Jabari seems like a pretty good athlete anyway. He’s not crazy explosive but he can move laterally and seems to have a pretty decent handle for his size
Agreed. From his college stats we knew he could rebound and shoot the 3 well. What I’m most surprised with is his ability to put the ball on the ground, and move his feet on defense. He’s also sneaky fast moving along that baseline to get position for the rebound.
A couple of thoughts. In a way, have SS get hurt has been good for both Jabari and us fans. He has become the focal point. We are learning more about him and embracing him. The second-round pick has been happily adopted by us fickle fans. Similarly, if SS didn’t really stand out, we would likely have focused on his shortcomings rather than counting our Jabari windfall. If SS had done well, fair chance we would be celebrating him and Jabari would likely not get either the attention nor the playing time. I look forward to really learning more about SS in training camp & preseason but am happy as can be with what we are seeing of JW.
Agreed. Also worth noting that when we draft second rounders, if you aren’t projects with high potential, you’re hoping you land a guy like Walker who already seems to be NBA ready with one skill, rebounding. Same thing with Trent, we drafted a guy that we knew had an NBA ready shot. Many people were also higher on Trent than Ant coming out of their year 2. So in unfortunate circumstances like injury, I’m just hopeful the new scouting department’s gems make the most of their opportunity like Walker and Watford seem to have done. I’m hopeful the Sharpe and Walker draft pairing show to be just as talented as Ant and Trent, if not more talented. More competent ownership is probably the biggest team need now that we have real confidence in the new coaching staff and scouting department.
Fun with SL numbers: Player 1: 13.7 ppg, 8.3 rpg, 1.7 apg, 2.3 TOs, 2.3 blk, 1.3 stls, +/-...+1, 36.6% FG%, 33.3% from '3' in 30.1 mpg. Per36 - 16.4 ppg, 9.9 rpg Player 2: 13.0 ppg, 8.3 rpg, 1.0 apg, 0.7 TOs, 0.7 blk, 0.7 stls, +/-...+10. 66.7% FG, 37.5% from '3' in 19.6 mpg. Per36 - 23.9 ppg, 15.2 rpg Hint - 'Same'
Tempering expectations here, is Walker just Caleb Swanigan 2018 2.0? Summer League success is one thing... translating that to Regular Season success is a vastly different thing.
Nah. Biggie looked very slow, even in SL. I never had high hopes for him (god rest his soul). There’s a few clips of Jabari defending guards. I don’t see him struggling like Swanigan did.
No, I don't think so. Not saying Walker will be a star, but he is closer to a prototypical PF in today's NBA than Swanigan was at either C or PF. Swanigan was more of a tweener. He could never guard the perimeter. Walker IMO can guard PFs and SFs. Again not saying he will be a star, just that you could put him in the rotation right away and feel confident he would not get abused.
Absolutely not. Players like Caleb, who can dominate at college but have clear mobility disadvantages, can sometimes look good in unstructured SL environments. If there's a player currently killing it in SL who I would nominate as being the next Caleb, it would be Kenneth Lofton Jr. (and I say this as somebody who wishes we'd drafted him as well). He's kicking ass in SL but I doubt he's playable in real NBA settings (without losing a ton of weight). What's SO impressive about Walker is the electric effect he has when he comes in. In all three games we've literally looked like the worst team in SL for the first quarter, and then they bring in Jabari and he settles everything. And it's not by flashy one-on-one stuff (that's another way success in SL can be deceptive: scrubs are getting the green light and getting shots that they're absolutely not going to get as the 13th man on their teams) but by simple, easily replicable-in-a-real-game stuff like moving the ball, rebounding, playing defense and hitting open shots. He's playing like an elite role-player rather than the gunner on a bad team.
This is just the standard Dort/Brunson contract. Where the first 3 years are team control and the 4th is also team control, but allows the player to become an UFA if they make it through all 4 years, as opposed to RFA if the 4th year is declined.
I don’t think so. Swanigan’s summer league stats weren’t very efficient. 43% FG, 28% 3PT. To me Walkers numbers aren’t even what stands out. It’s his ability to switch onto smaller players and his instincts. The setting almost doesn’t even matter when it comes to those things. btw swanigan was also in the best shape of his life during the draft process/first summer league. Had he maintained that body he might’ve been a better nba player. But even in his first preseason he looked significantly bigger/slower.
