I was not excited about the signing of Aminu. Yes, he had a good series for Dallas against Houston. But they lost in 5 games. And for the rest of the year he averaged 18 mpg in, what, his 5th year in the league? Not exactly exciting. And then I watched Afrobasket JUST FOR AMINU and, although he made the All-Tourney team, he was beaten for MVP by his Nigerian teammate who was a one-dimensional gunner who got hot at the right time. And his stats were very anemic, except for amazingly high turnovers. And the high turnovers continued into the regular season, along with a somewhat blinkered offensive approach. (Here comes the "but".) BUT. He has the highest +/- on the team. And he truly is a lockdown defender. In fact, I don't understand why he isn't put on players like Reggie Jackson when they're killing us. That used to be Batum's job, right? So why isn't it Aminu's? I've got to say that I'm lukewarm on every player we acquired (and most of the ones we kept). But I'm learning to love Aminu. Plus, his quite amazing turnovers are the most spectacular since the glory days of Jarrett Jack.
I love his off the ball help defense! Great at coming over and swatting the shit out of the ball! Also love his ability to get out into the open court and finish. Even though he made some last night, still not comfortable with him shooting 3s and I have been very unimpressed with his court vision. Kinda puts his head down and goes to the hoop. Pretty much getting what I expected. Love Batum's game more, but whatcha gonna do.
Way too many people made excuses for batum the entire time he was on the team. Bullshit. Aminu and his energy is such a joy to watch. Even though he has holes in his game, you can't teach that energy, tenacity and will. Batum who?
You know who Aminu reminds me of? A non-rapey Ruben Patterson. Which is a good thing to be. But he has about the same basketball skills - i.e., not that many. The idea that he could remotely replace Batum's point-forward role is laughable.
He was awesome defensively in his first three games - 98 DRtg It's now at 106 - about what Batum gave this team. I'd like to see Aminu more at the four - in the Draymond role.
If ONLY Batum put his head down and went to the hoop more often. It's actually reminiscent of Clyde Drexler who would do that. And Aminu is shooting a career high 34% from the three point line. Not bad.
I like him. He's a breath of fresh air in terms of hustle and defensive energy. His lack of polish and vision on offense is probably always going to be a problem, but I could see him as a long-term solution provided we can actually find/draft another wing who can actually create offense and defend better than McCollum - basically a guy sort of like Klay Thompson.
I'm glad to see that people have tempered their love for Aminu. Early in the season it was pretty ridiculous how hyped he was. I get it - people hated Nic, and the visible exertion of energy made people instantly fall in love with Aminu. But he certainly has a lot of holes in his game. He gives great effort on defense, but has been losing his man a lot more these past several games. If he can learn to slide on defense but keep track of where his man is so he can recover then he'll be a great defender. Offensively his decision making is not great - anytime he dribbles more than twice it's more likely to result in a turnover than a good play. When he does get to the rim he doesn't have a good enough touch to actually put the ball through the hoop. His outside shot is better than I expected. My general opinion of Aminu boils down to: I hope we can draft Ben Simmons.
