The Official Jaden McDaniels Thread

[Note30]

Read on Twitter

It was surprising to hear but Seattle basketball has a lot of tight knit communities.

They also have played together quite a bit this past offseason just on in gym runs and stuff.

McDaniels, Crawford, and Nate Robinson all had the same trainer for a little bit, so if he wasn't pumping Jaden up after running in gym with him I'd be surprised.

[fattymcgee]

Read on Twitter

It was surprising to hear but Seattle basketball has a lot of tight knit communities.

They also have played together quite a bit this past offseason just on in gym runs and stuff.

McDaniels, Crawford, and Nate Robinson all had the same trainer for a little bit, so if he wasn't pumping Jaden up after running in gym with him I'd be surprised.

I don't think it was surprising at all. He's already a very very good wing defender and he's shown flashes offensively. He showed some nice ball handling in the Seattle pro-am.
Crawford wasn't pumping him up, he just said Jaden doesn't get talked about much and deserves some recognition.

Here are some quotes about Jaden before the 2020 draft.
"Shades of KD"
"Has one of the highest ceilings of any player in this year’s draft"

I'm not sure why it's so hard for some of you to believe he can be a very good player. With the other players on this team he'll never put up huge numbers, too much other offensive talent and two big rebounders.

[Note30]

Read on Twitter

It was surprising to hear but Seattle basketball has a lot of tight knit communities.

They also have played together quite a bit this past offseason just on in gym runs and stuff.

McDaniels, Crawford, and Nate Robinson all had the same trainer for a little bit, so if he wasn't pumping Jaden up after running in gym with him I'd be surprised.

I don't think it was surprising at all. He's already a very very good wing defender and he's shown flashes offensively. He showed some nice ball handling in the Seattle pro-am.
Crawford wasn't pumping him up, he just said Jaden doesn't get talked about much and deserves some recognition.

Here are some quotes about Jaden before the 2020 draft.
"Shades of KD"
"Has one of the highest ceilings of any player in this year’s draft"

I'm not sure why it's so hard for some of you to believe he can be a very good player. With the other players on this team he'll never put up huge numbers, too much other offensive talent and two big rebounders.

I didn't mean surprising that he's good or people were pumping him up, just surprising to hear from Jamal Crawford. Like it's cool Seattle is like that.

Like how often do you see a city without a basketball team having a strong community like that.

[winforlose]

It was surprising to hear but Seattle basketball has a lot of tight knit communities.

They also have played together quite a bit this past offseason just on in gym runs and stuff.

McDaniels, Crawford, and Nate Robinson all had the same trainer for a little bit, so if he wasn't pumping Jaden up after running in gym with him I'd be surprised.

I don't think it was surprising at all. He's already a very very good wing defender and he's shown flashes offensively. He showed some nice ball handling in the Seattle pro-am.
Crawford wasn't pumping him up, he just said Jaden doesn't get talked about much and deserves some recognition.

Here are some quotes about Jaden before the 2020 draft.
"Shades of KD"
"Has one of the highest ceilings of any player in this year’s draft"

I'm not sure why it's so hard for some of you to believe he can be a very good player. With the other players on this team he'll never put up huge numbers, too much other offensive talent and two big rebounders.

I didn't mean surprising that he's good or people were pumping him up, just surprising to hear from Jamal Crawford. Like it's cool Seattle is like that.

Like how often do you see a city without a basketball team having a strong community like that.

The once and future home of the Seattle SuperSonics.

[Klomp]

This is an interesting nugget in the latest Jonny Athletic mailbag.

From a basketball standpoint, McDaniels has been working a lot with Wolves player development coach Joe Boylan with an emphasis on scoring in transition.

As currently constructed, it is true that the tendency may be more for a slower-paced halfcourt offense. But I think transition opportunities will still be there (more after blocked shots than steals now), and the primary guys responsible for giving us transition opportunities for the starting lineup will be Edwards and McDaniels.

[minimus]

This is an interesting nugget in the latest Jonny Athletic mailbag.

From a basketball standpoint, McDaniels has been working a lot with Wolves player development coach Joe Boylan with an emphasis on scoring in transition.

