FNG wrote:My surprise pick is Anthony Edwards. Yes, choosing the #1 pick in the draft to be a surprise contributor is underwhelming at best- I mean, do you think any New Orleans fans picked Zion as their surprise contributor last year? But Edwards is not Zion and this board is quite skeptical about him, so a 16/6/2 season with 45% shooting (which I think is highly possible and would complement D-Lo and KAT well) would qualify as a surprise. I like Culver as a good choice too, but I think the production of Beasley and Edwards may limit his playing time. Edwards is my pick.
I pick culver as my surprise player instead of edwards because I think edwards will live up to his billing. Im very high on edwards. He was my clearcut number 2 guy behind wiseman in the draft. While I prefer wiseman I had no problem in taking edwards. Il go a step further and say that Edwards will prove himself worthy this season of being a #1 pick.
FNG wrote:My surprise pick is Anthony Edwards. Yes, choosing the #1 pick in the draft to be a surprise contributor is underwhelming at best- I mean, do you think any New Orleans fans picked Zion as their surprise contributor last year? But Edwards is not Zion and this board is quite skeptical about him, so a 16/6/2 season with 45% shooting (which I think is highly possible and would complement D-Lo and KAT well) would qualify as a surprise. I like Culver as a good choice too, but I think the production of Beasley and Edwards may limit his playing time. Edwards is my pick.
I pick culver as my surprise player instead of edwards because I think edwards will live up to his billing. Im very high on edwards. He was my clearcut number 2 guy behind wiseman in the draft. While I prefer wiseman I had no problem in taking edwards. Il go a step further and say that Edwards will prove himself worthy this season of being a #1 pick.
I'm quite high on Culver too, world- I liked him a lot in college, and loved the way he improved the second half of last season. I agree with you that he could definitely have a breakout season this year, and he may even get more minutes at SF than Edwards. It will be really interesting to see how the coaching staff fits all these pieces together.
Reading through the tea-leaves from that Saunders presser....I think we are not going to have a particularly tight rotation. I see us playing 10 and may be sometimes 11 guys per night. I predict we have only two players that will average more than 30 MPG and that's KAT and DLO.
I think what these guys are trying to build is a very flexible, adaptive roster that is largely position-less and is constrained by as few dogmas as possible.
Bottom line....I'm not worried about playing time. In fact, some of us may be begging Ryan to tighten the rotation after a few weeks in.
I'd actually say Malik Beasley could be another surprise, but not in the way we're hoping for. There's definite regression on the way considering how good that 14-game stretch was for him. He's a good shooter, not an elite shooter. Don't expect 42.6-percent on 8.2 threes per game because that just isn't happening. Also think he'll be closer to 15.0 PPG than the 20.0 PPG he was putting up considering the number of mouths to feed and already noted expected regression in efficiency.
That kind of player is still good, but those 14 games don't accurately represent the player Beasley is, in my opinion.
Camden0916 wrote:I'd actually say Malik Beasley could be another surprise, but not in the way we're hoping for. There's definite regression on the way considering how good that 14-game stretch was for him. He's a good shooter, not an elite shooter. Don't expect 42.6-percent on 8.2 threes per game because that just isn't happening. Also think he'll be closer to 15.0 PPG than the 20.0 PPG he was putting up considering the number of mouths to feed and already noted expected regression in efficiency.
That kind of player is still good, but those 14 games don't accurately represent the player Beasley is, in my opinion.
Yeah that's more like what I expect from him. I see him as sort of a better shooting version of Tim Hardaway Jr. impact guy but a guy at Beasley's age I suppose there is a chance he is something better. At Beasley's salary as long as the off the court stuff isn't a problem that's a reasonably valuable player.
Camden wrote:I'd actually say Malik Beasley could be another surprise, but not in the way we're hoping for. There's definite regression on the way considering how good that 14-game stretch was for him. He's a good shooter, not an elite shooter. Don't expect 42.6-percent on 8.2 threes per game because that just isn't happening. Also think he'll be closer to 15.0 PPG than the 20.0 PPG he was putting up considering the number of mouths to feed and already noted expected regression in efficiency.
That kind of player is still good, but those 14 games don't accurately represent the player Beasley is, in my opinion.
By comparison...
Joe Harris was a 14/15 ppg (47%/42% 3fg) the past two seasons.
Bertrans was a 15 ppg (42% 3fg) shooter last season.
They both got slightly bigger deals than Beasley.
Looks like Dallas/Philly got a deal on Curry (about 1/2 the salary of those other guys) because they nabbed him before he went for 12 ppg (45% 3fg).
Q12543 wrote:Reading through the tea-leaves from that Saunders presser....I think we are not going to have a particularly tight rotation. I see us playing 10 and may be sometimes 11 guys per night. I predict we have only two players that will average more than 30 MPG and that's KAT and DLO.
I think what these guys are trying to build is a very flexible, adaptive roster that is largely position-less and is constrained by as few dogmas as possible.
Bottom line....I'm not worried about playing time. In fact, some of us may be begging Ryan to tighten the rotation after a few weeks in.
An 11 man rotation is literal insanity in the NBA unless you are like the Bucks and Warriors where the game is over after 3 quarters and you are consistently emptying the bench. Messing with minutes every night is going to make it really difficult for guys to find consistency and find their role on the team. Figure out the best 9 guys and the other 2 will get their PT when guys get injured, COVID or take a night off on a back to back.
Q12543 wrote:Reading through the tea-leaves from that Saunders presser....I think we are not going to have a particularly tight rotation. I see us playing 10 and may be sometimes 11 guys per night. I predict we have only two players that will average more than 30 MPG and that's KAT and DLO.
I think what these guys are trying to build is a very flexible, adaptive roster that is largely position-less and is constrained by as few dogmas as possible.
Bottom line....I'm not worried about playing time. In fact, some of us may be begging Ryan to tighten the rotation after a few weeks in.
An 11 man rotation is literal insanity in the NBA unless you are like the Bucks and Warriors where the game is over after 3 quarters and you are consistently emptying the bench. Messing with minutes every night is going to make it really difficult for guys to find consistency and find their role on the team. Figure out the best 9 guys and the other 2 will get their PT when guys get injured, COVID or take a night off on a back to back.
I agree with this. Tighten the rotation and get the best players more run. There's nothing wrong with having an okay player fresh and on standby because he's not in the nightly rotation. But also there's no reason to try to force minutes to a guy when someone more productive should be on the floor.
And yes, I'd apply that line of thinking in regards to Rondae Hollis-Jefferson and Jarred Vanderbilt.
