I am not optimistic about Elleby becoming a good shooter. But he fits very well with the starters. I think Billups values everything else Elleby does, and isn't looking to replace him with another player whose only advantage is shooting.
You can say that about Greg Brown too. And Justise Winslow, although he's doing well in Portland so far.
Keon gets to the line more, is a better passer, better shot blocker, better in the passing lanes, and a much better athlete. And this is all based purely on his limited NBA minutes. The gap is even wider if you wanna use his g league minutes.
CJ Elleby's true shooting percentage is .508 . That is better than the following players (this is only a partial list): Devonte Graham, starting SG for the Pelicans. Furkan Korkmaz Russell Westbrook Blake Griffin Talen Horten-Tucker Payton Pritchard Immaneul Quickley Justise Winslow Cameron Payne Garrett Temple Kyle Anderson Darius Bazley Spencer Dinwiddie Reggie Jackson, starting PG for the Clippers Cade Cunningham, starting PG for the Pistons Josh Giddey Davion Mitchell Killian Hayes Keon Johnson There are a lot of crappy scorers in the NBA at Elleby's level. I think Elleby fails the eye test, and the other players look better chucking, and chuck a lot more.
his TS% is .436 since he started getting heavy minutes and that number is boosted by his free throw percentage. That would rank him in the bottom ten (among 550 players that have played this season) Guy has a long way to go, we’ll see if he gets there.
Elleby played 26 minutes on December 27th. He's played meaningful minutes every game since then except for a couple. His true shooting % for that period is .502 What sample size are you using? The last 6 games? Meaningless to me. Cade Cunningham is still worse, at 40%.
the games he’s started is meaningless to you? I thought your whole argument is that he should continue starting?
Elleby's shooting looks poor, and I don't expect some huge revelation there, but I do think he could turn into a Justise Winslow type for us. I pulled up CJ's season, versus Winslow's career for comparison: https://stathead.com/basketball/pcm...=ellebcj01&p1yrfrom=2022&player_id2=winslju01 Sorry, I have no idea how to embed their charts, so if nobody wants to follow the link, I understand, but it shows them with very comparable per/36 and advanced numbers. Most of us seem pretty excited about what Winslow could bring, even with a broken shot, so it seems we shouldn't be too quick to just write Elleby off as a non contributor in year 2.
The thing that gives me hope for CJE's shooting to improve is his form is not that bad. No reason for him to come up short when he is attacking the basket, and even though he bricks a lot of 3 pt shots, it seems like it is fixable over the course of a summer
CJE is missing open Js, while those guys are taking more contested shots. It's the Aminu thing all over again (teams leaving him open), but CJ's not as good as Aminu.
Yeah and it’s not just open Js, his finishing around the rim is really bad. At least Aminu could finish those bunnies. Keon shouldn’t struggle to find minutes, and Hughes should probably take Ellebys minutes too.
My rotation out of the break Ant Hart Hughes Winslow Nurk Keon McLemore Hart Brown Watford Also wouldn’t necessarily be against Bledsoe playing on that second unit, but not at Keons expense. Elleby can pick up whatever crumbs are left.
The Elleby talk feels like the “Jake Layman can really play” talk from a few years ago. He’s meaningless.
Aside from 1-2 posters that are pro-Elleby, I don’t see much “positive talk” about him. Most of the talk is get CJ outta here.
