Snowed in- Thunder/Wolves GDT

[FNG]

This assist to turnover ratio has been terrible for most of the season. A lot of it rests with Ant. He's turned into an incredibly selfish player.

I wouldn't go that far, I think we're trying to make Ant a point guard in the SGA/Luka mold, and playmaking is the hardest thing to improve on once you get to the NBA. A bit selfish maybe, incredibly no.

Yeah, I don't know if selfish is the right word. This is not very kind of me, but the word I would use to describe Ant's shortcomings is "dumb". I would also use a lot of more positive words...like talented, athletic, durable, charismatic, fun...but his lack of court sense is his most maddening trait to me. Today (and regularly) we saw several occurrences where he dribbled endlessly when he could have made an effective pass, and to be fair, one instance where he created, drew defenders, and found Ayo for an open three. And while we saw a terrific defensive second quarter, the other three quarters were subpar. In the past week we have seen what a true top 10 player looks like in watching Kawhi and Shai. Neither has the pure athletic ability that Ant has, but they both play smart. Ant sometimes looks like a top 10 2-way player...like in the second quarter today. But he needs to get smarter to crack the top 10. Hoops Hype came out last week with their "global rankings" using very complex methodology...they have Ant 12th. Some here may argue with the 11 they have in front of him, but I don't. And you could make a case that several guys ranked behind him mostly because of games lost to injury could be ranked ahead of him...Giannis, Curry, Tatum, Wemby, Haliburton, Harden, Enbiid, for instance.

I would say Ant is a top 15 player with a very high ceiling...he needs to get smarter, and I think (or at least, hope) he will as he matures. But I also think the fact that we are a top 10 team without a top 10 player is a testament to how good we are...and how much better we can be if Ant becomes a top 10 player.

[FNG]

I was chuckling at all the pundits who were saying earlier this month that the Spurs were the team to beat, not the Thunder. They are pretty good, but I think they are far short of the Thunder.

But those are the two teams to beat either way. Folks will slap the inexperience label on Wemby when the playoffs roll around, but that dude seems pretty unflappable and mature beyond his years.

What OKC has done in terms of depth and talent has to be up there with the best of R.C. Buford/Pop years as GM/Coach for the Spurs.

Take Ajay Mitchell....He is legit just as good or better as a two-way guard than either DDV or Ayo, yet he is just one fairly minor cog in the machine in OKC and makes $3M per year. He was the 38th pick in the 2024 draft. That's a standard of excellence in GM-ing and player development that seems beyond our reach (and most other NBA teams for that matter).

I don't disagree, Q...they are clearly the 2 teams to beat. I just got annoyed when so many pundits anointed the Spurs as the odds on favorite to win the West recently. I really like that team, but they are clearly 1B to the Thunder's 1A right now. Could be a heckuva West finals though if...cough, cough...our Wolves don't knock one of them out.

I love Mitchell's game also, and with nothing to do today being snowbound at home, I went down a bunny trail of comparing his stats to Donte and Ayo. Ayo and Mitchell are almost identical in points, assists, and rebounds per 36 this season, but Ayo is a much more efficient scorer. But then the mystery pops up again...Mitchell has very good on/off numbers, and we know the story with Ayo. We just don't know why. To be fair, Ayo has had 2 consecutive good +/- games, so maybe he has turned the corner???

[Q-is-here]

I was chuckling at all the pundits who were saying earlier this month that the Spurs were the team to beat, not the Thunder. They are pretty good, but I think they are far short of the Thunder.

But those are the two teams to beat either way. Folks will slap the inexperience label on Wemby when the playoffs roll around, but that dude seems pretty unflappable and mature beyond his years.

What OKC has done in terms of depth and talent has to be up there with the best of R.C. Buford/Pop years as GM/Coach for the Spurs.

Take Ajay Mitchell....He is legit just as good or better as a two-way guard than either DDV or Ayo, yet he is just one fairly minor cog in the machine in OKC and makes $3M per year. He was the 38th pick in the 2024 draft. That's a standard of excellence in GM-ing and player development that seems beyond our reach (and most other NBA teams for that matter).

