We've seen a fair amount of Greg on the court at this point. He's still very young and raw (20), but I'm not a seeing a whole lot of potential in the near term with this squad. Pros: Athletic, great motor, eager and willing to do the little things. Positive influence to have around. Cons: Just about everything else. Inconsistent jumper from all ranges. Below average handles for his size. Poor hands and fumbles at least half of his touches. Plays a little wild and out-of-control. Gets lost easily on defense. Poor footwork. 20 years old, I get it, but I'm hoping the Blazers include him in whatever moves are made this summer. The lack of coordination in general is concerning.
I can't argue with much of that. He struggles with a lot of the little things. He has a lot of trouble repeating his shot. The positive thing is most of his problems are mechanical and correctable. He has by far the most upside of Olshey's second-round hits. This is going to come down to how good his work habits are ... also if he can put on weight, because for a 4 to be visibly smaller than Rudy Gay they're going to have a hard time to get it done. One other thing I'll throw out there: Do you think Brown looks bad because he's in the same rookie class as Trendon Watford, who plays the same position? Watford's game IQ seems really high. At the same time, Watford doesn't have the potential of Brown. Watford might have ruined the curve for Brown.
One other thing: Greg Brown normally would be doing all this in practice and wouldn't be seeing the court. We're seeing all his rookie mistakes because he has to play as we tank.
Yeah, Watford was an incredible find. Pretty much the exact opposite of everything listed above about Greg. Definitely could be making Greg look extra bad... I do think Greg has some long-term potential (read: years away), but he needs some serious individual personal training. He needs to focus on things like lateral quickness, ball-handling, and general coordination drills. Unfortunately, to me he looks to be un-playable on a serious team like we're hoping for next year. Just curious if everyone else is seeing the same thing as me, watching some of these recent games.
It's not really the mistakes, which are to be expected - especially defensively. It's the lack of general ball coordination for a 6'7 player. If he doesn't possess those skills naturally by age 20, is he really going to develop them significantly at all, at this point? In a reasonable timeframe?
I think that's fair. I actually think the same thing about him not being a rotation guy on a playoff-level team. I don't think that would apply to the Blazers next year, though. You figure, barring a trade of one of these guys, next year's rotation definitely has Dame, Ant, Nas, Nurk, Hart, Winslow and likely includes Watford. I think Keon's shown enough as a ballhandler and defender that he might play a rotational role, but, unless we need to include him in a deal, he's probably going to be on the roster because he has a lot of upside to develop. Dunn could very well make it because he gives us a big, defensive point guard who can run the offense and score a bit. We have the assets to probably acquire 3-4 players and most if not all of them would be somewhere in the rotation, and you figure most of them will be bigs. This is before even talking about Benny Mac or Ingles coming back; unlikely, but possible. On that team, Brown would be a practice body doing what he'd normally have done this year; he'd be learning in private and hopefully cleaning up his problems.
How many 20-year-olds are playing significant minutes in the NBA right now that we can compare Brown against? What we think looks awkward and deficient might be the result of a player still learning the game against some remarkably talented players trying to stop him.
Watford is already smooth, Brown not so much. It's there for the taking if he chooses to work his ass of for it IMHO.
Good points on the vision for next year, I agree with all that. It might be good to keep Dunn around on the cheap, and in a limited back-up role a la Greg Anthony. I guess the question is, does Brown have enough value to include/leverage for deals this summer? Or is his value so low that he's literally just a practice body? If he has SOME value, then I think we should take advantage of it. I'm not sure what the perception of him could possibly be across the league...
Sure if someone wants to give us someone better and they want him included in the deal, then fine. But on the other hand, we have this same discussion every single year about some young player. Sometimes they dramatically improve, and sometimes they never improve at all. But the one common denominator with all these young players, is we have no clue how they will turn out. I am not expecting him to ever be a star, but he has too much athletic ability to give up on him after 9 months.
