CoolBreeze44 wrote:Johnny Flynn is the definition of a bust.
Maybe, but Jonny Flynn was performing exactly as most had expected until he sustained a freak hip injury, that no player in the NBA has ever fully recovered from to the best of my knowledge. I know it is convenient to pile on Kahn with that statement, but I feel it isn't accurate.
I don't agree that he was performing well before the injury. He was obviously flawed from the start.
Here is his ESPN stats page. Check out his rookie year, which looks like a pretty good season to me.
khans2k5 wrote:Flynn was a bust just like Oden was a bust. Injury or not, you are a bust if you are out of the league before your rookie deal is up. I know Oden has been hanging around, but his comeback has not really been much of a comeback in my eyes.
I don't consider guys busts due to injury. I consider guys like Foye busts, because they never significantly improved their game. Particularly when players have injury histories or physical defects, that is on the team that drafts them. They shouldn't have expected an injury free career.
Portland made a poor pick. They knew one leg was shorter than the other. When are teams going to understand that seven foot guys are the not the norm, and if they show injuries early on, they are likely to continue. Feet and Knees are pretty important in the game of BB.
CoolBreeze44 wrote:Johnny Flynn is the definition of a bust.
Maybe, but Jonny Flynn was performing exactly as most had expected until he sustained a freak hip injury, that no player in the NBA has ever fully recovered from to the best of my knowledge. I know it is convenient to pile on Kahn with that statement, but I feel it isn't accurate.
I don't agree that he was performing well before the injury. He was obviously flawed from the start.
Here is his ESPN stats page. Check out his rookie year, which looks like a pretty good season to me.
CoolBreeze44 wrote:Johnny Flynn is the definition of a bust.
Maybe, but Jonny Flynn was performing exactly as most had expected until he sustained a freak hip injury, that no player in the NBA has ever fully recovered from to the best of my knowledge. I know it is convenient to pile on Kahn with that statement, but I feel it isn't accurate.
I don't agree that he was performing well before the injury. He was obviously flawed from the start.
Here is his ESPN stats page. Check out his rookie year, which looks like a pretty good season to me.
You can't play that many minutes, shoot 41% and average only 4.4 assists. He drove me to drink that year and was well on his way to being a bust.
I think your expectations were a little high, particularly for a guy running the triangle. If you recall, Rambis didn't want him running the PnR, which was his bread and butter. Rambis' reasoning was "it will make him a better player". MCW won the rookie of the year with a worse TS%, FG%, 3pt FG%, and both had ast/TO ratio's between 1.5 and 1.8.
khans2k5 wrote:Flynn was a bust just like Oden was a bust. Injury or not, you are a bust if you are out of the league before your rookie deal is up. I know Oden has been hanging around, but his comeback has not really been much of a comeback in my eyes.
I don't consider guys busts due to injury. I consider guys like Foye busts, because they never significantly improved their game. Particularly when players have injury histories or physical defects, that is on the team that drafts them. They shouldn't have expected an injury free career.
Portland made a poor pick. They knew one leg was shorter than the other. When are teams going to understand that seven foot guys are the not the norm, and if they show injuries early on, they are likely to continue. Feet and Knees are pretty important in the game of BB.
Fair enough thats actually reasonably kind stance that is tend to agree with based on that definition. Do you have a named category for guys that didn't achieve success due to injury?
Camden-Funny, we don't have the data to say LaVine's a better prospect than Wiggins (wasn't my argument anyway), but we can compare Wiggins to the greatest player whoever touched a basketball (Jordan).
Basketball is a sport that provides a lot of offensive data to allow us to compare players, so I don't find it out of order to compare Wiggins' college stats to Jordan's, as a start in evaluating the two players. Both are extraordinarily athletic and entertaining to watch, and since I still believe Wiggins will be a T-Wolf soon, it's encouraging to see that their college stats were identical. Wiggins' athleticism, mature offensive game, and excellence on defense leads me to believe he has an enormously high ceiling...and that belief is backed up by the fact that he was drafted first in the strongest draft in years. But ultimately he will not reach Jordan's level because I don't believe he will ever come close to Jordan's intensity and drive to be a winner. But I will be surprised if he is not a star in this league for a long time.
To compare Wiggins to LaVine, we can't rely on the data because Wiggins is far ahead in production. We have to go more by eye test and what we have seen, and based on LaVine's comfort in running the offense during SL, I don't find it preposterous to have a discussion about who is the better prospect. And my thought is that while LaVine really impressed me in SL, he isn't at Wiggins' level yet as a prospect.
I get it. Top prospect with a high ceiling gets compared to the greatest ever. I just think that's jumping the gun quite a bit. Wiggins has a mature offensive game? Are you watching the right prospect? He struggles to get all the way to the rim on a consistent basis, usually settling for step-back jumpers or a spin move followed by a tough floater. I'm not spewing lies when I say that. Those are his "go to" moves. He also can't create plays for others at this stage of his career. Both issues stem from his average handle. He has a long way to go on offense before "mature" can be an adjective for him. This is why people, like myself, feel like he's a big risk.
As for the Jordan comparisons... Jordan was able to get to the rim at will, evidence of this is his ridiculous FG% always hovering around 50%. He also had the ability to run an offense with the ball in his hands; finding open shooters or dishing to an open big man. Wiggins can't do this, and I doubt he'll ever be completely comfortable doing so. Again, this is why he's a risk.
By the way, people act like 2008 wasn't an incredible draft year. This comment isn't 100% aimed at you, LST. The talk this summer has been about 2003 and 2014. Well, 2014 has a long way to go before it reaches 2008's level. Rose, Westbrook, Love, B.Lopez, R.Lopez, E.Gordon, Ibaka, Anderson, G.Hill, Hibbert, Batum, Pekovic, Dragic, D.Jordan, Asik. That draft was loaded, but it gets underrated and I'm really not sure why. That's bugged me since I finally went back and checked it out.
Anyways, what began all of this was me saying I see LaVine potentially being Batman while Wiggins is a terrific Robin. Wiggins lack of handle, consistent jumper, court vision and alpha dog mentality make me feel the way I do. I think it's fair to say that LaVine is superior in every aspect I just named.
Some good points, cam...one thing that is different in Wiggins' and Jordan's college stats is FG%. While Wiggins' is good, Jordan's is much better, showing that he had already learned in college how to score with ease.
One thing I think we clearly agree on, this will be a fun team to watch if we're fortunate to have both Wiggins and LaVine for the next few years.
