2018/19 ROY/Rookie Discussion Thread

[HotelVitale]

Trae Young better start knocking down three's soon. It's his biggest strength and it is a huge concern that he has been abysmal shooting from range in preseason and summer league.

IMO, Trey Young's biggest strength is his passing and shot creation for others. He wasn't an efficient shooter in college and I don't expect him to be in the NBA. If his shooting efficiency develops over his career, that will be a bonus. He needs to be enough of a shooting threat off the dribble to put pressure on the defense and set up his penetration and passing, and to able to efficiently knock down open catch and shoot looks. But he isn't "Curry Lite" and I think it's a mistake to expect him to play as if he is.

This exactly. His biggest strength is to run the offense and his passing and vision.

Young actually was an efficient shooter in college--even with his bad second half of the season he still scored at about 59% TS, which is right about where Curry was at his last NCAA season (though Curry shot 64% TS the year before). That's great for a high volume player.

I have no idea if he'll be able to keep that up in the NBA but people shouldn't start thinking of his last season as meaningless chucking. Even with him taking a ton of bad shots he ended up being very efficient for a high-volume guy with weak teammates.

[kg01]

Trae is a lot like Mike Conley. Boy body in a mans league. As he gets stronger, his game will blossom. Might look rough for a couple of seasons though and will likely get laughs and “bust” talk but I think in the end, he will be a top notch point guard.

Our coach was asked about the Curry comparisons and he rejected that notion. He said the guy he'd compare Young to was Conley for similar reasons as you mentioned. Interesting that you came up with the same comp.

Despite fans' loud criticism, they do not intend for him to be some high-volume scorer. They're pushing his development more towards a Conley/Nash role where he's facilitating and is capable of getting to the basket/knock down open shots. (And 'no' I'm not saying Conley and Nash are the same type of player.)

The fact that Young's shot isn't falling isn't great but the main takeaway is what type of shots he's taking. They seem to feel that, based on his skillset, the results will improve shot-wise. As long as he's taking good shots, nothing to be concerned about at this point.

I agree the arc will go as you suggested. Early struggle, will get called a bust. Will probably improve as he acclimates to game speed and as he gets stronger.

[ellobo]

IMO, Trey Young's biggest strength is his passing and shot creation for others. He wasn't an efficient shooter in college and I don't expect him to be in the NBA. If his shooting efficiency develops over his career, that will be a bonus. He needs to be enough of a shooting threat off the dribble to put pressure on the defense and set up his penetration and passing, and to able to efficiently knock down open catch and shoot looks. But he isn't "Curry Lite" and I think it's a mistake to expect him to play as if he is.

This exactly. His biggest strength is to run the offense and his passing and vision.

Young actually was an efficient shooter in college--even with his bad second half of the season he still scored at about 59% TS, which is right about where Curry was at his last NCAA season (though Curry shot 64% TS the year before). That's great for a high volume player.

I have no idea if he'll be able to keep that up in the NBA but people shouldn't start thinking of his last season as meaningless chucking. Even with him taking a ton of bad shots he ended up being very efficient for a high-volume guy with weak teammates.

Young's TS% was inflated by 8.6 free throw attempts per game (and 9.3 in conference), which speaks more to his penetration ability than his shooting. For instance, his eFG% in conference was 47.8%. Curry's career NCAA eFG% was 57.8%.

Not trying to dump on Young's shooting, just making the point that that's what a lot of people seem to fixate on with him, and judge him on, but I don't think it is really his main strength as player.

[HotelVitale]

Young's TS% was inflated by 8.6 free throw attempts per game (and 9.3 in conference), which speaks more to his penetration ability than his shooting. For instance, his eFG% in conference was 47.8%. Curry's career NCAA eFG% was 57.8%. Not trying to dump on Young's shooting, just making the point that that's what a lot of people seem to fixate on with him, and judge him on, but I don't think it is really his main strength as player.

