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Justin Jaudon

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Everything posted by Justin Jaudon

  1. Justin Jaudon

    2022 NBA Draft Thread

    Man, this team is going to be able to PASS!
  2. Justin Jaudon

    2022 NBA Draft Thread

    Yeah, Cole should be the happiest guy on the team. Banchero fits WAY better in a lineup with him starting long-term than Fultz. (By the way, I haven't given up on All-Star Cole yet!)
  3. Justin Jaudon

    2022 NBA Draft Thread

    Well, I said I wouldn't throw a fit at any of the top 4 guys, and I won't. Wasn't the guy I wanted, but hey. You know what I wanted last year? Anyone but Scottie Barnes; thought he would never be able to score in the NBA. As I've said for a while now, I'm learning to evaluate guys from college, but I don't watch college ball any more, so it's tough to do it through selected games, draft profiles, and articles. Paolo Banchero is going to be a perennial All-Star, right? He will win rookie of the year, right? He's going to be all those things injuries stole from Jabari Parker, plus way more passing, right? I can see it. Bring it on, big fella!
  4. Justin Jaudon

    2022 NBA Draft Thread

    I miss that guy here. Probably because I tend to agree with him on basketball stuff, lol.
  5. Justin Jaudon

    2022 NBA Draft Thread

    I would look around to make sure no one else saw the theft, first; but yeah, if the Hornets wanted to get rid of him that bad, I'd do it. Heck, I'd probably throw in at least one of our second-rounders, too.
  6. Justin Jaudon

    2022 NBA Draft Thread

    You're probably right. But I think we might be ready to cash in some of the youth we already have like Mo/Chuma/Hampton to make room. Not likely, but possible.
  7. Justin Jaudon

    2022 NBA Draft Thread

    Draft Prediction: 1. Chet Holmgren 32. MarJon Beauchamp (HE'S SO LONG!!!! HOW GOOD COULD HE BE IF HE LEARNS TO SHOOT??!! smh) 33. Trade for cash and a future 2nd. Weeks of Justin trying really hard to convince himself this is a great draft (and maybe it even would be).
  8. Justin Jaudon

    2022 NBA Draft Thread

    Another interesting draft: 1. trade back for 3 and 17 plus another (probably heavily protected) first 3. Paolo Banchero 17. TyTy Washington (I don't know how well his game will translate, but he's a BASKETBALL PLAYER in every sense, makes the right plays, seems to understand the game really well) trade back into the first for: Jaden Hardy (this is a theme, I know).
  9. Justin Jaudon

    2022 NBA Draft Thread

    I get this, I'm just particularly high on the notion that Ivey is the type of guy you build around. If he pops, you find shooting by trading guys who still have some value like Cole/Suggs who he makes somewhat expendable.
  10. Justin Jaudon

    2022 NBA Draft Thread

    Draft I want: 1. Jabari Smith trade back into the first for : Jaden Hardy I've explained before why I'm so high on Smith, and nothing has changed that. I like Jaden Hardy a lot better than anyone in the second, though if we had to use them I'd say Ron Harper Jr. and Trevor Keels. Draft I'd be fascinated by: 1. trade back for 3 and 17 plus another (probably heavily protected) first 3. Jaden Ivey 17. Nikola Jovic trade back into the first for: Jaden Hardy
  11. Justin Jaudon

    2022 NBA Draft Thread

    My top 6: 1. Jabari Smith Jr. 2. Jaden Ivey (I know that's an unpopular one) 3. Chet Holmgren (big risk/reward player, to me) 4. Paolo Banchero (I actually like Paolo quite a bit, and think the defensive problems might be overstated) - I would not be particularly upset with any of those picks (though I'm very high on Jabari myself, I understand not everything goes my way, and I could be wrong about him) 5. Keegan Murray (could be the steal of the draft, even here) 6. Bennedict Mathurin (Also could be the steal of the draft, even here) I could see any of those guys being perennial All-Stars, the two at the top are just the ones I think most likely.
  12. Justin Jaudon

