Lauri:' I can make the comeback'

[dougthonus]

It's all about talent and ceiling. If Lauri would have those trophies in Europe and would be 26 years old now like Mirotic at his 4th year, then it would be totally different situation. Prob AK and crew have already seen potential and will base extension on that. If they see that higher ceiling and potential to crow.. if they think they can release that full potential, then they will pay enough. If not, then they will let Lauri walk.

I'm not sure what you mean exactly, is it just that Mirotic was more of a known commodity due to being older? I'd agree with that. You can project different things about Lauri based on him potentially improving due to his age. Personally, I think unless he becomes a dominant three point shooter, he will be a low rung starter / high run bench guy.

[GoBlue72391]

I believe Lauri has the talent and skills to become the player we all hope he can become, but I seriously question his attitude and mindset. He's far, far, far too passive and rarely plays with any kind of fire.

He had the ball on the wing against Chris Clemons, who I believe is under 6 feet tall. What did he do? Immediately passed it to Archi who immediately passed it back to Lauri who settled for a 3... A similar thing happened against John Wall.

**** ATTACK, you're more than a foot taller than him! We all know he struggles with his back to the basket, but he doesn't even need to bully a guy like him in the paint to score (even though that would certainly help if he was capable of doing that consistently). Just take a post fade from the elbow and shoot right over him. He has a nice post fade, but we haven't seen it since his 2nd season. Bring it back like he has with the dragstep. Or hell, just drive in on him and body him on the way to the rim.

When he has a mismatch like that, he HAS to not only attack it, but score on it consistently. I'm hoping our competent coaching staff will pound that into his head, and I hope our competent development staff can work with him on developing just one go-to move to use against smaller defenders, even if it's as basic as just bringing back the post fade he flashed his first 2 years.

I wish he would play angry, play pissed off, just everyone once in awhile. Please.

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[GoBlue72391]

I believe Lauri has the talent and skills to become the player we all hope he can become, but I seriously question his attitude and mindset. He's far, far, far too passive and rarely plays with any kind of fire.

He had the ball on the wing against Chris Clemons, who I believe is under 6 feet tall. What did he do? Immediately passed it to Archi who immediately passed it back to Lauri who settled for a 3... A similar thing happened against John Wall.

**** ATTACK, you're more than a foot taller than him! We all know he struggles with his back to the basket, but he doesn't even need to bully a guy like him in the paint to score (even though that would certainly help if he was capable of doing that consistently). Just take a post fade from the elbow and shoot right over him. He has a nice post fade, but we haven't seen it since his 2nd season. Bring it back like he has with the dragstep. Or hell, just drive in on him and body him on the way to the rim.

When he has a mismatch like that, he HAS to not only attack it, but score on it consistently. I'm hoping our competent coaching staff will pound that into his head, and I hope our competent development staff can work with him on developing just one go-to move to use against smaller defenders, even if it's as basic as just bringing back the post fade he flashed his first 2 years.

I wish he would play angry, play pissed off, just everyone once in awhile. Please.

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Maybe he heard me, because he finally played with some aggression and fire tonight.

A lot less settling for 3s and a lot more putting the ball on the floor. I'm not too worried about him missing open 3s, that should come around soon enough. An aggressive Lauri that's knocking down 3s and is active and engaged defensively and on the boards is exactly what we need.

Hopefully he plays with this mindset on a regular basis from here on out.

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[Stratmaster]

I believe Lauri has the talent and skills to become the player we all hope he can become, but I seriously question his attitude and mindset. He's far, far, far too passive and rarely plays with any kind of fire.

He had the ball on the wing against Chris Clemons, who I believe is under 6 feet tall. What did he do? Immediately passed it to Archi who immediately passed it back to Lauri who settled for a 3... A similar thing happened against John Wall.

**** ATTACK, you're more than a foot taller than him! We all know he struggles with his back to the basket, but he doesn't even need to bully a guy like him in the paint to score (even though that would certainly help if he was capable of doing that consistently). Just take a post fade from the elbow and shoot right over him. He has a nice post fade, but we haven't seen it since his 2nd season. Bring it back like he has with the dragstep. Or hell, just drive in on him and body him on the way to the rim.

