S&T With New Orleans: The Devonte Graham Thread

JMAC3 · Post #341 » by **JMAC3** » Wed Nov 25, 2020 9:40 pm

SWedd523 wrote:
JMAC3 wrote:I guess my point is it seems like you are very low on players like Hayward, Ball, Rozier etc...

Is...is that not allowed?

I'm missing where he can't call a spade a spade?

Is it better to blow compressed sunshine up each other's booties?

Where did I put those rose colored glasses again?

Yeah you're right, why don't we trade for LeBron or get Luka? oh they would want a billion firsts. okay cool.

At least we could get Brandon Ingram or Jayson Tatum right? are you sure they would match... okay gotcha.

Or maybe we could of traded a second round pick for Myles Turner or Sabonis? No they want an actual asset....oh makes sense.

Oh man all the good players are taken... let's do nothing that sounds like fun.

SWedd523 · Post #342 » by **SWedd523** » Wed Nov 25, 2020 11:20 pm

JMAC3 wrote:
SWedd523 wrote:
JMAC3 wrote:I guess my point is it seems like you are very low on players like Hayward, Ball, Rozier etc...

Is...is that not allowed?

I'm missing where he can't call a spade a spade?

Is it better to blow compressed sunshine up each other's booties?

Where did I put those rose colored glasses again?

Yeah you're right, why don't we trade for LeBron or get Luka? oh they would want a billion firsts. okay cool.

At least we could get Brandon Ingram or Jayson Tatum right? are you sure they would match... okay gotcha.

Or maybe we could of traded a second round pick for Myles Turner or Sabonis? No they want an actual asset....oh makes sense.

Oh man all the good players are taken... let's do nothing that sounds like fun.

Awfully defeatist of you

You should smile

like Devonte, the guy this thread is about (you're welcome Slam)

euphorbus · Post #343 » by **euphorbus** » Sun Dec 27, 2020 4:24 pm

Through all of two games, we have a split decision on Graham. He leads the team with 10 assists per game. He is third on the team with 14.5 field goal attempts, but is only shooting .276, worst on the team.

Consistency would be appreciated.

Post #344 » by **BigSlam** » Sun Dec 27, 2020 4:52 pm

His offensive game HAS to evolve past just shooting 3’s.

If it doesn’t he’s just too one dimensional.

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

penquin11 · Post #345 » by **penquin11** » Fri Jan 1, 2021 4:36 am

I know its early but wow has he been awful. At what point do we hand the starting job to Ball?

LofJ · Post #346 » by **LofJ** » Fri Jan 1, 2021 4:44 am

penquin11 wrote:I know its early but wow has he been awful. At what point do we hand the starting job to Ball?

I hope the team gives him every opportunity to play through this to see if he can replicate what he did in the first half of the the 19-20 season (to at the very least up his trade value). If he doesn't though by mid-season it's time to turn things over to LaMelo.

Radu_Hornets · Post #347 » by **Radu_Hornets** » Fri Jan 1, 2021 3:05 pm

It makes me laugh how some of you guys are already sold on giving the starting spot to Lamelo.

Graham hasn't been awfull at all. He still highly contributed to our wins. He still hit a crucial 3 against the Nets the other. And at this point, I would still give the last 3 of the game to Graham than Lamelo.

Don't get me wrong, I love what I'm seeing from Lamelo, he enjoys his teamates, he seems to be a great guy to play with, I love his energy, but chill guys, he is far to be ready to take the starting spot away from Graham.

James Gatz · Post #348 » by **James Gatz** » Fri Jan 1, 2021 4:02 pm

Radu_Hornets wrote:It makes me laugh how some of you guys are already sold on giving the starting spot to Lamelo.

Graham hasn't been awfull at all. He still highly contributed to our wins. He still hit a crucial 3 against the Nets the other. And at this point, I would still give the last 3 of the game to Graham than Lamelo.

Don't get me wrong, I love what I'm seeing from Lamelo, he enjoys his teamates, he seems to be a great guy to play with, I love his energy, but chill guys, he is far to be ready to take the starting spot away from Graham.

Agreed. If Graham's slump continues to around game 10-15 it's worthy of a discussion. It's too early to make such a move currently.

Shooting is largely random and he's been basically the same player except he's not hitting his 3s. I think the hope he'd develop a game inside the arc was a bit of wishful thinking considering his size/athleticism. Lets give him some time for his percentages to creep back up.

If anything Ball should just steal more minutes from one of the Martin Twins. There's 96 guard minutes to go around.

JMAC3 · Post #349 » by **JMAC3** » Fri Jan 1, 2021 7:18 pm

Radu_Hornets wrote:It makes me laugh how some of you guys are already sold on giving the starting spot to Lamelo.

Graham hasn't been awfull at all. He still highly contributed to our wins. He still hit a crucial 3 against the Nets the other. And at this point, I would still give the last 3 of the game to Graham than Lamelo.

Don't get me wrong, I love what I'm seeing from Lamelo, he enjoys his teamates, he seems to be a great guy to play with, I love his energy, but chill guys, he is far to be ready to take the starting spot away from Graham.

I am not advocating that Melo should start right now, but I think it is inevitable. Not sure if that means Graham or Rozier are relegated to the 6th man role. I would not rush into this change simply because I need to see LaMelo show he is ready to play in close games in the final 3 minutes. He still has not done that, so if we don't feel comfortable with him there then I see no reason to start him, but close game with DG.

