It's the type of shots he's taken.
monsterpile wrote:I'm trying to think of another somewhat similar player that is much more recently successful to compare rookie seasons too. How about Donovan Mitchell? Mitchell was more efficient and a better defender but was older with 2 years of college experience and he played for Rick Pitino. Both guys played with Rubio as Rookies. :) Mitchell was drafted by a team that had been successful although they had just lost Gordon Hayward and George Hill (replaced by Rubio). Edwards was drafted by a franchise really struggling. Utah had a system, reasonably accomplished GM in Lindsey and a well established coach in Quinn Snyder I think going into his 5th season. Edwards is already on his 2nd head coach. I don't know exactly how valuable Mitchell is but I think most of us would be pretty happy with that type of outcome for Edwards IF he could become that type of overall player.
Can Edwards progress on both ends of the court? I haven't seen a ton of games but his stats especially offensively look reasonably promising. The defensive side seems more worrisome although I've seen worse...
The age thing is a tough one.
We've seen firsthand the "well, he's young and obviously going to get A LOT better" thinking. And sometimes it works... sometimes not so much.
The thing is that Edwards' talent is unmistakable. But unfortunately... so are some of the things that made him a "poor/inefficient" player this season. And is shot selection, effort and feel for the game automatically going to evolve just by more time in the league and when the real money comes in? Not necessarily. It's very probable that he's already heard "shoot these types of shots" "move the ball" and "hustle back in transition" many times.
It's less about age for me. And all about the make-up of the player's desire to be great or the best. If it's not in the player's DNA... 3 or 5 or 10 years isn't going to help it develop.
No idea if Edwards has it or not. None of us do. So... we wait. And hope.