Nothing Clingan has shown so far on the floor in three SL games has deviated from what I thought he was after two years at UConn. Certainly, the intangibles and will to win he brings are much more obvious watching him up close, but my reasons to not want to draft him were because of his slow feet and lack of any offensive skill beside passing. I want to see him as the roll man with more spacing in the NBA to see if he has any viability there but our guards are incapable of running such actions in SL. Let's table this until a quarter of the way through our season. This can potentially be a reason foe me to change my opinion if he can be a creator off the short roll or has rhe finishing ability to be a threat on offense.
I have a feeling the people who would change their opinions after SL games didn't really see him much in college.
Yes, if you think there's only one center archetype (defenders who can hit threes like Wemby/Porzingas/Lopez). But the Mavs made the Finals with rim finishers (which Clingan may become as his conditioning improves.) Twolves made WCF with a traditional no offense interior defender. Which is his floor. Embiid, Wemby, Giannis and Jokic have changed the archetype in sort of the same way Shaq did 25 years ago. Especially Jokic. You can't just go out there with versatile wings and expect to win. You really have to have height and interior defense or these guys will kill you. It's much more important at this point than hitting threes at the center position. If you don't have one of these amazing bigs, you have to have an answer for them. I think Clingan can be our answer. He's not a franchise center, but I think he has the upside to be a rung below that, and be someone who leads the way against other bigs.
Yeah, I was meh on the pick and while it's easy to get excited because he is going to be a presence both on the glass and at the rim, I still think most teams will be able to play him off the court. I thought there were guys available (Cody Williams and Buzelis specifically) that filled needs who won't be played off the court but this draft was a crap shoot and maybe the guys I think better suited our roster and today's game will be played out of the league long before Clingan. Super high character guy but if you were paying attention you already knew that. We now know that his most developed skills as a shot blocker and rebounder translate from college to the SL level, that isn't all the way to the NBA level but I'm hopeful that those things will. He has to finish stronger around the rim but at the same time his SL teammates aren't looking to set anyone up besides themselves almost all of the time. I think it was Dennis Scott that said while announcing one of our games that teams are focused on stopping Clingan right now in SL and that on an NBA roster he would get kind of lost and have a lot more basically cleanup scoring opportunities and I agree with that. It will be nice to have shot blocking and I'm hoping that our team can scheme around Clingan's inability to cover the perimeter and then recover to protect the paint. I'll tell you one thing that I don't think will help Donovan out on the defensive end and that's playing extended minutes on the floor with Deandre.
His finishing around the rim leaves a lot to be desired. The lift to dunk the ball in traffic as a lob threat just wasn't in his aresenal. He is much more ground bound compared to someone like Lively. And in that case, his touch has to be a lot better; and so far, he is much closer to Nurk than he is BroLo. Think it has to do with his heavy feet, but this is a key differentiator in my mind if he can improve it.
Seeing players as archetypes instead of individual players is a recipe for making stupid draft mistakes, IMO, but we'll see I guess.
Clingan isn’t a finished product, just like Bub Carrington and Reed Sheppard aren’t finished products. The things people seemed to be terrified about in this thread (inability to finish, inability to get the ball on offense, difficulty in some defensive switching scenarios when challenging the guy attacking ATR) seem like fixable things—or things that will change outside of summer league which is—let’s be frank, sloppy basketball. I have my reservations about Scoot but the psych profile on both he and Clingan seem like they’re guys that like to be coached and are willing to do the work to get better. Even Clingan’s postgame responses seem like a guy who isn’t satisfied and wants to win/kill the other team. does that mean Clingan will be a star? Eh, no. But it seems pretty clear Portland got good value in a shit draft, and I suspect the future version of Clingan will feature a cleaned up, more polished game. Will he ever have the fastest feet? Will he become a switchy, floor spacing big? No. But that doesn’t mean he can’t have a huge impact on the team. I’d settle for a perpetual all-defense type guy, sure! just don’t miss on your draft picks. outside of a freak injury it seems like Portland got a decent player. next year is the year where you get your star.
People are going to point to the Celtics and deny this, but 1. The Celtics had Porzingis when they needed him and 2. I'm not sure the Celtics would have defeated the Nuggets, certainly without Porzingis. The Nuggets were defeated by a team with a big old-school center. Now, would I like Clingan to be better offensively? Duh. He has distressingly poor touch, for one thing. But after years of having unbelievable shitty defense, it sure is refreshing to see our SL team winning with it (despite having effectively NOBODY who can score [well, maybe McGowens, and possibly Cui])
Hopefully. This is a prove it year for Sharpe with his extension on the horizon. I want to see it for a full year with his teammates. I want the information that we lost this year.
I think most of these guys have strengths and flaws. Nic Claxton was a center we all wanted last summer. Terrible FT and 3 pt shooter Lively is also a terrible FT and 3-point shooter. 7 rebounds per game last year is nothing to be happy about. Clingan might have heavy feet and with it some flaws, but I like the 1-2 punch with him and Ayton.
Clingan is also a good fit because, as I’ve said a bunch of times, you can’t have 5 guys that need to score. Scoot, Simons, Sharpe, Grant, Ayton, Avdija all need the ball Hopefully Scoot will take on the lead guard mentality and distribute the ball instead of looking for points.
I was "meh" on the pick. Seemed like about the best player available at that spot. With all the talk about it being such a bad draft. It was going to be a "meh" pick almost no matter what. I'm liking what I'm seeing.
