Rui Hachimura

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Heavens no, Zards!! A guy who can score a lot at significantly above average percentages is likely to be a tremendous contributor to wins.

It's really pretty simple: the team with more points on the board when the game ends is the winner. Duh.

But... how do you get more points? There are only two ways: either you shoot better percentages (overall -- i.e. TS%) or you get to take more shots/FTAs, in which case you can win even if you shoot lower percentages -- depending on how many more shots/FTAs you get, obviously.

Only those two things directly affect how many points you put up. I.e. whether you win or lose. If you do both in a game, you can't lose. If you do neither, you can't win. If you do one or the other, you have a chance to win.

Of course, it's not just you -- it's the opponent as well. Every shot you don't let them get to take is one less shot you have to take to win. The lower the % shooting you hold them to via your defensive pressure the lower the % you have to post in order to shoot better than they do.

The more guys you have who, historically, can post a high TS% on high usage the more likely your team is to win games. The more guys you have who get you extra possessions & prevent the opponent from having possessions, the more likely your team is to win games.

Hence, as you say, "rebounding, defense, passing, scoring... they are ALL measures."

[Illmatic12]

I'm not very interested in the question of how many ppg Rui scores.

I'm very interested in how his overall game develops. His defense, his rebounding, his court awareness, his passing, etc.

His 3-point shot as well, of course, but, still, how many points a player scores, Rui or anyone, is not a measure of his game.

PIF, IMO you're absolutely correct that Brandon Clarke would have been the (much better) pick for the Wizards. He's naturally adept at doing the things that help teams win.

Rui will need to be an intense competitor at the defensive end, kind of like DETROIT PISTON Rip Hamilton, if he's to maximize his effectiveness. I can tell Rui's going to get buckets (a la Antawn Jamison). Hachimura seems to me to be like Carmelo Anthony. He can be the lead player on a championship team.

(People forget Carmelo Anthony was a winner at Syracuse and on the Olympic team. I think Rui can be really good.)

I think it’ll be tough for a tiny guy like Clarke to impact the NBA game from a frontcourt position, especially if he can’t shoot.

There are things he does well that will keep him in the league as a rotation guy . But he’s sort of a low ceiling low floor .. meh

[I_Like_Dirt]

Zion is a short guy who can't shoot any better than Clarke and nobody with any basketball awareness is doubting he'll be okay in the NBA. It's absolutely possible to be a star like that provided you find ways to be productive. Clarke finds ways.

I don't think a person needs to doubt either Clarke or Hachimura. They're both good players. Rui probably has more potential because he does some stuff on offense that Clarke will never be able to do and rebounding is slowly being transitioned towards a team role rather than an individual one. Who winds up the better player is anyone's guess but the Wizards should be very excited about Rui. He looks like he might be the second best player on the team as early as sometime this season.

[JWizmentality]

Do you whinny babies need a Brandon Clarke thread? Last I checked this is the RuiNation space. Be Gone thots!!

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Do you whinny babies need a Brandon Clarke thread? Last I checked this is the RuiNation space. Be Gone thots!!

Who you responding to? I_Like_Dirt praised Rui pretty highly, & CCJ... well, lets just say that he's been right more often than most & leave it at that. You might also read his signature....

Above all, we are all very excited & hopeful about Rui Hachimura. The draft is in the past. Did we manage it optimally? Nah. But we did pretty well. Beyond that, we'll all just have to wait & see how everyone turns out.

I'm sure you don't think that the descending order of picks will mirror a descending order of how good players turn out to be! That'd be a first for sure!

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I think it’ll be tough for a tiny guy like Clarke to impact the NBA game from a frontcourt position, especially if he can’t shoot.

There are things he does well that will keep him in the league as a rotation guy. But he’s sort of a low ceiling low floor .. meh

Well, in fairness, you did say "I think...," which is in your favor. &, of course, you may be right!

Still, can you name a few other guys who put up the kind of numbers Clarke did in college & then failed in the league?

At the 4, I can only think of one: Michael Beasley. But, Beasley came out after 1 year & was mostly undone by his own lack of maturity & personal problems. OTOH, I have no trouble naming guys who didn't have the size but were great: Dennis Rodman & Charles Barkley for a couple.

