We should invest in a big man coach for DA. He's obviously super skilled. I don't love his lack of opportunities on the offensive end, but hopefully Chauncey and the team can get better with that. Would love to get a coach to teach him to be more physical despite his smooth touch.
So... can Ayton's career be turned around, or is it on a downward spiral? If we had a PG that just fed him every play down the court would it make a difference, or is he just afraid of contact?
He's definitely not playing bad but far away from the center we'd like. I wouldn't hesitate on drafting Sarr, with or without Ayton.
I see Ayton in the paint all the time. Right at the rim. I don’t see him shying away from contact. We had LMA for how many years and that dude was allergic to the post. You’d think Portland fans would be able to tell the difference. It’s not Ayton’s fault that the refs don’t call shit.
I definitely think having a PG out there would benefit him greatly. But what's funny is, for the past few years, it seems a lot of PHX fans talked about how what they really needed him to be was what he essentially is for us currently. Low usage big focusing on defense and rebounding. He's been great for us in that regard. Highest DRB% in the league, highest TRB% of his career, and double his career steal%. Has the second lowest DRTG of his career. We are 9th in the league in DRTG, at 111.2. And his rating is at 106! I don't like the pick he sets, and his seemingly small hands. But he's doing what we should want out of our C, currently. It'd look a lot better if we had Simons out there to help with more of the offensive load, and Scoot to help with more playmaking for him. But overall, I'm pretty happy with what he's giving us right now.
Suns fans are leading it, but followed closely by other NBA fans who haven’t watched a single blazer game all year.
Well Suns fans can fuck off. Nurk has had a couple of very good games and some where they got baby Nurk. They need a scapegoat. It's not at all clear the KD-Booger-Beal trio is really going to work well enough to beat DEN.
Ayton's FT numbers are a bit of an aberration this year. He's shot 5 in 11 games; Lillard has shot 91 in 9 games....yeeeeesh! but Ayton has never been good at getting to the FT line. He might be one of the worst big men in the league at getting to the line. His career FT rate is .209. That's extremely weak for a C. Compare him to Nurkic (which seems appropriate) at a career rate of .378 (Dame's career rate is .349) career FT Rate: Gobert .719 Embiid .504 Jarrett Allen .472 Steven Adams .441 AD .409 Zubac .408 Nurkic .378 Sabonis .375 Capela .338 Valunciunas .331 KAT .324 Jokic .318 B. Lopez .300 Ayton .209 Obviously, getting to the line isn't the end-all/be-all number for C's. I'd argue it's one of the more important impact stats; but there are several. I'd also wonder if it's a significant reveal about a player's aggressiveness. Of course, getting to the FT line is only part of the equation. When a C gets to the line, he needs to convert and some of them don't convert well. Ayton's career FT rate is 75.7% which is pretty good. There may be a stat that gauges FT conversion rate as part of FT rate but I haven't seen it continuing Ayton vs Nurkic in career numbers: rebound rate: Ayton 18.8%....Nurkic 19.4% def. rebound rate: Ayton 26.9%....Nurkic 27.6% (Ayton leads the NBA right now at 32.2%) assist rate: Ayton 8.4%....Nurkic 15.1% block rate: Ayton 18.8%....Nurkic 19.4% blocks are only a part of defense for big men. They don't necessarily reflect rim protection and overall defense. I'd still give Nurkic an edge on defense, but I think it's a smaller edge than I anticipated. I'd also give Nurkic a pretty sizable edge in setting screens although that might be, in part, a coaching thing, and a lead guard thing the biggest two complaints about Nurkic were his inconsistency and his terrible conversion rate at the rim (for a C). One night, Nurk was the Bosnian Beast; the next night, the Bosnian Baby; the night after that, the Bosnian Buffoon. Ayton has been pretty inconsistent for Portland so far in a tiny 11 game sample size. But he was fairly consistent in Phoenix Ayton's career at-the-rim FG% is .762; Nurkic's is .610. That's a huge difference. Here's the thing though, for his career 41.3% of his shots have come at the rim. This season, only 22.1% of his shots have come at the rim. That's a huge difference as well. Now, likely a significant part of that was playing with Chris Paul. But, I have serious doubts about Billups as a coach. I have even more doubts about Billups being able to maximize Ayton's skills
