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Enough with upside, what about downside?

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Enough with upside, what about downside? 

Post#1 » by huttops » Tue May 26, 2009 2:21 am

Much has been made of the potential of the likely two players we will be looking at come Draft day- Evans and DeRozan. Budding stars that present several perks to the current team, albeit very different in what they bring to the table. But with all the talk about best-case scenarios, who's less likely to bust in the NBA?

Lets talk about Evans first. Despite shooting IIRC 51% in front of the 3pt line, I saw some stats recently about Derrick Rose's transition to the NBA. It broke down to something like this, in Calipari's system he was getting to the line at a 1-2.1 clip (FTA-FGA) and in the NBA it decreased (albeit in a new system) to about a 1-5 clip. This concerns me a bit as Evans actually was getting to the line less often in Cal's system than Rose (1-2.6) despite that being one of his strongest perceived strengths. While I'm not comparing him to Rose as a prospect, Roses' decline has me a bit concerned. It possibly is a system issue, and I do believe we need at least another season from Rose the stats are a bit revealing. Early on, Rose really struggled to get to the line, but even in his best statistical month, April, his ratio improved to 1-3.5. In the playoffs it reverted to 1-5. Here are the stats

October (2 games)
November --> 1:5
December --> 1:4.5
January --> 1:6.5
February --> 1:5.5
March --> 1:4.9
April --> 1:3.5

Needless to say, given how poorly Evans has shot both in iso situations and catch/shoot situations, I think this somewhat of a concern. He has some great shot-creating ability and could team very well with Al, but IMO his downside is that of a very average shooter and scorer with his main perks being his size at the 1, and his rebounding. Needless to say, if we're drafting him as a go-to scorer, we could be very misled.

I'd like to post about DeRozan too, but I gotta get back to the game.I'll do so later. Thoughts?
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Re: Enough with upside, what about downside? 

Post#2 » by the_bruce » Tue May 26, 2009 3:36 am

So his downside is his biggest potential strength is diminished in the NBA and he has no shooting ability to fall back on.

I think derozans downside is that he will take a few years to develop. In his best case he becomes the best player in the draft in his worst case he's a total bust. I think that his bust % is unlikely.

Derozan has franchise caliber player potential, and while evans does too. He has less chance of that happening. while evans might be a bigger bust %. Personally I favor the riskier move with more payoff. So take Derozan and hope.
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Re: Enough with upside, what about downside? 

Post#3 » by 4ho5ive » Tue May 26, 2009 4:50 am

So, wait a minute. Evans might have more potential to be a bust, and less potential to be a franchise caliber player but Derozan is still a riskier move? Im not calling you out or anything, id just like some clarification there.
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Re: Enough with upside, what about downside? 

Post#4 » by moss_is_1 » Tue May 26, 2009 5:24 am

4ho5ive wrote:So, wait a minute. Evans might have more potential to be a bust, and less potential to be a franchise caliber player but Derozan is still a riskier move? Im not calling you out or anything, id just like some clarification there.



I think he's saying something like...Derozan is either going to be a superstar or a bust while Evans could be a superstar/roleplayer or bust but he feels he's most likely to bust?
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Re: Enough with upside, what about downside? 

Post#5 » by the_bruce » Tue May 26, 2009 1:31 pm

moss_is_1 wrote:I think he's saying something like...Derozan is either going to be a superstar or a bust while Evans could be a superstar/roleplayer or bust but he feels he's most likely to bust?


Ya pretty much. Evans is more likely to attain his positive side, but I still think he has more of a bust chance than Derozan.

While derozan has more chance to be a superstar player, but also more chance to be a relatively mediocre roleplayer.
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Re: Enough with upside, what about downside? 

Post#6 » by Devilzsidewalk » Tue May 26, 2009 2:26 pm

this Evans bashing has got to stop, you're all just jealous!
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Re: Enough with upside, what about downside? 

Post#7 » by john2jer » Tue May 26, 2009 2:59 pm

It's actually gotten kind of ridiculous.

Obviously the reason Rose doesn't get to the line is he's too fast for the defense to even foul him. Derrick Rose makes Chuck Norris blush.

