Originally Posted by
Pelicanidae
The issue is that I think we get into a big of a mix-up when it comes to bigs. Some people, when they talk about bigs, seem to just mean anyone taller than 6'8. That's a big. Regardless of how they play, or their role on the floor. For me, when I talk about bigs, I'm referring to guys who are generally (yes) tall, but whose primary roles are more as play terminators, glass cleaners, possession enders, and someone who will spend time defending the same. I don't really see someone like Melli as competing for minutes with Favors or Okafor, for example, because his skillset is so different and the role he will be asked to play will be so different too: he's much more likely to be competing for minutes with Miller, for example.
So when I talk about us being thin at the 5, what I mean is, we're thin when it comes to legitimate 5s, whose primary focus is terminating plays, defending other bigs, etc. We only really have Favors and Okafor in that role. Melli, as I said, seems to me more like he'll be competing for minutes at that 3 and 4 spot rather than 5, and similarly, Ingram will be spending the vast majority of his minutes at the 3. If we ever get into a position where Ingram is being asked to commit serious minutes to guarding a legitimate 5, we're probably in a little bit of trouble because he weighs about as much as Rudy Gobert's left foot.
I wouldn't say that Frank's draft position is irrelevant. It would be, if he had made it so: for example, Draymond Green's draft position is now irrelevant because he's played far past it. Frank still plays like a second rounder, and that's hard to avoid. Frank's not even that great of a shooter, to be honest: he shot 31.4% from three last year. He shot pretty well from the corners at around 42%, but those made up less than 29% of his three point attempts because he much prefers to play with the ball in his hands, which is not a good look. A lot of the time people will refer to the final ten games of the year to show that he really can shoot, because he had games during that time where he went 3/4 from deep, for example, but across those final 10 games he still only shot 33% from behind the arc, and the lack of playmaking was even more painful there: he was getting 33 minutes a game and average 2 assists. That's dreadful. Honestly, I would much rather have Jrue (career 35.5% 3pt shooter, shot 36.5% after ASB last season) taking a three than Jackson, unquestionably.
It's true that Hayes got subbed off the floor for a defensive possession in Summer League. That's less because he can't play defense though, and more because they couldn't risk the foul, which he is liable to give up: he is, of course, still learning. Frank, on the other hand, doesn't have the same excuse that Hayes does. He's not a rookie, he's not 19, he hasn't been playing basketball for two years. Frank's 2 years older, and has two years of NBA experience (only one year playing, obviously), and he turned up a -15 net rating last season for us. His DBPM was -2.8, and his DRPM was -2.54. That means Frank's DRPM ranked 95th out of the 99 players at point guard last season.
Players shot 18% better than their averages at the rim when Frank was their primary defender. 4.7% better than their averages from 3. 9.5% from midrange. He was bad. Getting guarded by Frank was like a cheat code: it wasn't pretty. Hayes wouldn't be a perfect defender, he would definitely make mistakes, I'm not denying that, but there's no way he gives up 18% BETTER at the rim. That's just not happening. He's a 7'0'' with good rim protection instincts. He can swipe at the ball sometimes, sure, but if you compare him to (say) Mitchell Robinson, another foul-prone 7'0'' who played last season and made a lot of mistakes, Robinson held opponents to -9.5% on their averages. Of course, Mitchell was a fantastic rim protector and maybe Hayes wouldn't be that good, but even if he only hit at half of Mitchell's rim protection abilities, he would still be a massive improvement on Frank. Beyond that, Frank was consistently bad: Hayes, even in Summer League, showed that while he was prone to mistakes at times, he also had very impressive flashes of his defensive potential far beyond what Frank has ever shown, including multiple occasions where he was switched onto guards and had the foot speed to track them from the perimeter all the way into the paint, without getting shaken loose or beaten.
And remember, even if Frank did serve a good role as a 3pt spot up guy (which I don't think he would), who is he taking minutes from at the guard spots? Not Ball, Jrue, Redick, or Moore, that's for sure. So is he taking them from NAW, who has shown a much more controlled and disciplined game? Personally, and this is just my judgement, I think that would be a bad move. Hayes, on the other hand, doesn't have to take minutes from anyone. There's no logjam at center. The only people really ahead of him are Okafor and Favors, and occasional spot minutes for Zion. It's far more likely that, at the end of rotation, there's 5-10 minutes for Hayes than it is for there to be 10 minutes for Frank.
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