As currently constructed, it is true that the tendency may be more for a slower-paced halfcourt offense. But I think transition opportunities will still be there (more after blocked shots than steals now), and the primary guys responsible for giving us transition opportunities for the starting lineup will be Edwards and McDaniels.

Read on Twitter

It’s true that despite all athletic and elite shooting players we are not particularly efficient in half court and transition. I guess we need more effort and discipline, look at MIA who are undersized, not exceptionally athletic, they are top team both in half court and transition. So MCD learning how to use his skills and tools is not bad idea. Moreover, it looks like MIN with Finch, TC and Gupta are looking for creative ways to improve this team.

[fattymcgee]

This is an interesting nugget in the latest Jonny Athletic mailbag.

From a basketball standpoint, McDaniels has been working a lot with Wolves player development coach Joe Boylan with an emphasis on scoring in transition.

As currently constructed, it is true that the tendency may be more for a slower-paced halfcourt offense. But I think transition opportunities will still be there (more after blocked shots than steals now), and the primary guys responsible for giving us transition opportunities for the starting lineup will be Edwards and McDaniels.

Read on Twitter

It’s true that despite all athletic and elite shooting players we are not particularly efficient in half court and transition. I guess we need more effort and discipline, look at MIA who are undersized, not exceptionally athletic, they are top team both in half court and transition. So MCD learning how to use his skills and tools is not bad idea. Moreover, it looks like MIN with Finch, TC and Gupta are looking for creative ways to improve this team.

I'm not understanding this graphic. It shows us in the bottom 8 in both transition and half court but we were ranked 12th in eFG% and TS% last year.

[Dewey]

This is an interesting nugget in the latest Jonny Athletic mailbag.

From a basketball standpoint, McDaniels has been working a lot with Wolves player development coach Joe Boylan with an emphasis on scoring in transition.

As currently constructed, it is true that the tendency may be more for a slower-paced halfcourt offense. But I think transition opportunities will still be there (more after blocked shots than steals now), and the primary guys responsible for giving us transition opportunities for the starting lineup will be Edwards and McDaniels.

Read on Twitter

It’s true that despite all athletic and elite shooting players we are not particularly efficient in half court and transition. I guess we need more effort and discipline, look at MIA who are undersized, not exceptionally athletic, they are top team both in half court and transition. So MCD learning how to use his skills and tools is not bad idea. Moreover, it looks like MIN with Finch, TC and Gupta are looking for creative ways to improve this team.

I'm not understanding this graphic. It shows us in the bottom 8 in both transition and half court but we were ranked 12th in eFG% and TS% last year.

It seems to suggest we lack team BBIQ

[cupcakesnake]

Read on Twitter

It’s true that despite all athletic and elite shooting players we are not particularly efficient in half court and transition. I guess we need more effort and discipline, look at MIA who are undersized, not exceptionally athletic, they are top team both in half court and transition. So MCD learning how to use his skills and tools is not bad idea. Moreover, it looks like MIN with Finch, TC and Gupta are looking for creative ways to improve this team.

I'm not understanding this graphic. It shows us in the bottom 8 in both transition and half court but we were ranked 12th in eFG% and TS% last year.

It seems to suggest we lack team BBIQ

I'd definitely seen what data they used for "half-court shot making" and what the qualifiers are. Are there possessions that escape the definition of half court and transition? Hard to believe we're below average at both when we were #8 in offensive efficiency, #1 in 3-pointers made and attempted, scored a lot off of turnovers, and were 7th in assists per game. Maybe they don't count free throws in either metric (we were 10th in free throw rate and 4th in FT made per game).

I'm fine with learning about the Wolves weaknesses but I'm not sure I understand this graph.

[Worm Guts]

The term shot making would seem to indicate field goal percentage as opposed to some better measurement of efficiency.

[Colbinii]

This is an interesting nugget in the latest Jonny Athletic mailbag.

From a basketball standpoint, McDaniels has been working a lot with Wolves player development coach Joe Boylan with an emphasis on scoring in transition.