From the tape that I've watched, Evans definitely prefers his right hand, and when he goes left, he finishes with both hands. BUT, he loves contact, he's very strong, and he's a quick leaper. He finishes through guys, not around them. 71% free throw shooter, I assume he works on that in the NBA because Calipari didn't stress improvement there. Evans will improve and make a living at the line. He has the star mentality.

DeRozan doesn't. He seems very coachable, which will make him a decent role player, if not a solid starter, but I don't see a superstar mindet to go with his athletic ability. Although I do love DeRozan's potential as a lock-down defender.
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Re: Enough with upside, what about downside? 

Post#8 » by funkatron101 » Tue May 26, 2009 4:15 pm

Devilzsidewalk wrote:this Evans bashing has got to stop, you're all just jealous!

How about Rashad Evans instead? :wink:
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Re: Enough with upside, what about downside? 

Post#9 » by Esohny » Tue May 26, 2009 5:13 pm

I'm certainly not jealous of the beating he took on saturday. Dropped like a stone.
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Re: Enough with upside, what about downside? 

Post#10 » by huttops » Tue May 26, 2009 5:24 pm

john2jer wrote:It's actually gotten kind of ridiculous.

Obviously the reason Rose doesn't get to the line is he's too fast for the defense to even foul him. Derrick Rose makes Chuck Norris blush.

From the tape that I've watched, Evans definitely prefers his right hand, and when he goes left, he finishes with both hands. BUT, he loves contact, he's very strong, and he's a quick leaper. He finishes through guys, not around them. 71% free throw shooter, I assume he works on that in the NBA because Calipari didn't stress improvement there. Evans will improve and make a living at the line. He has the star mentality.

DeRozan doesn't. He seems very coachable, which will make him a decent role player, if not a solid starter, but I don't see a superstar mindet to go with his athletic ability. Although I do love DeRozan's potential as a lock-down defender.


If you can't see past the fact that this is just open debate- supported by numbers- and not bashing, then its you with the blinders on.

Two points I'd like to address. About your Derrick Rose= Speed comment, why was he getting to the line more than 2x as much in college? Are you suggesting that the NBA is slower than the NCAA? Or is it that defenders are much more quick in the NBA and have better defensive technique? I will concede that Cal's system is quite uptempo compared to the NBA, but I'd argue that Chicago scored way more in transition than we did (sorry I can't factually back that one up). Hence, in our system, I would expect the discrepancy to be much larger. Combine that with the fact that Evans got to the stripe less than Rose in the same system and you see my reason for concern.

The second notion that Evans will dramatically improve from the stripe is also a bit iffy. Derrick Rose also shot 71% from the line at Memphis, and improved to 78% with Chicago for the year. He shot 250 FTA with the Bulls this year and the 7% increase would have only amounted to 17.5 points over the entire season. So say if Evans shoots at 81% with us. Thats only extra25 points over the course of the entire year. Not exactly impact-numbers over an 81 game season (boosts PPG by 0.3).

I'd like to hear the responses to these. i'll post my derozan comments when we're through with evans.
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Re: Enough with upside, what about downside? 

Post#11 » by john2jer » Tue May 26, 2009 5:28 pm

I read two sentences of your post, got to the "Rose=speed" part, realized you're too stupid to catch a joke, even when it's obvious, and gave up.
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Re: Enough with upside, what about downside? 

Post#12 » by huttops » Tue May 26, 2009 5:32 pm

john2jer wrote:I read two sentences of your post, got to the "Rose=speed" part, realized you're too stupid to catch a joke, even when it's obvious, and gave up.


I sorta thought that. But feel free to pussy out on the rest of it.
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Re: Enough with upside, what about downside? 

Post#13 » by john2jer » Tue May 26, 2009 5:38 pm

Thanks, will do. :-)
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Re: Enough with upside, what about downside? 

Post#14 » by AQuintus » Tue May 26, 2009 7:12 pm

john2jer wrote:I read two sentences of your post, got to the "Rose=speed" part, realized you're too stupid to catch a joke, even when it's obvious, and gave up.


