Official Speculation Thread Part 1 (Summer League 2014)

[tranjSAIC]

People who have already given up on Gordon before he's played a single NBA game should be held accountable next season.

Gordon basically had the same game as Exum's his first game. 7 pts 5 rebs, a highlight alley oop dunk, and a block where he jumped up and took it out of the air. Zach Lavine had 13 pts. All these guys are about the same age and I expect the other two will have some really bad games this SL too.

It's not just stats man, the way Exum looked you could tell he will be something one day. Gordon looked like a tweener with no real skills yet except hustle and some passing.

[sChOlaRlY_Magi]

Any word on where Meer is going sign? I'd like to see him latch on to a contender somewhere. Maybe Cleveland or Chicago as a back up. Dallas would actually be an interesting place for him because he could probably start there. I don't know just interested if anyone has heard anything.

Been wondering this myself. I've seen nothing about it since the one story of him having many suitors

[Melvinlocker]

Exum looked terrific and he flashed all the skills that I thought he would. Kudos to Utah for drafting him. Reminded me a lot of a young Ginobili with his shifty movements.

I still think a combination Aaron Gordon, Elfrid Payton and Fournier has better potential than Adrien Payne, Exum and Stauskas. I think that Rob got the best talent with the most potential.

[KillMonger]

People who have already given up on Gordon before he's played a single NBA game should be held accountable next season.

Gordon basically had the same game as Exum's his first game. 7 pts 5 rebs, a highlight alley oop dunk, and a block where he jumped up and took it out of the air. Zach Lavine had 13 pts. All these guys are about the same age and I expect the other two will have some really bad games this SL too.

It's not just stats man, the way Exum looked you could tell he will be something one day. Gordon looked like a tweener with no real skills yet except hustle and some passing.

your opinion, that's not how Gordon looked to me. I thought he looked good not great in Summer League

[Melvinlocker]

If we were gonna sign Channing Frye, I don't understand why we drafted AG at 4. What a horrible mistake.

Henny must not feel that Gordon is ready to go straight into the starting line-up.

Most elite small Small Forwards (combo forwards) don't play much in their first years (see Shawn Marion, Scottie Pippen, Kahwi Leonard, Andre Iguodala, Gerald Wallace etc.) we didn't draft him for what he is currently, we drafted him for what he could be.

[Optimus_Steel]

Moo

Gordon basically had the same game as Exum's his first game. 7 pts 5 rebs, a highlight alley oop dunk, and a block where he jumped up and took it out of the air. Zach Lavine had 13 pts. All these guys are about the same age and I expect the other two will have some really bad games this SL too.

It's not just stats man, the way Exum looked you could tell he will be something one day. Gordon looked like a tweener with no real skills yet except hustle and some passing.

your opinion, that's not how Gordon looked to me. I thought he looked good not great in Summer League

People are blind. Gordon no real skills? He can handle ball exceptionally well. He is a terrific passer with good court vision. He played very good defense. Are those not skills?

[KillMonger]

It's not just stats man, the way Exum looked you could tell he will be something one day. Gordon looked like a tweener with no real skills yet except hustle and some passing.

your opinion, that's not how Gordon looked to me. I thought he looked good not great in Summer League

People are blind. Gordon no real skills? He han handle ball exceptionally well. He is a terrific passer with good court vision. He played very good defense. Are those not skills?

honestly the only thing that didn't look good was his shooting but apparently just because of that he didn't look good overall.

[Smooth_E]

Exum is great, but I'd rather have these 3:

[SOUL]

Scoring is the only skill people seem to be able to judge when trying to put down players (in SL).

It's funny because people will say Exum's box score isn't great but he has a great first step in vision.. just like Gordon's box score wasn't great but he had excellent defense and ball handling/vision for a big.

[I Rasharted]

I loved everything I saw from Gordon in SL other than shot selection/shooting. Kid is a great team player.

[Smooth_E]

For all my NBA2K fans:

[tranjSAIC]

your opinion, that's not how Gordon looked to me. I thought he looked good not great in Summer League

I hope you're right since he is on my team now, I'm just saying I thought Exum looked like a better player.

[tranjSAIC]

Now that I'm thinking about it more, I think what we should have done was grab Exum at 4, draft and stash Saric/Payton (If we drafted Exum early, I highly doubt 6ers would have taken Payton), then next years draft its a big man draft so we pick up our big then.

