winsomme2 wrote:Hal14 wrote:We worked out Penda last year before the draft..he withdrew from the draft last year, got better this year. Will be interesting to see if we bring him back in for a workout this year
I could be sold if his ball handling is legitimately good. It's hard to tell from the footage I've seen.
When I look at OKC, their players can put the ball on the floor and it makes for way easier shots.
OKC's players are also willing to put the ball on the floor and encouraged to do so. I think it was after a loss to the Nuggets, SGA came out for his post game PC, and took responsibility for settling for jump shots, talking about jump shots will sometimes fall, sometimes not, but the rim is always reliable and he needed to do a better job of getting there...or something very close to that. If one of our guys came out and said that, I almost wonder if they would get traded.
Penda last year, per 36, averaged 3.5 assists versus 2.3 turnovers. As a point of reference, Juhann Begarin at the same age posted 1.9 assists versus 2.8 turnovers in the same league, tho at 20 y/o he improved to 4.6 assists and 3.5 turnovers, Yabu 1.3 assists to 2 TOs a year later, Mikael Pietrus was 2.8 to 2.8. Risacher, a year younger, was 1.5 assists to 2.2 turnovers. Nic Batum - 4.5 assists to 3 turnovers.
French league stats in general don't translate so well, and Penda doesn't wow, although his A/TO and to a lesser extent his defensive numbers set himself apart from a number of negative examples. Nic Batum is more or less a very good statistical comparison around the same ages, although he converted better inside the arc (possibly as a result of being taller).