    2022 NBA Draft Thread

    I will say that I won't throw a fit if we draft the stick figure. Chet has bananas talent for a guy his height. My issue with Chet isn't even really about his weight, though that is certainly part of it. I don't like super-skinny guys; but I have missed on other prospects for that reason before. I thought Durant would get roughed up in the NBA. I thought Gobert would fold in half. I didn't like Mobley, either (though, to be fair, I didn't really like anyone in last year's draft except Cunningham and Green). I don't trust that guys like that will not spend most of their time injured. And Chet is WAY skinnier than any of those guys, in terms of frame. What bothers me about Chet (aside from the obvious) is two-fold: he wasn't the main focus of his college team's offense and he wasn't good against top talent. And I think Orlando needs a star with the first pick, not a giant Swiss Army Knife. Chet is basically a taller Isaac, from what I've seen (with a little better shooting), and while I like Isaac, he isn't the guy you draft at #1. I see all the talent that Chet has, different skills that you just don't see in a 7-footer. But the question for me is, 'what in Chet's game will translate and actually matter?' He's a monster of a shot-blocker, but so is Porzingis, and he was traded to make Dallas better because he was actually a defensive liability. The weird thing is: shot-blocking doesn't necessarily equal great defense. Chet's scary-looking in transition, because he's a 7-footer who can run the floor and dribble. But is that really all that useful? How many times in a game will that matter at all? Is it truly impactful, or just a novelty? Chet's got cool post moves, but will he be able to use any of them on grown men who will just put him off-balance and man-handle him? Bigger college guys man-handled him, NBA guys will EAT him. He would need to put on at minimum 30 pounds before 90% of the league wouldn't be able to gently nudge him to any spot on the floor they want him, and probably 50 lbs before most Centers won't be able to. Will he be able to do that, and if he does, will he be the same guy? What good will post moves mean if he can't hold a position long enough to use them? (so the weight does mean something, but it's more than just about whether he'll be injury-prone). Are we so enamored with this guy because he's so crazy skilled, or because he's got a lot of better-than-average skills and is 7 feet tall. Now Chet might very well come in and become the Dirk/Noah combo that I DO see in there if I squint. That's why I hate tanking so much. You can tank for ten years to finally get the first pick, and you get a guy who might be an all-time great, or he might not even be a starter; or he might be an all-time great who you lose when a stiff wind carries him off a cliff, or a toddler bumps him at Disney and his twig leg snaps. Or you draft Jabari and he's either taller Paul George/Jayson Tatum or he isn't a number one option so he's basically taller Mikal Bridges (better than Chet's worst-case-scenario, but not worth 10 years of tanking, that's for sure). Or you draft Paulo and he's either better passing Melo, or just Jabari Parker 2.0, a man out of time in the modern NBA who's defense is so bad his above-average offense can't off-set it. Or you draft Sharpe, and he's either whatever form of Jesus the Kentucky Stans seem to think he'll be, or he's Dwayne Bacon. What I know is, like many others have said, I'll convince myself I love whoever we pick. At least for a while.
  13. Justin Jaudon

