playa-hater wrote:Hal14 wrote:SatchSanders wrote:
People are sleeping on Langford. He’ll be 7th or 8th man if not starting. His defense and ball movement will draw Udoka to him.
Summer League? He was playing the role he was asked to play, the role he knew he’d play this season. With his length and awareness he can guard 1 through 4, and he’s a slasher and quality passer who consistently makes the right play.
With Richardson on the team nothing will be handed to Langford, but he’ll seize a role. He’s an excellent complement to the Jays and has the highest upside as a trade chip aside from the Jays and RWIII.
Agreed.
People seem to be going gaga over Nesmith, saying he should start. I'm still not convinced he should be over Langford on the depth chart. Nesmith is a better shooter, yes. But Langford has closed the gap in that department with improved shooting late in the season, in playoffs and in summer league.
And Langford is a much better defender and better passer. Nesmith was lighting it up at summer league - at times. But at times he was ice cold. And he had a few times where he got burned pretty bad defensively by guys who are g-leaguers.
People are just giving credit to Nesmith and Pritchard for what they did in summer league. Langford is the one who hit the game-winning 3-pointer in the first game and Langford is the one who had what many consider the best dunk of summer league.
IMO the 2 of them are entering camp about even on the depth chart. We need both of them and both of them have the potential to be really good. Who plays more is TBD, depends on who earns more mins at training camp, preseason, practice and games..
For the first bold I think you are way underestimating the need for Boston to have a "true shooter" in the lineup with the Js. Nesmith while he still hasn't proven that part yet, is still an easy selection to become a "true shooter" over/before Langford.
The 2nd bold a
"much better passer and defender" is "potentially an overstatement". I haven't seen many signs of this being true in his small sample size.
1) Who was the "true shooter" in the Bucks starting 5 last yr?
Who was the "true shooter" in the Suns starting 5 last yr?
My recommended starting 5 is Smart/Richardson/Brown/Tatum/Horford. This lineup contains 3 players who shot over the league average 3 point % last year (Tatum, Brown, Horford). The Bucks and Suns both had 3 players in their starting 5 who shot over the league average from 3. So the starting 5 outlined above should be just fine - especially since both Richardson and Smart are also decent outside shooters as well - so literally all 5 guys can be counted on to shoot at least 34% from 3.
Brown shot 39.7% from 3 and Brown shot 38.6% from 3. When Brown has the ball, Tatum is an off-ball shooter. When Tatum has the ball, Brown is an off-ball shooter. People keep saying how we need shooters with the Jays - the Jays ARE shooters.
2) IMO there's 7 guys on the team who are clearly better than both Nesmith and Langford (rob, al, smart, richardson, schroder, tatum, brown). Nesmith is at best our 8th best player, but one could even say he's our 10th or 11th best player so I think it's a reach to put him in the starting lineup because while you put another shooter out there, you're sacrificing in other areas.
Since my recommended starting 5 is smart/richardson/brown/tatum/horford, it is less a question about which 1 of them its better with the Jays and more of a question of which one fits better with the bench unit? Cause I'm actually saying that neither Nesmith or Langford starts. Both Nesmith and langford will likely get mins with the 2nd unit (along with "true shooter" Pritchard). I'm simply saying that in terms of overall game, I'm not seeing how Nesmith is clearly better than Langford - which is what it seems like most C's fans think is the case.
3) I actually said Langford is a much better defender and a better passer. Not a much better defender and a much better passer. It is common knowledge that Langford has played some PG in high school and college and there's been talks about having Langford play some PG for us, because of his play making ability, experience at the 1 and because of how long we would be with him at the 1 and how good defensively and switchable that lineup would be. Nesmith meanwhile is a catch and shoot guy. A good catch and shoot guy for sure, but it's common knowledge that he's not much of a play maker for others.
And defensively, Langford has shown flashes both last season and the year before that as being a truly elite perimeter defender. IMO he was one of our 3 best defenders last year, with Smart and Rob being the other 2. Nesmith at times was pretty good defensively, but at times he looked lost - Langford was simply better and more consistent on that end of the floor. That was also true in summer league, where Langford was solid on D, whereas Nesmith got burned defensively a number of times by g-leaguers.