mojomarc wrote:Wizenheimer wrote:zzaj wrote:
Which means the Blazers will end up forced to trade Scoot. And then they are back to square one at the PG position for the franchise, with a declining 36-37 year old at the helm.
I think fans are kidding themselves if they think it’s a positive from all angles. I struggle to even find a best possible outcome.
you know, it is possible that the Blazer F.O. of Cronin/Schmitz have already decided that Scoot's upside ceiling is well below where it was hyped to be at the draft. I don't think a front office will see their for-sure PGOTF and still go out and add 2 more veteran PG's. At the very least, that hedging a bet
Scoot was better last season that his rookie season, but he wasn't efficient as a shooter or playmaker. I think he'll get better but all those projections of him as the next Rose or Westbrook seem way off at this point
To be fair, at this point in his career these projections of Westbrook being Westbrook were all off as well. Westbrook was a year older entering the league, but as a freshman he averaged .398 shooting overall with an eFG% of 414. Scoot as a rookie was .385 but because he shot more threes his eFG% was .440. Russ was at a PER of 15.2 compared to Scoot's horrendous 9.5, but mostly due to Russ being a better rebounder and steal guy. Their TOVs weren't even that far off. Again, this was despite Russ coming in a year older.
I don't expect (heck, I don't want) Scoot to become a triple-double stat-greed monster like Russ became later, but I think tales of his progression being wildly behind may be more of a case of mis-set expectations rather than any real shortcoming. I think maybe we all thought coming from the G League he would progress faster, but maybe the difference between G-League and top-tier NCAA in 2008 is more in favor of NCAA players in terms of game-readiness?
Not trying to get into a big stats pissing contest here. I just think that it's way early to make any serious "ceiling" prognostications on Scoot. This is particularly true given that it seems it took until the last quarter of the season before Chauncey figured out how to use him.
Yeah, I think this season is going to be very telling for Scoot. PG is probably the hardest position in the NBA to learn, Scoot had basically no time as a PG running a high level team (No Gleague and HS don't count), and by all accounts the guy is a hard worker. IMO an improved 3pt shot would really open up what he can provide on the court.
In my opinion he lacks a lot of the "feel" things that natural PGs just have, but those will come somewhat with time. My sense is that he isn't the brightest BB bulb in the room which also will improve with time. At this point he tends to get blinders on both offense and defense, and he doesn't do well with secondary or tertiary options.
The thing I'm most surprised about with Scoot? I knew he was never going to wow athletically like Rose or Westbrook, but I thought for sure his change of pace on drives was going to help him. He seemed to have an elite knack for change of pace coming in. We've seen almost none of that from him as a pro. I think some of that is that defenses know they can crowd him--and help in the NBA comes waaaaay faster than anything he ever saw before. So unless he's attacking a spread defense, he'll have a help defender in his lap as soon as he loses his primary defender.
I think it's a bit overstated, but I do think Jrue and Lillard will set him up with some Vet savvy tricks to help along his development. This season we'll see how well he processes, and if his brain can catch up with his body.