Not to mention that we had an undersized big who couldn't shoot for a while not so long ago. He's in the HOF. The guy with the right size for whom we traded him was out of the league pretty quickly.

Here are a couple of PFs who went in the same draft. One was 6'8.5", the other was under 6'6". The first had 2/3 the body fat percentage of the second. His wingspan was almost 3" greater than the second. His standing reach was similarly greater. Oh, & his hands were much much larger than the second guy's hands. He had a better standing leap than the second guy too. Oh, and the 2d guy shot the 3 at a much lower % in college -- almost 5% lower. Per 40 minutes they scored within 1 point of one another per 40 minutes. But the first had a .632 TS% while the 2d was only at .532.

Between them, who would you have bet on to succeed in the league? Kind of "hard for a tiny guy... to impact the NBA game from a frontcourt position... if he can't shoot," right?

To be less flip for a moment, the high order bit here is pretty simple:

Clarke doing well won't make Rui any worse. Clarke doing badly won't make Rui any better. Or vice versa.

Those 2 guys were teammates; I doubt they spend any time at all putting each other down.

[JWizmentality]

Do you whinny babies need a Brandon Clarke thread? Last I checked this is the RuiNation space. Be Gone thots!!

Who you responding to? I_Like_Dirt praised Rui pretty highly, & CCJ... well, lets just say that he's been right more often than most & leave it at that. You might also read his signature....

Above all, we are all very excited & hopeful about Rui Hachimura. The draft is in the past. Did we manage it optimally? Nah. But we did pretty well. Beyond that, we'll all just have to wait & see how everyone turns out.

I'm sure you don't think that the descending order of picks will mirror a descending order of how good players turn out to be! That'd be a first for sure!

Not responding to anyone in particular. I opened the Rui thread and the first thing I read is "We shoulda picked Brandon! Waaaah!"

Meanwhile neither has played a regular season game.

[prime1time]

I'm not very interested in the question of how many ppg Rui scores.

I'm very interested in how his overall game develops. His defense, his rebounding, his court awareness, his passing, etc.

His 3-point shot as well, of course, but, still, how many points a player scores, Rui or anyone, is not a measure of his game.

The question of how many points Rui scores and how efficiently he does it will be the most important question of his career. We can talk all we want about older NBA players, this NBA is different. In this NBA you have scorers and you have everyone else. Once you players that will score and score efficiently, now you can construct a team around them. Draymond Green is a great player who does a lot of small things. If a team like the Hornets draft Draymond Green or a team like the Suns or a team like the Knicks, Draymond Green would no longer be in the league. Having a guy that does all the other things like defense, rebounding and court awareness become obvious after you have scoring.

Take Boris Diaw. He was cut from the Hornets. Then the Spurs picked him up and he goes on to be a key contributor for a championship team. Do all aspects of Rui's game matter? Of course they do. But as a guy who was mainly a scorer in college and who's best skill is his scoring. I simply struggle to see how he carves out a long term spot on this roster if he can't score effectively. I've seen all his tape, we can find better rebounders, better defenders, better passers etc. Now if he's going to give us scoring then we want obviously want him to develop into a complete player. But if he's not going to be at least 3rd option on a championship caliber team, then it was a failed pick. That's why I focus so much on scoring. Because we didn't draft him for his defense, his rebounding, his court awareness or his passing. So to write multiple posts about those aspects of his game, is like going to a Burger Restaurant and complaining that the chicken parmesan isn't good.

Rui's career will be defined by a simple question, can he score and score effectively. If the answer is no, his career will be a disappointment.

[I_Like_Dirt]

Here are a couple of PFs who went in the same draft. One was 6'8.5", the other was under 6'6". The first had 2/3 the body fat percentage of the second. His wingspan was almost 3" greater than the second. His standing reach was similarly greater. Oh, & his hands were much much larger than the second guy's hands. He had a better standing leap than the second guy too. Oh, and the 2d guy shot the 3 at a much lower % in college -- almost 5% lower. Per 40 minutes they scored within 1 point of one another per 40 minutes. But the first had a .632 TS% while the 2d was only at .532.

