E-Balla wrote:No one said he's bad. I said he's a good rookie. Not a good player. That doesn't mean he's bad it means he's decent. This happens every year. People conflate rookies doing legitimately impressive things for a 19 year old with playing winning basketball. Last year it was Mitchell people were gushing about. As it is now Luka is a good scorer, bad defender, and he turns the ball over tons. No stat you can point to would paint him as an above average starter because he isn't. He's an average player, which at 19 is rare (I mean look at Young - he's impressive and literally one of the worst players in the league).
Ayton is beyond that level already. He's basically Amare already.
Look, i see you're not watching Mavs games, so there is basically zero logic debating with you. But i'll just answer this.
Us who actually do watch every game, we pretty much know what his weaknesses are and strengths. They rely heavily on him, there is a reason why he plays so many minutes and has one of the highest USG% among rookies.
You're saying he is a bad defender, which is again, ignorant to say the least. Average player? He is the best player on a 9-9 team with playoffs hopes at 19yo, well then... call him average.
His TO's mostly come from adjusting to the NBA rules. Which are travels and sometimes he even carries the ball. Or when he tries to lob pass it to DJ. I mean those are not really bad TO's, just simply adjusting to the NBA. He is also cutting those TO down a lot lately. But i guess you didn't notice that either. I mean Harden and other top guys look like they are going for record numbers in TO's but no one complains about that, right? And i see that they don't have much more wins than the Mavs either.
Young is far from being impressive. He is a great passes, no doubt, but other than that, he was terrible so far. TO machine who actually plays ZERO defense. Almost cost them a 100% win game against Hornets with his poor shot selection and a blew up layup. Sexton is much more impressive than Young so far.
And don't get me started about Ayton. I watch every PHX game because they are my 2nd favorite team for like 20 years now and there is a huge gap between him and Luka, but not in Ayton's favor. His stats look good yea, but actually watching him play will paint you another picture. For a center who is suppose to be a rim protector, he does piss poor job. His effort and energy kick in every 3rd game when someone wakes him up. When he gets the ball in his hands down low, he often runs away from the challenge and passes it out to some guy and completely ruins their shot clock management in the process. There is also a reason why Booker is getting more and more angry at him during the games.
Not everything is black and white and just box score. You actually need to watch games in order to give fair judgement. No rookie so far has been perfect, far from that, but your takes on those 3 are seriously flawed.