    2022 NBA Draft Thread

    This ignores the part where Jabari is already an elite shooting prospect from outside. I mention Kawhi because HOW they scored in college INSIDE THE 3POINT LINE was similar, and spoke to some of the supposed knocks on Jabari's prospects as a #1 option. The main knock on Kawhi, and why people see him as an 'outlier offensive development', was that he was not a good outside shooter in college, and thus he was great at nothing. He developed that, and the rest of his game is very similar to where it was, with some typical NBA improvements to ball-handling and acumen, plus outlier defensive development (which is actually where his biggest improvement aside from 3point shooting came; he was considered a decent defensive prospect, but called sloppy and possibly low-IQ on that end). Also, I don't think anyone needs to shoot 50% from mid-range to be an elite #1 scorer. Steph Curry is a career 46% from mid-range; Kevin Durant: 45%; Kawhi: 45%; Paul George: 40%; Dirk Nowitzki: 47%; Devin Booker: 44%. The list goes on. And of those guys I listed, only Kawhi gets better than ~25-26% of their offense from inside 10 feet, at around 31%. The rest get basically 3/4 of their offense from the mid-range or outside, like Jabari. Jabari needs to improve his % from mid-range, sure. That's absolutely true. It's why there's even a question of Chet at #1. But the idea that Jabari can't dribble well enough to be a main option is the point I was making in comparing him to Kawhi. Kawhi's handle is not elite now, nor is Jayson Tatum's, the other guy I compared him to in my last post. Jabari's handle is better than he gets credit for, owing I think to a mix of the long legs/high shorts combo making it look less smooth and the very deliberate one-to-two moves style in which he gets buckets (which is why I mentioned Siakam as well, though I understand that Siakam is WAY more inside dominant in his actual finishing spots).
  14. Justin Jaudon

    2022 NBA Draft Thread

    For those that think Jabari Smith can't become a #1 scoring option, I ask you to watch Kawhi Leonard college stuff, research what guys were saying about him. Not great handle, scores best off one or two moves. And he didn't have Jabari's outside shot, not even close. I've never seen the Kevin Durant thing. Durant is a natural scorer like we haven't seen elsewhere. Jabari Smith isn't like that. But he is a scorer, make no mistake. The comparison to Klay Thompson is unfair, as Klay is basically a HOF-level catch-and-shoot guy, but it's questionable if he could be THE guy. Jabari already can score in isolation better than Klay, I think. There's a ton of tape of him scoring off pull-ups and turn-arounds, usually on one or two moves. Kawhi was certainly more of a 3 than Jabari, with a somewhat better handle. But it was still stiff, and he struggled tremendously using his left in college. He scored on a lot of mid-range pull-ups and turn-around moves, though, just like Jabari, and just like Jabari it was usually after one or two moves. Another note is that Tatum was also accused of having a stiff, upright handle that led to struggles with length at the rim (indeed, people still complain about that, if you're watching the finals). Tatum played in a super up-tempo offense and he was used more as a cutter than Jabari, but I see similarities in their supposed limitations as well. What I'm saying is this, really: Jabari has shown he can shoot off the dribble in the mid-range. He just needs to improve that handle, which he certainly will, working with a good NBA coaching staff. Shooting off the dribble in the mid-range, getting to the line (underrated part of his game, he got there as often as Banchero and made a higher %), and being already a lights-out 3-point shooter, he has the most important tools to be a #1 scoring option in the modern NBA. The only thing that is an actual question mark is his lack of close-up dominance for a guy who's 6-10. And even that doesn't really bother me that much. It's weird, sure. It draws attention. But with his size and obvious touch, I don't worry much about it, as that really isn't his game. Offensively, I see him as projecting very well to be a #1 scoring option, like a mix of Kawhi, Tatum, and maybe a little more Siakam, if he figures out the 0-3 feet stuff. Maybe not as good a ball-handler as the first two, but a better outside shooter than Siakam (and maybe all of them), and bigger than all of them.
  15. Justin Jaudon

    2022 NBA Draft Thread

    Jabari. Please. Just do it.
  16. Justin Jaudon

    2021 Off-Season Discussion Thread

    A lot of great coaches in different sports aren't good with the media. I'm not concerned at all one way or another. As long as he can communicate to the players, that's all I care about.
  17. Justin Jaudon

    2021 Off-Season Discussion Thread

    One thing interesting to me is that if Fultz and Isaac come back full speed and rolling, without the Euro guys dominating the ball (no disrespect meant, they were our best offensive options at the time), we could end up in an interestingly good cap situation in a couple years. Fultz and Isaac being underpaid because of injury issues is one of those situations that make creating a great team possible, if the right moves are made to develop that. There's a world where this team is solid despite the youth because Fultz/Isaac/Carter/Ross are above average players who complement each other, and we use our glut of young prospects to trade for a star. There's a world where those guys' reasonable contracts allow us to just develop and re-sign all our younger guys and we develop naturally as a team into something very interesting. There's also, sadly, a world where neither or only one of those guys comes back at close to their potential and we're stuck with an albatross contract or two; but even then, those contracts aren't that bad or that long. I like the flexibility this front office is working with.
  18. Justin Jaudon

