The Ayo Mystery

[Wolvesfan21]

Low BB IQ has to be it, then not having elite athleticism to make up for being out of position too often. You can get away with avg/below avg athleticism like say Conley did for years, but he knew how to play and where to be, especially on defense.

I still think CW would have been better for us, but oh well. I'm still happy with the trade overall as I think he could figure things out eventually. New team and system too, so I can see why he is struggling a bit more to start here.

If given a choice of any of the Bulls guards other than Giddy, Tre Jones would have been my first choice. Of course, we don’t know whether he was available for what we gave up. If so and we chose Ayo instead, then I think that was a mistake. But I still like the deal and likely Ayo.

Yeah Tre has been playing very well this season, he is also I think making around 8 mill so a nice value guy, plus a year or two more on his deal. Versus CW and Ayo being FA's. I can see why Chicago was letting the others go. Cheaper and solid play.

[Q-is-here]

I think Rapsuperstar was onto something in the other thread in looking back on NAW's transformation into an elite POA defender when he joined the Wolves. I just don't know if Ayo has the juice to defend at that level, regardless of how hard he tries.

If you go back and look at elite bench perimeter defenders like GPII, Alex Caruso*, and NAW throughout his tenure with Minnesota it's pretty enlightening to see how they positively impacted games. Lots of green on their net rating and net on/off rating numbers!

(*If you have the time, go check out Alex Caruso's net rating and net on/off rating stuff....it looks like Jokic's! Absolutely incredible what a game-changing defender he is).

[Q-is-here]

I think one of the key questions the front office has to answer is how much "meat on the bone" is there with Ayo? He is currently 26 and turns 27 next January, so age-wise he's about at that point where guys stop improving....but that's not always the case.

He's been on a slow, but steady improvement curve since his rookie year and took a nice leap ahead last season compared to the season before, so he didn't show any signs of plateauing last season. Also, he came into the league as an older rookie so even though he's older age-wise, he has less NBA experience and minutes than Ant and Jaden.

If the front office thinks he could still improve further, that may influence how likely they are to take a big swing this offseason.

[AussieWolf3]

I think one of the key questions the front office has to answer is how much "meat on the bone" is there with Ayo? He is currently 26 and turns 27 next January, so age-wise he's about at that point where guys stop improving....but that's not always the case.

He's been on a slow, but steady improvement curve since his rookie year and took a nice leap ahead last season compared to the season before, so he didn't show any signs of plateauing last season. Also, he came into the league as an older rookie so even though he's older age-wise, he has less NBA experience and minutes than Ant and Jaden.

If the front e thinks he could still improve further, that may influence how likely they are to take a big swing this offseason.

That's a good question Q.
I would say another way to ask it is: how much can you put on his plate/ what's his role on the team?

To me Ayo is still best as a 3 and D wing and I think it takes some wish casting to believe he's the teams point guard. He certainly has enough versatility to his game to handle the ball, play make and slide up and down between the 1,2 and 3 but it's really hard for me to buy that he should handle primary playmaking duties.
Essentially he's NAW and thats really really great to have on the team

[Wolvesfan21]

I think one of the key questions the front office has to answer is how much "meat on the bone" is there with Ayo? He is currently 26 and turns 27 next January, so age-wise he's about at that point where guys stop improving....but that's not always the case.

He's been on a slow, but steady improvement curve since his rookie year and took a nice leap ahead last season compared to the season before, so he didn't show any signs of plateauing last season. Also, he came into the league as an older rookie so even though he's older age-wise, he has less NBA experience and minutes than Ant and Jaden.

If the front e thinks he could still improve further, that may influence how likely they are to take a big swing this offseason.

That's a good question Q.
I would say another way to ask it is: how much can you put on his plate/ what's his role on the team?

To me Ayo is still best as a 3 and D wing and I think it takes some wish casting to believe he's the teams point guard. He certainly has enough versatility to his game to handle the ball, play make and slide up and down between the 1,2 and 3 but it's really hard for me to buy that he should handle primary playmaking duties.
Essentially he's NAW and thats really really great to have on the team

I think NAWs defense here was really far superior. I like Ayo, but still a 6th-7th man type to me. If he's starting all year, without some type of good PF upgrade we're doomed, imo. Giannis in the PF slot, OK. Ayo can probably be serviceable then. But I think we're in trouble if we put too much on his plate. As you say, he's not really a PG. He's OK with the handle, OK passing. But OK isn't what we need.

[rapsuperstar31]

I think one of the key questions the front office has to answer is how much "meat on the bone" is there with Ayo? He is currently 26 and turns 27 next January, so age-wise he's about at that point where guys stop improving....but that's not always the case.

He's been on a slow, but steady improvement curve since his rookie year and took a nice leap ahead last season compared to the season before, so he didn't show any signs of plateauing last season. Also, he came into the league as an older rookie so even though he's older age-wise, he has less NBA experience and minutes than Ant and Jaden.

If the front e thinks he could still improve further, that may influence how likely they are to take a big swing this offseason.

That's a good question Q.
I would say another way to ask it is: how much can you put on his plate/ what's his role on the team?

To me Ayo is still best as a 3 and D wing and I think it takes some wish casting to believe he's the teams point guard. He certainly has enough versatility to his game to handle the ball, play make and slide up and down between the 1,2 and 3 but it's really hard for me to buy that he should handle primary playmaking duties.
Essentially he's NAW and thats really really great to have on the team

I think NAWs defense here was really far superior. I like Ayo, but still a 6th-7th man type to me. If he's starting all year, without some type of good PF upgrade we're doomed, imo. Giannis in the PF slot, OK. Ayo can probably be serviceable then. But I think we're in trouble if we put too much on his plate. As you say, he's not really a PG. He's OK with the handle, OK passing. But OK isn't what we need.

I've read he was a better defender his first two seasons, I don't know if he's another case of the more you put on him the worse the defense.

[Q-is-here]

I think Ayo is more point guard-y than DDV and NAW, but yeah, he's not exactly prime Mike Conley that's for sure.

I do think it's a question of tradeoffs. A lot of the more pure PGs out there have there own issues. Tre Jones for example. An old school floor general/game manager if I ever saw one. But he is really inconsistent from 3. That's a problem! Tyus Jones has improved his 3-ball but has kind of fallen off in other areas and absolutely gets targeted by bigger guards on defense.

Kyrie is older, injury-prone, and freakin' expensive.

Ayo is a solid defender, solid shooter, solid passer, solid scorer, great team mate, high character, etc., etc.....we could do worse.

And even if Ayo starts, we still need a 3rd guard. Why can't that be Tre Jones or Collin Gillespie? That way you still get more of a Conley-esque PG on the floor without having their weaknesses too exposed.

[thedoper]

Im not shocked that a talented player from a bad team has bad stats. Hopefully this is the type of argument that can keep his price at a discount.

[Q-is-here]

Im not shocked that a talented player from a bad team has bad stats. Hopefully this is the type of argument that can keep his price at a discount.

His Net Rating has been improving so it's gotten "less bad" as time goes on. He was absolutely brilliant in the Denver series. Then the calf, then the Spurs, etc. etc.

[Coolbreeze44]

Ideally we don't rely on Ayo to start very often. To me his skillset is that of a top of the bench player, and there is nothing wrong with that. But if he has to start it feels like our ceiling is lower.