Free Agent Gary Payton II to the Blazers (1 Viewer)

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you didn't counter a single one of his points.

I kind of agree with Scalma on this one. I don't like the signing either but none of his points are worth debating.

Who cares he is 29. We are not drafting him for the future
Who cares how tall he is...he is a good defensive guard
Who cares how many games he has played, he looked very good last year.
Who Cares what Looney got, he did not want to leave the Warriors.
 
correct, and let me let you in on a little secret. I have you MUTED. So dont even waste anymore of your time trying to interact with me. Thanks!

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@SlyPokerDog you need to look into your "ignore" feature.... he has me muted but he's apparently still seeing my posts. Your IT department needs to fix that.
 
One thing I noticed in watching GP defensive highlights. Tons of hustle.....love it! But on the majority of his defensive efforts, you see one of Thompson, Wiggins, or Draymond hedging towards the ball. That is of great comfort and security and he will have nothing like that here in Portland to back him up. Wonder if that will tone down his aggressiveness?
i mentioned this yesterday too. he never had this kinda impact in Washington or Milwaukee when he was there for his short stints. Always worry how people who flourish in GS can replicate that elsewhere, especially here around weaker defenders.
 
Gary Payton owes me a pair of basketball shoes!

I was a camp counselor at Camp Howard one summer.

Payton shows up for the day to talk with the kids.

It was the same day as the kids did this fun run race through the woods. Run, climb over some logs, swing with a rope over a stream, etc. It was a low-key version of American Ninja Warrior before there was one. About 2 or 3 miles long.

Anyway says he wants to do it but he doesn't want to get his shoes dirty.

"What size?"

"13"

"That's my size, you can wear mine if you want."

So I give Payton a pair of my shoes.

We line up with all the kids.

We're doing a little smack talking. Agree if I beat him I can keep his shoes.

Race starts.

We're both jogging in the pack of kids but then we start running a little faster.

Pull away from them.

Now we're racing.

Jumping.

Climbing.

It's neck and neck.

Finish line in reach...

AND DOG WINS! DOG WINS!

Payton irritated. (but still cool)

Then we find out that the head camp counselor, 40 year old former Army Ranger had already finished a couple of minutes ahead of us. He ran it wearing fucking combat boots.

Payton says I didn't win, so I don't get the shoes.
 
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I kind of agree with Scalma on this one. I don't like the signing either but none of his points are worth debating.

Who cares he is 29. We are not drafting him for the future
Who cares how tall he is...he is a good defensive guard
Who cares how many games he has played, he looked very good last year.
Who Cares what Looney got, he did not want to leave the Warriors.
we used our biggest FA asset on a position where we already have a guy who is better than him (Hart) without addressing our glaring needs at forward/center. And the biggest problem for me, that @Ed O did not bring up... we hard capped ourselves for absolutely no reason.

I think his points are valid.

- he doesn't have upside at 30 yrs old, plays a position where he might get 25 mins on a good day. he averaged less than 18 mpg in GS and we are now paying him 9 mil a year for a similar role. (and we take away minutes from our prized rookie).

-never showed this kinda impact at any other spot in his career. we all know how specialized the GS system is and how much Draymond does for their team. We don't have anyone close to that here who can allow GP2 to roam around and be disruptive, which will minimize his impact.

- Moreso than Looney, I'm upset we didn't go after Porter Jr. Ya that might just be his decision, but I would hope that we at least tried to get a better positional fit who could have started for us before going after Payton.
 
That's fine, but where are those 15-17 minutes coming from at this point? Is that not a valid question? If they are going to get Sharpe minutes as Cronin said, and Dame/Ant/Hart are already taking up a majority of the guard minutes, where do those 15 minutes come from?.

#biggerpicture
Sharpe is a rookie with upside...he probably won't get much burn this season just like every rookie we sign...he's not going to be up to speed on defense in the NBA yet at all...he'll be on the practice squad and Payton will get all those minutes...we're going to use Ant, Dame, Hart and Payton as rotation guards. book it. Sharpe will get garbage time burn at best...the other guys are towel waivers like Blevins and Elleby were.
 
we used our biggest FA asset on a position where we already have a guy who is better than him (Hart) without addressing our glaring needs at forward/center. And the biggest problem for me, that @Ed O did not bring up... we hard capped ourselves for absolutely no reason.

I think his points are valid.

.

I said I did not like the signing. ....for your point above. The rest IMO is not worth debating. His size and age for a backup guard is not a factor. He is a very good defender. But not being able to make other moves for a big is the fuck up...if true.
 
Guards who play defense are not hard to find, especially if you only want 7 points a game from them.
Guards who lead the NBA in steals are not easy to find...also guards who don't chuck and think they're shooters are hard to find. Our team sucked at creating turnovers and pt of attack defense...this kid solves both those problems while Grant, Ant and Dame take the shots....nothing not to like about it. Defense wins championships and this kid just won a championship....all these other guards you speak of didn't..we signed a stud who will increase your possessions by a large margin. Great pickup ....you can put Ant and Hart, Dame and Gary or Ant and Gary and Dame and Hart and you have a balanced offensive and defensive guard rotation
 
I said I did not like the signing. ....for your point above. The rest IMO is not worth debating. His size and age for a backup guard is not a factor. He is a very good defender. But not being able to make other moves for a big is the fuck up...if true.
you might have an opinion the points, but i certainly think they're worth debating. i'm sure others agree with them.
 
