The Liam McNeeley Thread

[Diop]

Watch on YouTube

[JustBuzzin]

What does he even do?

Probably has a high credit score

For the culture

Bro you are hilariously funny. You had to be the class clown growing up.

[JustBuzzin]

I will tip my cap to Jeff.

This is an excellent pick. He was a consensus top 10 recruit coming out of Monteverde and is a really, really advanced off ball shooter. His feel and movement shooting rivals Kon’s.

UConn did not have a real PG and then he sprained his ankle badly and played thru it which hurt his stats significantly. He missed a month but was never the same. I have defensive questions but the kid can absolutely light it up.

He’s a great pick at 29. Great pick.

This is bad news they drafted 2 3pt shooters with high IQ.

As if we need more 3pt shooting. Miller already chucks enough. We have no post presence to mix things up. It's gonna be LaMelo with the ball again finding 3pt shooters.

Peterson/Lee are frauds

Simmer down bro... you can never have enough 3pt shooting. Yeah we need some rim pressure unless Moose is going to try to dunk everything. We still have 2 more picks in the next 4. Lets see what happens.

Yeah bro I will feel better tomorrow. I just need to sleep this hatred off. I will be back supporting them tomorrow.

[GoBobs]

This is bad news they drafted 2 3pt shooters with high IQ.

As if we need more 3pt shooting. Miller already chucks enough. We have no post presence to mix things up. It's gonna be LaMelo with the ball again finding 3pt shooters.

Peterson/Lee are frauds

Simmer down bro... you can never have enough 3pt shooting. Yeah we need some rim pressure unless Moose is going to try to dunk everything. We still have 2 more picks in the next 4. Lets see what happens.

Yeah bro I will feel better tomorrow. I just need to sleep this hatred off. I will be back supporting them tomorrow.

I am going to be real though. If your name is Liam, it seems like your chance of being a douche is like 100%. I feel like we are getting something between Austin Reeves and Kevin Huerter. Dude is pretty long necked to be honest.

[fatlever]

it kind of feels like we must have a uconn player on this roster at all times.
How many uconn players have played for the Hornets since their inception?

kemba
gordon
okafor
bouk
liam
lamb
adrien
burrell
voskuhl
napier - kinda

[vorbis]

tbh after a night of watching a bit of video on them, I like McNeeley maybe even more than Knueppel. ignore his shooting percentage in college, his form is really good, repeatable, and he squares himself up really nicely and consistently. he's got some good passing chops as well. I think he will have to tone down the bat-out-of-hell-driving-right-only part of his game, but he did show the ability to finish around the rim while running at full speed.

[MasterIchiro]

tbh after a night of watching a bit of video on them, I like McNeeley maybe even more than Knueppel. ignore his shooting percentage in college, his form is really good, repeatable, and he squares himself up really nicely and consistently. he's got some good passing chops as well. I think he will have to tone down the bat-out-of-hell-driving-right-only part of his game, but he did show the ability to finish around the rim while running at full speed.

Duke vs. UConn in practice. Gonna be a bloodbath. Both competitors.

[EmpireFalls]

I think the fact that there’s a legitimate debate about whether pick #29 could be better long-term than pick #4 shows you how much of a reach picking Knueppel is.

McNeeley and him are way more similar than they are different and we passed up on so many trades and so much value just to take Kon. Which makes you wonder, why exactly did he NEED to be taken at #4 again?

He had better be a much better athlete and shot creator than he appears to be on film.

[KembaWalker]

we didnt prioritize talent, we didnt prioritize fit. we have a roster that makes no sense as currently constructed and very little upside unless youre still seriously deluded about the talent level of year 6 LaMelo Ball

we're going to be cycling through the Damian Baughs of the G league PF/C class next year and praying for Dybantsa or Boozer like a bad re-run

maybe Peterson has something cooking for a star player and drafting 2 role players will look genius. i'd say its unlikely

[Braggins]

I think the fact that there’s a legitimate debate about whether pick #29 could be better long-term than pick #4 shows you how much of a reach picking Knueppel is.

McNeeley and him are way more similar than they are different and we passed up on so many trades and so much value just to take Kon. Which makes you wonder, why exactly did he NEED to be taken at #4 again?

He had better be a much better athlete and shot creator than he appears to be on film.

Here is their basic profile with per70 possession adjusted stats.

Kon Knueppel ~ F/G
Duke (ACC) ~ Fr ~ 19.8 yrs
6'5" barefoot ~ 6'6.25" wing ~ 8'5.5" reach ~ 219 lb
19.9 pts ~ 5.5 reb ~ 3.8 ast ~ 1.4 stl ~ 0.2 blk ~ 1.9 tov ~ 2.9 pf
56.7% 2pt (6.0 2pta) ~ 40.6% 3pt (7.4 3pta) ~ 91.4% ft (4.6 fta) ~ 64.2% ts

Liam McNeeley ~ SF
UConn (BEAST) ~ Fr ~ 19.7 yrs
6'6.75" barefoot ~ 6'8.5" wing ~ 8'4" reach ~ 215 lb
19.6 pts ~ 8.1 reb ~ 3.1 ast ~ 0.8 stl ~ 0.3 blk ~ 2.5 tov ~ 2.7 pf
43.6% 2pt (8.3 2pta) ~ 31.7% 3pt (7.3 3pta) ~ 86.6% ft (6.4 fta) ~ 52.9% ts

This situation is a good example of one of the reasons I think shooting can be a bit overrated as a draft skill. There is generally a good amount of variance with shooting and with freshman its always a fairly small sample size of 3pt shots. If you looked at their percentages it would suggest that Kon is a wayyy better shooter than Liam, but Liam was playing in a context that was extremely detrimental to his efficiency and Kon was playing in basically the most ideal scenario possible for players with their skillset. How much different would these 3pt numbers look if their team and roles were swapped?

