Game 55: Houston Rockets (30-22) @ Phoenix Suns (11-43) - 9:00 PM ET

[Scutt]

He's still quite a bit better than our last two solid rookies, Ayton and Booker...far more efficient than either, higher PER by a long shot, even better WS/48 despite us barely having any wins. http://bkref.com/tiny/1SVD4

There are frustrating things about him, but he still provides elite numbers in some things. Plenty of things to work on but most rookies are terrible....he's still better than all but 1 or 2 rookies.

Yeah but the two other guys in that stat sheet were not #1 overall picks or close to it so there will be different expectations for them. Ayton was hollering about how he deserves to be the #1 pick and how he easily the best player of the draft and all that in the pre draft process but has yet to show it or live up to that potential.

Overall, he’s not having a bad season. But guess I just had too high of expectations of the #1 pick.

In recent games, he’s had juicy match ups yet has been outplayed by guys like Kenneth Faried.

All true points

He's hardly having a bad season. In fact, he's a significantly better rookie than Amare was (points, rebounds, assists, turnovers, FG%, TS%) on essentially the same USG%. But there's a few reasons why nobody basically nobody talks about Ayton and why Amare was the talk of the NBA. The most obvious reason and most recently is because of Luka, who's clearly the best rookie since probably Blake.

The other reason was that Amare was an absolutely feared figure in the league by the time he's played a couple of NBA games. He was posterising guys bigger than him; he was feared and he was fearless. He had the mindset that he was just going to dunk everything because the rest of his game wasn't as developed. That's reflected by his ridiculously high Free Throw Rate.

I don't get that same feeling at all from Ayton. He doesn't dunk with authority consistently and he doesn't get the FT line. Amare had almost triple the FTr as Ayton with probably 70% of the offensive polish. I also don't feel like he plays like he's one of the most athletic 7'1 250lb big man in the league. Like when I watch him, he rarely does things which I feel are out of the ordinary of an above average athletic big in the league. I talked about this before when talking about ROY but part of being the best rookie is having a highlight reel in your portfolio, I really don't think Ayton has an extensive one at all.

And like you mentioned, he was outplayed by 6'8 'big man' who was bought out like two weeks ago. If we had Faried and he was outplayed by Ayton on the other team, we would be like oh but Ayton is a 7'1 beast, of course Faried didn't stand much of a chance.

All that wear and tear of dunking sure didn't help Amares knees. Maybe it isn't such a bad thing that Ayton is not that type of player, especially considering he can put up significantly better numbers without needing all that effort. Some of you guys really need to chill out on Ayton. He is not perfect by any means, but he is having a great rookie season and is just oozing potential. I get that Doncic is playing really well, but the way some of you post on here, one would think Ayton is like the 2nd Anthony Bennett.

[lilfishi22]

Yeah but the two other guys in that stat sheet were not #1 overall picks or close to it so there will be different expectations for them. Ayton was hollering about how he deserves to be the #1 pick and how he easily the best player of the draft and all that in the pre draft process but has yet to show it or live up to that potential.

Overall, he’s not having a bad season. But guess I just had too high of expectations of the #1 pick.

In recent games, he’s had juicy match ups yet has been outplayed by guys like Kenneth Faried.

All true points

He's hardly having a bad season. In fact, he's a significantly better rookie than Amare was (points, rebounds, assists, turnovers, FG%, TS%) on essentially the same USG%. But there's a few reasons why nobody basically nobody talks about Ayton and why Amare was the talk of the NBA. The most obvious reason and most recently is because of Luka, who's clearly the best rookie since probably Blake.

The other reason was that Amare was an absolutely feared figure in the league by the time he's played a couple of NBA games. He was posterising guys bigger than him; he was feared and he was fearless. He had the mindset that he was just going to dunk everything because the rest of his game wasn't as developed. That's reflected by his ridiculously high Free Throw Rate.

I don't get that same feeling at all from Ayton. He doesn't dunk with authority consistently and he doesn't get the FT line. Amare had almost triple the FTr as Ayton with probably 70% of the offensive polish. I also don't feel like he plays like he's one of the most athletic 7'1 250lb big man in the league. Like when I watch him, he rarely does things which I feel are out of the ordinary of an above average athletic big in the league. I talked about this before when talking about ROY but part of being the best rookie is having a highlight reel in your portfolio, I really don't think Ayton has an extensive one at all.

And like you mentioned, he was outplayed by 6'8 'big man' who was bought out like two weeks ago. If we had Faried and he was outplayed by Ayton on the other team, we would be like oh but Ayton is a 7'1 beast, of course Faried didn't stand much of a chance.

All that wear and tear of dunking sure didn't help Amares knees. Maybe it isn't such a bad thing that Ayton is not that type of player, especially considering he can put up significantly better numbers without needing all that effort. Some of you guys really need to chill out on Ayton. He is not perfect by any means, but he is having a great rookie season and is just oozing potential. I get that Doncic is playing really well, but the way some of you post on here, one would think Ayton is like the 2nd Anthony Bennett.

Maybe there's some correlation but correlation does not imply correlation. It could be that Amare just had genetically bad knees which would eventually lead to MF surgery. Nobody is saying Ayton is the 2nd AB. Everyone here has said that he's productive but in relation to his athleticism, his draft position and what he himself said - about being the best rookie, it just doesn't add up.