Dennis Smith, Jr. Thread

[DOT]

Dotson and Trier are interesting examples related to my "players need to develop" post, which I did before I saw a few others said the same thing (should have kept reading). So, as 4 and 3 year players - Dotson was 4, right? I forget - they should be "further along" than a DSJr/Frank/Knox. And I'd say they were and are - or maybe Trier and year 1 DSJr were close enough? But in spite of being "older" college guys - you can see that Dotson needed to adjust to the NBA and Trier, while flashing certain "NBA ready right now" skills, also needs work. Yes, comparing a mid 2nd rounder and UDFA guy to first rounders, but the first round guys went higher in part based on perceived and hoped for upsides as rated by scouts and FO's.

In any event, rambling a bit, but Dotson is a good example of having to need to wait a minute or two on players, as Dotson in year 2 looks much better than year 1. While having a longer college career and being 3-4 years older.

Little off topic, but it's part of the reason I don't mind the two max cats coming. Sure, they'll hurt draft position, if a person is an advocate of some more time in the tank/young talent acquisition through the draft, but at this point if we are only spending cash and wind up drafting in the mid 20's instead of around 8th - last two drafts before this one - I'll take that, so the young guys get another year of development, with less pressure and with better players to help elevate their games.

Dotson was in college for 5 years, actually. Missed his entire 3rd season due to transferring because of the rape allegations

At the age DSJ is right now, actually that was the year he missed, but he shot 31% from 3 the year before. Assuming his percentage would have split what it was the next year, he still would have only been a 33, 34% shooter. He didn't start knocking down shots until his 5th year, which would be next year for DSJ, and even then, it still took Dot a year to adjust to the NBA, which would be in 3, 4 years for DSJ and Frank, or 5 years for Knox

Of course, we already know what Dotson can do, and it's up to Frank, Knox, and to an extent DSJ to progress in the next few years, but it's a pretty big age gap.If Dotson had come out after his freshman year, nobody would have waited 6, 7 years for him to get his shot down.

Dotson was a freshman in college at the age Knox is now. It makes perfect sense he's more developed. Also, Knox is just really young in general. Kids need like, 2, 3 years minimum to just develop at that age

Exactly. And my point is, Dotson is older, with more years of bball under his belt at some kind of high level, and even he progressed after a year - meaning, even the older guys need to adjust to the NBA and in general. And I bet he looks a little better next year too.

NBA needs like, an actual farm system

I think most players would benefit from having a couple of years to develop in a minor league. Not make it so that everyone goes through it like the MLB, but like how in hockey you have to be insanely good to start playing in the NHL right away, and most guys take a year or two to play in the AHL or a different league before going up to the major league

There's obvious exceptions, like, Zion will be ready to go day one, Towns and Ayton come to mind too, but there are a lot of guys who need more seasoning. Knox and Frank are perfect examples of that. Not really good enough to play, but they get thrown in to the fire cause there's no better way to get them to develop

There really shouldn't be a reason most guys aren't sent to the G League right away. It'd probably help the league grow if you could say, I'll go down and catch a G League game, see the kid we just drafted in the first round instead of, nobody on this team is making it on to the roster, why should I care about them?

Boost ticket sales, get G League jerseys going, all that good stuff. Make it so that if a player spends a certain amount of time in the G League for his first two years it doesn't take a year off his contract or something (cause I doubt the NBAPA would go for that, gives teams an extra 2 years of control without giving the players anything), but that's for smarter people than me to figure out

[thebuzzardman]

Dotson was in college for 5 years, actually. Missed his entire 3rd season due to transferring because of the rape allegations

At the age DSJ is right now, actually that was the year he missed, but he shot 31% from 3 the year before. Assuming his percentage would have split what it was the next year, he still would have only been a 33, 34% shooter. He didn't start knocking down shots until his 5th year, which would be next year for DSJ, and even then, it still took Dot a year to adjust to the NBA, which would be in 3, 4 years for DSJ and Frank, or 5 years for Knox

Of course, we already know what Dotson can do, and it's up to Frank, Knox, and to an extent DSJ to progress in the next few years, but it's a pretty big age gap.If Dotson had come out after his freshman year, nobody would have waited 6, 7 years for him to get his shot down.

Dotson was a freshman in college at the age Knox is now. It makes perfect sense he's more developed. Also, Knox is just really young in general. Kids need like, 2, 3 years minimum to just develop at that age

Exactly. And my point is, Dotson is older, with more years of bball under his belt at some kind of high level, and even he progressed after a year - meaning, even the older guys need to adjust to the NBA and in general. And I bet he looks a little better next year too.

