Kuzma will be a free agent next year after averaging 20 ppg for the Wiz this year. I'm not asking about fit for your team though; what I want to know is where you would rank him among NBA forwards.
Assume there are 60 starting forwards in the NBA, other 90 or so forwards that were on active rosters, so for numerical purposes it is out of a player pool of about 150 athletes.
Where would you rank Kyle Kuzma?
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Where would you rank Kyle Kuzma?
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Where would you rank Kyle Kuzma?
“Most people use statistics like a drunk man uses a lamppost; more for support than illumination,” Andrew Lang.
Re: Where would you rank Kyle Kuzma?
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Re: Where would you rank Kyle Kuzma?
Kuzma is difficult to rank. My first instinct is right next to John Collins and DeAndre Hunter [which is a weird mixed bag of players, I admit].
I think fans want to see him as Jerami Grant, and sometimes Kuzma is Jerami Grant, but too often Kyle Kuzma is Marcus Morris.
Kuzma does fill in the 3rd scorer role well enough on a Play-In hopeful team, but in theory he doesn't possess the shot creation or playmaking chops to truly cut it as a 3rd option or offensive piece approaching his usage [Around 27-28%, 18 FGA/G but a low 3.7 FTA/G]. As a whole, Kuzma is simply an inconsistent player, scaled up [Like in Washington] or scaled down [Like he was in Los Angeles].
I would put him behind limited players like SlowMo, Batum and Vanderbilt but ahead of guys like Craig, Osman, Martin, Niang. Probably in the 40-50 range if I had to guess, though I didn't look through a list of that many players.
I think fans want to see him as Jerami Grant, and sometimes Kuzma is Jerami Grant, but too often Kyle Kuzma is Marcus Morris.
Kuzma does fill in the 3rd scorer role well enough on a Play-In hopeful team, but in theory he doesn't possess the shot creation or playmaking chops to truly cut it as a 3rd option or offensive piece approaching his usage [Around 27-28%, 18 FGA/G but a low 3.7 FTA/G]. As a whole, Kuzma is simply an inconsistent player, scaled up [Like in Washington] or scaled down [Like he was in Los Angeles].
I would put him behind limited players like SlowMo, Batum and Vanderbilt but ahead of guys like Craig, Osman, Martin, Niang. Probably in the 40-50 range if I had to guess, though I didn't look through a list of that many players.
Re: Where would you rank Kyle Kuzma?
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Re: Where would you rank Kyle Kuzma?
By the looks of it his impact is very average. Stats don't seem to completely reach a concensus as he's a pretty big negative in WS/48 and BPM, a slight negative in RAPTOR, right about average in LEBRON and PER and slightly above average in RAPM and EPM. By the looks of it this does seem to come down to how these stats rate offense and defense against each other as the stats do seem to generally imply Kuzma is a slightly below average offensive player and slightly above average on defense.
Overall he seems like a fairly inconsequential player and I mean that in the nicest way. Adding or losing Kuzma isn't going to change the fortunes of any team all that much but he's a solid starter or high minute bench option. If I had to rank him then I'd probably say 40-ish among forwards.
Overall he seems like a fairly inconsequential player and I mean that in the nicest way. Adding or losing Kuzma isn't going to change the fortunes of any team all that much but he's a solid starter or high minute bench option. If I had to rank him then I'd probably say 40-ish among forwards.