[sportsrock37]

I'm willing to let this play out for a couple of years before making a decision and especially not making a decision after summer league. Hennigan has a clear vision for this team moving forward and he hasn't really done anything in my mind to think that his vision won't work. We still have A LOT of cap flexibility, we still have several young talented players that are assets. It's not like we are locked into this team forever.

It's amazing that people don't realize that players mature at different times. Gordon will not be Lebron, he won't make a superstar impact at 18 years old. He may not make a big impact until he's 20 or 21, who knows. Henny clearly sees great things out of him or else he wouldn't have picked him 4th overall. Look at Kawhi Leonard, he wasn't ready to make an impact in the NBA at 21 years old as a rookie, much less at 18 years old. He developed into a very good player in his 2nd/3rd years in the league when he was 22 and 23.

All I'm asking is we have Aaron Gordon, give him a chance and cheer him on, don't get pissed when he's a bench player making a small impact on offense as an 18 year old rookie. He CAN still develop, he's a hard worker, I love his mindset and maturity for a kid that age, he's a team first guy. He will do whatever it takes to be a successful player in the league. He'll live at the gym to improve his game.

[KillMonger]

your opinion, that's not how Gordon looked to me. I thought he looked good not great in Summer League

I hope you're right since he is on my team now, I'm just saying I thought Exum looked like a better player.

Yeah but i guess it depends on what you're comparing, for me it's Point guard vs Point guard and Payton has looked just as good if not better. With Gordon he has a great foundation to build off of and with is IQ and work ethic to me there is no doubt he's going to get better. In fact by the time training camp ends we're going to see some notable gains from him and payton. Just wait and see, debating who's better doesn't mean anything until the real deal starts and they are playing against REAL nba players. You can't get too high and too low, i mean Dwight was terrible in summer league and Jeryd Bayless killed summer league, can you see how their careers went? Could anyone have predicted that from Summer League? no, in that case AND in this one only time will tell.

[shinoff2183]

Now that I'm thinking about it more, I think what we should have done was grab Exum at 4, draft and stash Saric/Payton (If we drafted Exum early, I highly doubt 6ers would have taken Payton), then next years draft its a big man draft so we pick up our big then.

Thats what I was hoping for as well that we did. Draft exum and get a big man next year. Now I aint gonna lie I know next to nothing of college ball,but I hear there is alot of big man talent coming out. I can honestly say I liked what I seen from payton, gordon on the other hand i felt was underwhelming. Being honest though maybe not picking exum, and picking gordon has left me biased. I hope gordon turns out to be a good player(for the teams sake), and i will reserve complete judgement until he gets some real nba play time.

[Def Swami]

Man Hennigan effed up, don't care what anyone says.

Exum is ready to play right now, not weak with the ball when he gets pressured, stupid quicks, vision... got damn you don't pass this dude to pick Aaron Gordon.

As far as the we have Payton "cushion" to fall back on to make us feel better, yeah look, Payton is a really nice PG who realistically has to work on more things than Exum although his defensive accumen is ahead of Exum but I honestly could go either way with getting elite D from the PG spot cause at 6'6" he's gonna have height and length advantages and maybe even a speed advantage.

And btw peeps glomming onto Gordon being 18, Exum just turned 19 right now (early AM) so that isn't a good crutch either.

Henny messed up, no 2 ways about it, he got some good players who'll need a little more work (namely Payton) and alot of more work (namely Gordon) than the #5 pick.

What did Exum do that Payton didn't show? On offense they were really similar. Good vision, nice passing, unselfish, hesitant to shoot, both like to penetrate and find open teammates. And yes, Elfrid gets after on defense.

Exum looked good, but I watched that game as intently as the next person and came away still comfortable with Elfrid Payton as our PG of the future.

[Blue_and_Whte]

People are just impatient and with the hype Exum got and the number of people who pretend they know more than professional scouts and GMs we'll, see more and more clowns bashing Gordon based on **** summer league games. Payton >>>>>> exum so it doesnt really matter. When Gordon develops his jumper which imo is his only significant weakness and not broken Exum will be even less significant.

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[cedric76]

Wait till exum face a decent pg

[AddiFB]

Should we have drafted this guy or the other guy?

Who cares now? The draft is over, we got three VERY promising guys and lets just enjoy what's to come.

No matter the opinions or how much we debate on it, it won't change that we have Gordon (who I like a lot), Payton (who's rising fast in my fav Magic player list) and Marble (who can flat out play ball) and we don't have Exum or other guys.

Watch them grow, support the team. It makes things easier