Post#86 » by GoBobs » Wed Dec 18, 2013 4:28 am
Well Ajinca never got even the chance Biz got. Ajinca played less then 6 min per game and it is hard to develop a guy in limited action. People are going to say he sucked every time he went out there, but that isn't what happened. Some of his game numbers look good in the games he got minutes. Nobody is going to put up good numbers when Larry Brown runs you out there for the last three minutes of action.
I remember one game vs the Pistons when they were good and killing us by like 30. Brown cleared the bench and put in Hollins and Ajinca. We came roaring back and lost by one or two baskets.
When Ajinca went to the D-League he was always one of the best players. Considering he was the same age as a lot of college players at the time it was reasonable to think he wasn't far away from being a solid NBA player.
The summer before he was traded he had his best summer league. Simmons wrote a piece on how the pick finally looked like it was paying off, then boom he gets traded for the dust chip. The Mavs were competing and had a very deep bench, and Ajinca only showed up in 12 games. The next year he did a 24 game stint with the raptors before he was out of the league.
Ajinca was out of the NBA after only 71 games where he averaged less then 8 min a game. Bismack played 63 games his first year and averaged 23 minutes.
When we chose to draft a young kid to play center, we had to realize he wasn't going to fill out and play his best basketball for a little while. The front office knew Ajinca was not a polished guy in terms of his basketball skills and it was going to take some time to develop that. There might even be some ups and downs along the way. When the front office makes the decision this is the guy we are going to give away a future draft pick for, we need to commit to sticking with that decision long enough to see if it pays off.
Bismack is just a hustle, block and rebound guy right now. I see some signs he could be adding other things though. I saw him hit a baseline jumper the other night with no hesitation. He is a big just like Ajinca so I expect him to play his best basketball between 25-30 years old. Are we patient enough to have him on our team at that time? I don't know but I hope so.
MKG has jumpshot issues but he is still a good player who contributes in a lot of other ways. If he just had a solid jumper he would be totally unstoppable. He is also super young and has a lot of time to figure it out, but not for us if we trade him because we change our mind every ten minutes.
It has been the story of the whole franchise really. We were to impatient to succeed in the beginning and built the team the wrong way trading future assets for win now pieces. Jason Richardson for a pick that could have been Noah. Using valuable cap space on Nazr and Diop instead of leveraging it for assets in the biggest free agency year I can remember. Then as soon as we put together our win now team and got swept by the magic in the playoffs we changed our mind. Time to rebuild, let Felton walk and trade Chandler for the dust chip, followed by a wallace trade.
We got Tyrus Thomas(for another future pick), fell in love with him long enough to sign him to a big contract and then fell right back out of love.
We decided to rebuild. Said we were going to do it right this time, and right before what is supposed to be the best draft class to come along in a while, we sign a big name free agent and are sort of in win now mode. Now I hear chad ford talking about how the bobcats are in win now mode and thinking about moving MKG. I hope this guy is just a hack. If we trade a bunch of young guys and picks for Asik or Evan Turner I am going to be pissed.
I have never bought in to any of the Jordan is a bad gm line of thinking and I have generally liked everything we have done since chow came aboard. We missed an opportunity not getting Ajinca back before the Pelicans did though. I think he is going to be a good player and clearly they do to if they are willing to pay a buyout and give him a two year contract even if its for league min.