Zion was 27ppg, and BI was 23.8ppg. I meant Graham will be close to them as in the 3rd leading scorer on the team after Zion and BI, somewhere around 17-20 ppg. I would be shocked if he isn’t 3rdOriginally Posted by Pelicanidae
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Zion was 27ppg, and BI was 23.8ppg. I meant Graham will be close to them as in the 3rd leading scorer on the team after Zion and BI, somewhere around 17-20 ppg. I would be shocked if he isn’t 3rd
Idk I feel like it could easily be NAW. Depends on the minutes and rotations we run. I'd expect NAW and Graham to have similar per 100 numbers though.
Basketball.
NAW's splits were just as good as a starter as Graham's were as a reserve. Remember, in 13 games as a starter, NAW averaged 19 ppg 5 reb and 3 assists on 46% shooting and 41% from 3 (7.5 attempts per game). Graham also shot 41% from 3 on 7.5 attempts per game as a reserve
Oh two non-Zion/BI players with high-teen ppg you say? I love it. I’m expecting NAW to take a huge step this season too, but hard to really project how productive over the entire season. I’m expecting Graham for sure since he’s proven to light it up 2 seasons ago before Charlotte added more scorers last year
Last edited by SonOfNOLA; 08-04-2021 at 04:17 PM.
Easy to forget that JV averaged 17ppg in Memphis last year also. He can score, man.
Oh, THREE non-Zion/BI players with high teen ppg you say??? lol Crazy how talented the team already is when actually looking at the roster, but the forum just wants to panic. I kind of expect JV’s ppg to go down a little to 15-16 ppg because so many players in the backcourt will be eating a lot
In various ways too.....
"we might make dollars, but we don't necessarily make sense"
"always be sincere....whether you mean it or not"
Very capable passer also.
I'm not sure if this has been said or not, but Devonte Graham shot 36% at the rim last year. The Pelicans were far and away the best offensive rebounding team in the league last season, and just replaced Steven Adams with the best offensive rebounder in the NBA. As long as Graham is willing to take that shot, the Pels should clean it up a very high percentage of the time.
He has that kemba/dame shade on offense... we look better offensively this year plus the addition of D'antoni will unlock more from this team..we also look worse defensively than last year.
I don't actually think we look worse on defense than last year.
The view that we do primarily stems, from what I can gather, from the idea that Bledsoe is better defensively than Graham and that Lonzo is a huge defensive loss.
Neither of those things are actually true. Bledsoe can be better than Graham, sure, but he didn't actually produce any of that defense for the Pelicans. If we were swapping peak Bledsoe for Graham, sure that would be a defensive downgrade, but we aren't. We're swapping the version of Bledsoe we got for Graham, who will almost certainly be better. Can't really be much worse.
And Lonzo, while good on defense - particularly off the ball - was never able to elevate team defense to another level like a Draymond Green type can. Of course, it's unfair to expect him to because Draymond is one of the best defenders of all time, but what I mean is that as pretty as his individual numbers were on defense it never translated to a strong team defense. Besides, his actual defensive impact metrics aren't that shiny - he was 77th percentile in D-EPM, which is obviously good but hardly world-destroying to lose.
We were a historically poor defensive team last season. This season, we project to be just kind of bad. That's not a step down, it's a step up.
I’m not for Graham starting necessarily but would like him to finish… because he’s clutch.
At first blush it seems to me that if we are going to maximize our first unit's production, we need our two best snipers around Zion/BI/Jonas, whoever those two may be. This will create the greatest synergy, especially if no one is as much as a defensive liability as JJ was.
If Graham is far and away our best sniper, seems like it would be hard to not try to put him with the first unit to make life easier on Zion and BI. If we have a few guys that are really drilling catch and shoot threes, or at least in the same ballpark as Graham, then it gives us more options as to who would work best as 6th man.
Yeah. I'm interested to see how far NAWs 3pt% will improve with him finally getting a real offseason.
Last edited by msusousaphone; 08-05-2021 at 09:01 PM.
Good positive energy.
But also, yo mama's fat.
