Last roster spot

[KG4Ever]

I'm a little surprised no team has signed Michael Devoe yet. He's an excellent three point shooter and he's 23 years old, 6"4 with a 6"7 wingspan. Shot at 39.3% on good volume for his 4 year college career. He shot 3s at a 64.7% clip in summer league play and bested Wembayana in their head to head matchup scoring 29 to his 27. He can shoot and make 3s from well beyond the arc. His G League rights are held by Portland, but I think if he gets a two way deal that would trump. Not even sure if G League Rights factor in ability to offer an Exhibit 10 deal, but he's a name I like.

[Q-is-here]

Shams: Guard Daishen Nix is signing a one-year deal with the Minnesota Timberwolves, sources tell @TheAthletic @Stadium. After his first two NBA seasons with Rockets, Nix will go to camp with Minnesota.

Dane adds that he thinks it’s an Exhibit 10 deal

Nix was a five star high school recruit that never played college ball. He played for G League Ignite and struggled with his shooting. He played the next year with Rio Grande in the G League and his shooting vastly improved (39.5% threes).

He played 81 games for Houston and struggled with his shooting. He's 21.

"struggled with his shooting"....Gee, I've never heard that before with Wolves guard prospects...

[Monster]

Shams: Guard Daishen Nix is signing a one-year deal with the Minnesota Timberwolves, sources tell @TheAthletic @Stadium. After his first two NBA seasons with Rockets, Nix will go to camp with Minnesota.

Dane adds that he thinks it’s an Exhibit 10 deal

Nix was a five star high school recruit that never played college ball. He played for G League Ignite and struggled with his shooting. He played the next year with Rio Grande in the G League and his shooting vastly improved (39.5% threes).

He played 81 games for Houston and struggled with his shooting. He's 21.

"struggled with his shooting"....Gee, I've never heard that before with Wolves guard prospects...

He is a bigger player for a PG which is on brand for the Wolves. He measured 6’3” barefoot and had a 6’6.75 wingspan. He is listed at 6’5 so it’s possible he grew a little since then. He is also 225. Watching a little video right now…he is definitely not skinny.

The last season he played full time in the G-league he shot the 3 well but he was a poor FT shooter under 60% which is obviously bad. He improved to making 2/3rd of his FT last season. It’s an improvement but not a good sign.

Last season to the befuddlement of a few Rockets fans on Twitter (saw this when reading about TyTy weeks ago) last season he played actually many more games than TyTy. He is younger than TyTy by a few days.

I’d guess he is most likely going to be the PG for the Iowa Wolves next season (Brandon Williams signed with Orlando) but Nix has a chance to impress in training camp.

At the very least Matt Ryan has some competition for his 2-way spot. He also could impress in training camp and get an actual NBA deal himself and open that spot for someone. I don’t expect that but the Lakers had signed him to an NBA contract going into last season. The Wolves have collected young some guys at the end of their roster that have played NBA games. That could be a good thing.

[Sundog]

Javonte Cook will be joining the Wolves in training camp, on an Exhibit 10 deal

[KG4Ever]

Nix and Cook are headed for the G League. Krejci probably is too, but he has a chance to secure a two-way deal. I think we have two more spots we can use to add to our training camp roster.

[Lipoli390]

31% and 33% are not good three-point percentages. Three FIBA games of low-volume 3-point shooting are irrelevant. If TC can’t do better than this guy with the team’s third 2-way contract that will be very disappointing to say the least.

Maybe, not good, but I wouldn't call it poor. But my point is he's young and 3 point shots can improve. He shot 64% this summer in FIBA play. I know its only 3 games, but maybe its a sign improvement. He's shooting better than Moore and Minott from distance. Let's just wait and see how he does in training camp. If the Wolves are focused on a pure shooter rather than a point guard, then I think Michael Devoe or Andres Feliz would make sense.

A couple more things to consider. In 2022 games for his national team Vit shot 50% in 5 games playing 12 mpg and taking 2 3’s a game. Small sample size but that’s not low volume. Just for fun Let’s go to his junior Fiba stats and she shot over 38% across 5 years which is worst campaign was .333% in 2018. His one season I could find stats for that he played any significant minutes in international leagues for the season he shot .34.3% and he was playing limited minutes as a 19 or 20 year old. Meanwhile a few months ago in summer league he shot 38.1% from 3 over 6 games.

Connelly has said a few times that one strategy they are using to get talent is get guys a year early. Vit MIGHT be another one of those guys. Keep in mind his rookie year with the Thunder he was coming off a knee surgery and hadn’t played basketball for over a year. Connelly has acquired these type of guys multiple times over his career and has had success. Vit might be just another guy but if you watch some video of him it’s worth wondering if he can be something. Finding guys that can give you the possible ability to play minutes 1-4 seems valuable. I don’t think he should be dismissed as a worthwhile player.