A) You're sliding in conference play vs overall with the efg% thing, which people always do and which I don't think is fair; OU played good teams in non-conference play and Young just happened to be hot then and colder later (and defenses swarmed him more). Young's efg% was 52% overall last season and Curry's was 54% his last college season.
B) I think of FTs as part of efficient shooting--it's a way of using a possession and it's certainly an efficient shot, and it's a major talent/skill to be able to draw them. Also tends to transfer well from NCAA to pros.

I'm definitely not saying Young is comparable to Curry--I'm not particularly high on Young as a NBA prospect--just that he was indeed efficient last season, and the volume+efficiency he put was a rare achievement.

[ellobo]

Young's TS% was inflated by 8.6 free throw attempts per game (and 9.3 in conference), which speaks more to his penetration ability than his shooting. For instance, his eFG% in conference was 47.8%. Curry's career NCAA eFG% was 57.8%. Not trying to dump on Young's shooting, just making the point that that's what a lot of people seem to fixate on with him, and judge him on, but I don't think it is really his main strength as player.

A) You're sliding in conference play vs overall with the efg% thing, which people always do and which I don't think is fair; OU played good teams in non-conference play and Young just happened to be hot then and colder later (and defenses swarmed him more). Young's efg% was 52% overall last season and Curry's was 54% his last college season.
B) I think of FTs as part of efficient shooting--it's a way of using a possession and it's certainly an efficient shot, and it's a major talent/skill to be able to draw them. Also tends to transfer well from NCAA to pros.

I'm definitely not saying Young is comparable to Curry--I'm not particularly high on Young as a NBA prospect--just that he was indeed efficient last season, and the volume+efficiency he put was a rare achievement.

Sounds like we actually agree more than disagree. I also don't think Young is comparable to Curry, but I just don't consider Young's college efficiency to be as high as you do.

A) Sure, I'm obviously sliding in conference play to try to discount Young's hot start to his college career. It's still a big chunk of his college season against representative competition, and the most important part of his season from a team standpoint. So I don't really think it's unfair.

B) Sure, drawing fouls and hitting them at a high rate is important to efficient SCORING. But when it comes to efficient shooting from the field, which is what people seem to be fixating on with Young, I think eFG% addresses that more directly.

[510TWSS]

I can see it but it feels like they’re all so young and unproven that hey can go in a number of different directions.

I dunno about underrated, I think they’re accurately rated.

Bagley may be getting overly dumped on b/c Luka had a good game against non-nba competition so that may be unfair on Bagley.

I’m not sold on Fox being a star but maybe solid started with an outside shot to be an All Star one year. We’ll see but literally he’s gonna have to make strides this year too.

I’m out on WCS he can get paid by the New York’s, Los Angeles’ of the nba as he just wants to get paid. Call it Erick Dampier syndrome.

Hield could be solid but hopefully he ascends and gets better each year similar to Kris Middleton type of player.

You hope Bagley can become a Blake Griffin type athletic hustle type 4 who can defend multiple positions. We’ll see on him.

Literally the entire starting 5 is all within 2-3 years in the league. Tons of questions to answer so while I can see some of the hate obfuscating the truth we honestly don’t know if these guys are over or underrated just yet.

On Fox I'm actually not that high, but Bagley and Giles have star potential in my opinion (not superstar, star), and Bogdanovic has borderline all-star potential. He's really a much, much better player than Fournier for example, who had back to back 17 point seasons on 55 and 57% TS respectively.

That’s fair.

On Bagley it’s interesting b/c he’s very raw on offense but I don’t look at him as a lost cause this year.

His energy and size are good it’s just the skills to pay the bills aren’t there yet. Will be interesting to see his year over year development.

[HotelVitale]

A) Sure, I'm obviously sliding in conference play to try to discount Young's hot start to his college career. It's still a big chunk of his college season against representative competition, and the most important part of his season from a team standpoint. So I don't really think it's unfair.