When he has a mismatch like that, he HAS to not only attack it, but score on it consistently. I'm hoping our competent coaching staff will pound that into his head, and I hope our competent development staff can work with him on developing just one go-to move to use against smaller defenders, even if it's as basic as just bringing back the post fade he flashed his first 2 years.

I wish he would play angry, play pissed off, just everyone once in awhile. Please.

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Maybe he heard me, because he finally played with some aggression and fire tonight.

A lot less settling for 3s and a lot more putting the ball on the floor. I'm not too worried about him missing open 3s, that should come around soon enough. An aggressive Lauri that's knocking down 3s and is active and engaged defensively and on the boards is exactly what we need.

Hopefully he plays with this mindset on a regular basis from here on out.

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I was for the Lauri draft pick. But how long do we keep saying "if he just starts hitting his shots"? I hope your optimism turns out to be true. It could make this team a playoff contender if he ever shows up consistently.

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[RedBulls23]

I believe Lauri has the talent and skills to become the player we all hope he can become, but I seriously question his attitude and mindset. He's far, far, far too passive and rarely plays with any kind of fire.

He had the ball on the wing against Chris Clemons, who I believe is under 6 feet tall. What did he do? Immediately passed it to Archi who immediately passed it back to Lauri who settled for a 3... A similar thing happened against John Wall.

**** ATTACK, you're more than a foot taller than him! We all know he struggles with his back to the basket, but he doesn't even need to bully a guy like him in the paint to score (even though that would certainly help if he was capable of doing that consistently). Just take a post fade from the elbow and shoot right over him. He has a nice post fade, but we haven't seen it since his 2nd season. Bring it back like he has with the dragstep. Or hell, just drive in on him and body him on the way to the rim.

When he has a mismatch like that, he HAS to not only attack it, but score on it consistently. I'm hoping our competent coaching staff will pound that into his head, and I hope our competent development staff can work with him on developing just one go-to move to use against smaller defenders, even if it's as basic as just bringing back the post fade he flashed his first 2 years.

I wish he would play angry, play pissed off, just everyone once in awhile. Please.

Sent from my SM-S757BL using RealGM mobile app

Maybe he heard me, because he finally played with some aggression and fire tonight.

A lot less settling for 3s and a lot more putting the ball on the floor. I'm not too worried about him missing open 3s, that should come around soon enough. An aggressive Lauri that's knocking down 3s and is active and engaged defensively and on the boards is exactly what we need.

Hopefully he plays with this mindset on a regular basis from here on out.

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9 of his 15 FGs were 3s.

I think what Lauri needs to do is start being a good 3 point shooter. If this is close to what we get out if Coby and Zach, then I think Lauri is going to have to continue to take the open 3s and actually make them.

That's likely still going to be his role in this offense.

[GoBlue72391]

He's shot between 35-36% from 3 over his first 3 seasons, and that's including last year which as we all know was a down year. He's always been a streaky shooter, so there's no reason to think he won't shoot around that same percentage this year. Ideally he can move that percentage closer to the 40% mark.

I'd rather have him shoot like this now when the games don't mean anything. Hopefully by the time the regular season starts his shot will have come around.

Overall, aside from missing his 3s, he's pretty much doing everything else that we want to see from him: he's been moving around more offensively, he looks a bit lighter and quicker, he seems more confident and less hesitant, he's drove more and has been more aggressive in 2 out of the 3 games so far, he's created some scoring oppurtunities for himself, he's been active and engaged defensively and on the boards, he's had more nice passes/assists this preseason than I recall from all of last season, etc.

Once he starts hitting his 3s at at least a 36ish% clip, and again there's no reason to think he won't, then for the most part he's the Lauri we've all been hoping to see.

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[chefo]

Lauri's not going to shoot 20% from 3 all year. He'll have a stretch where he hits 48% over 10 games on 8/game and this board will be thinking NBA finals the way Zach and Coby are flame-throwing currently. He's getting decent looks and from different sets than last year. But yeah, he looks rusty as hell. You can tell by how off his FT were. BTW, I don't think he has his legs underneath him in game shape just yet. He'll get there. 80%+ FT shooters will get back to norm quickly enough.