The whole "Jonathan Watters" act only works for the real JW.
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Re: Enough with upside, what about downside? 

Post#15 » by john2jer » Tue May 26, 2009 7:22 pm

No JW act. He actually annoys me when he acts like that.

But when someone makes a comment about someone having "blinders on" and tries to argue an obvious joke, how do you respond to that? I blinked a couple times and thought, "Really? He doesn't get it?"

Then to say I said he'll "dramatically improve"? That's the JW act, by putting words in someone's mouth. I said he'd improve. Which I hope he would considering he shot 71% under a coach who didn't stress that area, and now he's being paid as likely a major piece of a franchise, which I would assume would stress his improvement there.

But that fact that he used the logic that, "Player A only improved this much, so Player B is only able to improve that much as well" is rather silly.

Last I checked they were two entirely different human beings. Yeah they were both "point guards" from the same college/system, doesn't mean their improvement is going to be the same in the NBA. Otherwise we should only be looking at Tyreke Evans and Jrue Holiday since obviously they're going to turn into Derrick Rose and Russell Westbrook. That's just silly. Now don't get me wrong, I think both of those players turn out very good, but the argument that's being used is flawed.
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Re: Enough with upside, what about downside? 

Post#16 » by the_bruce » Tue May 26, 2009 7:29 pm

huttops wrote:The second notion that Evans will dramatically improve from the stripe is also a bit iffy. Derrick Rose also shot 71% from the line at Memphis, and improved to 78% with Chicago for the year. He shot 250 FTA with the Bulls this year and the 7% increase would have only amounted to 17.5 points over the entire season. So say if Evans shoots at 81% with us. Thats only extra25 points over the course of the entire year. Not exactly impact-numbers over an 81 game season (boosts PPG by 0.3).


You can't compare the ppg increase like this when talking about fit on the team. You'd need to put him into the slot he would replace. Lets just assume we do something like Foye-Evans? So Evans replaces bassy. Bassy got to the line 160 times last season. Evans will certainly get to the line more than Bassy. I'd say evans is good for 5 a game, heck even Foye got to the line 3.8/g times a game last season. I'm saying evans = 400 trips to the line for simplicity, although I think he could do way more. 400-160 = 240 more attempts. Or roughly ~3 more attempts per game. If evans knocks down 2/3's of those FT's thats a 2ppg increase over our current PG.

My main problem with Evans is he might end up being 2.maggette and put head down run at basket. Which isn't bad at all, but isn't exactly great either!


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Re: Enough with upside, what about downside? 

Post#17 » by john2jer » Tue May 26, 2009 7:32 pm

I don't think Evans has ever shown to be a Maggette type, though. Yeah he gets to the basket, but he also hits cutters when a defender tries to help, or he kicks the ball out when the defense collapses. Maggette's a blackhole, Evans isn't.
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Re: Enough with upside, what about downside? 

Post#18 » by the_bruce » Tue May 26, 2009 7:39 pm

john2jer wrote:I don't think Evans has ever shown to be a Maggette type, though. Yeah he gets to the basket, but he also hits cutters when a defender tries to help, or he kicks the ball out when the defense collapses. Maggette's a blackhole, Evans isn't.


Ya he can do those things, but he turns the ball over at a fantastic rate. The team would be better served by evans not passing and turning the ball over less like maggette!

3.5 turnovers a game. Is going to turn into ~2 buckets. We'll say -4 pts? As a shooting guard or primary scorer looking for his own shot Evans is great, but his passing/kick out are certainly not his strong suit.
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Re: Enough with upside, what about downside? 

Post#19 » by the_bruce » Tue May 26, 2009 7:47 pm

If we want a primary scorer who can sort of pass and sort of turn the ball over a ton, and get to the line a bunch. Why not jump on watters bandwagon and take Teague @ 18? Teague is a more explosive athlete, quicker, can shoot of the dribble, can hit the 3. Essentially, he's evans minus 3 inches but better in every aspect of basketball and a better athlete to boot.
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Re: Enough with upside, what about downside? 

Post#20 » by john2jer » Tue May 26, 2009 7:48 pm

Definitely something he needs to improve on.
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