Twinkie defense wrote:Nobody knew what Wiseman was - he only played three games in college and they couldn't even work him out because Covid. What the Warriors saw, like everyone, was this incredible raw material, the combination of size and athleticism that is incredibly rare, but when you find it, is the holy grail (see: Kevin Durant). And it's not like they passed on drafting LeBron or Jordan to pick him.
Regarding the system, Warriors are not a pick and roll offense, which seems like the most comfortable fit for Wiseman. You don't mess up the most potent offensive scheme over the last close to a decade to accommodate a rookie. And unfortunately Wiseman has been lost on defense. How do they know Wiseman has no defensive awareness from 69 minutes of college basketball?
This is all good ****, kinda miss this forum. But summing up this along with the Poole stuff below, learning from a great coach.. this is all my point. Wiseman was a zone center in both HS and college. He never had any legitimate experience in the perimeter. He didnt have any experience in a high motion offense. And as talked about with CPH above - we don't change players here, they get better at what they already do, and that's been our bread and butter.
So to take our highest value draft asset since Thugleavy and put it on a guy who would have to learn entirely new skills to thrive, in a system where we do not expand skillsets, we enhance.. doesnt make much sense to me. I'm not saying that they blew the pick missing out on some obvious homerun, I'm saying that either their plan had no wiggle room (couldnt trade it?) or that they just believed they could do something they hadnt previously in the past 10 years.. isnt a good plan. And I think this trade cinches that.
We must see different things with Kuminga - and I was skeptical of drafting him, and liked Davion Mitchell instead
In particular Kuminga is working a lot better in the team schemes - the Warriors have modified their defensive schemes somewhat to fit Kuminga's skillset, and on offense Kuminga is getting in the flow instead of being the ball-stopper he was last season.
If the Warriors weren't trying to bridge two eras, they would have traded the picks that got them Wiseman, Kuminga and Moody for vets, someone like Bradley Beal, pushed all their chips into last season and this season. And then rebuild from scratch. That doesn't mean they are making the transition in optimal fashion, but they do have a plan, and have been sticking with it (see also: keeping Kuminga instead of trading him + picks to the Raptors). And they also are defending champs so I think they've earned some benefit of the doubt
I think the mods to defense for Kuminga have just been to simply put him at POA. And thats fine, but now GP2s back. Thats what he did. Only one guy can do that, and you'd have to hope a long term piece is learning how to play off ball, especially since he's a 3-4-maybe5 more than anything and you cant always have him be on-ball.
And I do agree - the title last year makes this all so much easier. But I'd also argue that that title should have perhaps shifted focus towards timeline 2 a little more than it has. Yes, we aren't a PnR offense, but Wiseman made Poole and Jerome look great on the PnR because they were less likely to improvise. Why cant we build off that? Wiseman improved tremendously with his positional defense, just needed to work on the timing. We had to make time for JMG but we can't break off a shift for Wiseman per game to continue building the timing?
To be clear, overall its practically impossible to be unhappy to be a W's fan considering the run. But this 2 timeline idea was sketch from the beginning, and we're seeing why teams don't employ it - it requires a ton of flexibility and adjusting on the fly, and they simply didnt do that. And I'm hoping they pivot that idea before Kuminga is caught in its wake too, though Kuminga (and Poole) both have better odds than Wiseman, as they can hold their own in isolation while guys like Moody simply cant