I am actually much more impressed with his D the last couple of games. He's no Gobert, but he's been challenging shots a lot more than he has in the past and I actually saw him do 3-4 perfect rotations when he was the C tonight. Last year he could go for a week without having as many good defensive plays.

[GoBlue72391]

I believe Lauri has the talent and skills to become the player we all hope he can become, but I seriously question his attitude and mindset. He's far, far, far too passive and rarely plays with any kind of fire.

He had the ball on the wing against Chris Clemons, who I believe is under 6 feet tall. What did he do? Immediately passed it to Archi who immediately passed it back to Lauri who settled for a 3... A similar thing happened against John Wall.

**** ATTACK, you're more than a foot taller than him! We all know he struggles with his back to the basket, but he doesn't even need to bully a guy like him in the paint to score (even though that would certainly help if he was capable of doing that consistently). Just take a post fade from the elbow and shoot right over him. He has a nice post fade, but we haven't seen it since his 2nd season. Bring it back like he has with the dragstep. Or hell, just drive in on him and body him on the way to the rim.

When he has a mismatch like that, he HAS to not only attack it, but score on it consistently. I'm hoping our competent coaching staff will pound that into his head, and I hope our competent development staff can work with him on developing just one go-to move to use against smaller defenders, even if it's as basic as just bringing back the post fade he flashed his first 2 years.

I wish he would play angry, play pissed off, just everyone once in awhile. Please.

Sent from my SM-S757BL using RealGM mobile app

Maybe he heard me, because he finally played with some aggression and fire tonight.

A lot less settling for 3s and a lot more putting the ball on the floor. I'm not too worried about him missing open 3s, that should come around soon enough. An aggressive Lauri that's knocking down 3s and is active and engaged defensively and on the boards is exactly what we need.

Hopefully he plays with this mindset on a regular basis from here on out.

Sent from my SM-S757BL using RealGM mobile app

9 of his 15 FGs were 3s.

I think what Lauri needs to do is start being a good 3 point shooter. If this is close to what we get out if Coby and Zach, then I think Lauri is going to have to continue to take the open 3s and actually make them.

That's likely still going to be his role in this offense.

They were good looks, they just didn't go in. If he gets a good look from 3 he should take it. He could have had even more 3 attempts, but he drove instead of settling a number of times, which is good to see.

So that means he had 6 non-3 point attempts plus 4 FTs and a dunk that was negated by a phantom travel call. That's basically 9 non-3 point attempts.

I'm less concerned about his stats during preseason and more concerned with the eye test. He's passed the eye test for the most part thus far. Yeah, eventually he'll have to start making those 3s, but unless we're expecting him to shoot this poorly all season then there's no point in worrying about him missing his 3s at the moment.

He has 3 seasons of 35-36% shooting from 3. That's pretty consistent, even if it's not quite as high as we want.

So far this preseason, if I had to pick between Lauri making his 3s but doing nothing else (pretty much like last season) or missing 3s but playing an all around game, I'd take the latter every time because there's a very good chance those 3s will eventually start to fall.

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[nomorezorro]

getting threes to fall at a 35-36% rate is not really needle-moving when that's league average

if you can find a decent 3+D guy who can play the stretch 4, that's almost certainly going to be an upgrade from lauri at his current skill level. it's nice when he's in attack mode, but it's hard for me to picture that carrying his game. he's gotta bump up the shot to be the kind of offensive weapon that justifies the bad defense.

[GoBlue72391]

I mean, hopefully he can hit them more in the 38-40% range, but 36% is good enough when he's contributing in all the other areas and playing more minutes at the 5. He shot less than 35% from 3 during the whole FebruLauri phenomenon. That's a very pedestrian percentage, yet he still averaged 26 and 12 for a month. When he dropped 35 and 17 in the season opener last season, he shot only 1 of 7 from 3.