As currently constructed, it is true that the tendency may be more for a slower-paced halfcourt offense. But I think transition opportunities will still be there (more after blocked shots than steals now), and the primary guys responsible for giving us transition opportunities for the starting lineup will be Edwards and McDaniels.

Read on Twitter

It’s true that despite all athletic and elite shooting players we are not particularly efficient in half court and transition. I guess we need more effort and discipline, look at MIA who are undersized, not exceptionally athletic, they are top team both in half court and transition. So MCD learning how to use his skills and tools is not bad idea. Moreover, it looks like MIN with Finch, TC and Gupta are looking for creative ways to improve this team.

I'm not understanding this graphic. It shows us in the bottom 8 in both transition and half court but we were ranked 12th in eFG% and TS% last year.

Because the graphic doesn't show that transition efficiency is significantly higher than half-court efficiency (Though this should be obvious) and doesn't show the volume of shots in each area.

The Timberwolves played at the #1 Pace last year, which means they were likely towards the top of the league in total transition opportunities.

Who scores better, Player A who shoots 40% from 3 and 50% from 2 or Player B who shoots 38% from 3 and 48% from 2?

We would need to know the volume to know who was better. It is possible Player B is more efficient overall than Player A.

[Colbinii]

I'm not understanding this graphic. It shows us in the bottom 8 in both transition and half court but we were ranked 12th in eFG% and TS% last year.

It seems to suggest we lack team BBIQ

I'd definitely seen what data they used for "half-court shot making" and what the qualifiers are. Are there possessions that escape the definition of half court and transition? Hard to believe we're below average at both when we were #8 in offensive efficiency, #1 in 3-pointers made and attempted, scored a lot off of turnovers, and were 7th in assists per game. Maybe they don't count free throws in either metric (we were 10th in free throw rate and 4th in FT made per game).

I'm fine with learning about the Wolves weaknesses but I'm not sure I understand this graph.

See my post above. If you still don't understand I can present you with other examples showing how rate statistics are difficult to understand without accounting for volume.

[Domejandro]

Read on Twitter

Snippet on his defense (We're not allowed to quote the full article for obvious reasons):

It starts with his versatility. The BBall Index has tracked more than 2,400 NBA players dating to 2013 and has developed a player evaluation metric called LEBRON that accounts for teammates, opponents and role on the floor. In BBall’s defensive component, there have been only seven seasons for wing stoppers aged 21 or younger who played at least 1,000 minutes to receive grades of A- or higher. McDaniels accounts for two of them.

Last season, McDaniels and Derrick White were the only players in the league, regardless of age, to receive A- or higher grades in both rim protection and on-ball defense. According to BBall’s tracking data, McDaniels most frequently guarded power forwards (24.39 percent of the time), followed by shooting guards (24.04), small forwards (20.87), point guards (19.91) and centers (10.79). He is the youngest player in the database to post a season that versatile while also grading as highly on BBall’s overall defensive impact metric.

Once adjusted for shooter, opponents shot 7.56 percent worse at the rim than expected when McDaniels contested the shot. White was the only wing stopper with a better number, at 7.80 percent.

“We’re going for first team All-Defense this year,” McDaniels said, “but I’m going to make one of them.”

[Nick K]

From Jon K at the Athletic. Excerpt from a Wolves poster...

The Minnesota Timberwolves and Utah Jazz had been going back and forth for a few weeks in June trying to find common ground on a Rudy Gobert trade, and it just wasn’t happening.

The talks had reached such a significant stalemate, sources told The Athletic, that by June 30 the Wolves had turned their attention to other trade partners in search of a big man to help them with rebounding and interior defense. The hang-up? The Jazz were insistent upon Jaden McDaniels being included in any package to get them to part with one of their franchise players. The Wolves, meanwhile, considered McDaniels off limits.

So there sat the biggest blockbuster trade of the summer, teetering on the brink of collapse over a third-year player who last season averaged 9.2 points, 4.2 rebounds and had one of the highest foul rates in the league. Wolves President of Basketball Operations Tim Connelly had packed his offer to Utah with valuable role players and a jaw-dropping amount of draft capital — four first-round picks and a pick swap — partly in an effort to keep McDaniels out of the deal.

