I’d say defense is Gabriel’s strength, but you know how young guys get officiated, especially blazers. I do think he’s more skilled than Aminu on the other end.
Can you imagine Aminu attempting that drive from the top of the key, 360 spin through two defenders, finishing with the left hand in traffic?
My entirely unprofessional take: going into the season I thought Little had the highest ceiling, but also the lowest floor. My concern was that he would be too much of a tweener. I had Simons ahead of Trent because he seemed the more explosive of the two. Trent, however, has made greater strides in learning to actually play at the NBA level. I have no idea what to think of Gabriel yet.
outside of the officiating and fouls in his start against the lakers, i thought he did a very credible job defending AD,especially factoring the short time actually with the team. kind of forced to play cause of melo's choice of not to. might be stronger than aminu. in the series against NOLA aminu held AD to like 30 points per game so i thought Gabriel did a very good job in that small sample .
Just physically, I would rate Gabriel #1, Little and Simons different strengths but about even, Trent last.
Wenyen went at AD on both ends, was dope to see. And then he also shows an ability to stay in front of smaller more agile players. He’s really intriguing.
He's an unrestricted FA, but I don't think many if any teams will be offering him even a minimum contract so I'm guessing Olshey and Stotts will get together and see if he's better than the other options. My gut is that he won't be on the team next year.
Gabriel's greatest skill is the ability to keep his man in front and keep his arms up on defense. It's kind of crazy how many players still don't know that good, solid defense can be played if you just keep your arms up and don't swipe at everything.
He’s restricted. Don’t see why he wouldn’t be back either. He’s cheap and they still need to fill out the roster. They only have ten guys under contract, and that’s assuming Hezonja and hood opt in. I’d say there’s a greater than 50% chance Hezonja does not.
yeah, that's what I thought. Portland only has non-Bird rights though, so unless they use part of the MLE or BAE for him the most they could offer is 1.73M. That should be enough
https://www.spotrac.com/nba/portland-trail-blazers/wenyen-gabriel-27806/ sport trac's page concerning weyen's contract is a little confusing to me. it appears that we can make a qualifying offer this year for $1,749,812 and cap hold of the same. under it they show him being a RFA at age 24, 2 years from now but still 2020.
http://www.basketballinsiders.com/portland-trail-blazers-team-salary/ if you hover your cursor over his name, they say Portland has early bird rights, rather than non-bird rights
Forget the fouls, he’s a rookie, getting officiated like a rookie, and playing his first minutes. The game will slow down for him with time. But the tools, man they’re intriguing, especially defensively. I still think he’s more of a small forward than power forward. If both Gabriel and Little keep developing we’ll finally be set at a position we’ve been dying at for years.
Only play on the team that: A.) Makes the effort to rotate that quickly AND B.) Actually blocks that shot
