payitforward wrote:f we leave Brandon Clarke out of the picture, it's fair to say that nobody picked after Rui in R1 has made the pick look bad. As I wrote in the Rui thread. Where all this belongs.
No man. You lose the point of your own thread. The title invites speculation. Which intrigued and pleased me, more than the usual “there’s no way to know” and “the stats don’t allow us to offer conjecture” sort of PIFfle.
This is the reckless speckleation thread! (If I can make you (sic). )
We are looking at hints that can be extrapolated to a best case scenario. A key area of shortfall being defense. And interior defense being a lynchpin of that.
If we are looking to the future and wondering how we can improve, player development is likely our best bet. Or leastways our most certain. Young and talented players tend to get better with reps and minutes. This team is stocked with youth at this point. Maximizing what they do well, reducing their deficits, and finding synergy and chemistry in our roster is critical.
Each of the young pups has habits or traits that prevent them from succeeding. Thomas Bryant will likely never develop a quicker lateral Shuffle. As a defender he will need to learn positional defense to anticipate the play and get where he needs to be before he needs to be there. He’s big. He’s active. He’s willing. He just doesn’t slide well to cut off angles and use his length. A smart coach would keep him within do-si-do range of the paint and let opposing Bigs chuck from catapult range if they need to.
Rui does not have that flaw. And while the analysis is correct that his currently anemic rebounding and slow read/react skills hurt the team, his physical talents are suggestive of a player who could actually be a strong asset on the Defensive side of the ball. In fact with his range fluidity and length he could become an intimidating strong safety defending from the arc to the paint and make up for the immobile but sturdy Bryant underneath. A clever coach could use these two as hammer and anvil if they taught them their roles and got them to commit.
How good we can be, is a question that largely revolves around: how does John look; how can our defense turn around; in what ways are our young cats likely to improve.
Those are the topics I want to see messed with in this thread.