Yeah, I'll add Scoot seemingly advancing in his journey towards being a decent or even better than average starter in the league to the other thing I liked tonight (Rayan Rupert). Scoot doing well is great for our team now and in the future. That being said: Trade Ant, Jerami and Deandre as soon as possible and let us get on with this rebuild and win our game of capture the Flagg.
well, his conversion rate at the rim has gone up from .503 to .545. That's encouraging his FT rate has jumped up from .256 to .431, and I'd say that reflects better control. I don't have a stat for his turnovers on dribble drives from last season to this season, but my eye test says he much better at ball possession and has ratcheted his turnovers way down on penetration
Yep. This draft is going to be fantastic. I would love for Portland to get another 1st (Grant trade) and a second fir this coming draft.
I’m struggling with this question as well. Probably because I’m an over-thinker, but here’s my personal opinion with a long winded explaination. Lol. Right now: the good is that although we haven’t seen it yet, the Shae and Scoot backcourt can theoretically work on paper. With Shae’s eventual expansion of his on-ball game and increased role in that department, Scoot’s catch and shoot 3 will be his biggest asset, and it looks like it is trending in the right direction. When Scoot begins to make those 3s at a decent clip, I’d like to see him eventually cut to the rim with his speed—this is going to lead to major dump-off opportunities for Clingan and and rolling big man. Clingan is the third foundational piece that we have, who we can count on tho anchor this defense maybe as soon as next season. He is going to be able to be reliable from 3 imo. That is a huge need in today’s NBA and something I didn’t ever project in his game. We currently have two great glue guys as forwards who I am perfectly happy with currently, but our consolation prize is ideally someone who can start as soon as his sophomore season and push one of Camara or Avdija to the bench. That is going to be our tight-window of contending while everyone is relatively cheap. Shae will have only started his extension. Scoot will be in year four and hopefully already extended. Clingan will be in year three. Avdija will have two years left on his very cheap deal. Camara will be in year four and hopefully already extended. Kris will be in year four, hopefully as a legit 3-D guy off the bench who can go off for 5+ 3s on any given night. I am hoping Rupert will still be on this team as well. Add that consolation prize in year 2, that’s realistically eight rotation players, we would be a backup big man and at least a emergency third big (I’m perfectly fine with Reath if he can be brought back cheap). - Bailey is my personal favorite. He is going to be a legit two way #1 option. Scoot’s progression as a shooter is going to be huge for if Bailey will ever realistically co-exist in my dream world. Bailey would essentially throwing a lotto ticket at an even bigger Shae. - Dylan Harper I haven’t watched too much of, but his measurements are good for a PG/SG. He looks a look bigger than 6’6 to me, probably because of his frame. Adding another legit star-level PG prospect to this team would make us that much more dangerous with the right coach to mold this talent pool. As long as everyone can shoot the ball, everyone should get an opportunity to handle the rock. Long term, he is playing SG in a 2-PG lineup and another potential big time ball handler in the clutch. Short term, he is our backup PG/SG who might contend for 6MOY as soon as his rookie year. He is consolation prize #2 for me and my #3 pick currently. - Khaman Maluach, I would watch closely this year. There’s just something intriguing about a two big lineup, and having a 7’2 althetic freak on one side and another 7’2 giant on the other will give opposing teams nightmares. Maluach moves more like Mobley than Clingan, so I think they realistically could play 12-24mins together a night eventually. I don’t know if he’s my #4 yet just because I haven’t gotten to watch much basketball yet, but I currently know I like four guys so far. I’m currently not all that interested in Traore or Edgecombe until I see their combine measurements. If they are consensus top 6 and end up being there at #5/#6, I may trade down and grab another pick in next year’s draft. - Egor Demin I was interested in earlier, but it seems the recent reviews haven’t been good so far and I’m more in love with the idea of Demin than what he is currently. But a big guard with legit PG-skill would be highly sought after. Any prospects that fall in this category, I would take. I’m sure more obvious ones will appear eventually without me needing to go into too much research.
I kind of don’t care about what the package is at this point. Of course you don’t want to get ripped off, and another pick in this draft would be bare minimum, but I just want to see this team with Shae back and Grant off the team. The internal growth of this core going into next year is going to be as impactful as one of these rookies next season. Add them together, and we have a legit shot at making the playoffs, possibly avoiding the play-in. But that’s my ‘soccer-mom’ expectation for this team.
