Badonkadonk wrote:Tanner wrote:People saying to give McCaw a chance don't really follow basketball much. He's 24. Someone that age would have had to show something to give the impression that there is upside. What does McCaw have going for him where you can say "if he just developed XY he'd be good"? He's like the most below average looking player I have seen at everything he does. Not athletic, not a lockdown defender (despite his unwarranted rep), offensive game is non existent, doesn't show great handles, etc, etc. Where is the upside? What are you thinking he's going to develop into by playing him 30 minutes a night?
The irony of your first sentence
Why do you think the Warriors and now the Raptors have both tried to unlock McCaw? I just laugh when couch-bound savants go off like this.
I'll tell you what their coaching staffs see, it's been written about at length and you would know if you actually played or coached: he is good off the ball, executes rotations and switches well, has great size for a guard (6'7"), is agile and is pretty secure with the ball. His lack of assertiveness (on both ends) and shooting touch sabotages his performance too regularly.
Again, it may come together or it may not. Just stop with the age stuff though, one of the Raps' calling cards is refining players that may have traditionally been considered "too old" to continue developing. Pascal still showed tremendous growth when he was still 24, and yeah, that included skills that some never envisioned him having (eg. pull-up 3s above the break instead of just standing in the corner for them).
The fact that you just compared McCaw to Siakam actually proves my first sentence correct. I told you to name something that gives him the upside to warrant as many minutes as he's getting, and you gave up a laundry list of generalities. Siakam started playing ball late, but even when he was raw he was athletic, had a great motor, looked like a great defensive player in the making. He worked on his offensive game and improved, but there was still raw skills there that made you look at him at say "he might be a decent role player" even before he worked on his other things and became what he is today. How many guys came into the league looking like they were below average at everything in their first few years and suddenly became good at age 25 because they were "smart"?
What's his upside: "well he, um, rotates well, and um, ah, something about intangibles and being smart, doesn't make mistakes even though he provides no value on any side of the ball....". That's not a scouting report, that's a list of excuses. Pass those on to Nurse if anyone in the media has the guts to call him out for his McCaw love.