My guess is that he'd probably stay in Portland if he has a choice. When you're a young player trying to learn the game, the last thing you want to do is jump around from team to team learning new teammates and systems. The game's already too fast for him as it is. If I had my guess, there's a 75-80% chance he's back in Portland next year and we'll only see him as a closer in blowouts. Odds are against him ever being a rotation player on a good team, but there's enough raw ability now and enough roster spots to rationalize keeping him for another year or two.
While he can jump out of the gym, this kid's shot mechanics are totally unorthodox and he makes very very few of them. Yeah he's young, but how many coaches have told him he needs to work on shooting form? I just don't get why this wouldn't be currently happening if it's ever going to. Greg's shot sucks. Hey Greg, go work on your shot! STOMP
Supposedly he's 6-9, not 6-7. I view him as a PF & not as a wing player. As such, I don't think his handle is 'terrible' for a PF. If he can straighten out his jumper - he has a chance to stick in the league
Yes on offense, I see him as a PF as well. (Same as I view Jerami Grant even though both are only around 210 lbs) Although he is quick enough to develop into a solid defender against multiple positions: "Brown's wingspan, just over seven feet, and 39-inch maximum vertical leap are some enviable building blocks for bigger forward defensively. But what really makes Brown's athletic profile special is his 2.99-second shuttle run time, tops out of all players at the combine"
I actually think Watford is a good comp for Brown. Watford is a quarter inch taller with a 2 inch advantage in wingspan. Now, Watford had an extra year in college, but he's only 10 months older than Brown and his skills are much more developed. I'd think Watford has as much room for improvement as Brown, so it will be interesting to see if the gap between them closes any. Watford is probably at the level of an 8th-9th man in a rotation right now. Brown closer to 12th-13th
The problem for Watford is, what will his role be on the team next season? If his role is to only play defense, rebound and take a shot once in a while, I don't see Greg Brown at such a disadvantage compared to Watford. Brown can be a difference maker with his ability to jump up and grab rebounds and block shots. Brown is lightning quick down the court without the ball. If the ball is taken away from Watford, how effective will he be?
well, without the ball, Watford is more effective than Brown, without the ball with the ball, Watford is more effective than Brown, with the ball Watford is simply a better player than Brown right now, and he's only 10 months older so Brown does not have some big youth-upside advantage either
https://www.nba.com/blazers/forwardcenter/greg-brown-iii-sees-vision-or-without-goggles Trail Blazers forward Greg Brown III sees things more clearly now as he nears the end of his rookie season, a development one might understandably attribute to the addition of protective lenses to his uniform. The 6-8 forward has been wearing goggles ever since suffering a corneal abrasion in his left eye in a loss to the Rockets on March 26, and while they’re not prescription lenses, he has shot 9-of-13 from three since donning the spectacles. So in three games since he joined the ranks of bespectacled big men like Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, Hakeem Olajuwon and Buck Williams, Brown III has made more three-pointers (nine) than he made in all of his previous NBA appearances combined (seven). But while he might be getting a placebo boost from the goggles, Brown III’s increased role -- his hot shooting streak has coincided with the first three starts of his career -- the work he’s put in with the coaching staff, prodding from his teammates are likely the reasons for an uptick in his three-point percentage. “The rim look kinda big with the goggles on,” joked Brown III. “I’ve been really putting in a lot of work on my shot. Me and Eddy (assistant coach Edniesha Curry), we’ve been in the gym every day working on my jumper, trying to make it pure. Really came down for me trusting myself and trusting my work. That’s what my teammates been preaching to me, they be like ‘G, we see you shoot the ball every day, just go ahead and shoot it.’ And then I think the goggles gave me some confidence, came out looking like Steph Curry.” Brown III becoming a reliable three-point shooter would greatly improve his chances of sticking in the NBA as the 43rd pick of the 2021 Draft who spent one season at Texas, though it’s not the most important development this season for the 20 year-old. For Brown III, learning what it takes to be a professional in the NBA, not in terms of skills, but when it comes to how to approach each day, has been his most valuable takeaway thus far. “I’ve learned, mostly, just the tangibles of being a pro,” said Brown III. “Taking care of your body, being on time, basically showing up to work every day on 10. Like, there’s no days off, you’ve got to come to practice ready, come to games ready, come to team meetings ready. That’s the biggest change I had to make because in college, you can kind of slack off one day, you can come kinda BS-ing and nobody will say nothing. Here, you can’t do that. They won’t say anything to you but you can kind of feel that you’re messing up.” Finding a suitable work/life balance can be a challenge for anyone entering the workforce, but that’s especially true for young athletes who understandably want to enjoy the benefits that come with being handsomely rewarded for playing a game at an elite level. So for an individual like Brown III, a sweet, gregarious and curious young man whose every day enthusiasm is truly infectious, and the teams who employ them, it’s important to figure out how to retain that joy while at the same time working within the rigidity that comes with being a part of a team. “Greg has come a long, long way since summer league when we first started coaching him,” said Trail Blazers head coach Chauncey Billups. “He’s a young kid but he’s maturing, not only on the floor but off the floor. He’s just a ball of energy, just joyful to be around every day -- he has to remember about 25 handshakes, that’s not easy to do, he got a handshake for every single player on the team, coaches included. He’s been fun. He’s been fun to teach, he listens to everything, he’s engaged when you’re trying to teach him and he’s come a long, long way. Obviously still has a ways to go, though.” Brown III played sparingly through the first four months of the season, appearing in just 20 games -- and usually when the result was already decided -- while never seeing more than 12 minutes of action at a time. But between trades made to help improve the team in future seasons and injuries which have sidelined the majority of the remaining roster, Brown III has seen his minutes and roll increase dramatically, a reward of sorts for the improvements he’s made on and off the court. “Sometimes it does get kind of challenging, especially in the beginning of the season when I had to sit the whole game,” said Brown III. “When it gets to halftime, that’s especially when it got hard, the third and fourth quarter, watching them play. But that’s the time I really locked in and tried to learn, tried to see what they’re doing out there so I can be out there and I can replicate those same reps and do what they’re doing at the high level. The only way you can do that is be positive, lock in and trust what everybody is doing.” As the emphasis in Portland has transitioned from winning games this season to laying the groundwork for success in future seasons, Billups his staff have had an opportunity to accelerate the growth of players like Brown III. Practice is an important path to improvement, but there’s no substitute for playing regular NBA minutes. And with plenty of minutes to go around, it allows for a much quicker turnaround between working on something in practice and then applying it in a game. In short, it’s easier to keep young players engaged when they know they’re being taught something they can utilize tomorrow rather than at some distant point in the future. “A lot of my talks with (Brown III), and a lot of our young guys, is you’ve added a very important part to your legacy, and that’s ‘professional,’” said Billups. “There’s a lot that comes with being an actual pro and as a coach, I signed up to coach NBA players. Nineteen, 39, age don’t matter to me. I signed up to coach pros, so I’m going to treat you that way, I’m going to teach you that way, I’m going to coach you that way and he’s all in on it. He’s all in on it. He’s made some great gains.” At some point in the near future, Brown III will sit down with Billups and to discuss the improvement he made this season and what they’ll want him to focus on this offseason such as rebounding and protecting the rim -- he’s got the size and athleticism to be significantly better at both. But if nothing else, Brown III has seen what it takes to survive in a highly-competitive environment like the NBA, with or without goggles. “I feel like that’s the thing I had to improve on the most, just coming in on 10 every day, not messing up as much, learning the coverages and the plays quickly and learn how to take care of my body, all of that. I feel like that’s been my biggest change throughout my rookie season. That’s what I’ve learned.”
He's looking better and better which is really all you want from a young guy, but hes probably still a year or two away from being a rotation player on a good team. But even good teams need prospects like him, otherwise you end up like the Lakers with no future and no assets hehe
