Or into paying SVG. How much was his contract anyway?Originally Posted by AusPel
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Or into paying SVG. How much was his contract anyway?
Didi is a ''high profile rookie''?
Honestly, I'd be kind of surprised if Didi plays much significant time for us at all. I feel like unless he just explodes out of nowhere, Didi playing over 1000 minutes this season is a sign that we're having a bad year.
Basketball.
Was selling all the 2nd round picks over the past 2 years a business necessity due to the dead money contracts of Gentry and Van Gundy?
I forgot he existed to be honest.
Yeah he was a second round pick who was unremarkable in the NBL. Assuming that's going to translate into real minutes, or something that we should draft/sign around is silly. He's been brought over so he'll probably get a look in here or there, but if he's a serious minutes getter then that's a sign that either
A) We were unable to satisfactorily fill the holes on the roster in FA
B) Someone got seriously injured
or
C) We're playing awful lineups with like 4 guards at a time again
Of course, there's always that minor chance that he somehow just explodes - solves all his shooting problems, gets his on-ball issues sorted out, etc - but I wouldn't bet on that.
One could definitely interpret it that way
Didi looked really good on defense in limited action last year. I could see some game situations where he comes in for specific situations. Hope he continues to grow.
We are on pace to sell 2 or 3 2nd rounders again next year.
High profile in the sense that you want to focus your developmental resources on these 3 guys
For me that's NAW, Jax, Kira, and Trey. Didi doesn't reach that level imo
Down on Kira or alternately absurdly high?
Edit: lmao I tweaked writing this. Thought you left Kira out of your post
Last edited by Funcrusher; 07-30-2021 at 01:23 PM.
I did originally, I went back and added him because I realised. 100% my bad.
I think with Kira. It's pretty wait and see how his development turns out. He had a really rough rookie season with terrible commitment from our coach to play him consistently.
If his IQ and shooting click... I think he'll be good, but not great.
I'd like to address the Pels youth as well as their reluctance to add too many 2nd rounders, two way guys, etc. very quickly.
There seems to be a fallacy, in the NBA and especially in regard to the Pels in particular, that the more bites of the apple the better when it comes to the draft. I'm as guilty of it as anybody where I always want youth youth youth. The issue with this, though, is an NBA team only has so many developmental resources available, even for a team like the Pels who now has their own G-league team. The Pels only have one Spoon and one Fred Vinson. Anyone in the league will tell you that Vinson is so valuable because he literally never stops working. Even if Vinson worked 24/7 365, that is still a finite number, meaning only so much of that time can be allotted to certain players.
The numbers vary, but the prime years of an NBA player are roughly age 24-30. Where that comes in to play for the Pelicans is they currently have 9 players under the age of 24: Brandon Ingram, Zion Williamson, Nickeil Alexander Walker, Jaxson Hayes, Kira Lewis, Trey Murphy, Didi Louzada, Naji Marshall, and Herb Jones. That means all nine of these guys are still in the developmental stages of their career, varying a bit by age and athletic potential.
I think anyone on here would agree that most of the developmental resources should go to Zion, followed by Brandon Ingram. That is our core, and that's who the focus should be. Then, these developmental resources should be allotted to NAW, Jax, Kira, and Murphy. Finally you have guys like Naji, Didi, and Herb who get the remainder.
The issue with adding additional second round picks to this group is that every player that you add, you have to take away developmental resources from someone else. If you add Brandon Boston and JT Thor, those are resources that are now stripped from the likes of Zion, BI, etc. I think everyone on here would agree that we don't want to take away crucial developmental minutes from Zion. We would all prefer to have a 99 overall Zion than have a 94 overall Zion and a 72 overall Brandon Boston.
So you say, why pick Herb over Boston if Boston has more potential? It isn't that simple, however. If you look ad Didi, Naji, and Herb, the one thing that they all have in common is that, if they had a jump shot they would be useful role players because they are all ready to contribute in other ways both defensively, on the glass, and in transition. That means that the only developmental resources you really have to put into those guys is on their jumpshot, and the rest can go to your players with higher ceilings who you invested more draft capital in. Brandon Boston, on the other hand, may have some nice potential theoretically, but you have to invest resources in every single aspect of his game in order for him to reach even that of a useful role player. He is an entirely raw player. So for a team like the Clippers who do not have any other developmental players on the entire roster, he makes sense as a project because they can invest the time he needs to reach his ceiling. The Pelicans simply have too many players higher in the developmental pecking order.
Point being, while we all want to add the unknown of a high ceiling 2nd rounder, we don't always consider the ripple effects these additions may have for the rest of the team. The Pels are already loaded with youth, and at a certain point you will start to see diminishing returns if you spread yourself too thin. The better plan, while you develop BI, Zion, NAW, Jax, Kira, and Trey, is to kick the 2nd round can down the line until 2024 or whenever we are ready to contend, when we have the resources available to develop the Brandon Bostons of the world.
As a side note, I think this is why we went after a supposedly lower ceiling guy in Murphy instead of a Kai Jones or Usman Garuba. With the talent and potential on the roster, you really needed to bring in a guy with a well rounded skillset so that you can focusing on very specific areas of his game and allow him to learn a role. That was the Spurs model for years, and it has been adopted by the Grizzlies with great success
Short aside... SVG can say all the right things on LeBatards show, and even (not so) subtly throw shade at Griff for being an overgrown flim-flam man... but I can't take anything he says with even a shred of seriousness when I remember how badly he sabotaged Kira/NAW's development (and also the development of winning games, honestly) because of "he who shall not be named." And essentially making up reasons in the press to not play them heavy minutes (remember when he trashed Kira for his defense, Kira, our best point-of-attack-defender lol), one of the weirder things I've seen from a coach tbh.
Well we found out what was going on with regards to that, didn't we? It came out not too long ago that there was just a fundamental disagreement in the aims of the season. Griff wanted to see more minutes for the youth, including pushing a Kira/NAW frontcourt, while SVG wanted to trust his vets and not play those guys. Regardless of whether Griff or SVG are any good in a vacuum, putting two people with such blatantly differing approaches together and telling them to run a team is not going to work.
NAW is the main reason SVG is gone
This does not make any sense. Why didn't we dump Bledsoe when we got Adams if the plan was to develop the youth.
Also, be surprised a coach that prefer vet players does what he always do.
I try to not get involved in this drama with SVG and Griff. It makes no sense. Just feels like they just try blame each other than share the blame.
Griff was trying to walk the line between winning and development. SVG had no interest in the latter
Didi didnt look unremarkable in the NBL at all. Up and down, but not unremarkable. He had some really high flash points. There was a game both he and Jae'Sean Tate completely took over in the 4th to lead their team to a win in the NBL playoffs. And they took over on both sides of the court. And their team was probably going to win the NBL championship if not ended by covid.
He's not some throw away prospect like Tony Carr. He'll get opportunity to earn minutes here and that wouldn't be a bad thing. He's got talent.
Idk know about that. All our young guys besides Kira made huge strides as players.
I think I'll believe it was not relating to the players, him blowing all those leads with poor game management, and SVG not letting Griff micromanage because that's the only that consistenly sticks and makes sense. Point Zion and Ingram, the improved rebounding, Hayes taking a small leap, and etc. I feel the development was there.
No doubt I'm just relaying what I've heard
These are things that should have been cleared up during the interview process.
Can't teach old dogs new tricks as much as they may try to learn. I don't think SVG walked into the interview and said he wasn't interested in development, but when push came to shove and games were on the line, he ran 8 man rotations.
Might have been the deciding factor in the 2002 WCF.
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