Jdub is the best player from the 2022 draft

[rockmanslim]

Had no idea Sochan was picked so early, like what? why? how?

[namlede]

Let's see how he performs in these playoffs, when it matter. He was quite disappointing last year in big games.

He did struggle in the Dallas series offensively, but he played great D and was awesome in an elimination game 6. 22/9/8/2/1/0, 50/60/100 percentages and the best bpm on the team. Granted that doesn’t mean much in one game but still. He showed up in a do or die game.

He does have a tendency to disappear so I’m watching him closely these playoffs to see if he can stay aggressive even when his shots not falling.

[bbms]

Banchero. J-Dub just plays on great team.

this is like saying john bonham wasn't a great drummer, he just played on a great band.

a team is great because there are lots of players playing great. which is the case for jdub - clearly the 2nd biggest contributor on a bonafide contender.

[Chuck Everett]

Let's see how he performs in these playoffs, when it matter. He was quite disappointing last year in big games.

By that same token, so was Chet (at least against the Mavericks anyway).

[Mavrelous]

Let's see how he performs in these playoffs, when it matter. He was quite disappointing last year in big games.

By that same token, so was Chet (at least against the Mavericks anyway).

Chet was great against the Mavs, Thunder won his minutes, he struggled to shoot, but was an absolute terror defensively.

[Chuck Everett]

Let's see how he performs in these playoffs, when it matter. He was quite disappointing last year in big games.

By that same token, so was Chet (at least against the Mavericks anyway).

Chet was great against the Mavs, Thunder won his minutes, he struggled to shoot, but was an absolute terror defensively.

He was also brutalized on the boards by Lively and Gafford. To say he was great, but then downplay the defense Jalen Williams played against Kyrie (who was way better against Minnesota) makes no sense. We have the tape of that series. The same question marks that could applied to him, could be applied to Chet. People aren't being fair. Chet also couldn't make a perimeter shot to save his life in that series.

[CLosP]

Jalen gets to play with SGA at PG while Paolo has Cory Joseph starting currently…

[Mavrelous]

By that same token, so was Chet (at least against the Mavericks anyway).

Chet was great against the Mavs, Thunder won his minutes, he struggled to shoot, but was an absolute terror defensively.

He was also brutalized on the boards by Lively and Gafford. To say he was great, but then downplay the defense Jalen Williams played against Kyrie (who was way better against Minnesota) makes no sense. We have the tape of that series. The same question marks that could applied to him, could be applied to Chet. People aren't being fair. Chet also couldn't make a perimeter shot to save his life in that series.

He ate Gafford alive, he was brutalized in the 2nd half of game 6, but he was the only big among guards, and had to battle Lively and PJ.
Chet finished with 50% from the field he just couldn't hit 3s, I'd take someone with his production any day w/o hitting 3s.

[Upperclass]

Lost in this is the fact that Ousmane Dieng was taken before Jalen Williams when OKC couldve easily had Jalen Williams+Duren or Mark Williams

[Nuntius]

The top 3 is Paolo, Chet and JDub. That's all I know, rank them however you want.

[bbms]

Chet was great against the Mavs, Thunder won his minutes, he struggled to shoot, but was an absolute terror defensively.

He was also brutalized on the boards by Lively and Gafford. To say he was great, but then downplay the defense Jalen Williams played against Kyrie (who was way better against Minnesota) makes no sense. We have the tape of that series. The same question marks that could applied to him, could be applied to Chet. People aren't being fair. Chet also couldn't make a perimeter shot to save his life in that series.

He ate Gafford alive, he was brutalized in the 2nd half of game 6, but he was the only big among guards, and had to battle Lively and PJ.
Chet finished with 50% from the field he just couldn't hit 3s, I'd take someone with his production any day w/o hitting 3s.

chet is a fantastic talent and player but conditioning is a big area of improvement and his scoring/shooting fall off a cliff when he's under fatigue.

both chet and jdub have improvements to make until they are reliable volume scorers/offensive focal points, but their overall impact are borderline elite, above everyone from the class

quite the opposite of banchero which is a decent volume scorer/offensive focal point but leaves a lot to be desired on apm impact department, which deserves further investigation

[lethalizer]

By that same token, so was Chet (at least against the Mavericks anyway).

Chet was great against the Mavs, Thunder won his minutes, he struggled to shoot, but was an absolute terror defensively.

He was also brutalized on the boards by Lively and Gafford. To say he was great, but then downplay the defense Jalen Williams played against Kyrie (who was way better against Minnesota) makes no sense. We have the tape of that series. The same question marks that could applied to him, could be applied to Chet. People aren't being fair. Chet also couldn't make a perimeter shot to save his life in that series.