I don't disagree, Q...they are clearly the 2 teams to beat. I just got annoyed when so many pundits anointed the Spurs as the odds on favorite to win the West recently. I really like that team, but they are clearly 1B to the Thunder's 1A right now. Could be a heckuva West finals though if...cough, cough...our Wolves don't knock one of them out.

I love Mitchell's game also, and with nothing to do today being snowbound at home, I went down a bunny trail of comparing his stats to Donte and Ayo. Ayo and Mitchell are almost identical in points, assists, and rebounds per 36 this season, but Ayo is a much more efficient scorer. But then the mystery pops up again...Mitchell has very good on/off numbers, and we know the story with Ayo. We just don't know why. To be fair, Ayo has had 2 consecutive good +/- games, so maybe he has turned the corner???

If you went by advanced defensive stats alone, Ajay would be considered for 2nd all-defensive team. He is 9th in defensive net points (one of Aussie's favorite stats) and 13th in defensive estimated plus-minus (one of Dane Moore's favorite stats). In reality, he probably isn't quite THAT good defensively, as like I said, he's just a cog in the machine. It helps that he is surrounded by other elite defenders. The point is they have a $3M per year 2nd rounder that produces on both ends like the 4th or 5th best player on a normal NBA team.

[rapsuperstar31]

This assist to turnover ratio has been terrible for most of the season. A lot of it rests with Ant. He's turned into an incredibly selfish player.

I wouldn't go that far, I think we're trying to make Ant a point guard in the SGA/Luka mold, and playmaking is the hardest thing to improve on once you get to the NBA. A bit selfish maybe, incredibly no.

Yeah, I don't know if selfish is the right word. This is not very kind of me, but the word I would use to describe Ant's shortcomings is "dumb". I would also use a lot of more positive words...like talented, athletic, durable, charismatic, fun...but his lack of court sense is his most maddening trait to me. Today (and regularly) we saw several occurrences where he dribbled endlessly when he could have made an effective pass, and to be fair, one instance where he created, drew defenders, and found Ayo for an open three. And while we saw a terrific defensive second quarter, the other three quarters were subpar. In the past week we have seen what a true top 10 player looks like in watching Kawhi and Shai. Neither has the pure athletic ability that Ant has, but they both play smart. Ant sometimes looks like a top 10 2-way player...like in the second quarter today. But he needs to get smarter to crack the top 10. Hoops Hype came out last week with their "global rankings" using very complex methodology...they have Ant 12th. Some here may argue with the 11 they have in front of him, but I don't. And you could make a case that several guys ranked behind him mostly because of games lost to injury could be ranked ahead of him...Giannis, Curry, Tatum, Wemby, Haliburton, Harden, Enbiid, for instance.

I would say Ant is a top 15 player with a very high ceiling...he needs to get smarter, and I think (or at least, hope) he will as he matures. But I also think the fact that we are a top 10 team without a top 10 player is a testament to how good we are...and how much better we can be if Ant becomes a top 10 player.

Maybe dumb by the absolute elite of the world of basketball. He would certainly destroy almost every single human on this earth just on his talent. His basketball IQ is more than enough to win most games, especially if you have him playing his actual position of SG. Team USA and the All star game didn't run Ant at point, they let the point guards run the teams and Ant feasted in the catch and shoot.
On that top 12 list, Mitchell who is an older Ant, hasn't gotten out of the 2nd round of the playoffs once. Constantly choking shouldn't rate you higher than Ant. Luka, clearly most are going to have him higher than Ant, but unless you give Luka the absolute perfect lineup around him with defenders and a lob threat, he isn't winning anything. Luka has gotten out of the first round of the playoffs once in the last 3 years, and it will more than likely be once in four seasons after this year. Durant is above him, Ant knocked him out of the playoffs, Murray is ahead of him, Ant knocked him out of the playoffs. I like Maxey, he hasn't done anything in the playoffs on a team that keeps falling short of expectation. Availability is one of the most important traits of a player, and Leonard and Giannis are both rarely healthy come the playoffs. The last time either made it out of the first round of the playoffs is 20-21 for Leonard and 21-22 for Giannis.

[AussieWolf3]

The hoopshype global list should hardly be taken seriously as a ranking of who the best players are as it offers no contextual analysis, or even weight of past performance predicting future ones.

It's a essentially a counting stats metric plus playing time, with Wemby ranked as the 12th best... Obviously ridiculous if it's actually a ranking list and not just a current performance one.