    2021 Off-Season Discussion Thread

    Not necessarily. I think whether or not we re-sign Bamba may be based on what kind of offers he gets. Does anyone really think some other organization is going to offer Bamba a lot of money as a RFA? Why? Unless he shows something big, in which case that's a decision to make, but one we have the future cap flexibility to do. If Bamba somehow blows up, sign him and it shouldn't be hard to trade Carter's contract. If he doesn't blow up, but looks like he's making some progress or at least will be a decent backup, he shouldn't be prohibitively expensive to keep, considering the money we have after this season. If he's garbage, don't re-sign him. His QO for next season would be like $10 million, not a ton for a good backup C. No one's giving up much for him right now on the trade market, because they'd be in the same boat we're in. Why do that? He's still worth more to us than he is to anyone else.
  19. Justin Jaudon

    2021 Off-Season Discussion Thread

    lol, Super Mario... so sad
  20. Justin Jaudon

    2021 Official NBA Draft Day Thread (Let's Go!!!)

    Dude went 10/4/4 a game in college. That's nuts. Barely the third option on Florida State behind two guys who won't see the G-League. Who is this yahoo on twitter?
  21. Justin Jaudon

    2021 Official NBA Draft Day Thread (Let's Go!!!)

    I think it's entirely possible our front office wanted Barnes. I've never liked him as a prospect, myself, but I get why people do. If he develops as a scorer he could be Giannis light. But I don't like picking a guy based purely on potential when he hasn't even shown a mentality to score, and has shown absolutely zero scoring aptitude to this point. I wouldn't have thrown a fit if he'd been our pick at 5, assuming Suggs was gone, because I don't think anyone else was necessarily better at that spot. But I like Suggs because he already has some NBA skills on the offensive end, and he's maybe not quite as high upside but much, much, much higher floor. I'm a pessimist, really, but I want to believe. That's why I like Suggs; at worst he's a solid starting PG, but he has All-star potential. Proper #5 pick. Our front office maybe isn't as pessimistic as me, so maybe they wanted Barnes but settled. That's fine. I'm happy. Also, as for comparisons for Wagner, does anyone else see a better version of Chandler Parsons? Not that level shooter yet, I get it. But he's a rangy, smart, team player who seems to always make the right play, but probably could stand to be a bit more aggressive on offense. That's how I always viewed Parsons (though, admittedly, Wagner's defense looks even better than Parsons' did).
  22. Justin Jaudon