NBA needs like, an actual farm system

I think most players would benefit from having a couple of years to develop in a minor league. Not make it so that everyone goes through it like the MLB, but like how in hockey you have to be insanely good to start playing in the NHL right away, and most guys take a year or two to play in the AHL or a different league before going up to the major league

There's obvious exceptions, like, Zion will be ready to go day one, Towns and Ayton come to mind too, but there are a lot of guys who need more seasoning. Knox and Frank are perfect examples of that. Not really good enough to play, but they get thrown in to the fire cause there's no better way to get them to develop

There really shouldn't be a reason most guys aren't sent to the G League right away. It'd probably help the league grow if you could say, I'll go down and catch a G League game, see the kid we just drafted in the first round instead of, nobody on this team is making it on to the roster, why should I care about them?

Boost ticket sales, get G League jerseys going, all that good stuff. Make it so that if a player spends a certain amount of time in the G League for his first two years it doesn't take a year off his contract or something (cause I doubt the NBAPA would go for that, gives teams an extra 2 years of control without giving the players anything), but that's for smarter people than me to figure out

Funny you say that, about the farm system. I was thinking of typing that up.
It's kind of an issue. Guys want to be pros, get paid, but really aren't ready half the time, at 18/19

[awy]

can shorten club controlled rookie deal to 3 years, but with a 2 year developmental period that can be used in the gleague and does not burn nba time. rookies still get paid the same but it counts as half against the cap for the time spent in gleague.

need a mechanism for forced promotion of the elite guys tho, but clubs probably dont want to burn that bridge.

i assess the chance of this being agreed to by small market owners without additional ways to tie down big players to be 0.

[NY 567]

Smith Jr has a fairly large body of work in the NBA so far, "this poster" isn't writing him off after a mere few games. He's nothing special as a prospect. I dig the cap space and the chance at KD and Irving, although it could backfire badly it was worth the shot if KP was gone no matter what, but Smith Jr ain't the guy

With the Knicks?!

Nothing special?! Didn't you start this convo.off by criticizing others for their "hot takes?"

Who said anything about DSJ being "the guy."

We've never really seen you around these parts, and yet you pop in with your own hot takes, dismiss everyone else, and make **** up about what's posted here.

We usually call that TROLLING!

--Mags

I read through many of the post game threads and other threads, and people got pretty excited over Smith Jrs first couple of games and said some pretty silly things. He's not that good. He's honestly not even better than Mudiay who gets shat on all the time around here. I made an observation and stated my opinion, to call that trolling seems pretty irresponsible.

[blueNorange]

i bet there's some out there who think dsj is untouchable.

dude can be had for a mid first rounder.

[magnumt]

i bet there's some out there who think dsj is untouchable.

dude can be had for a mid first rounder.

Nah, late lotto at least. No need to sell him short. He’s just a SOPHOMORE in the League and has shown he can run a team well. Get him some shooters or teach him to shoot and he becomes untouchable.

Westbrook is a crappy shooter, as is Rondo. You wouldn’t give away them in their Rookie deal years.

—Mags

[Garbagelo]

i bet there's some out there who think dsj is untouchable.

dude can be had for a mid first rounder.

his value dwindles by the day

what was Mudiay's value?

never mind

[taj2133]

Dennis Smith Jr. (sore lower back) will not play on Monday vs. the Raptors.
This sets up Emmanuel Mudiay for another massive workload and he had one of his best games of the season on Sunday with 28 points, eight dimes and three triples in 33 minutes. The Knicks play three more times this week after tonight, but DSJ doesn't have enough upside for fantasy owners to wait around on. Kadeem Allen will handle the backup PG duties.
https://www.rotoworld.com/sports/nba/basketball

[thebuzzardman]

Mudiay > DSJr

[Spree2Houston]

You begin to understand why Frank was taken ahead of him in the draft

[SARGO127]

DSJ should be traded. I don’t see a future for him in NY.

[B8RcDeMktfxC]

Frank as he is now would have been decent in the NBA 15-20 years ago. All he would need is a 3 point shot and he could be a poor man's Bruce Bowen. Nowadays though with how athletic and fast the league is and with so many two way players and offensive minded point guards, being great at just defense and very mediocre at offense won't cut it. If he was more athletic I think he'd get more time to develop. I just can't see him sticking around in the NBA for much longer. Maybe some time in the G league or back in europe would be good for him, allow him to develop his offensive skills and build his confidence.

I hear that you and your band have sold your guitars (Frank) and bought turntables (DSJ).

You begin to understand why Frank was taken ahead of him in the draft

DSJ should be traded. I don’t see a future for him in NY.