Q mentioned above that Net Points is one of my favorite stats, and to be honest I'm not too sure how much raw NP tells us, or how predictive it is, but for a free and publicly available metric its really easy to read and use. So I like it for that reason and it's game log data seems to be legitimately useful.

As far as favorite stats, I think- and several analyst agree- Darko is the best at telling us what has happened and at predicting future outcomes. It is also free and publicly available. EPM seems like a great tool but it's not free so I'm not sure what to say about it.

Ant has hovered around 7-9 in NP and Darko has him as ranked 8th, which is actually a slide from where he started the season, but that seems to be more because Mitchell, Wemby moved ahead of him.

I would regard Ant as one of top 3 best pure scorers in the league, a leap he's taken by way of his much improved mid game and improved awareness of how to get to his shots and which ones to get to. The path for him to jump into the conversation as "the best player in the league" is clear either play locked in on defense for 82 games or become a better play maker.

He has the ability to do both and I believe that mechanisms of circumstance will force him to become the latter. Either as things are right now I think it's absurd to have him outside the top 10 when his resume is taken in its whole, but there is a large chasm between him and the top 2

[Q-is-here]

The hoopshype global list should hardly be taken seriously as a ranking of who the best players are as it offers no contextual analysis, or even weight of past performance predicting future ones.

It's a essentially a counting stats metric plus playing time, with Wemby ranked as the 12th best... Obviously ridiculous if it's actually a ranking list and not just a current performance one.

Q mentioned above that Net Points is one of my favorite stats, and to be honest I'm not too sure how much raw NP tells us, or how predictive it is, but for a free and publicly available metric its really easy to read and use. So I like it for that reason and it's game log data seems to be legitimately useful.

As far as favorite stats, I think- and several analyst agree- Darko is the best at telling us what has happened and at predicting future outcomes. It is also free and publicly available. EPM seems like a great tool but it's not free so I'm not sure what to say about it.

Ant has hovered around 7-9 in NP and Darko has him as ranked 8th, which is actually a slide from where he started the season, but that seems to be more because Mitchell, Wemby moved ahead of him.

I would regard Ant as one of top 3 best pure scorers in the league, a leap he's taken by way of his much improved mid game and improved awareness of how to get to his shots and which ones to get to. The path for him to jump into the conversation as "the best player in the league" is clear either play locked in on defense for 82 games or become a better play maker.

He has the ability to do both and I believe that mechanisms of circumstance will force him to become the latter. Either as things are right now I think it's absurd to have him outside the top 10 when his resume is taken in its whole, but there is a large chasm between him and the top 2

I highly doubt Ant is going to suddenly decide after 6+ seasons that he's going to turn on the juice defensively and relish the grind of fighting over screens and staying focused on that end for 70+ games per year. And there is almost no history of a star player changing their stripes in this regard that far into their career. We do know he can lock in defensively for brief bursts of action and he's literally won games for us with clutch defense. That might be all we can hope for at this point, which ain't nothing.

So that leaves the play making weakness as really the one area left for him where it's realistic he could improve. But even there I question how much better he can get, as guys like Doncic and Harden showed pretty advanced passing chops in their early 20s.

The reality is that Ant may never be an MVP-caliber player and might be "stuck" in that second tier of top 10 players for a long time. That's still an elite player and one you can win with, but it just puts more pressure on the front office to find all the right pieces to surround that player. Boston did it two seasons ago, so it can be done.

[AussieWolf3]

The hoopshype global list should hardly be taken seriously as a ranking of who the best players are as it offers no contextual analysis, or even weight of past performance predicting future ones.

It's a essentially a counting stats metric plus playing time, with Wemby ranked as the 12th best... Obviously ridiculous if it's actually a ranking list and not just a current performance one.

Q mentioned above that Net Points is one of my favorite stats, and to be honest I'm not too sure how much raw NP tells us, or how predictive it is, but for a free and publicly available metric its really easy to read and use. So I like it for that reason and it's game log data seems to be legitimately useful.

As far as favorite stats, I think- and several analyst agree- Darko is the best at telling us what has happened and at predicting future outcomes. It is also free and publicly available. EPM seems like a great tool but it's not free so I'm not sure what to say about it.

