dice wrote:GimmeDat wrote:dice wrote:yes, he's highly athletic. and all draftees have significant potential to continue to improove. obviously
again, it's not disputable that he's highly athletic. nor that he has shooting ability. nor that he has "upside" (which all draftees do)
"chance to jump into the lottery" does not indicate much confidence in a particularly high upside
this is the one reference to how high his potential could be. 'lofty.' oversell? if the opinions of nba front offices are any indication, probably so. unfortunately, we are now "a few years from now" and there is as of yet no indication that he's headed anywhere lofty. particularly after the ACL thing
to reiterate, certainly he could continue to improve offensively. he could even start playing respectable defense. then again, he might never again be as good as he was last season. and the latter scenario might be more likely than the former
an extension for zach lavine is far from an exciting proposition for me. if the reports is true that the FO is already intent on getting that done, god help us.
yeah, let's give garpax a few more years of rope to see if that gamble pays off
the zach plan!
You're clearly being disingenuous by this point dice, I'm questioning why I engaged with you in the first place.
Whether we should extend him or not is a fine debate to have, but to suggest LaVine was not flagged as having high upside, as an example, is just silly. Just because he wasn't a top pick doesn't mean he doesn't have high potential - potential is not the end all be all for teams selecting. Every year boom/bust picks fall in the draft. As I've already pointed out, he went where he did because he barely produced in college.
you gave me one reference to high upside: 'lofty'. that's it. I acknowledged it. so don't accuse me of being disingenuous. because I have no reason to be
again, players with genuinely high upside don't just sneak into the lotto. and plenty of players who don't produce in college still go very high. including some who barely play at all. the reasonable ceiling for Zach lavine has always been good scorer/decent playmaker. which he showed flashes of this past season. and the general reaction when we got acquired him along with a better pick in this past year's draft for a guy who has actually ACHIEVED high upside: "what the **** is this ****?!" and now after the resignation has set in and we try to forget about what we gave up, it's "well, if he stays healthy I guess we've gotta pay the kid big bucks. can't wait around for a real player" BS
just my two cents here: dice, I think you are unintentionally making a "mistake" when saying that LaVine had underwhelming rookie season after being touted as high ceiling project, and that expectations of his potential fell after that, yet he resurrected them with improvement in 2nd and 3rd season (preACL).
In fact, his first season was never considered major disappointment (maybe for those who expected he is going to be better playmaker at 19 years old than Rubio), it only showed he is hardly going to be a full time PG. Nobody realistically expected much from him and he delivered where it was expected. That is definition of high upside guy - one who doesn't necessarily burst onto the scene, but has longer development path, while making big strides season to season. So yes, people had reason to get excited when he was scoring with higher efficiency than Wiggins last two seasons.
As for the Draft being telling, and high upside guys not sneaking into lotto just two distinct and recent examples: 1: Giannis, Leonard - MVP candidates now, exceptional physical specimens who were selected late lottery or even out mostly due to their physical profile and high upside potential, and realized it. With Giannis especially it was public discussion with lot of people probably switching to crow meat for years to come.
Giannis, 1st season: 25min, 7p, 4r, 2a. Leonard: 24min, 8p, 5r, 1a, 1s.
(now, not saying LaVine ever gets to their level, but these are MVP candidates we are talking about)
The other one would be Hamidou Diallo this year, crazy athlete, who didn't get picked only on his physical profile so he switched to 2018. Despite his upside, there were just too much questions around his skill level.