HiJiNX wrote:Scase, I agree with you.
Derozan was limited in the playoffs by his actual ability—can’t shoot the three. Wasn’t a strong enough one on one player with us (he’s become way better here since he was traded). Not strong enough or explosive enough or long enough (he needed at least one of those three qualities) to overwhelm defences and create consistent advantages. Beating Derozan was all about keeping him on the perimeter and staying on his right hand.
RJ is only very efficient on drives and open threes. Without any midrange savvy it’ll be hard to see him take his game to the next level. I’m a big RJ fan (my little brother played on the same team with him as a youth) but he has limitations. Not explosive enough. Maybe a little too big. Can’t shoot off the dribble at all. Poor reaction time defensively. Too much tunnel vision once he’s made up his mind to score. Some of these things can be fixed but some can’t.
Scottie, while not yet a great scorer has a lot of potential there because of his physical attributes and passing game. He also has shown flashes of go-to skills on all three levels—mid range step backs, turnarounds, pull ups, hits the three all over the court, back to the basket (needs to spin both directions), finishes with both hands. And he’s just so frigging big and strong. He can overpower almost every player in the league. Scottie just needs some refinement. Good to hear at the press conference yesterday that the team kept him in Toronto all summer to work with their development team. I guess they didn’t like how little progress his offensive skills have made with his own guy—I agree with them. His handle and jumper should be a little better than they are. But even more, I think the development team will be able to work on more game situations with him (ex. DHO reads, pnr reads, high post stuff, etc.).
Looking forward to next year. RJ will probably average more ppg than Scottie because he’s just so aggressive but Scottie is the guy who will bend the defence, the one they’re gonna worry about.
Yup, this is exactly it.
There's a reason why some players are 3 level scorers, and others are not. Scottie still has a ways to go, but he has every single physical tool he needs to be oppressive on offence. I wish he had a quicker first step, but his size helps make up for it. He has shown that he can score in a huge variety of ways, we just need to see him focus in on a few and make them his bread and butter.
Scottie for as well as he performed, is pretty raw offensively, yet also way ahead of what we were led to believe he would be from being drafted.
I'm not sure why so many people get offended when calling out RJs clear limitations, no one is saying he's a bad basketball player. Just that there are certain things he can, and can't do, he has a rather limited ceiling offensively and that's fine, we just need to continue using him in smarter ways to negate those limitations. But that doesn't mean that opposing defences are going to just let him do what he wants. He's going into year 6 now, if he was going to have a reliable 3 or middy, he'd already have it by now, or at least most of it down.
Some players are cornerstones of a franchise/core, some aren't. There's no need to get in your feels just because a player isn't. I hope, and to a certain degree, expect him to further refine his game. But, I think it's relatively fair to say what we see is what we will get moving forward, but with improvements along the way. But he isn't likely to magically morph into a top tier scorer this late in the game, he's shown that he doesn't have the bag/physical tools to achieve that, and that's fine, as is being realistic about a player.
Tons of people said the same thing about DD back in the day, and lo and behold, it was reality. Doesn't make him a bad player, just limited in his ceiling.
