Pickup games at that. I doubt any player is working on their defense out at the park or even in the gym with other top players in pickup situations. They might dig deep defensively on game point, but these guys are working on their stroke, handles and dunks. Dame was/is a notorious summer player. Never heard anything about his defense. Heard about improved distance on his three, ball handling and finishing at the rim.
How do you know this? Did you get a chance to watch him work out? I have not seen anything to tell me anything about how driven he is?
Just the conversations, interviews and clips of him working out this summer. And i said seems to have. Meaning i don't know for sure, but it looks like he does.
I like all of this but if Ant is getting around 36 minutes a game and has the type of usage he did last season, these dudes won't get enough reps in the roles they both need to be playing, for us to even know where they could be at. Ant is the Scoot and Shae killer. Ant is the little-death that brings Scoot's and Shae's total obliteration.
this was already debunked many time here, that Ant and his usage is hurting Scoot and Sharpe. Do you even know how many games Ant played with Scoot and Sharpe last season?
I agree. I was actually searching for it when I read your post. If there were a lot they were sporadic, which does not help with chemistry. We all know that Scoot struggled early on regardless of who he was playing with, so I find it hard to blame Ant. Here is one of those games, but guys like Moses, Reath, and Thybulle also got big minutes. So if you replace them with Ayton, Grant, and Deni how will that work? I have no idea. Regardless I don't think we have seen enough of all 3 playing in the same game to know yet. https://www.espn.com/nba/boxscore/_/gameId/401584932 I am anxious to see how Deni plays with everyone. Not sure how he will play with Scoot, but I think he will fit in with the others.
I agree it’s really hard to blame anything or anyone on how Scoot looked especially early on. Scoot was 19, coming into the NBA with no college experience, and playing the hardest position in the NBA, especially for a rookie. I’m sure early on too his confidence and ego was a little shaken when he realized the NBA is a whole different animal than the G-League. But as you pointed out, Scoot struggled early on for the first couple months and that was by far his worse stretch of basketball. Funny enough that was without Ant, as Ant hurt his hand the FIRST game of the season and was out for the first two months of the season Another point I want to make is Ant is currently our best 3pt shooter, or close to the best next to Grant. Ant being on the floor with Scoot will open his game up more, spread the floor more and allow Scoot a clearer path to the hoop once he blows by his defender or they sag in on him and that leaves Ant open for the 3ball. And talking about Sharpe, he only played 13 games with Ant. And only 32 games overall. But in those 19 games played without Ant and those 13 with Ant, his stats were virtually the same, heck might have been even worse without Ant I can’t remember of the top of my head. I don’t get the Ant is a Scoot and Sharpe killer
To see examples of such events, type "open run nba" into a search engine. They aren't open to the media, so are unreported and unknown to us here. This open run was like a mini-NBA Summer League. I read the comments: Blazervision watched the podcast and says about Thorpe: He describes the contextual setting over a 3-day span in L.A. watching these "Pro runs" as follows..."Lets say there's 12 sessions of games, 6 games each day on 3 different courts" Svinyard comments that Henry Abbott says about fellow TrueHooper David Thorpe: There were a couple of runs in Los Angeles that were thick with NBA players--if I recall correctly, one at UCLA and I think the other may have been at Loyola Marymount. David attended to watch clients play, and one of the teams competing was a form of the Blazers with Scoot, Donovan Clingan, and other young players. Wktd says about Little Scooter's finishing ability at the rim: for the season, he shot 46% at the rim. that is BAD. for context, there are only 35 guards who shot a worse percentage at the rim last year, and everybody beneath him is either a rookie scrub or washed vet. I can't filter it by minutes or # of attempts but I'm almost positive he was the worst guard finisher in the league who played a fullish season. I went back and listened to the RealGM Radio episode I mentioned before. here's the stat: of rookie PGs who shot <40% overall and <35% from three, Kidd and Chauncey are the only "successful" players in league history. that's obviously a subjective assessment and I don't have the full list, but on the show they debate whether or not markelle fultz qualifies as a "success"...oof. I think we'd all agree that if scoot turns out to be fultz that would be a disaster. Royster looked it up whether Scooter is a bad finisher https://www.nba.com/stats/players/shooting?CF=Less Than 5 ft. FGA*GE*50&PerMode=Totals&PlayerPosition=G&SeasonType=Regular Season&dir=A&sort=Less Than 5 ft. FG PCT
I don't understand why people are so high on Miller. This is solid for a rookie, but hardly "awesome"
Who was the last 6'9+ rookie that was 21 or under and shot 37% 3pt scoring 17+ppg? That seems extremely rare combo - it might only be a handful of guys who have done that in NBA history.
Ok here's the complete list of rookies that had 17+ppg, 2 or more 3pt at 37%+; Steph Curry Brandon Miller
Looks like that is actually pretty awesome for rookie. what is it that doesn't impress you? I still wish we could have got our hands on him.
Damon Stoudamire, OJ Majo, Kyrie did it with between 1-2 3pt made, all obviously are short players not a 6'9" wing like Brandon Miller. There was one other rookie who did it with between 0.5-1 3pt made per game and that was way back in 1979..... a Mr Larry Bird.
I'm not saying everyone has to be a student of the game but Miller having Wayoff P (aka Paul George) as his goat is pretty damning.
I wonder: if the Blazers had secured the 2nd pick, would they have still taken Scoot, or Miller? my hunch is it would have still been Scoot. Not sure if that's good or bad
Would have been interesting, possible Dame doesn't ask out. Last summer I preferred what happened to that Miller/Dame hypothetical. Was best to just move on, and I really liked Scoot. But since then we got bad value from Brogdon/Timelord, and Scoot looks much worse than I expected while Miller is better. Dame looks worse than a year ago though.
