Also, THaNKS Nuggets...
Also, THaNKS Nuggets...
Nice team win! Let these W coming...
Of course PHX winning by damn near 30 in Dallas.
When the night's over, the Pelicans will be 2 games out of 9th place.
This team is not hard to love. Lots of hustle. Smiles. Team chemistry is obvious. Great to see.
In registering 14 points on better than 50% efficiency, Zion Williamson tonight becomes the first and only 1st Round Pick in NBA history to have at least 10 points and shoot better than 50% from the floor in their first 4 NBA games.
Edit: So this seemed suspicious to me, and the longer I left it up here, the more I doubted it. Here's where I got it from btw
Zion Williamson finished with 14 points (7-13 FG) in the Pelicans win against the Cavaliers.
— ESPN Stats & Info (@ESPNStatsInfo) January 29, 2020
Zion is now the first 1st-round pick to have at least 10 points and shoot better than 50% in his first 4 career NBA games.
(h/t @EliasSports) pic.twitter.com/eyVdOJCs0A
So I looked it up. I figured this couldn't be true, right?
Well, it is true but only by very careful wording. You see, they wrote better than 50%. So players who had games that hit exactly 50% don't count. Shaq, for example, did it too; he had 12, 22, 35, and 31 in his first 4 games, on 50%, 50%, 60%, 54%. But because 2 of those games were 50% exactly and not better than 50%, he doesn't count.
Crafty.
After 4 games Zion is averaging
18/8.3/1.5 on 65.9%FG
Not bad! If he were to maintain these numbers for the rest of the year, which frankly doesn't seem particularly unlikely (he's clearly not in 100% form yet and putting these numbers up, even while getting regularly doubled as a rookie), then he will finish the year
1st in PPG among rookies
1st in RPG among rookies
20th in APG among rookies
9th in FG% among rookies (nobody else in the top 10 for rookies is taking more than 4.7 FGAs; the guy taking 4.7 is Jaxson)
He's getting to the FT line as well, he's just not converting yet. He wasn't a mindblowingly good FT shooter at college, but he was much better than he's been in the NBA so far, so I'd imagine that there's plenty of expectation within the organisation for him to improve. I've heard people say that they've tweaked his FT form a little, and that we're currently in the adjustment period, which would explain why it's got him out-of-sorts if true.
Advanced Stats
Best Net Rating: Derrick Favors, +51.1
Worst Net Rating: Jaxson Hayes, -25.9 (I believe this is the first time he's had a team worst net rating? Hasn't happened often at least)
Best TS%: Nicolo Melli, 91.7%
Worst TS%: Josh Hart, 20%
Highest REB%: Favors, 14%. Zion follows at 12.9%
Highest AST%: Jrue Holiday, 30.9%
Most Deflections: Jrue Holiday with 8 :hihi: ridiculous number of deflections
Most Screen Assists: Zion, with 4 leading to 10 points.*
Most 2pt Contests: Jaxson Hayes, with 8. Followed by Zion, with 6
Most 3pt Contests: Zion, with 5
Most Boxouts: Derrick Favors, with 9, followed by Jax with 3.
* Zion's screening really stood out to me in this game. With his strength and broad frame, he can set some real hammering screens and I've liked his screening the last few games. It's been much more active than it was at Duke, and even when it's not leading directly into the play, there are times where he's screened off the ball just to disrupt defenses and it really is an aspect of his game that I'm excited to see evolve.
It's really unfair to Morant that they're doing this tbh. Trying to make it a competition between the two. Because while Morant has tons of promise and has already been much better than some (including me!) expected him to be, it's highly unlikely he ever matches the ceiling Zion has, and it's just setting Ja up for failure.
Is it too early to do this? Yes it is. Am I doing it anyway? Yes I am. Why? For fun.
Zion so far this year: 18 points, 8.3 rebounds. 63.7% TS. 23.5% DREB%, 13%OREB%, overall REB% of 18.2%
Here is the full list of rookies in NBA history to put up stats of at least 18/8 on 63%TS with at least 18% REB%:
1) Nobody
It's never been done before.
If you lower the TS% to 60%, still nobody qualifies. If you lower it to 56%, you get 3 names: David Robinson, Shaquille O'Neal, and Hakeem Olajuwon. All of those guys were at least 5 inches taller than Zion, and none of them were still teenagers: Hakeem was 22, and The Admiral was 24 as a rookie. Shaq was 20.
If you drop the REB% from 18% to 15% too, you add a few more names: Tim Duncan, Alonzo Mourning, Christian Laettner, and Marques Johnson. Again, none of these new names were teenagers.
This is not bad company to be in as a rookie :hihi:
The issue with Clarke was always his age and athletic limitations. He pretty much is now what he always will be. In last years class, however, no doubt he should've been a top 10 pick. I'm not sure how a guy like Deandre Hunter who is 22 gets picked 4th when Clarke goes 21st. Clarke will be 28 by the time he hits his second contract. For comparison, Jax will be 23.
Age, sure. Athletic limitations? Dude was arguably the second or third most athletic guy in the draft. He has ridiculous bounce and good lateral quickness.
Also, I've never bought the ''he is now, who he will always be'' argument for guys who haven't even hit the league yet. The perfect example of that would be that he didn't shoot 3s at all in college, and he's hitting them in the NBA already at a high percentage. It's low volume, sure, but he added that to his game over the summer: if he was he who will always be by the draft, it would make no sense for him to add such a pivotal skill to his arsenal at such a late moment.
There's a big debate to be had about age VS ability. Realistically, I think it depends which team you are which is the right option. For us, Jax was the right pick. For a different team, maybe a team that was expecting to be legitimately good this year, Clarke is probably a better pick. There's also an argument that it's better to draft the older, more established player because then you get them in legitimately ready-to-play mode right away for their rookie deal, maximising value. For Jax, he won't really be at his full playing capacity until his first deal is pretty much over, and it's the second contract that really packs in his best years; as a result, the rookie deal is almost just dead money. Raw investment.
I worry about his ability to shoot the 3 long term. Sure he's shooting 40% right now, but that's on 1.1 shots per game. If he made 4 less 3s on the year, he'd be shooting 31%.
And second or third most athletic guys in a draft that involves Zion, Ja, Jax. Lets not get carried away. Clarke is gonna be a solid player in this league for a while but I see more Dante Cunningham in him than say Tobias Harris. Where Clarke has an edge over probably any rookie in this class is his IQ, but at the same time, whos to say that other guys IQs aren't similar when they're 23 years old. Defensively and an offensive glue guy, I like him.
Yes, second or third most athletic in this draft. Jax's primary physical attribute isn't his explosion (I can't remember what his vert is, but I'd imagine it's not insane), but his fluidity and coordination.
Clarke is better now, as a rookie, than Cunningham has ever been lol
Small sample size, but Zion is 13th in points per 100 possessions, and 13th in true-shooting percentage.
— Brady Klopfer (@BradyKlopferNBA) January 29, 2020