To be fair, nobody ever remembers the failures so well as the successes. More than that, we're dealing with a small sample size and really nobody has produced like Clarke did other than Zion. If we're talking about failed PFs on the shorter side that were good in college: Marcus Fizer, Stro Swift, Eddie Griffin, JR Reid. It happens. And people forget because those guys weren't very good.

I happen to like Clarke and don't think he's going to fail. I see he's going to be a unique player who defines his own stardom. I don't think the sample size is really big enough to make sweeping statements. In Clarke's case, I'm not actually sure what else he could have done to convince anyone he's good but so be it.

[Illmatic12]

I think it’ll be tough for a tiny guy like Clarke to impact the NBA game from a frontcourt position, especially if he can’t shoot.

There are things he does well that will keep him in the league as a rotation guy. But he’s sort of a low ceiling low floor .. meh

Well, in fairness, you did say "I think...," which is in your favor. &, of course, you may be right!

Still, can you name a few other guys who put up the kind of numbers Clarke did in college & then failed in the league?

At the 4, I can only think of one: Michael Beasley. But, Beasley came out after 1 year & was mostly undone by his own lack of maturity & personal problems. OTOH, I have no trouble naming guys who didn't have the size but were great: Dennis Rodman & Charles Barkley for a couple.

Not to mention that we had an undersized big who couldn't shoot for a while not so long ago. He's in the HOF. The guy with the right size for whom we traded him was out of the league pretty quickly.

Here are a couple of PFs who went in the same draft. One was 6'8.5", the other was under 6'6". The first had 2/3 the body fat percentage of the second. His wingspan was almost 3" greater than the second. His standing reach was similarly greater. Oh, & his hands were much much larger than the second guy's hands. He had a better standing leap than the second guy too. Oh, and the 2d guy shot the 3 at a much lower % in college -- almost 5% lower. Per 40 minutes they scored within 1 point of one another per 40 minutes. But the first had a .632 TS% while the 2d was only at .532.

Between them, who would you have bet on to succeed in the league? Kind of "hard for a tiny guy... to impact the NBA game from a frontcourt position... if he can't shoot," right?

To be less flip for a moment, the high order bit here is pretty simple:

Clarke doing well won't make Rui any worse. Clarke doing badly won't make Rui any better. Or vice versa.

Those 2 guys were teammates; I doubt they spend any time at all putting each other down.

Problem with those past comparisons is that the NBA is different now, what happened then isn’t totally relevant.

In the *current* league I don’t know what the upside is for a guy like Clarke. Because in the 2019 NBA watch playoff games and you see non-shooters/non-scorers being played off the floor . And there are 7-footers who can switch on D and shoot now so ‘small ball’ is going out of vogue.. why bother , when you can get that same skillset from a bigger guy who also provides more rebounding and length?

To borrow from Draymond “there are 82 game players and there are 16-game players” .. if Clarke doesn’t really improve the jumpshot he’s not a 16-game player (ie a playoff rotation level guy) but of course that doesn’t mean he can’t have a solid career in the league.

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Makes perfect sense. & I am also a fan of Brandon Clarke. OTOH, Stromile Swift was listed at 6'10" . So was Eddie Griffin.

But, we can drop this -- at least in this thread. It's fair enough to ask that it be kept to a discussion of Rui. Esp. w/ the season just about upon us.

[payitforward]

I'm not very interested in the question of how many ppg Rui scores.

I'm very interested in how his overall game develops. His defense, his rebounding, his court awareness, his passing, etc.

His 3-point shot as well, of course, but, still, how many points a player scores, Rui or anyone, is not a measure of his game.

The question of how many points Rui scores and how efficiently he does it will be the most important question of his career. We can talk all we want about older NBA players, this NBA is different. In this NBA you have scorers and you have everyone else. Once you players that will score and score efficiently, now you can construct a team around them. Draymond Green is a great player who does a lot of small things. If a team like the Hornets draft Draymond Green or a team like the Suns or a team like the Knicks, Draymond Green would no longer be in the league. Having a guy that does all the other things like defense, rebounding and court awareness become obvious after you have scoring.