Ant has hovered around 7-9 in NP and Darko has him as ranked 8th, which is actually a slide from where he started the season, but that seems to be more because Mitchell, Wemby moved ahead of him.

I would regard Ant as one of top 3 best pure scorers in the league, a leap he's taken by way of his much improved mid game and improved awareness of how to get to his shots and which ones to get to. The path for him to jump into the conversation as "the best player in the league" is clear either play locked in on defense for 82 games or become a better play maker.

He has the ability to do both and I believe that mechanisms of circumstance will force him to become the latter. Either as things are right now I think it's absurd to have him outside the top 10 when his resume is taken in its whole, but there is a large chasm between him and the top 2

I highly doubt Ant is going to suddenly decide after 6+ seasons that he's going to turn on the juice defensively and relish the grind of fighting over screens and staying focused on that end for 70+ games per year. And there is almost no history of a star player changing their stripes in this regard that far into their career. We do know he can lock in defensively for brief bursts of action and he's literally won games for us with clutch defense. That might be all we can hope for at this point, which ain't nothing.

So that leaves the play making weakness as really the one area left for him where it's realistic he could improve. But even there I question how much better he can get, as guys like Doncic and Harden showed pretty advanced passing chops in their early 20s.

The reality is that Ant may never be an MVP-caliber player and might be "stuck" in that second tier of top 10 players for a long time. That's still an elite player and one you can win with, but it just puts more pressure on the front office to find all the right pieces to surround that player. Boston did it two seasons ago, so it can be done.

I really don't disagree at all! Those are just paths I see for him.
I agree that he likely stays in that 2nd tier for most or all of his career. The only point to contrary is, funny enough, that Ant and Shai have almost identical trend lines in the careers, at least respective to age. Shai also made that 30ppg during his age 24 season, was a lesser defender (or just not insulated inside a historic defense), and wasn't as good of a playmaker either- better than Ant, but he definitely made a leap in the last two seasons.

Given the uncanny physical intelligence that Ant possesses- i.e. being able to quickly learn and implement new skills- it's not unreasonable to think that he is busting down historic barriers by his age 27 season like SGA is

[Q-is-here]

The hoopshype global list should hardly be taken seriously as a ranking of who the best players are as it offers no contextual analysis, or even weight of past performance predicting future ones.

It's a essentially a counting stats metric plus playing time, with Wemby ranked as the 12th best... Obviously ridiculous if it's actually a ranking list and not just a current performance one.

Q mentioned above that Net Points is one of my favorite stats, and to be honest I'm not too sure how much raw NP tells us, or how predictive it is, but for a free and publicly available metric its really easy to read and use. So I like it for that reason and it's game log data seems to be legitimately useful.

As far as favorite stats, I think- and several analyst agree- Darko is the best at telling us what has happened and at predicting future outcomes. It is also free and publicly available. EPM seems like a great tool but it's not free so I'm not sure what to say about it.

Ant has hovered around 7-9 in NP and Darko has him as ranked 8th, which is actually a slide from where he started the season, but that seems to be more because Mitchell, Wemby moved ahead of him.

I would regard Ant as one of top 3 best pure scorers in the league, a leap he's taken by way of his much improved mid game and improved awareness of how to get to his shots and which ones to get to. The path for him to jump into the conversation as "the best player in the league" is clear either play locked in on defense for 82 games or become a better play maker.

He has the ability to do both and I believe that mechanisms of circumstance will force him to become the latter. Either as things are right now I think it's absurd to have him outside the top 10 when his resume is taken in its whole, but there is a large chasm between him and the top 2

I highly doubt Ant is going to suddenly decide after 6+ seasons that he's going to turn on the juice defensively and relish the grind of fighting over screens and staying focused on that end for 70+ games per year. And there is almost no history of a star player changing their stripes in this regard that far into their career. We do know he can lock in defensively for brief bursts of action and he's literally won games for us with clutch defense. That might be all we can hope for at this point, which ain't nothing.

So that leaves the play making weakness as really the one area left for him where it's realistic he could improve. But even there I question how much better he can get, as guys like Doncic and Harden showed pretty advanced passing chops in their early 20s.