Just was getting around to posting after the game and was going to take this to the game thread, but this is more appropriate. Since that bad opening game, Scoot's looked pretty good. Definitely enough of a string of solid efforts against some good competition to make me think the opener might just have been a case of first-game jitters. He's looked a lot more in command of things, poised, comfortable ... I like where he's trending.
Hate to say it but feel like Clingan is still a good year or two away from being a full time starter. He’s going to pick up fouls in bunches so better have a good back up center if you plan on starting him. Really hope Sharpe has improved and can stay healthy if not consolation is Camara looks pretty good in starting lineup. Still have high hopes for Sharpe
I never had a doubt. The kid is 20 and is a hard worker. It's just a matter of time until he's a top 10 PG in the league.
You're probably right about Clingan as he needs to improve his conditioning. He should be playing more than he is currently though. That's one of the biggest mysteries to me regarding Billups' coaching. He definitely impacts the game so he should get more than 10-12 minutes per game.
We don’t even need DC to start. Him and DA are a GD freight train for 99% of the nba to deal with. no one is competing with that combo outside of maybe the cavs. Chauncey has already said he will experiment playing them together. Probably once Grants gone
Duop is fine for a backup, I like his veteran prescence for our young group. We're not trying to contend this year so if they both have some mistakes thats fine. Ayton is the piece that doesn't fit, takes shots away from other youth, and has no future here. Since he is on a max deal I just don't see any team wanting him but maybe when his deal is closer to an expiring there could be a desperate buyer.
Well sure, but what team wants to eat Ayton max salary? I hope the Blazers don't send out more draft picks as they did to dump Brogdon salary. It would be better to just let Ayton deal expire next year and he can walk away just as when Whiteside max deal here ended and he signed for the minimum with the Kings.
We didn't "send out picks to dump Brogdon's salary" any more so than we sent out Nurk to dump Dame. That's just stupid.
That sure does get repeated a lot... Perhaps because Ayton called himself a max player? At $35M or so per year, he's far from a max player. At this point, that's a pretty average salary for a starter on their second contract. I also disagree rather strongly that Ayton takes shots away from other guys. [Gr]Ant, sure, they tend to control the ball when getting their touches. Ayton is the recipient of other guys creating offense, mostly getting lobs and put-backs, or trailing mid-range jumpers. Those aren't shots that other guys are going to get simply by Ayton not taking them. Also, having a strong finisher like Ayton is important to the development of someone like Scoot, who needs to be continually polishing his set-up game.
I don't know where those stats came from. But the game/minutes averages: Scoot 27.8 Cam Thomas 35.2 Cunningham 36.6 Doncic 37.3 so obviously, Scoot is driving at a higher rate. That's kind of a raw stat if you sort by average drives/game, Scoot is 5th: * if you sort by average FGM, Scoot is tied for 23rd (3.0 - same as CJ, Dame, and Julius Randle) * if you look at FG% on drives for players averaging over 10 drives/game: Damian Lillard 66.7 Darius Garland 64.0 Jordan Clarkson 63.6 Coby White 62.5 Norman Powell 60.0 Tyrese Haliburton 57.9 Brandon Ingram 57.1 Donovan Mitchell 57.1 Dennis Schröder 56.7 Giannis Antetokounmpo 56.5 DeMar DeRozan 56.3 De'Aaron Fox 55.6 Kevin Durant 55.6 Julius Randle 54.5 Kyrie Irving 53.8 Cade Cunningham 53.5 Jimmy Butler 52.9 Cam Thomas 52.5 Scottie Barnes 52.0 Tre Mann 51.9 Ja Morant 51.7 Josh Giddey 50.0 