Take Boris Diaw. He was cut from the Hornets. Then the Spurs picked him up and he goes on to be a key contributor for a championship team. Do all aspects of Rui's game matter? Of course they do. But as a guy who was mainly a scorer in college and who's best skill is his scoring. I simply struggle to see how he carves out a long term spot on this roster if he can't score effectively. I've seen all his tape, we can find better rebounders, better defenders, better passers etc. Now if he's going to give us scoring then we want obviously want him to develop into a complete player. But if he's not going to be at least 3rd option on a championship caliber team, then it was a failed pick. That's why I focus so much on scoring. Because we didn't draft him for his defense, his rebounding, his court awareness or his passing. So to write multiple posts about those aspects of his game, is like going to a Burger Restaurant and complaining that the chicken parmesan isn't good.

Rui's career will be defined by a simple question, can he score and score effectively. If the answer is no, his career will be a disappointment.

First off -- once you include "how efficiently" you've changed the discussion! As I wrote in response to Zards, players who score a lot of points efficiently help you win. But, players who score a lot of points inefficiently help you lose!

Plus, the context was "this year" -- i.e. as a rookie. It was to that issue I responded.

OTOH, much of what you claim strikes me as patently untrue. Especially what you write about Draymond.

The fact that a cook can't prepare chicken parmesan doesn't prevent the restaurant from succeeding as a burger restaurant. If a team can't rebound & defend, it doesn't win a lot of games. The 2 are utterly unrelated.

[doclinkin]

I think it’ll be tough for a tiny guy like Clarke to impact the NBA game from a frontcourt position, especially if he can’t shoot.

There are things he does well that will keep him in the league as a rotation guy. But he’s sort of a low ceiling low floor .. meh

Well, in fairness, you did say "I think...," which is in your favor. &, of course, you may be right!

Still, can you name a few other guys who put up the kind of numbers Clarke did in college & then failed in the league?

This again.

Watch on YouTube

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Doc is right. Tyrus Thomas is another example. I forgot him -- thanks, Doc. Plus, I thought of another one as well: Shelden Williams. Extremely good college numbers, drafted high, ineffective in the NBA.

But, TT -- at whom Doc had pointed on a previous occasion -- is a better comparison with Clarke, because he was such an incredible athlete. Thomas had a freshman year for the ages. As good as Beasley -- maybe even a little better. He came out after his Freshman year & could not make it in the league. All the more interesting is that unlike Beasley, Tyrus Thomas doesn't seem to have the kinds of personal/maturity issues that were such a factor in Beasley's case. He's a guy with a head on his shoulders. Google for recent news on him, & it's all positive.

So, for sure, it is possible that Brandon Clarke will bust. Or at least be less than the great college player he was. No question about it. Then again, Tyrus Thomas, Michael Beasley, Shelden Williams, & whomever we think of next... none of them have any bearing at all on whether Clarke is great or gruesome.

I could find a dozen examples of guys who were great in college & great in the NBA too, obviously. They would have no bearing on Clarke's future either. For that matter, the examples I gave of guys who didn't have "the right size" but were dominant players in the league anyway... they don't affect Clarke either!

Would anyone fail to take Zion, because he had great college numbers & sometimes guys with great college numbers fail in the league? I don't think so. Yet, it is certainly possible that Zion will bust. Or Ja Morant. Or R.J. Barrett. Or Darius Garland. Or... Rui Hachimura.

That's not at question. In fact, nothing is at question. The draft was 3.5 months ago. Rui is a Wizard. The right way to manage the NBA draft is to extract the most value from it you can. Duh. Whether we did or didn't is a moot question by now. All that matters to us is for Rui to turn out a great player.

[Jamaaliver]

Ranking Top 10 NBA Rookie of the Year Candidates for 2019-20

5. Rui Hachimura, Washington Wizards



Projected key stats: 12-14 points per game, 6-8 rebounds, 45-50 percent FG

With player development and Bradley Beal's happiness bigger priorities than winning for the Washington Wizards, Rui Hachimura could be looking at 30-plus minutes per game.

