PG: APOLOGIZE TO IQ

[Los_29]

NAW?

Actually......he's the perfect player for this roster right now. He's what you hope Jakobe could one day becomes......but we don't have 5 years to wait.

He is also what you want Quick to be. High-volume 3 point shooter (better % than IQ), longer than IQ. Much better defender.

He is exactly the type of player you want on a playoff team.

I like NAW, but NAW instead of IQ doesn't really help us because he is even less of a "PG" than Quick is.

Funnily enough - the advanced stats still love IQ. They love NAW to, but just not as much.

NAW as 6th man/ backup PG to Shead would be niiice though.

Plus the Hawks secured him for 15.5 million......1/2 of what Quick cost.

Sign me up

Could you imagine having NAW in this lineup over Jakobe/ Dick/ Walter? He costs about the same as the 3 of them.

Shead/ NAW/ Scottie
Barrett/ NAW/ Ingram
Ingram/ Scottie/ CMB
Scottie/ Mamu/ CMB
Poeltl/ Mamu/ Scottie

That is a nice rotation. Versatility, scoring, defense

Looks like a lottery team to me.

[Merit]

Yes but he needs a screen. Plenty of point guards don’t.

This isn't really true outside of like legit star PGs. Quickley's frequency of being a PnR ball handler is 21%. That is VERY low for a point guard. Some other examples league wide:

Garland - 43%
Ball - 42%
Giddey - 40%
Nembhard - 40%
SGA - 38%
Murray - 37%
Brunson - 37%
Doncic - 37%
Reaves - 36%
Mitchell - 35%

There is a whole bunch more, but just for an idea of how often other guys are using the PnR. But FWIW - IQ is in the 84th percentile as a PnR ball handler. Our best pick setter is currently out. I wonder if that has any correlation to some of his struggles.

But it is just isn't really true that other PG's are somehow way better without screens. There is a LOT of screening action in the NBA. Something we haven't had since Jakob went down unfortunately.

I wanna see more double drag screens being set, that 1 single action was why these same hornets were able to beat the Thunder

First off, after Darko’s press conference where he had IQ’s back (and related his difficulty and growth converting to an actual point guard), I will pause my narrative around IQ being the odd man out. That is enough evidence that at least the FO has his back.

That being said, I’m not saying the point guard NEVER needs a screen. That’s impossible. I’m saying let’s get someone a bit more explosive who gets two feet in the paint more frequently. Can you speak to IQ’s ability as a driver and compare him to other PG’s? Similarly, his finishing? From the eye test, Shead gets to the paint, but doesn’t always finish. IQ doesn’t really get to the paint as frequently, and he often relies on a floater.

The other alternative to someone extremely explosive is someone with a lot of size. IMO that could be someone like LaMelo.

[Merit]

I like NAW, but NAW instead of IQ doesn't really help us because he is even less of a "PG" than Quick is.

Funnily enough - the advanced stats still love IQ. They love NAW to, but just not as much.

NAW as 6th man/ backup PG to Shead would be niiice though.

Plus the Hawks secured him for 15.5 million......1/2 of what Quick cost.

Sign me up

Could you imagine having NAW in this lineup over Jakobe/ Dick/ Walter? He costs about the same as the 3 of them.

Shead/ NAW/ Scottie
Barrett/ NAW/ Ingram
Ingram/ Scottie/ CMB
Scottie/ Mamu/ CMB
Poeltl/ Mamu/ Scottie

That is a nice rotation. Versatility, scoring, defense

Looks like a lottery team to me.

I have wanted us to sign NAW. I wanted us to draft Nembhard, but Indy snagged him before us.

Not sure NAW is available (doubt it) but his contract and his skillset would be great for us.

[MoneyBall]

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[YogurtProducer]

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While I appreciate this, this also ignores that we were missing RJ + Jak for a lot of those games. The "7-9" without him makes it sound like it was mainly due to RJ.

We are 4-3 when RJ is sitting but the other 4 are playing (and s/b 5-2 really, but we broke down late in that CHA OT game). We are 3-6 when RJ + at least 1 other starter is out (i considered Poeltl 6 min game as "out")

This team can handle 1 starter being out, it is when we miss 2 that we really struggle.

[Spida888]

Finally watched the game. Thrilling 4th quarter thanks to RJ heroics. Big shot by IQ.
Crazy 3 pointer to win it, in a game where we missed like 19 consecutive at one point.
Glad we pulled that one off. Revenge for the game we lost to them earlier with the Kon tying 3 to force OT.

[Valard]

Im STILL fired up about last night's win.

I never thought I would be this jacked up about beating Charlotte.

[ForeverTFC]

Im STILL fired up about last night's win.

I never thought I would be this jacked up about beating Charlotte.

They play good entertaining basketball man. They have wins against the Thunder, Magic, and Cavs in the last 3 weeks. I was really hoping they would struggle this year and Lamelo would become available as I think he is the perfect PG for this team if you don't want to mortgage your future. With the way they're playing now, you have to think they will keep the core going and try to build it up this off-season.

[MEDIC]

Im STILL fired up about last night's win.

I never thought I would be this jacked up about beating Charlotte.

They play good entertaining basketball man. They have wins against the Thunder, Magic, and Cavs in the last 3 weeks. I was really hoping they would struggle this year and Lamelo would become available as I think he is the perfect PG for this team if you don't want to mortgage your future. With the way they're playing now, you have to think they will keep the core going and try to build it up this off-season.