Obviously that's on the extreme end and we shouldn't expect that him from him consistently, but I think 18-21 PPG is a perfectly realistic expectation. He doesn't need to be Bertans from 3 if he's doing everything else right.

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[WindyCityBorn]

Lauri's not going to shoot 20% from 3 all year. He'll have a stretch where he hits 48% over 10 games on 8/game and this board will be thinking NBA finals the way Zach and Coby are flame-throwing currently. He's getting decent looks and from different sets than last year. But yeah, he looks rusty as hell. You can tell by how off his FT were. BTW, I don't think he has his legs underneath him in game shape just yet. He'll get there. 80%+ FT shooters will get back to norm quickly enough.

I am actually much more impressed with his D the last couple of games. He's no Gobert, but he's been challenging shots a lot more than he has in the past and I actually saw him do 3-4 perfect rotations when he was the C tonight. Last year he could go for a week without having as many good defensive plays.

Zach shoots three much better than Lauri despite a lot his being much difficult ie not wide open. Coby is virtually money when is left open in addition the high degree of difficulty shoots too. Struggling to shoot 35 percent from 3 when all your attempts are wide open is not impressive. That is basically what we are hoping for from Wendell Carter....

[WindyCityBorn]

I mean, hopefully he can hit them more in the 38-40% range, but 36% is good enough when he's contributing in all the other areas and playing more minutes at the 5. He shot less than 35% from 3 during the whole FebruLauri phenomenon. That's a very pedestrian percentage, yet he still averaged 26 and 12 for a month. When he dropped 35 and 17 in the season opener last season, he shot only 1 of 7 from 3.

Obviously that's on the extreme end and we shouldn't expect that him from him consistently, but I think 18-21 PPG is a perfectly realistic expectation. He doesn't need to be Bertans from 3 if he's doing everything else right.

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If we get an efficient 18 ppg out of Lauri that is almost best scenario at this point for me. He should firmly behind Zach and Coby in the offensive pecking order. Maybe even Patrick Williams by the time the season is over.

[GoBlue72391]

I mean, hopefully he can hit them more in the 38-40% range, but 36% is good enough when he's contributing in all the other areas and playing more minutes at the 5. He shot less than 35% from 3 during the whole FebruLauri phenomenon. That's a very pedestrian percentage, yet he still averaged 26 and 12 for a month. When he dropped 35 and 17 in the season opener last season, he shot only 1 of 7 from 3.

Obviously that's on the extreme end and we shouldn't expect that him from him consistently, but I think 18-21 PPG is a perfectly realistic expectation. He doesn't need to be Bertans from 3 if he's doing everything else right.

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If we get an efficient 18 ppg out of Lauri that is almost best scenario at this point for me. He should firmly behind Zach and Coby in the offensive pecking order. Maybe even Patrick Williams by the time the season is over.

If we use Lauri as our 3rd or 4th option then we're pretty much guaranteed to have a repeat of last year. Might as well not even play him if that's the case, because an uninvolved Lauri is basically a useless player. Zach and Coby can get their shots whenever they want and they don't need plays ran for them to score.

Whether he's a cornerstone or merely a trade deadline dump, intentionally using Lauri as an afterthought like last year hurts us as a team. Run plays for him and get him involved in the offense. It's sink or swim time. Either it works out and he's a long term piece or we're at least able to pump up his trade value before the deadline. Using him as our 3rd or 4th option accomplishes neither of those things.

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[WindyCityBorn]

I mean, hopefully he can hit them more in the 38-40% range, but 36% is good enough when he's contributing in all the other areas and playing more minutes at the 5. He shot less than 35% from 3 during the whole FebruLauri phenomenon. That's a very pedestrian percentage, yet he still averaged 26 and 12 for a month. When he dropped 35 and 17 in the season opener last season, he shot only 1 of 7 from 3.

Obviously that's on the extreme end and we shouldn't expect that him from him consistently, but I think 18-21 PPG is a perfectly realistic expectation. He doesn't need to be Bertans from 3 if he's doing everything else right.

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If we get an efficient 18 ppg out of Lauri that is almost best scenario at this point for me. He should firmly behind Zach and Coby in the offensive pecking order. Maybe even Patrick Williams by the time the season is over.

