rim do not get to benefit from the inherent efficiency associated with those types of shots. If you have to rely on your ability to make jump shots as your primary method of scoring you leave yourself in position to basically have an efficient or inefficient shooting day just based off of those 1-2 balls rimmed in and went halfway down and in or bounced out from 3 in that game. Really, if I were arguing here I would try to make the start of an argument that in some ways some level of efficiency is overrated in terms of the VALUE DIFFERENCE that fans associate with variances in efficiency. For example, the difference between 3-9 & 4-9 from 3 is the difference in terms of efficiency between a below average and an above average player but all it really represents in terms of game output is one 3-ball that rimmed half-way in and out over a 100 possession game that has a 20% chance of getting rebounded a second chance point.
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However, to get back on topic I think Cade is going to be someone who struggles to get to the rim consistently and has to rely on tough perimeter jump shots even if I think he will be a well-above-averge or maybe even an elite shotmaker/shooter. Cade does have potential to be a "better D Lo" in a few areas and what a "Better D Lo" means you can tell me but I would think it's a pretty good player.
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I said it was hard to be an efficient scorer while being below average at getting to the rim. The one caveat on that is how Cade develops in terms of his ability to get to the free throw line. If you can't get to the rim consistently, the other way to maintain efficiency and keep a margin of error to prevent that razer thing margin of bounces between efficient and not efficient I was mentioning is to get to the line. In a general sense, most players who are jump shooters who struggle to get to the rim struggle to get to the line for obvious reasons.
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Cade & D Lo are both really good free throw shooters (I mentioned they are elite or borderline elite shotmakers), but neither is elite at getting to the line. D Lo basically developed into a 3.5-4.5 FT/g free throw shooter. That's probably roughly average, maybe still a little below average for a high-usage player with that much volume. Cade is at just 2.4 FTs/per 36 during this season. In college, however, he was probably slightly above average at getting to the line though you may expect that in a league where he's more physically dominant. In college Cade averaged 6 FTs/36 mpg.
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In my mind, because I do think D Lo is a really solid playmaker even if he isn't a pure PG and has had 7-8 assist seasons / top 10 assist seasons. The one area really that Cade could potentially meaningfully differentiate himself from being a D Lo type of player is if he is able to get to the line at an above average level or better. If Cade is able to become a 6+ FT per 36 minute guy that would help him have enough of an efficiency cushion to prevent himself from being in the types of conversations that folks have about D Lo's efficiency (Again, I think D Lo is a good player).
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Cade is also bigger than D Lo (though not by that much). So I think the one other area that he could differentiate himself is on the defensive end. If Cade can switch onto multiple positions and be an average or an above average defender than he could also elevate his 2-way game above D Lo (although D Lo's defense has really improved this season). I'm not sure he's shown that yet, but that's the other route for improvement over the D Lo profile.
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I open to changing my mind if the data shows that I should, but as I stand right now and as I've stood since mid-way through his college season... I think the D Lo / Cade comparison on offense is one of the most apples to apples play-style / production profile comparisons that I've seen at least that I can remember. I would give it to you that Cade is probably a slightly better player maybe ` tier at most compared to D Lo if he is able to produce at that level as a perimeter scorer while being 2 inches taller with a bigger frame.