Meanwhile I think it’s interesting they showed interest in Kennedy Chandler. That goes against what seems like a decision to go for bigger guards. I think they should be looking at Kennedy chandler but if we are talking about shooting he has shown little since college of being able to make a 3 and he shot extremely poorly from the FT line. And sure this was all in a relatively small sample. It’s a weird thing to knock one player for a thing but still be like oh we should be looking at another player and not discuss their flaws some of which are similar or possibly even worse. And if we are gonna talk about low volume of 3’s Chandler simply isn’t a high volume 3 point shooter.

Two things. First, unlike Vic, Chandler has a significant sample size of converting a high percentage of his threes. He hit over 38% of his threes in college through 31 games, averaging 31 minutes and nearly 4 three-point attempts per game. Vic has nothing close to that sample size shooting higher than the low 30s from behind the arc. Second, Chandler is a a pure PG. He’s a hyper-quick playmaking guard who averaged over 2 steals per game in college. I look at him as a potential successor to Conley as our PG, not as a SG off the bench. If we’re signing a SG to back up Edwards he had better be a really good perimeter shooter. If we’re signing a potential successor to Conley, then shooting is secondary albeit still important. We’re talking about a two-way contract here. I’ll live with uncertainty surrounding Chandler’s shooting as he develops into a possible future PG. But I’d look for proven shooters if using the 2-way slot on a player at the wing positions backing up Edwards or McDaniels.

But note I’m not opposed to signing Vic to several 10-day deals and giving him a long look and see if he’s really impressive.

[Monster]

Maybe, not good, but I wouldn't call it poor. But my point is he's young and 3 point shots can improve. He shot 64% this summer in FIBA play. I know its only 3 games, but maybe its a sign improvement. He's shooting better than Moore and Minott from distance. Let's just wait and see how he does in training camp. If the Wolves are focused on a pure shooter rather than a point guard, then I think Michael Devoe or Andres Feliz would make sense.

A couple more things to consider. In 2022 games for his national team Vit shot 50% in 5 games playing 12 mpg and taking 2 3’s a game. Small sample size but that’s not low volume. Just for fun Let’s go to his junior Fiba stats and she shot over 38% across 5 years which is worst campaign was .333% in 2018. His one season I could find stats for that he played any significant minutes in international leagues for the season he shot .34.3% and he was playing limited minutes as a 19 or 20 year old. Meanwhile a few months ago in summer league he shot 38.1% from 3 over 6 games.

Connelly has said a few times that one strategy they are using to get talent is get guys a year early. Vit MIGHT be another one of those guys. Keep in mind his rookie year with the Thunder he was coming off a knee surgery and hadn’t played basketball for over a year. Connelly has acquired these type of guys multiple times over his career and has had success. Vit might be just another guy but if you watch some video of him it’s worth wondering if he can be something. Finding guys that can give you the possible ability to play minutes 1-4 seems valuable. I don’t think he should be dismissed as a worthwhile player.

Meanwhile I think it’s interesting they showed interest in Kennedy Chandler. That goes against what seems like a decision to go for bigger guards. I think they should be looking at Kennedy chandler but if we are talking about shooting he has shown little since college of being able to make a 3 and he shot extremely poorly from the FT line. And sure this was all in a relatively small sample. It’s a weird thing to knock one player for a thing but still be like oh we should be looking at another player and not discuss their flaws some of which are similar or possibly even worse. And if we are gonna talk about low volume of 3’s Chandler simply isn’t a high volume 3 point shooter.

Two things. First, unlike Vic, Chandler has a significant sample size of converting a high percentage of his threes. He hit over 38% of his threes in college through 31 games, averaging 31 minutes and nearly 4 three-point attempts per game. Vic has nothing close to that sample size shooting higher than the low 30s from behind the arc. Second, Chandler is a a pure PG. He’s a hyper-quick playmaking guard who averaged over 2 steals per game in college. I look at him as a potential successor to Conley as our PG, not as a SG off the bench. If we’re signing a SG to back up Edwards he had better be a really good perimeter shooter. If we’re signing a potential successor to Conley, then shooting is secondary albeit still important. We’re talking about a two-way contract here. I’ll live with uncertainty surrounding Chandler’s shooting as he develops into a possible future PG. But I’d look for proven shooters if using the 2-way slot on a player at the wing positions backing up Edwards or McDaniels.

But note I’m not opposed to signing Vic to several 10-day deals and giving him a long look and see if he’s really impressive.

Your significant sample size for chandler is 34 college games?