Yeah. I like them. Really fun to watch. The play extremely hard & they play the right way. Remind me a bit of the Magic from a few years ago

[dTox]

Lolwut

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[HiJiNX]

Im STILL fired up about last night's win.

I never thought I would be this jacked up about beating Charlotte.

They play good entertaining basketball man. They have wins against the Thunder, Magic, and Cavs in the last 3 weeks. I was really hoping they would struggle this year and Lamelo would become available as I think he is the perfect PG for this team if you don't want to mortgage your future. With the way they're playing now, you have to think they will keep the core going and try to build it up this off-season.

Funny you mention LaMelo because his ill-advised shot selection allowed us to stay in the game at about three junctures when Charlotte could have run away with it. I’d stay very far away from him. Not durable. Doesn’t play winning basketball. Poor defender.

[ghuytro]

refs are fuming after this game

Imagine post game interviews with the refs "Tough game out there. You guys made some questionable calls out there but not enough to secure the win. How do you regroup and get ready for the next game?"

[Tripod]

It was a big win as a Celtics loss is likely. Then gotta split the 76ers...can't lose both.

Hopefully Yak comes back for 76ers.

[LoveMyRaps]

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[TheRealDeal]

I don’t think ppl realize how difficult it is to make a shot like that when you’re traveling at that speed and your momentum is taking you away from the basket. Impressive shotmaking

[JCP11]

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While I appreciate this, this also ignores that we were missing RJ + Jak for a lot of those games. The "7-9" without him makes it sound like it was mainly due to RJ.

We are 4-3 when RJ is sitting but the other 4 are playing (and s/b 5-2 really, but we broke down late in that CHA OT game). We are 3-6 when RJ + at least 1 other starter is out (i considered Poeltl 6 min game as "out")

This team can handle 1 starter being out, it is when we miss 2 that we really struggle.

We also saw how the offense fell off a cliff without BI, his presence alone helps the offense a lot. I said it before whenever one of BI, RJ and Scottie will miss games the team will struggle.

[ForeverTFC]

Im STILL fired up about last night's win.

I never thought I would be this jacked up about beating Charlotte.

They play good entertaining basketball man. They have wins against the Thunder, Magic, and Cavs in the last 3 weeks. I was really hoping they would struggle this year and Lamelo would become available as I think he is the perfect PG for this team if you don't want to mortgage your future. With the way they're playing now, you have to think they will keep the core going and try to build it up this off-season.

Funny you mention LaMelo because his ill-advised shot selection allowed us to stay in the game at about three junctures when Charlotte could have run away with it. I’d stay very far away from him. Not durable. Doesn’t play winning basketball. Poor defender.

Don't worry too much about the bad habits, we can fix him.

Big scorer with amazing handles and vision that you might be able to get without mortgaging your future. There isn't a better swing in basketball right now.

[earthtone]

IQ was better than Scotty in this game. He never stopped fighting and worked tirelessly. Yet there is still a fixation on his faults/miscues.

It's an obvious bias. It really is some golden child ish.

Its because of his 35 million salary.

If he was at 18 million he'd be getting the OG level worship here.

I can't even say he's overpaid. Freddie got 40 ish millon.
Derrick White gets less but people would be even more frustrated with him and his cold shooting nights.

He just may take a whole year to get better as a PG full time. We made it work with Lowry too no way we can't with Quickley who is much more coachable then Lowry was before his blow up.

Quickly ranks 20th in AAV amongst players listed as PG. The argument of his pay still doesn't hold.

Assuming you're looking at the Spotrac list, they have two contracts for Curry, SGA, Fox & Doncic in there so he's actually 16th in AAV for PGs, but the argument still hold.

IQ is being paid like an average starting PG, and playing like an average starting PG. His value will only go up as he gets deeper into the length of the contract, and he's so incredibly far away from being a 'negative asset' or 'worst contract in the league' that I can't believe how often it comes up.

[Tha Cynic]

Why should we apologize to IQ just because he made a winning bucket once ? He's still overpayed and trash.

A player who has been a plus player for most of his career. How is he trash?

[tsherkin]

Why should we apologize to IQ just because he made a winning bucket once ? He's still overpayed and trash.

A player who has been a plus player for most of his career. How is he trash?

Yeah, it's difficult to author an argument for him being "trash."

You can discuss his contract specifics, and he certainly has weaknesses... but at the end of the day, he's still a guy who brings value. His numbers aren't amazing right now, and that's in part on how we are using him. We've seen the value of proper deployment with Scottie and RJ. We're missing a piece which would let us do the same with Quick. RJ is helping, but IQ needs to be off-ball a lot more than he generally is for us, and we need to have some patience with a volume shooter's shooting variance.

His last 12 games have tanked his seasonal numbers. Prior to that (the first 25 games of his season), he was posting a shooting line of 47.0 / 38.2 / 75.0. These past 12 games, he's posting 35.4 / 30.5 / 87.0.

So he's hit a bit of a slump, particularly from 3. And folks need to be a little less reactionary. 53.6% of his FGA are 3s; when he slumps from 3, everything tanks, but that's the price you pay with that sort of player. So we need to chill a bit. He'll bounce back. The first 2/3s of his season to date, he was doing quite well.

He'll get back to it soon enough, especially if we can stay reasonably healthy. And there IS a somewhat significant juggling act with our offense when any of our major guys go down, which adds responsibility for playtypes and usage the other guys don't normally shoulder, and that makes their lives harder. Their performance suffers accordingly.