It's choosing one part of a sample instead of another and I don't see any reason for that here; the sample of a single college season is already too small and we shouldn't pitch one part away without good reason (e.g. if a player was clearly injured for one part of a season, or if the player was playing against terrible D-3 comp or something the whole time). I get wanting to be skeptical of Young's hot streak but also doesn't seem more fair to be skeptical of that than of his worst 10-game streak. Better to take the whole sample rather than put in artificial limits to it.

[ellobo]

A) Sure, I'm obviously sliding in conference play to try to discount Young's hot start to his college career. It's still a big chunk of his college season against representative competition, and the most important part of his season from a team standpoint. So I don't really think it's unfair.

It's choosing one part of a sample instead of another and I don't see any reason for that here; the sample of a single college season is already too small and we shouldn't pitch one part away without good reason (e.g. if a player was clearly injured for one part of a season, or if the player was playing against terrible D-3 comp or something the whole time). I get wanting to be skeptical of Young's hot streak but also doesn't seem more fair to be skeptical of that than of his worst 10-game streak. Better to take the whole sample rather than put in artificial limits to it.

That makes sense if you're just looking at the numbers (by the way, you cherry-picked a smaller sample size in an earlier post by citing Curry's last year, which was his least efficient, instead of his best year or whole career). But watching Young's season and seeing him start out hitting bombs that you couldn't believe he was taking, much less making (the source of the Curry comparisons), and then seeing the year go on and defenses adjust and the same shots stop falling at the same rate, it makes you (meaning ME) wonder what is the more representative sample.

Also, he played 18 games in conference, more than half his season, and the conference season is a defined competitive period, so it's not like cherry-picking his worst 10-game stretch.

[islanders11040]

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[Sactowndog]

Sacramento's young core is sooo underrated.

Didn’t you know bagging on the Kings is in. Apparently you missed the memo. Giles and Bagley both appear to have good IQ and when they play more with Bogi and Beli I think all 4 will look better.

[sleepyvato]

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[UcanUwill]

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Monster. He was one of the top prospects that I didn't like all that much. I liked him better than Bagley, but not as much as JJJ. Looks like consensus was right tho, living up to number one pick status.

[peZt]

Read on Twitter

Monster. He was one of the top prospects that I didn't like all that much. I liked him better than Bagley, but not as much as JJJ. Looks like consensus was right tho, living up to number one pick status.

No knock against you but in general it was so freaking annoying how every little negative thing about Ayton was pushed up while the negative aspects of other prospects were ignored almost as if some agenda was going on.

You see it this preseason as well. For example with Doncic. He has one successful drive to the basket and everybody is like "whoa see how good he is, he's not even that slow, the Hawks will regret passing on him, Suns are stupid for picking Ayton #1 etc. etc"
But nobody mentions the several times where he couldn't get past his defender without a PnR and had to settle for a step back 3 of which he bricked a few ones.
But god forbid Ayton misses an open rebound. Then there's red flags all over the place

[UcanUwill]

Read on Twitter

Monster. He was one of the top prospects that I didn't like all that much. I liked him better than Bagley, but not as much as JJJ. Looks like consensus was right tho, living up to number one pick status.

No knock against you but it was so freaking annoying how every little negative thing about Ayton was hyped up while the negative aspects of other prospects were ignored just to push some agenda.

You see it this preseason as well. For example with Doncic. He has one successful drive to the basket and everybody is like "whoa see how good he is, he's not even that slow, the Hawks will regret passing on him, Suns are stupid for picking Ayton #1 etc. etc"
But nobody mentions the several times where he couldn't get past his defender without a PnR and had to settle for a step back 3 of which he bricked a few ones.
But god forbid Ayton misses an open rebound. Then there's red flags all over the place

Ayton was more of the target for such stuff, because he was projected to go first all year, this always happens. Not to mention all that no place for old school bigmen narrative is just something every traditional big has to deal with nowadays. But we had tons of Doncic, Bagley and Young haters all year. Doncic is RealGM darling right now, I guess because a lot of posters havent watched him play in europe, so he is basically a fresh piece of a*s lol.
Ayton wasn't my favorite prospect, but to be fair its a very strong class, at least it looks like. Ayton is playing even better than he did in college, which wasn't anticipated.