The non-Chet minutes killed the Thunder in that series. Without Chet the defense AND the offense suffered.

Thunder with Chet on the court and Jaylin Williams off the court in the 2024 playoffs in medium-high-very high leverage minutes: 315 minutes, 113.56 Off Rating and 105.31 Def Rating.

Thunder with Jaylin Williams on the court and Chet off the court in the 2024 playoffs in same type of leverage minutes: 102 minutes, 96.91 Off Rating(?!) and 112.82 Def Rating.

There was a cool 24.16 Net Rating difference between those 2 lineups.

Now, we kinda changed how we use JWill now, and he's been a much more dependable three point shooter this season, but if push comes to shove and he gets exposed defensively, we have the ability to stagger Chet and Hartenstein which is why this team has a much higher ceiling compared to last season.

But I think Chet really had an admirable series against the Mavs. I'll especially applaud his game 4 effort. The man played out of his mind defensively during that game and stayed on the court for 40 minutes(18 points on 6-9 shooting to boot).

[Doctor MJ]

Chet is better, but he's #2.

Came in here to say this.

JDub is the most accomplished player of the 2022 draft so far, but I expect Chet to surpass him, and I expect OKC expects that too.

Regardless, drafting the 2 best players from a draft is pretty amazing.

[Doctor MJ]

Banchero. J-Dub just plays on great team.

I don't see Paulo really having a place on a great team at this time in his career. Orlando's positioned him like an alpha decision maker and he's really not that.

[ontnut]

It's Paolo, Chet, then JDub. I don't think it's much of a debate.

[Chuck Everett]

If you swapped Chet with Paolo, you think he would be able to shoulder that offensive responsibility for Orlando? I don't see it.

[tsherkin]

If you swapped Chet with Paolo, you think he would be able to shoulder that offensive responsibility for Orlando? I don't see it.

I think we need to see what next season looks like from Paolo.

Because Chet surely doesn't look like he wants to be lofting up enough shots to score 25 ppg, but we still need to SEE Banchero do it at league-average efficiency or better before we can really call it a major point of differentiation between the two, especially with Chet so much better on defense. Scoring volume alone doesn't necessarily mean he's the better player, especially when they work in different roles.

[Chuck Everett]

If you swapped Chet with Paolo, you think he would be able to shoulder that offensive responsibility for Orlando? I don't see it.

I think we need to see what next season looks like from Paolo.

Because Chet surely doesn't look like he wants to be lofting up enough shots to score 25 ppg, but we still need to SEE Banchero do it at league-average efficiency or better before we can really call it a major point of differentiation between the two, especially with Chet so much better on defense. Scoring volume alone doesn't necessarily mean he's the better player, especially when they work in different roles.

But the volume is a byproduct of who Paolo is playing with. We can advance stat until we're blue in the face, but until the front office actually gets serious about improving their backcourt, not sure how you're going to get elite efficiency out of him or Franz.

[tsherkin]

But the volume is a byproduct of who Paolo is playing with. We can advance stat until we're blue in the face, but until the front office actually gets serious about improving their backcourt, not sure how you're going to get elite efficiency out of him or Franz.

Yeah, I mean, if that's the case, it's a telling critique on his scoring ability. Good scorers need to be able to manage at LEAST league-average in the absence of much help, or their value is considerably diminished. It reduces their overall floor-raising ability. Now, this year's a hard one to evaluate for Paolo. He started well, then he got injured, had a great March and then finished like a lamb (over 4 games)... and then had a pretty good Game 1 against Boston, despite the loss. All that to say, there's a semi-reasonable chance that he was about to take The Leap this season, but we'll now have to see how this series against Boston goes and otherwise wait until next season.

And then we come back to the value of a scorer versus the value of someone like Chet, who isn't your primary initiator, but is a high-efficiency mid-volume guy and a high-end defender. He's a 20/11 guy per36 who is on minutes limitations and was also injured this year. Which one is more valuable?

Well, that'll come down to who is healthier, and who develops to what extent, right?

We tend to overvalue volume scoring as a starting point, and undervalue defense. So when they're closer together, it becomes a very interesting conversation, I think.

[Doctor MJ]

If you swapped Chet with Paolo, you think he would be able to shoulder that offensive responsibility for Orlando? I don't see it.

To this point I’d say the Magic would have been better focusing their offense around Franz, and yes, I think Chet would be a better fit with Franz than Paulo.

Doesn’t mean Paulo won’t develop into more going forward but that all-star appearance lost year I think really gave the wrong impression of where Pauli is with respect to helping a contender contend.


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