When the trade finally went down on July 1, many in the NBA world fretted about the steep price — three unprotected firsts in 2023, 2025 and 2027 and the top-five protected 2029 pick headed to Utah for a 30-year-old center who isn’t the kind of bucket-getter who traditionally commands a return.

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Boylan also put a lot of emphasis on finding a consistent arc for McDaniels’ jumper. For the Wolves to maximize their new-look starting five with McDaniels at small forward and Gobert at center, they need McDaniels to be a reliable catch-and-shoot guy, both in the corners and above the break. He has shown potential there, hitting 50 percent of his 20 3s in the playoffs against Memphis, including five in Game 6.

The Wolves determined that McDaniels’ optimal shooting arc is 47 degrees. Boylan loaded on his phone HomeCourt, an app developed in part by Steve Nash to track shooting, and used it to record McDaniels’ jumpers. The app calculates the arc on every shot, keeps track of makes and misses and produces video cuts. Boylan sent those to McDaniels after workouts so he could watch himself later in the evening. At the start of the summer, McDaniels was shooting a flatter shot with a 45-degree arc. Three weeks into the workouts, the arc was up to 47 percent, right where they want it.

“He’s really emblematic of what we want the culture to be,” Boylan said. “Competitive, hard-working, high standards. That’s what we want out of our guys and he brings it.”

------------

It starts with his versatility. The BBall Index has tracked more than 2,400 NBA players dating to 2013 and has developed a player evaluation metric called LEBRON that accounts for teammates, opponents and role on the floor. In BBall’s defensive component, there have been only seven seasons for wing stoppers aged 21 or younger who played at least 1,000 minutes to receive grades of A- or higher. McDaniels accounts for two of them.

Last season, McDaniels and Derrick White were the only players in the league, regardless of age, to receive A- or higher grades in both rim protection and on-ball defense. According to BBall’s tracking data, McDaniels most frequently guarded power forwards (24.39 percent of the time), followed by shooting guards (24.04), small forwards (20.87), point guards (19.91) and centers (10.79). He is the youngest player in the database to post a season that versatile while also grading as highly on BBall’s overall defensive impact metric.

Once adjusted for shooter, opponents shot 7.56 percent worse at the rim than expected when McDaniels contested the shot. White was the only wing stopper with a better number, at 7.80 percent.

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[Nick K]

More from "The Athletic" Jon K. on Jaden McD.

"Rather than heading home to Seattle or moving for the summer to an NBA offseason hotbed like Los Angeles, Houston or Miami, McDaniels chose to spend a lot of his time in Minneapolis, utilizing the Wolves’ training facility and working out with friends and teammates Naz Reid and Nathan Knight, among others.

To get an idea of what kind of player the Wolves think he can become, Boylan showed McDaniels film of Luka Dončić and Kawhi Leonard. McDaniels doesn’t have the same body type as either of them, but Boylan wanted him to see how they played at a pace that was all their own. McDaniels didn’t need to be in a hurry when the ball found him, Boylan told him. He showed him how Dončić and Leonard never rush things, how they are always in control and use that poise to create opportunities for themselves and their teammates.

McDaniels needed to slow down and use his height to survey the court and find the openings. He needed to see how the corner is always open when he attacks the rim. They focused on McDaniels’ footwork, getting him to understand the nuances of setting up a move with a gather step first, a little addition that gives him a little extra time to make a decision while in motion.

McDaniels also prefers to jump off of his right foot when he’s attacking the rim. Boylan emphasized getting more comfortable going off of the left so he can be more unpredictable and effective near the rim.

Boylan also put a lot of emphasis on finding a consistent arc for McDaniels’ jumper. For the Wolves to maximize their new-look starting five with McDaniels at small forward and Gobert at center, they need McDaniels to be a reliable catch-and-shoot guy, both in the corners and above the break. He has shown potential there, hitting 50 percent of his 20 3s in the playoffs against Memphis, including five in Game 6.