I hear that you and your band have sold your turntables (DSJ) and bought guitars (Frank).

Frank is gone. They're all gone.

I hear you're buying a synthesizer (KD) and an arpeggiator (KI) and are throwing your computer (KP) out the window because you want to make something real. You want to make a Yaz record (a Yaz record).

[B8RcDeMktfxC]

Dotson and Trier are interesting examples related to my "players need to develop" post, which I did before I saw a few others said the same thing (should have kept reading). So, as 4 and 3 year players - Dotson was 4, right? I forget - they should be "further along" than a DSJr/Frank/Knox. And I'd say they were and are - or maybe Trier and year 1 DSJr were close enough? But in spite of being "older" college guys - you can see that Dotson needed to adjust to the NBA and Trier, while flashing certain "NBA ready right now" skills, also needs work. Yes, comparing a mid 2nd rounder and UDFA guy to first rounders, but the first round guys went higher in part based on perceived and hoped for upsides as rated by scouts and FO's.

In any event, rambling a bit, but Dotson is a good example of having to need to wait a minute or two on players, as Dotson in year 2 looks much better than year 1. While having a longer college career and being 3-4 years older.

Dotson was in college for 5 years, actually. Missed his entire 3rd season due to transferring because of the rape allegations

At the age DSJ is right now, actually that was the year he missed, but he shot 31% from 3 the year before. Assuming his percentage would have split what it was the next year, he still would have only been a 33, 34% shooter. He didn't start knocking down shots until his 5th year, which would be next year for DSJ, and even then, it still took Dot a year to adjust to the NBA, which would be in 3, 4 years for DSJ and Frank, or 5 years for Knox

Of course, we already know what Dotson can do, and it's up to Frank, Knox, and to an extent DSJ to progress in the next few years, but it's a pretty big age gap.If Dotson had come out after his freshman year, nobody would have waited 6, 7 years for him to get his shot down.

Dotson was a freshman in college at the age Knox is now. It makes perfect sense he's more developed. Also, Knox is just really young in general. Kids need like, 2, 3 years minimum to just develop at that age

It may be that "Dotson in year 2 looks much better than year 1", but a decent part of that is because in year 1 he was so badly used by Jeff (and imo ditto by Flat in the first couple of months at least of this year).

But the points both of you are making about apples to oranges comparison between Dot being a 24 year old rookie or whatever and Knox at barely 19 is worth repeating because it is so frequently ignored, or stepped aside from, here.

[blueNorange]

i bet there's some out there who think dsj is untouchable.

dude can be had for a mid first rounder.

Nah, late lotto at least. No need to sell him short. He’s just a SOPHOMORE in the League and has shown he can run a team well. Get him some shooters or teach him to shoot and he becomes untouchable.

Westbrook is a crappy shooter, as is Rondo. You wouldn’t give away them in their Rookie deal years.

—Mags

late lotto?

he's shown nothing so far. you see it with players whether they have the "it" factor.

dsj doesn't have it
frank doesn't have it
knox doesn't have it
mitchell robinson DOES have it

we watch games to see what mitchell does, nobody watches what dsj is gonna do. that lasted 3-4 games.

[B8RcDeMktfxC]

Exactly. And my point is, Dotson is older, with more years of bball under his belt at some kind of high level, and even he progressed after a year - meaning, even the older guys need to adjust to the NBA and in general. And I bet he looks a little better next year too.

NBA needs like, an actual farm system

I think most players would benefit from having a couple of years to develop in a minor league. Not make it so that everyone goes through it like the MLB, but like how in hockey you have to be insanely good to start playing in the NHL right away, and most guys take a year or two to play in the AHL or a different league before going up to the major league

There's obvious exceptions, like, Zion will be ready to go day one, Towns and Ayton come to mind too, but there are a lot of guys who need more seasoning. Knox and Frank are perfect examples of that. Not really good enough to play, but they get thrown in to the fire cause there's no better way to get them to develop

There really shouldn't be a reason most guys aren't sent to the G League right away. It'd probably help the league grow if you could say, I'll go down and catch a G League game, see the kid we just drafted in the first round instead of, nobody on this team is making it on to the roster, why should I care about them?

Boost ticket sales, get G League jerseys going, all that good stuff. Make it so that if a player spends a certain amount of time in the G League for his first two years it doesn't take a year off his contract or something (cause I doubt the NBAPA would go for that, gives teams an extra 2 years of control without giving the players anything), but that's for smarter people than me to figure out

Funny you say that, about the farm system. I was thinking of typing that up.
It's kind of an issue. Guys want to be pros, get paid, but really aren't ready half the time, at 18/19

Two quick comments.