    2021 Official NBA Draft Day Thread (Let's Go!!!)

    As a naysayer of tanking myself, I'll explain my thinking on this take. Myself, I've always qualified that tanking over multiple seasons as a franchise strategy doesn't work. And it hasn't won anyone a championship yet. The kind of tanking I've always been against is tanking as a long-term strategy to build a team (e.g. if the ping pong balls don't go your way, fail harder next ear). We tanked for half a season, and if it jump-started the rebuild and we're a decent team with just developing the guys we have, then great. but... I would like to point out that we would have had a good shot at getting at least fifth without tanking. I'm not saying without trading Vuc and Fournier and Gordon. That's not tanking so much as committing to a rebuild. Tanking is what we did when we started holding out players for no good reason so we wouldn't luck into a few more wins. Not holding those guys out nets us maybe two wins, I'm thinking. Two games would have given us either the same ping pong balls as the Cavs or Rapters (depending on who we got those extra wins against), or left us at fifth worst in the league. At that point, most likely scenario is either we're doing better than we actually did or the same. It's still unlikely at that point we drop to sixth in the draft. The only other team within win range of us that wouldn't have improved our position swapping with would be Minnesota. The only way we take over their spot with two extra wins is if we beat them specifically, and they won by 32 points in that late-season game. Terrence Ross and Gary Harris and Otto Porter aren't making the difference there. So likely we're either jumping to third like Cleveland did (we'd have the same odds they did), or we're staying at 5 assuming all the balls come out the same. It would be different if we won three games, but I feel like that would be unlikely. Finally, I don't think any of the non-tanking crew here thinks we shouldn't try to build through the draft and develop players. The argument I've always understood is that improvement should always be the goal. A good example of things that bother the anti-tankers like myself is the situation early in our last rebuild when we didn't sign Jameer because we didn't want him taking minutes away from Elfrid. He wasn't asking for a bunch of money; he's basically said he would have signed for almost nothing. Hennigan dumped him because losing games was in no way a negative to him at that point. It was obvious that having Jameer would have been better for the team, but losing games weighed less in his mind than five or so extra minutes of playing time per game for Elfrid. This is why I think the team should keep MCW around, as well as at least one of Ross/Harris, and they should find a vet big who doesn't mind sporadic minutes. having a few decent vets might win us a couple more games next season and keep us out of last place in the league. It's my opinion that that's okay, because the lottery makes it a crap shoot anyway, and it's just not worth the damage it can do. Go listen to Oladipo talking about the locker room in Orlando when he was here. I've heard it. It's damning. There was no sense of trying to get better as a team, or even really learning to. It was about proving you are the next star, bottom line, that's it. That's what happens when tanking and Best Player Available becomes a religion. And that's what I don't want.
  23. Justin Jaudon

    2021 Official NBA Draft Day Thread (Let's Go!!!)

    I so hope he does. I think he has a solid chance to be a more athletic Fred Van Vleet and a smaller but not insignificant chance of being truly special. I want that special Cole I see as a possibility so bad. Mostly 'cause if this dude pops, he's going to change this franchise's history. He's got confidence like I haven't seen often, and the special version of him is the prototype for success in the modern NBA. Athletic guard who can defend well enough and shoots it with confidence from all over. And special Cole next to Suggs would be scary. But he's gotta do that. He's gotta get his shooting %s up to that special level. That's basically all that's standing in his way.
  24. Justin Jaudon

    2021 Off-Season Discussion Thread

    Also count me as someone else who wants to see us bring back Mo Wagner. I liked his energy and shooting last year. He's better defensively than I thought.
  25. Justin Jaudon

    2021 Off-Season Discussion Thread

    I'm genuinely excited to see this team play. If 'Kelle is really ready for the opener like Hammond said might be possible, it's going to be fun, and we might win more than people think. Isaac with a possibility of actually getting some usage on offense is going to be very interesting, the guard rotation is going to be must-see from a fan standpoint, and Wendell v Mo for the contract extension might be the battle of the year for us. Crazy thing is I think both rookies have a chance to be starting by the end of the year, unless Chuma takes off (which I sincerely think he has a good shot of doing). What I am most excited about right now is the lack of a disjointed roster. For years now, we've been watching this team play with a bizarre roster makeup. No shooting (especially early in the rebuild), players that don't complement each other (Tobias Harris' and Victor Oladipo's fit issues next to the other guys caused us to give away two future all-star players), only one guy off the bench who can score at all. Once 'Kelle is back, he's likely starting alongside Jalen (we have to see if those guys can fit next to each other, considering what the team has invested in both of them), so Cole can score in bunches and RJ should develop as a scorer, plus possibly Ross or Harris (I expect one of them to still be here) can both shoot, plus Franz. The SL at that point is going to be interesting. We probably won't have a dominant scorer but the defense could be a problem for other teams. Assuming Chuma starts, that's probably two good defensive guards, a possibly great pair of defensive forwards, and (I'm assuming at this point) Wendell who is very solid defensively. How long has it been since we didn't have to hide someone on D? Again, it won't be all sunshine and roses right away, but it's nice to see a roster construction that makes some sense for once (though we do have a lot of guards that deserve development).
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