If we use Lauri as our 3rd or 4th option then we're pretty much guaranteed to have a repeat of last year. Might as well not even play him if that's the case, because an uninvolved Lauri is basically a useless player. Zach and Coby can get their shots whenever they want and they don't need plays ran for them to score.

Whether he's a cornerstone or merely a trade deadline dump, intentionally using Lauri as an afterthought like last year hurts us as a team. Run plays for him and get him involved in the offense. It's sink or swim time. Either it works out and he's a long term piece or we're at least able to pump up his trade value before the deadline. Using him as our 3rd or 4th option accomplishes neither of those things.

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If he isn’t a top 2 option he shouldn’t get top option priority. Force feeding him if he continues to fail is not worth it. Let Porter and Williams get those opportunities. Everything does not ride on Lauri any more.

[PaKii94]

18.6 fha p36 this game. I like the aggressiveness. The shot making will come. But Lauri get your shot straight. Something is definitely off since he can't even hit his FTs right now.

[ZOMG]

Coby with a .354 career 3pt average: "He's a flame thrower!!"

Lauri with a .356 career 3pt average: "Meh, he's just not a great shooter, trade him"

[Louri]

Lauri has been in strip clubs few months, it did grow his mojo but it will take some time to get legs back.

[Dez]

Coby with a .354 career 3pt average: "He's a flame thrower!!"

Lauri with a .356 career 3pt average: "Meh, he's just not a great shooter, trade him"

Ah yes the old no context post to try make a point.

Coby - 1 season
Lauri - 3 seasons

Lauri 3-5, 0-5, 2-9
Coby 2-4, 4-7, 5-8

So far there's more reasons to believe in Coby's shot and his ability to score in other ways.

[TeamMan]

Lauri's not going to shoot 20% from 3 all year. He'll have a stretch where he hits 48% over 10 games on 8/game and this board will be thinking NBA finals the way Zach and Coby are flame-throwing currently. He's getting decent looks and from different sets than last year. But yeah, he looks rusty as hell. You can tell by how off his FT were. BTW, I don't think he has his legs underneath him in game shape just yet. He'll get there. 80%+ FT shooters will get back to norm quickly enough.

I am actually much more impressed with his D the last couple of games. He's no Gobert, but he's been challenging shots a lot more than he has in the past and I actually saw him do 3-4 perfect rotations when he was the C tonight. Last year he could go for a week without having as many good defensive plays.

Donovan's usage of the Zach + Coby tandem just shows his brilliance.

The NBA will go through a period (maybe a very short period) where they will try to contain them with their normal defense.

But when that fails, they'll start putting in special defenses to try to do the job. And that will open up things for Lauri as well as WCJ and P-Will.

My guess, is that after 10-20 games (max) we'll start to see special defenses rolled out for Zach + Coby, and that's when things will really start to get interesting/exciting from a coaches-chess game standpoint.

That's what I'm waiting to see - Donovan out-coach other coaches in the league.

========================
Regarding Lauri's contract extension.

If they don't get it done before the end of the season (and I think that they will), Lauri will easily get offered 20+ mil/year.

There are a lot of teams already high on him (if you listen to the different announcers talk about his skill-set), and they will be watching how he fits into Donovan's system to project how he'd fit into theirs.

[dougthonus]

Coby with a .354 career 3pt average: "He's a flame thrower!!"

Lauri with a .356 career 3pt average: "Meh, he's just not a great shooter, trade him"

There are a few factors here:
1: Lauri has two additional years of pro experience to improve his shot and it has gotten worse not better, while Coby's shooting numbers have trended up a lot over his first year and look a lot better his second year so far.

2: Coby takes high degree of difficulty threes and Lauri doesn't. Lauri shoots nearly exclusively wide open catch and shoot threes. Coby shoots lots of off the dribble threes, step back threes, against the shot clock threes. If the two were to shoot the same percentage, Coby would be radically better of the two based on how he is creating looks out of nothing and Lauri is the recipient of someone else's work.