I’m gonna just go a on record here and just say that Kennedy Chandler sucks. Of course I’m joking a bit but I’m also baffled at how this guy continues to be thought of as some sort of legit prospect. He got cut before his first season was even over despite basically having the contract of a first round pick. Nobody has signed him. He couldn’t his the broadside of a barn from 3 or from the FT his first professional season. He was worse than Jarrett Culver on both areas. YIKES. What does he do well as an undersized guy that can only play PG?

Nix isn’t a SG he is at the very least a combo guard. That’s the possible value he has is he has size defensively. If I had to pick between Nix, TyTy and Chandler I would pick TyTy but honestly Im not sure there is much of a gap between any of those guys…and possibly for that matter Wendell Moore. Although what Moore has going for him is he actually has wing size. Oh that’s also what Vit has going for him as well except he is modern day NBA PF sized but has some guard skills.

Ultimately all these guys we are discussing we can likely agree are G-league guys that need to prove they are more and improve to become more fringe NBA players or get NBA contracts. The Wolves haven’t signed anyone to these deals that has anywhere new an inside track on a roster spot. If someone gets any kind of spot it will be because they really balled out…and probably accept a non-guaranteed deal or 2-way deal which until I hear otherwise Matt Ryan has the inside track on that spot. I don’t think any of these guys have the resume that say Garza did last year and because how well he did he was somewhat surprisingly easily able to wrestle away a 2-way deal from a guy that was an NBA player before but couldn’t hold onto a roster spot. I’m hoping we still have a more interesting signing still that has more of an inside track on a roster spot. Some of these guys are more CJ Elleby than a Garza type.

[KG4Ever]

I like Vit and I like Chandler. Vit I like for his size, long wingspan and inside/outside scoring and hustle. KC, I like for his passing, his basketball IQ, his ballhawking. Do they both need work? Heck yeah! But given how young they are, I'd like to see how they do in our system for a year, before we decide whether they have long term potential. Send them to Iowa on two way or G League contracts. Nix is interesting too. He wasn't loved in Houston, but his G League stats look respectable and he has received compliments for his passing skills, rebounding and defense. His detractors called him doughy and fat, but TC did well with a fat out of shape Serbian. I've seen enough glimmers of high end potential in all three, and think TC has a good eye for talent. Sometimes consistent shooting takes a few years to develop and so I prefer some projects with upside over veterans who don't move the needle.

[Monster]

I like Vit and I like Chandler. Vit I like for his size, long wingspan and inside/outside scoring and hustle. KC, I like for his passing, his basketball IQ, his ballhawking. Do they both need work? Heck yeah! But given how young they are, I'd like to see how they do in our system for a year, before we decide whether they have long term potential. Send them to Iowa on two way or G League contracts. Nix is interesting too. He wasn't loved in Houston, but his G League stats look respectable and he has received compliments for his passing skills, rebounding and defense. His detractors called him doughy and fat, but TC did well with a fat out of shape Serbian. I've seen enough glimmers of high end potential in all three, and think TC has a good eye for talent. Sometimes consistent shooting takes a few years to develop and so I prefer some projects with upside over veterans who don't move the needle.

That’s a reasonable summation.

Speaking of Nix being doughy…coming out of the draft his body fat was 11.8 next was Garza at 11.7 and then Austin Reaves at 11.0. Nix is in good company right? lol Watching videos he does look like he is a guy that might be able to shed some weight but maybe not. Either way even if he dropped 10 pounds he looks like he would still be a pretty stout dude. He kinda reminds me of another guy on the Rockets roster a weird/unique guy Jae'Sean Tate who ended up making his way into the league as an undersized forward with some guard skills. It will be interesting to see if he plays much this season if he is useful on a team actually trying to win games.

[Lipoli390]

https://www.cbssports.com/college-baske ... a-mystery/

http://www.mynbadraft.com/NBA-Draft-Pro ... aishen-Nix

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bIJGGj69Dow

Key passage from the article:

Nix's profile has increased as he's steadily risen in the rankings while consistently wowing coaches, analysts and scouts with his pro-level vision and knack for distributing jaw-dropping passes.

"IQ is IQ," Lockridge said. "He was born with it. ... His heart is tremendously big. It's a gift from God to be able to coach a kid like this, nurture a kid like this."

The video aligns with the description of Nix’s passing and basketball IQ. Looks like he’s ambidextrous as well, which is a big plus for any player, especially a PG. He seems a big pudgy, but there’s no reason he can’t significantly reduce his body fat and that would give him more quickness and athleticism to go with his obvious PG skills and IQ. He’s certainly an intriguing prospect who could move from a 10-day deal to a 2-way contract if he performs well in training camp and preseason.