DY_nasty · Post #350 » by **DY_nasty** » Fri Jan 1, 2021 9:16 pm

It wouldn't surprise me if Graham were trying to hide an injury or something tbh

And again - if it was just his shooting, I wouldn't be tripping at all. The guy can't even close out anymore. And when he drives, as rare as that is, he's faaaaaar worse than he was last year at identifying people to pass to. The assist numbers are there, but the problem is that he takes way too long to initiate or make a decision with the ball. Ball hasn't even had a camp and he's looked over the defense and decided how the horns set is gonna go before his screen even gets there.

Normally, its wait and see - but with how fast this season is going 10-15 games isn't a long period of time at all. But the current roster situation with the team means that a decision with the PGs has to be made sooner or later. There's going to be more scrutiny there than usual.

KembaWalker · Post #351 » by **KembaWalker** » Fri Jan 1, 2021 9:21 pm

Devonte will be a great 6th man when LaMelo is ready imo. His shot will come back eventually

DY_nasty · Post #352 » by **DY_nasty** » Fri Jan 1, 2021 9:42 pm

we don't need a sixth man though. we need help inside way more lol

that's the bad part about this.... we need help in a lot of different ways before a strong sixth man becomes a need

Post #353 » by **yosemiteben** » Fri Jan 1, 2021 10:04 pm

We're trying to find minutes for Ball with Monk getting 0 play time. When he's back, we're going to have too many guards.

JMAC3 · Post #354 » by **JMAC3** » Fri Jan 1, 2021 11:10 pm

I really think overall this board worries too much about who is starting. It probably comes from us having such a bad team/bad depth for so long but most good teams have 7-8 good players and some just can’t start. Seems like everyone thinks if a guy isn’t starting then we either need to trade him or trade the guy starting ahead of him.

The fact that Miles and Melo aren’t starting right now is a good thing, on previous Hornets teams we would of been so bad of course they would of been starting.

I agree it would be nice to have an upgrade at center but not sure we have to deal away Graham or another guard to make that happen right now. Zeller will be back soon and honestly not sure there are many major upgrades available.

DY_nasty · Post #355 » by **DY_nasty** » Fri Jan 1, 2021 11:21 pm

how else will it happen? and zeller wasn't a solution when healthy anyways. there's no way zeller should be any teams starting center.

yosemiteben wrote:We're trying to find minutes for Ball with Monk getting 0 play time. When he's back, we're going to have too many guards.

yeah, its unfortunate there's gonna be odd men out here no matter what happens really. i'd be shocked if the guards even got a full year of competing amongst each other

Post #356 » by **fatlever** » Sat Jan 2, 2021 6:13 am

graham right now...
[check stats]
[regrets not getting extension done]
[fires agent]

euphorbus · Post #357 » by **euphorbus** » Sat Jan 2, 2021 2:36 pm

Currently, Graham is shooting .274 from the field and .306 from three, both last on the team, except for Jalen's 4 three-point attempts. That puts him at #197 among NBA guards with 25+ minutes per game. Graham's TS% is .379, also abysmal.

Washington is next-to-last at .438 from the field, which, by the way, is terrible for a power forward/center. He currently weighs in at #128 among NBA forwards.

Vanderbilt_Grad · Post #358 » by **Vanderbilt_Grad** » Sat Jan 2, 2021 4:26 pm

It's way early, but a couple of thoughts

Scouting is a thing in the NBA. It's really normal for players to do poorly in year 2 and scouting is typically why. With a full year of film on a guy teams are able to plan what to do defensively. This is functionally Devonte's 'year 2' and teams know what to do when guarding him now. Good players anticipate this and add new wrinkles to their game. We heard about Devonte' doing that (adding a midrange game) but it doesn't seem to have worked well for him yet this year offensively (he's taking slightly more long 2s and less 3s per attempt). His percentages are way down across the board ... except on corner 3s. That's the one shot he's taking more of and making more of this year.

It takes time for a PG to adjust to the NBA. I generally like to give a guy 3 years. After that you usually know what he's going to be. In Devonte's case he may be a year behind this way. It's early, but Devonte's passing looks to be roughly the same (7.7 vs 7.4 assists per 36) and his turnovers are down quite a bit (2.9 vs 1.1 per 36). That's a pretty good sign.

The offense is different this year. Last year he and Terry really did end up being the focus, but this year - at least so far - a point has been made to involve more guys. His USG% is WAY down (24.8% last year vs 18% this). I honestly think that this had as much to do with his shooting % as the scouting thing too. For the record Terry's USG is up, Hayward is at about where Devonte' was last year, and LaMelo's higher than Devonte's.

Then there is the situation. Last year Devonte' was in the conversation for MIP. He came out of nowhere to help the team be just outside the playoff bubble when many expected them to be one of the worst in the NBA. I think that you can safely say that he probably thought that he had earned the starting PG position long term based on his play. It had to be a huge mental blow for the team to draft another PG. Training someone to take your place sucks, and it's not something I would expect him to do well.

Radu_Hornets · Post #359 » by **Radu_Hornets** » Sun Jan 3, 2021 10:51 am

Tae was on the court after the game practicing his shot.

Read on Twitter

Post #360 » by **Diop** » Sun Jan 3, 2021 12:21 pm

Weirdly his assist to turnover ratio is the best of all point guards this year. So it’s not all terrible???