The Wolves determined that McDaniels’ optimal shooting arc is 47 degrees. Boylan loaded on his phone HomeCourt, an app developed in part by Steve Nash to track shooting, and used it to record McDaniels’ jumpers. The app calculates the arc on every shot, keeps track of makes and misses and produces video cuts. Boylan sent those to McDaniels after workouts so he could watch himself later in the evening. At the start of the summer, McDaniels was shooting a flatter shot with a 45-degree arc. Three weeks into the workouts, the arc was up to 47 percent, right where they want it.

“He’s really emblematic of what we want the culture to be,” Boylan said. “Competitive, hard-working, high standards. That’s what we want out of our guys and he brings it.”

But it wasn’t just the skill work that McDaniels focused on this summer. He was listed at 6-9 and 185 pounds last season, with legs that didn’t quite enter the Corey Brewer pantheon of spindles, and certainly could benefit from some added mass. He also wanted to continue to work on honing exactly how his body moves to maximize performance and reduce the risk of injury.

When McDaniels was preparing for the draft in 2020, his agent, Nima Namakian, lined him up with P3 in Santa Barbara, Calif., an analytics-driven training center for elite athletes. It was there that the quiet McDaniels met lead performance specialist Jon Flake, who helped him start to work on his body and prepare it for the NBA grind.

McDaniels has been returning every summer to work with the athletic trainers and sports science experts there to refine his movements and build strength so he can remain quick enough to guard perimeter players and strong enough to fight for rebounds in the frontcourt. Flake has worked with dozens of NBA players and said McDaniels stands out from a physical standpoint.

“I’ve been working in this field for over 10 years and at P3 for almost seven, and I haven’t seen many guys like him,” Flake said. “It’s this unique combination of crazy length and explosiveness, but explosiveness that’s on tap immediately.”

P3 charts and measures an array of physical attributes for players. Flake said McDaniels’ 29-inch standing vertical leap is “well above average for NBA players and very good for his position.” McDaniels has been categorized as a “stiff flexor,” meaning he does not need a big range of motion to reach the top of his jump quickly. That correlates to higher shot block rates in games. The measurements also show that McDaniels is far above average in side-to-side movement for his position, giving him a rare combination of elite vertical and lateral movement. Perfect for locking up an opponent’s best scorer.

“There really is no glaring hole for him,” Flake said."
---------------------------------------------

Truly great stuff. The competence of the new Wolves staff blows me away. I'm so conditioned to incompetence.

I'm overjoyed thinking about our future.

WC finals? It's a lofty and reachable goal. Maybe we finally get rewarded as fans. Nobody deserves it more than we do. Especially the many os us that have been there since day one.

AARROOOO!

[Klomp]

What's the point of a paywall any more, I guess?

[Nick K]

What's the point of a paywall any more, I guess?

At 8 bucks a months, the tiny bit I used is great advertising and well worth it.

[minimus]

Is closest MCD comparison Nicola Batum? I remember one scout said about rookie Batum that he was too young, raw, and had low basketball IQ. Next stop POR Batum got offer sheet from MIN! Then Batum played the best basketball in his career, was excellent rebounder and pick and roll passer. Got 120mil /5yrs contract from CHA. One of my favourite players ever.

Watch on YouTube

[winforlose]

Is closest MCD comparison Nicola Batum? I remember one scout said about rookie Batum that he was too young, raw, and had low basketball IQ. Next stop POR Batum got offer sheet from MIN! Then Batum played the best basketball in his career, was excellent rebounder and pick and roll passer. Got 120mil /5yrs contract from CHA. One of my favourite players ever.

Watch on YouTube

MCD has higher upside than Batum on both ends. I really struggle to find his ceiling as every time I think I have it he adds a new tool or shows off his existing ones.

[fattymcgee]

Is closest MCD comparison Nicola Batum? I remember one scout said about rookie Batum that he was too young, raw, and had low basketball IQ. Next stop POR Batum got offer sheet from MIN! Then Batum played the best basketball in his career, was excellent rebounder and pick and roll passer. Got 120mil /5yrs contract from CHA. One of my favourite players ever.

Watch on YouTube

That sounds nothing like McDaniel's scouting report.