Jon

You can watch full games of a specific player so you can see not just the good parts . You can see the bad as well.

i never said I watched Arkansas games. I said I watched HIM. It wasn’t until the last few days before the draft I really started to dive into him more as he was starting to rise and our name started to tie with his. I can sense the environment he was in with a lack of spacing. They weren’t running many plays for outside shots from the clips I saw of him. A lot of cutting inside, rolling to the paint, and getting to the line. I played PG my entire life. I view passing as an art. Not just a skill. Court vision/reads/shifty with the ball/passing/dribbling was a passion for me so I’m a little more judgmental when it comes to that. “Simple passes.”Textbook ones, good textbook reads which is not a knock on Black. I was frustrated with the JKidd comp at the time I read so my apologies. JKidd was another animal. He was one of my favorite players. A guy I would study passing wise. I don’t think people remember how he wasn’t just textbook and could make good reads but the Rodman of passing the ball. Court vision and reading 5 steps ahead. Also how shifty he was with the ball. Able to create assists/plays by dribbling and manipulating defenders (also why Penny is my favorite Magic player). His ability to throw a no look in the situation he was in at times was on another planet. Dude averaged high number assists on any team his entire basketball career up until the last two years. I have since gone back and watch Giddy more. I can see SOME of that more than Kidd but even Giddy seems more of a shifty PG who has a higher degree of creativity to his court vision though. AB looks like an athlete with an good iq who makes good reads. It’s not a bad thing. I was wrong for making it out to be like it was. I just don’t like the JKidd comps. Maybe there’s something more. Hopefully he is because if there isn’t, I feel we have a lot of the same.

I watched full games of him. I’m not super knowledgeable about scheme and personnel. I know they had talent. As two other guys went in the draft (Nick Smith Jr and Jordan Walsh). Their coach Mussleman was a assistant for us a while back and has been around. He’s an old school coach who loves gritty players and is very defensive minded. Watching BlacK I can see the influence he’s had on him. Athlete who plays football, can run and jump, plays defense, always hustling on every play and gets to the line a lot. That’s middleman’s philosophy to a T and two things that stand out in the eye test and in the numbers.

From what I read, Arkansas had terrible spacing as a team. Is that what you’re referring to? I wasn’t aware of the injury on Jett so that’s my fault. Excuse my ignorance. He looked awfully slow in some of the clips so maybe that’s what I was seeing.

A lot of them. I tried to find something with him man. Two things popped out at me before all the data and the draft came. Getting to the basket and defense. I saw some good passes here and there but not this shifty Jason Kidd throwing no look passes all over the place racking 15+ assists type of playmaking. I just saw good passes that were pretty simple but effective. Nothing elite. Not off the bounce or creating looks for others on that scale. Not even on Josh Giddy’s scale. Slashing and defense. That’s what stood out. Now what two players on our roster could you describe in that same way? I won’t even get started on Jett. That pick disgusts me.

I did like Franz at the time.

I did. Elite to me might mean something different to you.

Is Black really a PG? I don’t see anything that says he is some elite playmaker. Even back in high school days his assists are low.

You can find reports of them wanting to trade up all over the place. Look, y’all seem to have complete utter faith in Weham. I don’t.

Identical players. Obsession with length over skill. Evaluate one year. Make decision next year just to end up back to square one. It’s more realistic that we will do what we did last year.

What starting Sg do you think you can get with Cole and KeKe? I see a a dysfunctional roster that won’t work in the modern NBA.

Bamba? Every year we evaluate. Following year or so we make decisions just to end making picks or sign FA’s (our resign our own) that forces us to evaluate again. Seems like Weham likes creating issues so they can solve them.

If his shot becomes legit in game (not in a empty gym) then I’ll be a little more optimistic.

Eh sounds like they didn’t get what they wanted and now just describing what they got.

Like who?

You know what you need for assists to count too? Guys who can shoot. Again, I don’t hate Black. I’m sitting here right now wondering how do we get better? You can sit here and keep hoping x y player gets better after 4-5 years in or you get real with yourself and get aggressive. Right now that’s what we should be doing. You should not kick the can done the road when Paolo is 25 . You should be building right now. Acquiring talent to get there. Not recycling players with the same skill set hoping they turn into something different.

Not for Weham. I’m starting to see a pattern with them.

I said trade out of it.

My first option was to use 6 and 11 to trade out of it. I didn’t like anyone who was slotted at the 6th spot for us.

That’s what I would’ve done. Those picks are more valuable before the draft than after. That was the time to be aggressive. Instead Weham uses the same logic behind drafting Bamba. Difference is Vuch had more value as a 7 footer who could stretch out the floor, rebound, play adequate enough defense and was an all star. Fultz has no value (outside of being an expiring which gets you others dead weight) as he is a lower tier PG who isn’t even in the top 20 that hesitates to shoot high volumes of threes.

Yeah that’s not happening

I don’t hate Black the player. I hate our decision making and how we are constructing our roster. We finally got a number one pick and a possible all star in Paolo. So what do we do? We use our best assets to duplicate talent with same weaknesses as what we already have. This feels like the Bamba draft except worse because Vuch had value. Does Weham need another two years to evaluate like he did when he got here? Just don’t think they can build a winning team.

Lol this is my point. Our lineup is what it was last year. We used our best asset to duplicate? Are we content with being a treadmill team? Are we just going to do this over and over again until some years from now we get the number 1 pick again and Paolo is wanting out because we didn’t move the needle at all?

I wouldn’t pick him at 6 but since you brought him up. He shot a better percentage the Black. Plus his size. His shot also has looks way better than Blacks and has more lift. I wouldn’t like it at 6 but I could at least see something other what we got now.

Because our best assets, was the 6 and 11 picks. They are now gone. Our weakness, which keeps us from going to the next level, is still our weakness minus the best assets we had. We used our best asset on a guy who shares that same weakness.