Even though bledsoe checked out on us he is still stronger than most guards and can deal with the 2 guard spot... graham even though he has a nice wingspan is too light for most matchups... if im the opponent i would easily target him with switches forcing us to send help everytime. Naw isn't that strong as well and so is bi...there's a lot to exploit with our current lineup..although i do agree that val is better than adams defensively... herb jones is someone im high on defensively for this team, hopefully he can be our thybulle on that end.
Being physically strong doesn't mean anything if you can't be bothered to move your feet, or put your body into someone, or keep focused for more than 5 seconds.
Like I said, in a world where Bledsoe is engaged, he's a better defender than Graham. Because yes, he's stronger, and his wingspan is longer, etc. But he was not engaged for us. Hard work beats talent when talent doesn't work hard. Bledsoe spent most games for us being an absolute turnstile, letting anyone get away with anything without providing any resistance. Therefore Graham will very probably be better for us because even though his defensive ceiling is not as high as Bledsoe's, he's more likely to actually engage.
Look at it this way. Again, stats don't capture everything and defense is difficult to measure etc etc, but I think this shows what I mean.
Bledsoe, Defensive EPM 2020-21: -1.8, 10th percentile, 452nd in the NBA.
Graham, Defensive EPM 2020-21: +0.2, 67th percentile, 168th in the NBA.
When Bledsoe plays like he did for us last year, Graham is more than capable of outperforming him on defense.
We'll see, and hoping that would be the case...just don't see it with this current roster on that end... zion and bi could also improve on defense next year so there's hope for that... offensively is where i see us excel with shooters,scorers providing the space needed finally
By the end of last season, Zion was fine on defense. You'll find people who want to trash him and stuff but he was pretty clearly okay. Not good but he wasn't even the worst defender in our starting lineup, let alone on the teamI think if he can continue where he was towards the end of last year, he'll be fine.
Graham will be better for us than Bledsoe was. JV will be better than Adams was. Lonzo is a loss, but it's fair to expect either Kira or NAW to have made some improvement, and then guys like Naji and Murphy offer solid potential options on the wing or even smallball backup 4s (that's more Naji than Murphy, but still). I feel like we can be a top 20 defense this year, maybe somewhere between 14th and 18th. That's still not great but compared to last year it might as well be the 04 Pistons.
We traded a 1st round pick for a a guy drafted in the 2nd round pick 34..but people say there is little value in 2nd round when we give them away for cash considerations.
Contributor
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ah2hZB8FgcM
Just a few more highlights
It's that the Hornets unashamedly quit so quickly in Game 4 after fans in New Orleans showed up this season with greater regularity than the team could have ever dreamed, shaming misinformed know-it-alls like me who kept telling you that local residents couldn't possibly invest their time and money into something as trivial as rooting for the local basketball team while still recovering from the devastation of Hurricane Katrina. - Mark Stien ESPN
You can't develop 5 second round rookies in a year in addition to all your other stuff you have going on.
The argument would be that a player needs playing time and resources to develop. Who would you have drafted with our traded picks in this past draft that you think would get playing time with us this season? In Charlotte a couple of years ago, they had that space. We currently do not.
This only shows highlights and positives.
But say what you want about the team adding "moar shooting". It seems they certainly added better overall basketball players. Which is more important.
No, but having guys with talent on the bench is excellent when some star wants out and the other team wants promising guys in return. Like a Jared Butler for instance. BJ Boston too.
Even if we couldn't really squeeze them in, they hold a lot of value as a trade lure
So many guys we could have taken in the second round this year would have been better than Didi will ever be
Last edited by AusPel; 08-17-2021 at 08:46 AM.
Using Google it seems like only 1/4 second round players play for at least 3 seasons. On average only 2 players out of the entire 2nd round become "quality players" with a positive win share. As mentioned above there is also the opportunity cost - you could draft half the second round to get good odds to find a rotational player but how will you play them to get them experience ? As often seems to be the case , when a second round pick earns a good contract it seldom seems to be on the same team that drafted them. I am interested to know from those who know far more than I where the line is between drafting in the second round and getting a useable to good player and keeping them to recoup the developmental costs. I wonder how often second round picks turn one team essentially into other team's farm team.
Temple is not just a second round pick, he is one of the figurative gems of the second round that has been given the court time to mature into a good player.
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