The reality is that Ant may never be an MVP-caliber player and might be "stuck" in that second tier of top 10 players for a long time. That's still an elite player and one you can win with, but it just puts more pressure on the front office to find all the right pieces to surround that player. Boston did it two seasons ago, so it can be done.

I really don't disagree at all! Those are just paths I see for him.
I agree that he likely stays in that 2nd tier for most or all of his career. The only point to contrary is, funny enough, that Ant and Shai have almost identical trend lines in the careers, at least respective to age. Shai also made that 30ppg during his age 24 season, was a lesser defender (or just not insulated inside a historic defense), and wasn't as good of a playmaker either- better than Ant, but he definitely made a leap in the last two seasons.

Given the uncanny physical intelligence that Ant possesses- i.e. being able to quickly learn and implement new skills- it's not unreasonable to think that he is busting down historic barriers by his age 27 season like SGA is

May be. Shai certainly doesn't make any passes that take your breath away, like Jokic or Doncic do. But he seemingly makes the right play every damn time and is tight with his passes and handle. Ant could certainly learn a lot by watching SGA.

[AussieWolf3]

I highly doubt Ant is going to suddenly decide after 6+ seasons that he's going to turn on the juice defensively and relish the grind of fighting over screens and staying focused on that end for 70+ games per year. And there is almost no history of a star player changing their stripes in this regard that far into their career. We do know he can lock in defensively for brief bursts of action and he's literally won games for us with clutch defense. That might be all we can hope for at this point, which ain't nothing.

So that leaves the play making weakness as really the one area left for him where it's realistic he could improve. But even there I question how much better he can get, as guys like Doncic and Harden showed pretty advanced passing chops in their early 20s.

The reality is that Ant may never be an MVP-caliber player and might be "stuck" in that second tier of top 10 players for a long time. That's still an elite player and one you can win with, but it just puts more pressure on the front office to find all the right pieces to surround that player. Boston did it two seasons ago, so it can be done.

I really don't disagree at all! Those are just paths I see for him.
I agree that he likely stays in that 2nd tier for most or all of his career. The only point to contrary is, funny enough, that Ant and Shai have almost identical trend lines in the careers, at least respective to age. Shai also made that 30ppg during his age 24 season, was a lesser defender (or just not insulated inside a historic defense), and wasn't as good of a playmaker either- better than Ant, but he definitely made a leap in the last two seasons.

Given the uncanny physical intelligence that Ant possesses- i.e. being able to quickly learn and implement new skills- it's not unreasonable to think that he is busting down historic barriers by his age 27 season like SGA is

May be. Shai certainly doesn't make any passes that take your breath away, like Jokic or Doncic do. But he seemingly makes the right play every damn time and is tight with his passes and handle. Ant could certainly learn a lot by watching SGA.

Again I completely agree, but I'm also taking about Shai from 3 years ago. He was still developing and hadn't fully balanced out his game.

Your point about his handle is a good one tho, Shai has a much tighter handle than Ant

[Q-is-here]

I really don't disagree at all! Those are just paths I see for him.
I agree that he likely stays in that 2nd tier for most or all of his career. The only point to contrary is, funny enough, that Ant and Shai have almost identical trend lines in the careers, at least respective to age. Shai also made that 30ppg during his age 24 season, was a lesser defender (or just not insulated inside a historic defense), and wasn't as good of a playmaker either- better than Ant, but he definitely made a leap in the last two seasons.

Given the uncanny physical intelligence that Ant possesses- i.e. being able to quickly learn and implement new skills- it's not unreasonable to think that he is busting down historic barriers by his age 27 season like SGA is

May be. Shai certainly doesn't make any passes that take your breath away, like Jokic or Doncic do. But he seemingly makes the right play every damn time and is tight with his passes and handle. Ant could certainly learn a lot by watching SGA.

Again I completely agree, but I'm also taking about Shai from 3 years ago. He was still developing and hadn't fully balanced out his game.

Your point about his handle is a good one tho, Shai has a much tighter handle than Ant

Someone other than Finch and the front office is going to have to convince Ant that improving both his willingness and skill-level in passing the ball is what will propel him into the MVP conversation, as he obviously came into this season absolutely determined to be a scorer first and foremost (which he's done with great success from all three levels - he is a legit complete scorer now).

We know if he puts his mind to something he can improve it. But I just don't know if he's wired for it in this case.