GameBredAPBT wrote:Bulls “fan” here (more of an NBA fan in general, I’m European but I’m 29 & was a de facto Bulls fan, just like every other person on earth was during the 90s/early 00s, lol).
I come in piece. I’m here to ask what the heck the deal is with Zhaire Smith. Weren’t you guys like, super high on him? What on earth happened? What is his deal? Is there upside there? Why isn’t he heavily featured? Gimme the low down, I’m baffled by this kid/why philly drafted him/why we don’t hear his name ever
Negrodamus has neatly summarised my thoughts on Zhaire, outside of the Hutchison take. Most of us here were all on board getting Shai Gilgeous Alexander in that draft, and myself I would have also been happy with Miles Bridges.
To look at the positive side of Zhaire, he's 20 years of age and he really hasn't played many minutes because of the allergic reaction and a few injuries. He's also improved quite a bit from last year to this year statistically, and he's also an absurd athlete, so conceivably there is quite a bit of room for him to develop given he's coming from such a low floor in terms of actual skill.
However, as Negrodamus says, he's not a natural ball-handler (dribbles head down etc), and indeed just lacks the feel for the game someone like Shai has in spades. So his steal and block rates are really only middling for a player with those physical measurables and athletic ability.
Basically I think his upside is as an off-ball NBA rotation player, a result anything more than that would be a pretty big outlier for a guy with that skill level, even given his tender age.