The GP2 signing makes sense if we're sending out Hart for a small forward with some length. If we could put together a trade for OG, it makes sense.
 
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One is Marcus Smart, DPOY
The other is Gary Payton II

Can you tell me which one is which?
 

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Based on the crazy assist % I'm going to say the bottom one is Smart? haha

Edit: Damnit just saw the PER well fuck...
GP also didn't play the minimum minutes required to show up the leader boards.

there's a reason that table ignores minutes played.
 
GP also didn't play the minimum minutes required to show up the leader boards.

there's a reason that table ignores minutes played.

He played in 71 games and had nearly 1,250 total minutes. Also averaged more minutes in the finals than in the regular season. Just because he didn't qualify for a leaderboard doesn't mean it's a small sample size.
 
I could understand how a players offense is hugely impacted by system, but much less so think that their defense is. If you’re a defender, tough and smart, like GP, I’m not sure how he goes to Billups system and isn’t as good. Now if you took Draymond for instance out of the GS system offensively with those weapons, yeah, he isn’t nearly as effective. But defensively he’s still elite.
 
i don't think anyone's questioning how useful payton was in GS.

some of your are believing that impact will translate here and scale when given more minutes.

i question that.

and i question if that was the best use of our biggest FA resource.

I trust Billups' evaluation more than yours.
 
I kind of agree with Scalma on this one. I don't like the signing either but none of his points are worth debating.

Who cares he is 29. We are not drafting him for the future
This is absolutely false. We don't get any credit for what he's done in the past. All we are paying for is the future. As I indicated, though, it has to do with his ceiling and it also has to do with whether his last season is a blip or what kind of player he really is. If it was his rookie year, then of course it would be more assuredly what kind of player he is. Or if he was like Ant, young in age but a few years under his belt, the improvement might be a true improvement, rather than a hot streak and/or being in the right place at the right time.

Who cares how tall he is...he is a good defensive guard
You don't think height is relevant? Really? In basketball?

Can he play center? Can he play the power forward? He has done some of each, but... do we want to have a 6'3" guy in that spot given the rest of our roster?

Who cares how many games he has played, he looked very good last year.
Anyone with common sense knows that while recent production matters (more than, say, what happened five years ago), at some point when there's a sudden uptick of productivity, it's more likely to be a combination of a hot streak, luck, and/or being in the right place at the right time than to be that he's suddenly a better player.

Who Cares what Looney got, he did not want to leave the Warriors.
That was just one example. And if we paid him more, then he might have wanted to leave. But we will never know as we paid a borderline NBA player more than he got from the Warriors. There's a consistent "Cronin couldn't have done better" explanation after he makes a bad move and I don't see how he keeps having to make these bad moves... why does the NBA hate Joe Cronin?
 
He'd be great.... if we didn't have 7 other guards.

GP2 is only a guard on defense since he can lock up the other team's best guards, he really plays like a PF on offense.

GP2 really is a PJ Tucker clone on offense, he is a more disruptive player on defense since he is better at getting in the passing lanes and taking on guards.

The difference is that PJ Tucker can guard your 3s and 4s, with some success against slender 5s. GP2 can guard positions 1 to 3, will have some issues against bigger 4 and 5s simply because he is so much lighter than PJ Tucker, but his quickness, jumping ability and awareness might make him better against the more agile bigs that PJ Tucker.

With the NBA's move to scoring guards as the leaders of many teams, that is a very big hole that he solves for Portland.

He can not solve the Lebron, Kawahi style problem for Portland - because these guys are fast and big, but that's why he was so cheap, relatively, to get.
 
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Q: Why do you think it clicked for Gary this year?

Kerr: Because of the makeup of the roster. Much more able to put him in lineups that make sense because we didn't have this kind of spacing before. The addition of certain guys around him has made him more playable.

This should be a glaring red flag for us.
 
Just a reminder, often players who leave Golden State become a lot worse at their new Team, because Golden State
Curry, Klay, and Green (as much as I dislike him) tend to carry a lot of the water for that team, and it's easier to plug replacement-level dudes in... the same way Jordan/Pippen/Grant (or Rodman) made other guys (Paxson, Kerr, Harper, etc., etc.) look so much better.

Do you all remember that the Raiders signed Larry Brown from Dallas? He was the Super Bowl MVP after a pretty good season playing opposite Deion Sanders. The Raiders saw his success in that system (after being a late, late draft pick like four years earlier) and signed him to a big deal... and he was exposed nearly instantly as just another guy. I won't say that Gary Payton II is that level of impending flop, but it's the same concept and it seems so incredibly avoidable.
 


Q: Why do you think it clicked for Gary this year?

Kerr: Because of the makeup of the roster. Much more able to put him in lineups that make sense because we didn't have this kind of spacing before. The addition of certain guys around him has made him more playable.

This should be a glaring red flag for us.

I disagree. Nurk is literally the only player really on the roster that flat out can't shoot the 3. I think GP is going to get a lot of time in Dame/Ant/GP/Nas/Grant lineups. Even Mike Richman noted today, we are building this roster like LAC. Roco is their backup 5. I assume Grant and Nas will be playing large amounts of time at the 4 and 5. With that in mind, GP can easily play a PF on offensive type role.
 

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