Luka Dončić 50.0 Tyrese Maxey 48.9 Shai Gilgeous-Alexander 48.6 Scoot Henderson 48.4 LaMelo Ball 48.3 Tyler Herro 47.6 RJ Barrett 46.7 Trae Young 46.7 James Harden 46.4 my hunch is that conversion rate is generally going to improve thru experience ************************* * would need to add FT's to this mix as well because FT's are a major component of generating points off drives: Dejounte Murray 6.0 Zion Williamson 4.5 Paolo Banchero 4.4 Luka Dončić 3.8 Kevin Durant 3.3 Cam Thomas 3.2 James Harden 3.0 Jimmy Butler 3.0 Kyle Kuzma 3.0 DeMar DeRozan 2.8 Devin Booker 2.8 Scoot Henderson 2.8 Anfernee Simons 2.6 Collin Sexton 2.5 De'Aaron Fox 2.5 Ja Morant 2.5 Shai Gilgeous-Alexander 2.5 Deni Avdija 2.4 this stat needs to be gauged with the number of drives *********************************** the scoring rate is track by pts and pts%; for points: Tyrese Maxey 13.5 Luka Dončić 13.3 Jalen Brunson 12.5 Cam Thomas 12.2 Kevin Durant 11.3 Shai Gilgeous-Alexander 11.3 Cade Cunningham 11.0 Ja Morant 10.8 De'Aaron Fox 10.0 Dejounte Murray 10.0 LaMelo Ball 9.8 Norman Powell 9.8 Zion Williamson 9.8 James Harden 9.3 Jordan Clarkson 9.0 Scoot Henderson 9.0 Kyrie Irving 8.8 Dennis Schröder 8.6 Giannis Antetokounmpo 8.5 and for scoring rate (for volume drive players): Kevin Durant 100 Norman Powell 97.5 Kyrie Irving 83.3 Tyrese Maxey 75.0 Luka Dončić 74.6 Giannis Antetokounmpo 73.9 Jordan Clarkson 73.5 Cam Thomas 70.1 DeMar DeRozan 69.6 Ja Morant 69.4 Damian Lillard 69.0 De'Aaron Fox 69.0 Paolo Banchero 68.9 Jaden Ivey 68.5 Anfernee Simons 65.6 Cade Cunningham 65.5 Donovan Mitchell 65.5 Jalen Williams 62.8 Jaylen Brown 62.5 LaMelo Ball 61.9 Kelly Oubre Jr. 60.5 Shai Gilgeous-Alexander 59.2 Jalen Brunson 58.1 Anthony Edwards 58.0 Tre Mann 57.4 Scottie Barnes 56.6 Josh Giddey 55.8 Kyle Kuzma 55.6 Dennis Schröder 55.1 Julius Randle 54.7 Jalen Johnson 54.2 Tyler Herro 52.8 James Harden 52.1 Jimmy Butler 51.6 Zion Williamson 51.3 Jrue Holiday 48.0 Scoot Henderson 47.9 Tyrese Haliburton 47.2 Dejounte Murray 45.5 Darius Garland 45.1 Trae Young 44.8 * that isn't the entire picture either as players operate in dribble-drives with the dual roles of scoring and facilitating teammates. S you'd need to look at these volume driver in terms of assist percentage AND turnover percentage Tyler Herro 18.9 - 1.9 Darius Garland 18.3 - 7.0 Jordan Poole 18.2 - 11.4 Jimmy Butler 16.1 - 0.0 Trae Young 14.9 - 5.7 Coby White 14.8 - 8.2 Donovan Mitchell 14.5 - 3.6 Ja Morant 14.5 - 9.7 RJ Barrett 14.3 - 5.7 Tre Mann 13.0 - 3.7 James Harden 12.7 - 7.0 Kyrie Irving 11.9 - 2.4 Shai Gilgeous-Alexander 11.8 - 1.3 Dennis Schröder 11.5 - 5.1 Josh Giddey 11.5 - 0.0 DeMar DeRozan 10.9 - 4.3 Scoot Henderson 10.6 - 5.3 Jalen Brunson 9.3 - 4.7 all in all, Scoot's driving skills are encouraging for a 20 year old but they need a lot of improvement ************************************* probably most important is looking at Scoot last year vs this year drives/game: rookie Scoot 12.0....sophomore Scoot 18.8 FG% on drives: rookie Scoot 41.2%....sophomore Scoot 48.4% FTM on drives: rookie Scoot 1.2....sophomore Scoot 3.0 points/drive: rookie Scoot 5.8....sophomore Scoot 9.0 scoring rate: rookie Scoot 48.3%....sophomore Scoot 47.9% assist rate: rookie Scoot 9.3%....sophomore Scoot 10.6% turnover rate: rookie Scoot 8.7%....sophomore Scoot 5.3% nothing real dramatic other than the fact that he has increased his volume of drives by 57% while also improving his efficiency and production. The most encouraging, for me at least, is his reduction in turnovers. Last year, his assist/turnover rate was 1.1; this season it's 2.0. Now that's a dramatic improvement obviously, only a 5 game sample size, which is nearly useless, but considering how bad he looked last year, most of the time, this is all encouraging. Would be interesting to revisit these numbers 40 games into the season