[jsierra1985]

Ayton no doubt about it

[Hesh]

It's still happening right now. There's more talk about every other prospect (most of all, Doncic) and ZERO on Ayton. He's been beasting through his first 4 game's with a recent win against GSW where he was posting up and facing up Durant on 2 seperate plays AND connecting on both shots, as a rookie!!

When Doncic had his first game against the Ducks, twitter went wild. Aytons first game? Twitter was silent. Maybe because Ayton had a good game? Because had he not, you can bet there would be more chatter about him. It's as though people don't want him to be worthy of that #1 pick.

For people who watched the mavs game, Doncic almost had 7 TO's, but ended up with 4. 3 of his passes were deflected but recovered by his teammates. I'm not saying this to disregard him as a great prospect because I want him to be great, after all we're all watching the NBA to be entertained. But as a poster mentioned above me, no one criticizes Doncic, only praises. Quite the opposite with Ayton.

[jsierra1985]

ayton will be at least a 20/10 player for the suns....book will make him look even better...the suns just desperately need a PG to make things really click

[Bob8]

It's still happening right now. There's more talk about every other prospect (most of all, Doncic) and ZERO on Ayton. He's been beasting through his first 4 game's with a recent win against GSW where he was posting up and facing up KD on 2 seperate plays AND connecting on both shots, as a rookie!!

When Doncic had his first game against the Ducks, twitter went wild. Aytons first game? Twitter was silent. Maybe because Ayton had a good game? Because had he not, you can bet there would be more chatter about him. It's as though people don't want him to be worthy of that #1 pick.

For people who watched the mavs game, Doncic almost had 7 TO's, but ended up with 4. 3 of his passes were deflected but recovered by his teammates. I'm not saying this to disregard him as a great prospect because I want him to be great, after all we're all watching the NBA to be entertained. But as a poster mentioned above me, no one criticizes Doncic, only praises. Quite the opposite with Ayton.

and he could have 5 assists more if his teammates had better night and anybody except Barea would have catch his pass in the corner. This lucky/unlucky situations will equal up in the season. so saying he almost had 7 TO’s is a bit funny. He almost had 25/10 game too, he just unlucky missed his shots. I believe no rookie should be criticized this early in the season, some stars had bad preseason games too, so what. Luka is obviously behind in his body conditioning, in reality he didn’t even have much time to improve there after playing 20 months nonstop till end of June. On the other hand he’s in front in some other aspects of the game. we will see in 3-5 years, who will be great, good or bad Nba player. But if you insist, I’m 100% sure Luka has much more haters than Ayton. Just go to the net and you will see what I’m talking about. Fat, slow, cannot shoot, he will be killed in D. and ofense...

[Wilfried]

ayton will be at least a 20/10 player for the suns....book will make him look even better...the suns just desperately need a PG to make things really click

He's the most old school center I've seen in the last 15+ seasons.

Very interested to see how he pans out in this 'new era' of small ball

He can get to 20/10 easily apparently. But will he win games for the Suns and will they be better/worse with him on the court?

[jsierra1985]

ayton will be at least a 20/10 player for the suns....book will make him look even better...the suns just desperately need a PG to make things really click

He's the most old school center I've seen in the last 15+ seasons.

Very interested to see how he pans out in this 'new era' of small ball

He can get to 20/10 easily apparently. But will he win games for the Suns and will they be better/worse with him on the court?

with ayton I see them at around 35 wins....if they can somehow find a proven PG to run this offense...possibly sneak into the playoffs?....I think they would be better then the wolves...