tmorgan wrote:Here’s a point, then, tsherkin — you see his playmaking as the strongest part of his game, and I agree. Trying to be an elite playmaker on a dumpster fire of a team (which describes the Pistons during Cade’s tenure until this year — now they’re mildly competitive) is REALLY difficult. Even on this team, the only real shooting bright spot outside of Cade is Malik Beasley, who has been pretty awesome in his role. THJ started well, got knocked around, and has since been just ok. Tobias Harris has disappointed, Fontecchio’s hot streak hasn’t carried over from last year, and a lot of the rest of the roster are just poor shooters in general.
I'm with you so far.
As I started this response with, his team is holding him back.
I have acknowledged this repeatedly ITT, yes.
He’s certainly elevating the squad, but perhaps not yet far enough.
I said as much in my post recent post, so yes, still with you.
I take a conservative stance with him, but as I've prolifically noted ITT, I also acknowledge that he's improving and that his team context isn't helping him any. I don't think it's impossible that he'll improve... I'm just waiting for there to be a substantial sample from which to draw better inference about his shooting and other things. 8 games means nothing to me, so when people talk about that, I dismiss their remarks immediately, most especially when the shooting percentage is so wildly above someone's prior best and when there were atypical shooting performances involved, you know? It's just trivial nonsense at that point.
But Cade is clearly putting in the work and showing improvement, which is why I remarked about how much time we have before the ASB. We'll see what happens as things settle down. He's clearly putting in the time and showing capacity to improve, and that's excellent stuff.