The first thing that is scheduled to happen is that one-and-done will finish and teams will be drafting 18 year olds. So the problems with teams drafting on perceived longer term value and not having patience to wait for that value to develop (stock exchange capitalism anyone?) will presumably get worse rather than better.

A real farm system would help address that. But not just send draftees 7-60 to the G league for 2 years or whatever. The league would need to really go after/break the NCAA - make a farm system with tiers, offer salaries to a LOT of players who would currently go to NCAA Div 1, & not allow teams to draft from NCAA (or some weaker, but still strong disincentivization). That also helps with the Dot x Kev experience conundrum.

[B8RcDeMktfxC]

i bet there's some out there who think dsj is untouchable.

dude can be had for a mid first rounder.

Nah, late lotto at least. No need to sell him short. He’s just a SOPHOMORE in the League and has shown he can run a team well. Get him some shooters or teach him to shoot and he becomes untouchable.

Westbrook is a crappy shooter, as is Rondo. You wouldn’t give away them in their Rookie deal years.

—Mags

late lotto?

he's shown nothing so far. you see it with players whether they have the "it" factor.

dsj doesn't have it
frank doesn't have it
knox doesn't have it
mitchell robinson DOES have it

we watch games to see what mitchell does, nobody watches what dsj is gonna do. that lasted 3-4 games.

I'm told that DSJ is very close to Fox. Fox has "it". So DSJ is very close to having "it".

Knox is a strange one. He does have games where he goes on scoring spurts super casually. So it never looks as though he has it, even when if "it" is somewhere buried in him it is peeking through.

[blueNorange]

Nah, late lotto at least. No need to sell him short. He’s just a SOPHOMORE in the League and has shown he can run a team well. Get him some shooters or teach him to shoot and he becomes untouchable.

Westbrook is a crappy shooter, as is Rondo. You wouldn’t give away them in their Rookie deal years.

—Mags

late lotto?

he's shown nothing so far. you see it with players whether they have the "it" factor.

dsj doesn't have it
frank doesn't have it
knox doesn't have it
mitchell robinson DOES have it

we watch games to see what mitchell does, nobody watches what dsj is gonna do. that lasted 3-4 games.

I'm told that DSJ is very close to Fox. Fox has "it". So DSJ is very close to having "it".

Knox is a strange one. He does have games where he goes on scoring spurts super casually. So it never looks as though he has it, even when if "it" is somewhere buried in him it is peeking through.

fox is way better than dsj, as a playmaker/scorer/defense.

dsj can still have a good nba career, but he's easily movable.

it's up to kyrie really if he wants dsj on the team or not.

[Worst_to_First]

You guys have zero patience. That’s why we can’t have nice things.

[Buttah304]

i bet there's some out there who think dsj is untouchable.

dude can be had for a mid first rounder.

Nah, late lotto at least. No need to sell him short. He’s just a SOPHOMORE in the League and has shown he can run a team well. Get him some shooters or teach him to shoot and he becomes untouchable.

Westbrook is a crappy shooter, as is Rondo. You wouldn’t give away them in their Rookie deal years.

—Mags

late lotto?

he's shown nothing so far. you see it with players whether they have the "it" factor.

dsj doesn't have it
frank doesn't have it
knox doesn't have it
mitchell robinson DOES have it

we watch games to see what mitchell does, nobody watches what dsj is gonna do. that lasted 3-4 games.

Question bNo - if DSJ turned into a 40% 3PT shooter what would you think about him? Let’s say his penetration, passing, and defense stays the same. Continues to work on his shooting and turns into a reliable deep treat (similar to Kyle Lowrys trajectory over time) would you then view him as a legitimate starting PG in this league

[blueNorange]

Nah, late lotto at least. No need to sell him short. He’s just a SOPHOMORE in the League and has shown he can run a team well. Get him some shooters or teach him to shoot and he becomes untouchable.

Westbrook is a crappy shooter, as is Rondo. You wouldn’t give away them in their Rookie deal years.

—Mags

late lotto?

he's shown nothing so far. you see it with players whether they have the "it" factor.

dsj doesn't have it
frank doesn't have it
knox doesn't have it
mitchell robinson DOES have it

we watch games to see what mitchell does, nobody watches what dsj is gonna do. that lasted 3-4 games.

Question bNo - if DSJ turned into a 40% 3PT shooter what would you think about him? Let’s say his penetration, passing, and defense stays the same. Continues to work on his shooting and turns into a reliable deep treat (similar to Kyle Lowrys trajectory over time) would you then view him as a legitimate starting PG in this league

do you see the hitch in his shot?

he's never going to be a threat from downtown.