pingpongrac wrote:ciueli wrote:pingpongrac wrote:GTJ was very good in Portland the last ~80 games since he became a regular rotation piece for them (14 PPG on 57 TS%), but he was also mostly very good for us when he had 2+ starters alongside him. 31 points on 12/22 shooting, 24 points on 8/14 shooting, 16 points on 7/15 shooting + buzzer beater, 23 points on 9/17 shooting, etc. Then obviously he had that 44-point night on 17/19 shooting when he was lights out playing alongside OG and scrubs against Cleveland.
People really need to stop looking at GTJ's overall numbers with us in 17 games then bringing up his Portland numbers and deducing that he was only good because of Lillard+McCollum.
Here are Trent's game logs for last season:
https://www.basketball-reference.com/players/t/trentga02/gamelog/2021The thing to notice is that with Toronto, nearly all his 20PPG+ games came against mediocre or flat out bad teams.
2021-03-31, 31 points against OKC (no SGA or Horford, Fred + Pascal played heavy minutes)
2021-04-02, 24 points against GSW (no Stephen Curry or Draymond Green).
2021-04-10, 44 points against CLE (no Jarett Allen or Larry Nance Jr., Dean Wade played 35 minutes).
2021-04-11, 23 points against NYK (Kyle + Pascal played heavy minutes)
2021-04-18, 23 points against OKC (no SGA or Horford, 23 points on 25 shots is pretty bad).
2021-05-06, 25 points against WAS (Fred + Pascal played heavy minutes)
Throw in 2021-04-05, 16 points against WAS and we get 7 out of 17 games he had decent scoring numbers, 4 of those against non-playoff teams missing multiple top players.
On the other hand, a quick glance through his Portland games shows he had good performances against a number of top playoff teams including the Lakers, Suns, Sixers, and Hawks. It certainly looks as though he works best when he has other shot creators or scorers like Lillard and McCollum to play off, I don't know how it's going to work when the starting 1, 2, and 3 really just want to spot up from 3 and aren't good at manufacturing offense for others.
What about the other games below (which includes the OKC game) that back up the point I was making?
vs LAL (no Lowry or FVV and OG was ejected in Q1): Trent shot 4/15 from the field and scored 11 points (Siakam led the way with 27 PTS on 21 FGA). Very little offensive help and Trent struggled.
The Lakers didn't have LeBron James, Anthony Davis, or Montrezl Harrell for this game, you know, their top 3 guys. Pretty disappointing that he couldn't step up against the likes of Kentavious Caldwell-Pope and Talen Horton-Tucker.
pingpongrac wrote:vs OKC (no Lowry, FVV, OG or Siakam): Trent shot 9/25 from the field and was the 2nd leading scorer with 23 points (Boucher lead the team with 31 after a super hot Q1) while Flynn (15 PTS on 14 FGA) and Johnson (12 points on 9 FGA) were the next highest scorers.
OKC was practically a G-League level team at the time, they won 3 games of their last 30 to end the season. There is zero excuse for a bad game against them no matter who Trent was playing with.
pingpongrac wrote:vs MEM (no Lowry, FVV or OG and Siakam left late in the game): Trent shot 5/20 from the field and led the team in points with 18 (Siakam also had 18) while Harris (16 PTS on 12 FGA) and Flynn (15 PTS on 11 FGA) were the next highest scorers.
vs LAC (no Lowry, FVV, OG or Siakam): Trent shot 3/16 from the field and scored just 9 PTS (Boucher led the way with 16 PTS on 15 FGA) while every other player finished with <12 points and <11 FGA.
Games like this just reinforce to me that he has no shot creation and struggles when there isn't another player on the floor to set him up, to get him open looks from 3 by breaking down defenses. Without that, he's a low efficiency 3 point shooter non-creator and poor passer who is forced to take bad shots. If he was a good defender the way Danny Green was that might be fine, but he isn't.
pingpongrac wrote:In those 4 games alone -- where Trent was either the de facto #1 or #2 option due to injuries/rest -- he shot 21/76 from the field which obviously drags his numbers down quite a bit. Add on the first couple games (debut against the Suns and against his old Portland teammates) where he was obviously still learning the system then two games where he came off the bench for limited minutes...and suddenly half of the games he played for us were in much tougher circumstances than the typical game. In those 8 games, GTJ averaged 10.5 PPG on 35 TS%. Seems pretty dumb to write off a player because of a handful of bad games where he was playing with a new team post-trade deadline and was also thrust into a #1/#2 option role out of necessity in 4 or 5 games...and then the whole playing through injury for a few games/coming off injury thing.
And it seems just as dumb to assume a player is going to massively improve because he shot the lights out in a couple of games against bad or undermanned teams at the end of the season (44 points against garbage OKC as an example).
My point was that he works better as the 3rd to 5th option on a team with his offense being created for him by guys like Damian Lillard or CJ McCollum (or even Kyle Lowry who is no longer on the team). To me, everything you're saying just reinforces my point, that he's a player who can only be successful when he has other better talent and shot creation around him.
Will he have that on the 2021-22 Toronto Raptors? I believe the answer is no, with Fred + OG at the 1, 2, and 3 as none of them are primary shot creators and all of them want to mostly play spot up shooter for threes, there's going to be a lot of guys standing around and looking at each other, wondering who is going actually be a threat to dribble drive and finish at the rim.