If Kon isn't that much better of a shooter than Liam, then there really isn't much about the rest of his game that should make him more valuable than Liam. Kon seems like a bit better passer and maybe a bit smarter defender, but Liam is also clearly more athletic and looked like he had more shot creation ability.

lane agility
Liam ~ 11.11
Kon ~ 11.92

shuttle run
Liam ~ 2.75
Kon ~ 2.92

3/4 spring
Liam ~ 3.16
Kon ~ 3.35

[Chapelchilla]

I like the pick. Top 10 guy in his class coming in with minor injuries deflation factoring in. Size and nba style skills.

[basketballRob]

I liked him when looking at prospects for the Magic. One thing that stood out to me was that he had a good handle.

Sent from my SM-G998U1 using RealGM mobile app

[amcoolio]

This team wants to surround LaMelo and Miller with 8 Bogdan Bogdanovićes

[KembaWalker]

you can put all the spacers around LaMelo and Brandon you want, nobody needs help on those two guys 1 on 1 and the space is pointless. changing the names from NSJ and Seth Curry to Kon and Liam isn't doing squat for this bottom tier offense lol. Tre Mann on the other hand could actually help this team function. hope hes actually back

[fatlever]

Read on Twitter

[MasterIchiro]

I think the fact that there’s a legitimate debate about whether pick #29 could be better long-term than pick #4 shows you how much of a reach picking Knueppel is.

McNeeley and him are way more similar than they are different and we passed up on so many trades and so much value just to take Kon. Which makes you wonder, why exactly did he NEED to be taken at #4 again?

He had better be a much better athlete and shot creator than he appears to be on film.

Here is their basic profile with per70 possession adjusted stats.

Kon Knueppel ~ F/G
Duke (ACC) ~ Fr ~ 19.8 yrs
6'5" barefoot ~ 6'6.25" wing ~ 8'5.5" reach ~ 219 lb
19.9 pts ~ 5.5 reb ~ 3.8 ast ~ 1.4 stl ~ 0.2 blk ~ 1.9 tov ~ 2.9 pf
56.7% 2pt (6.0 2pta) ~ 40.6% 3pt (7.4 3pta) ~ 91.4% ft (4.6 fta) ~ 64.2% ts

Liam McNeeley ~ SF
UConn (BEAST) ~ Fr ~ 19.7 yrs
6'6.75" barefoot ~ 6'8.5" wing ~ 8'4" reach ~ 215 lb
19.6 pts ~ 8.1 reb ~ 3.1 ast ~ 0.8 stl ~ 0.3 blk ~ 2.5 tov ~ 2.7 pf
43.6% 2pt (8.3 2pta) ~ 31.7% 3pt (7.3 3pta) ~ 86.6% ft (6.4 fta) ~ 52.9% ts

This situation is a good example of one of the reasons I think shooting can be a bit overrated as a draft skill. There is generally a good amount of variance with shooting and with freshman its always a fairly small sample size of 3pt shots. If you looked at their percentages it would suggest that Kon is a wayyy better shooter than Liam, but Liam was playing in a context that was extremely detrimental to his efficiency and Kon was playing in basically the most ideal scenario possible for players with their skillset. How much different would these 3pt numbers look if their team and roles were swapped?

If Kon isn't that much better of a shooter than Liam, then there really isn't much about the rest of his game that should make him more valuable than Liam. Kon seems like a bit better passer and maybe a bit smarter defender, but Liam is also clearly more athletic and looked like he had more shot creation ability.

lane agility
Liam ~ 11.11
Kon ~ 11.92

shuttle run
Liam ~ 2.75
Kon ~ 2.92

3/4 spring
Liam ~ 3.16
Kon ~ 3.35

Drive And Kick got pissy with me about comping the 2. But here it is in broad daylight.

[fatlever]

we will have years to get a first hand view of who is actually better for us.

[MasterIchiro]

we will have years to get a first hand view of who is actually better for us.

The bar set at better? They're evenly matched.

The biggest difference is pick 4 vs 29, so...25 draft slots.

It looks bad on one end of that canyon.

Guess which one.

[fatlever]

we will have years to get a first hand view of who is actually better for us.

The bar set at better? They're evenly matched.

The biggest difference is pick 4 vs 29, so...25 draft slots.

It looks bad on one end of that canyon.

Guess which one.

I think it would be pretty awesome at the end of the day if Liam ends up being the better player. I feel fairly confident that Kon will be, at worst, be a solid starter. If Liam can actually top that I think that would be amazing for us. Now that they're on the team I don't really care where they were drafted. That's water under the bridge at this point. So I hope Liam plays like he should have been the third pick in the draft.

[MasterIchiro]

we will have years to get a first hand view of who is actually better for us.

The bar set at better? They're evenly matched.

The biggest difference is pick 4 vs 29, so...25 draft slots.

It looks bad on one end of that canyon.

Guess which one.

I think it would be pretty awesome at the end of the day if Liam ends up being the better player. I feel fairly confident that Kon will be, at worst, be a solid starter. If Liam can actually top that I think that would be amazing for us. Now that they're on the team I don't really care where they were drafted. That's water under the bridge at this point. So I hope Liam plays like he should have been the third pick in the draft.

Miami had Ware and Jaku much higher on their boards. So yeah, it would be nice to match Riley. I hope we are not asking Peterson to do that.

I will be happy if Liam becomes a role playing bench player on a play-in team with Kon and Salaün vs. Miami swiping 2 starters.