Originally Posted by
new city champ
Obviously Davis isn't really a "blow by" guy. He's someone who depends on his shot-making skills to score. That can be a red flag as guys go up a level, but on the other hand you regularly see guys who aren't elite run-and-jump athletes become good NBA players. I can remember when folks dinged Luka for having a slow first step and no vertical. All true, but as it turns out, so what?
Davis reminds me a little of a guy like Rip Hamilton or maybe more recently a Dillon Brooks up in Memphis (though more prolific). I think he has the skill set to be a strong scoring guard off the bench, a la Tyler Herro, though he's not the outside shooter Herro is. The question is does he have the upside to be in your starting or finishing five eventually and is he too ball dominant to be added to a squad that already has three front-line ball dominators.
At first glance I'd say it's a bad long term fit. I've always thought the ideal SG for the Zion-Pels was a long shooter who could defend 1-3 and go 40% from the arc and 80+% from the stripe on 10-12 attempts a game (Herb may just get there). But Davis interests me as much for his intangibles, defense and competitive mindset as he does for his scoring. If the scouting backs up that he's a bright-lights baller with a chip on his shoulder and a commitment to defense, then I'd be more inclined to take him. That combo of scorer, defender and culture setter is a guy who might just be worth that big second contract in a few years. In the meantime, we really could use a bench scorer to do the job Graham was supposed to do.
Exit note: I'm really interested to see how all these guys in our cloud (Mathurin/Griffin/Davis/Daniels/Sochan/Agbaji) test out and measure out...