The stock arrow is already pointing up before preseason after his play in summer league and the World Cup. Hachimura can continue giving frontcourts trouble with his athleticism, quickness and skill level inside 17 feet, where he's strong at the rim, slick in the post and a threatening mid-range shooter.

He'd take his scoring to another level if he can add the three-ball, but Hachimura likes playing to his strengths, so he could pair his rookie production with solid efficiency.

His rebounding and assist rates won't be high, and he'll presumably be a mixed bag on defense. But Hachimura has pro-ready tools and offensive skills to immediately start and outproduce Washington's other forwards.

Bleacher Report

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This is interesting -- thanks. Here are the 10 top candidates in order (with their pick position in parentheses after their names):

1. Zion Williamson (1)
2. Ja Morant (2)
3. Darius Garland (5)
4. Tyler Herro (13)
5. Rui Hachimura (9)
6. Brandon Clarke (21)
7. DeAndre Hunter (4)
8. RJ Barrett (3)
9. Michael Porter, Jr. (14 - in 2018)
10. Jarrett Culver (6)

Great to see Rui's name there. Interesting that 4 of the 9 from this year's class, including Rui, are listed above their pick position.

W/ Porter's name there from 2018, it's interesting to ask whom you would list as the 10th most likely to win RoY out of this year's draft class.

[I_Like_Dirt]

That's sort of the thing. I like Clarke a lot and any team should be frustrated if they passed on him unless they drafted someone else with a comparable talent level. I actually think the Wizards are one of the few teams that did just that. Rui is really good. He's a guy where I'm not sure what else he could have done to prove to people that he's actually good beyond stealing rebounds from his teammate. Heck, if we're talking about 6'8" PFs, Rui himself is probably going to be a 6'8" PF when it's all said and done.

[prime1time]

That's sort of the thing. I like Clarke a lot and any team should be frustrated if they passed on him unless they drafted someone else with a comparable talent level. I actually think the Wizards are one of the few teams that did just that. Rui is really good. He's a guy where I'm not sure what else he could have done to prove to people that he's actually good beyond stealing rebounds from his teammate. Heck, if we're talking about 6'8" PFs, Rui himself is probably going to be a 6'8" PF when it's all said and done.

Clarke has a wingspan of 6'8. Rui has a wingspan of 7'2. Regardless, it gets very tiring talking about Brandon Clarke. I'm sure Memphis fans would love to have you on their board to talk about him.

[Shoe]

Rui and Bertans both starting tonight alongside TB. Our rebounding and rim protection is the big question mark this year.

[I_Like_Dirt]

Clarke has a wingspan of 6'8. Rui has a wingspan of 7'2. Regardless, it gets very tiring talking about Brandon Clarke. I'm sure Memphis fans would love to have you on their board to talk about him.

You're right, it does. I hope you recognize that you're complicit in all of this, though. You're the one who keeps finding ways to detract from Clarke in this thread which invariably starts the spiral of people suggesting you're wrong which keeps the topic off of Rui, as you suggest you desire, and you just did it again by throwing out a means of detracting from Clarke and then trying to close the discussion after getting in the last word. You can leave Clarke out of this and ignore it and it will be much less. I'm not sure why you're having difficulty with that concept. There were a couple posts comparing Rui to Clarke, which is normal given that a few people on this board wanted Clarke, they were teammates and both were taken in the 1st round. I suspect the thread would have transitioned back to Rui had you allowed to continue it's natural course of things.

Stromile Swift was listed at 6'10" .

...in college... And then he was listed at 6'9" in the NBA... He wasn't that big.

Rui's career will be defined by a simple question, can he score and score effectively. If the answer is no, his career will be a disappointment.

I disagree. That's part of it, but Lou Williams is still seen as a guy who plays the same role regardless of whether or not he scores with middling efficiency or good efficiency, for example. Part of it is efficient scoring, but I'm reasonably confident Rui is going to have that in the end. What separates Rui from being just a scorer is his potential to do a bunch of other stuff, too.