GoodBehavior wrote:lilfishi22 wrote:GoodBehavior wrote:If Ayton was smart, he would pack on weight this offseason (15+ lb). Mo Bamba has packed on weight and it has helped him from being unplayable to an interesting big. I think Ayton envision himself as a forward/center, but that experiment is just not yielding great results. His dream of being an Anthony Davis / Kevin Garnett type player is pure fantasy at this point. Dribbling is still rough and looks awkward, 3 point shot hasn't progress much. Pick and roll offense looks to have regressed, etc.
I remember Ryan says he was drafted to be a low post dominant player. You can't be a low post player at 250 lbs. His defense will be negatively impacted (if he gains weight) but his offense would take off, IMO. He looks undersized as a center, which is not what fans envisioned when he was drafted.
I disagree. Ayton is as big and as strong as he was expected to be. As for Bambam he had to pack on weight because he was severely underweight for his size so packing on weight was just to get back to average. Ayton isn't a low post dominant player, matter of fact, he doesn't want to dominant on offense at all seemingly. He's the perfect size to play C in today's NBA where those 300lb C's of yesteryears are extremely rare (Boban? anyone else?). 250lbs is perfect as he has enough size and strength to guard most C's but also light enough for him to do the thing he does best at and that's sliding laterally and moving around the court.
The fact is this, gaining weight isn't going to do much for him other than slow him down and keep him even closer to the ground because he's not going to use the added weight for offense anyway
Additional weight allows him to push people around. He's one of the best at finishing in the post, like other poster has highlighted, with a PPP of 1.05. He has a variety of moves that are hard to guard. The issue with him is his inability to drive people back when he catches the rock away from the paint. He can't. At 250 lb, he has no to little chance of backing down centers who are 270 lb+. Bam, fwiw, is heavier than Ayton (260 vs 250), which makes zero sense, since Bam is considered a "small ball" center.
He's a good finesse finisher because he has great hands and he's quick.
With regards to the weight, there's two points I want to make.
1. I had a look across the league and using the BRef as the data base and taking players who have at least a 10lb weight advantage over Ayton as having a measurable physical advantage over him, there are 20 players. Of those 20 players, he likely has the speed advantage over all of them. Zion and McGee might be the only two guys are are fairly quick for their weight. In today's NBA, why are we still investing in the "arms race" of having the biggest guy in the post? This isn't 2000's basketball anymore. Having the biggest and strongest guy in the post doesn't win you games otherwise Dallas would be playing Boban a lot more than 8mpg. Ayton is a good finesse scorer and he's strong enough and (more importantly) fast enough to negate whatever weight advantage most of his defenders has over him. The only time he doesn't have an advantage over these massive bigs is if he plays right into their strength which is low post defense. How do you further negate heavy big men with good low post defense? You PnR them off the court.
2. This day and age, playing the throw the ball to your C to back down for 8sec game, is a losing strategy. Even if he had the added weight to back people down, how many of those possessions do we want to play over moving the ball around, find the open man or finding an open/rolling Ayton? You say there will be no impact to his quickness but I just don't believe adding 15-20lbs won't affect him. You can't gain something without giving up nothing. Right now his most impactful and valuable attribute is his ability to guard the perimeter on switches *and* recover to defend the rim when a guard gets past him. This is a very PnR heavy era and having a good big man defender on the PnR is massive. Slowing him down at the expense of decreasing his lateral quickness for a few post up possessions is an awful trade off.
I'm not totally against him gaining say 5-10lbs max but any weight he adds will come at the cost of quickness and speed. Right now, I wouldn't want to sacrifice any of his effectiveness on defense at the cost of a few post up opportunities.
