[NBA] Comments that don't warrant a thread (OCT)
- Thread starter Tetsujin
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Norman Powell, Marcus Morris, and a bunch of draft picks works salary-wise. Daryl Morey had no leverage so it will be interesting to see what he managed to squeeze out of the Clippers in return. The Clippers do already owe two first round picks to OKC so I have no idea who or what they're using to get Harden unless it's just a straight salary dump for the Sixers and they wash their hands of the whole Ben Simmons / James Harden fiasco once and for all.
One way to look at this .. the Pacific division keeps getting tougher with another three All-Stars (CP3**, Bradley Beal, and now The Beard) added to the mix. Another way to look at it though is that Phoenix and LA (Clippers) have mortgaged their future for a short window of opportunity with aging and often injured stars. LA (Lakers) are living on borrowed time with their Anthony Davis and Lebron duo who are almost certainly going to be gone or fading fast in a couple years and GS only goes as far as Steph Curry's ankles can carry them. All 4 of our division rivals are looking at major rebuilds whenever their current run is over.
Phoenix is particularly baffling considering they had a young core of 22-24 year olds that led them to the Finals two years ago (with help from CP3) and could have been the team to beat for the next decade if they'd managed to stick together. Now they have no draft picks for a decade, no salary cap flexibility, and a top heavy roster that is enormously reliant on three guys staying healthy all year and two of them are already injured. What an absolute gift to the rest of the Western Conference that ownership change has turned out to be!
**EDIT: It just occurred to me that CP3 was also in the Pacific Division last season, just on a different team. Technically he was traded to the Eastern Conference first but he never played a game for Washington so let's pretend that I was instead talking about the Lakers picking up DLo at the trade deadline.
One way to look at this .. the Pacific division keeps getting tougher with another three All-Stars (CP3**, Bradley Beal, and now The Beard) added to the mix. Another way to look at it though is that Phoenix and LA (Clippers) have mortgaged their future for a short window of opportunity with aging and often injured stars. LA (Lakers) are living on borrowed time with their Anthony Davis and Lebron duo who are almost certainly going to be gone or fading fast in a couple years and GS only goes as far as Steph Curry's ankles can carry them. All 4 of our division rivals are looking at major rebuilds whenever their current run is over.
Phoenix is particularly baffling considering they had a young core of 22-24 year olds that led them to the Finals two years ago (with help from CP3) and could have been the team to beat for the next decade if they'd managed to stick together. Now they have no draft picks for a decade, no salary cap flexibility, and a top heavy roster that is enormously reliant on three guys staying healthy all year and two of them are already injured. What an absolute gift to the rest of the Western Conference that ownership change has turned out to be!
**EDIT: It just occurred to me that CP3 was also in the Pacific Division last season, just on a different team. Technically he was traded to the Eastern Conference first but he never played a game for Washington so let's pretend that I was instead talking about the Lakers picking up DLo at the trade deadline.
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That's a rough take. Keegan has nowhere near the ball skills Franz does. Keegan is a below average ball handler and has yet to show he can self-create his own offense. Franz is ahead of him as both a playmaker and passer. The only thing that Keegan is better than Franz on offense is his 3pt shooting. He's also a better defender than Keegan. He can guard 2-4 and moves laterally better than Keegan against quicker guards.
Imo, believing Keegan is a better long term prospect shows heavy biased because he hardly does anything better than Franz on the floor.
As a 21-year-old in his 2nd year, Franz put up: 18.6pts 4.1rebs 3.5asts 1stl on 48.5/36.1/84.2.
When Keegan was 21-years-old, he was still at Iowa. I really don't know how you could go Keegan>Franz considering everything they've both shown in they career.. even comparing them head to head right now, Franz blows him out of the water.
Maybe we can re-visit this discussion when Keegan averages 18ppg over an entire course of the season.
Imo, believing Keegan is a better long term prospect shows heavy biased because he hardly does anything better than Franz on the floor.
As a 21-year-old in his 2nd year, Franz put up: 18.6pts 4.1rebs 3.5asts 1stl on 48.5/36.1/84.2.
When Keegan was 21-years-old, he was still at Iowa. I really don't know how you could go Keegan>Franz considering everything they've both shown in they career.. even comparing them head to head right now, Franz blows him out of the water.
Maybe we can re-visit this discussion when Keegan averages 18ppg over an entire course of the season.
Having a better long-term outlook than Paolo is something I can get behind because of his play style. Ball dominant forwards who can't shoot aren't the best archetypes in the league unless you're Giannis. I think it's a slight hot take because he undoubtedly has a higher ceiling than Keegan, but it remains highly unseen if he can get there.
Keegan really has to up his ball handling though. He hasn't really shown much in his first 3 games of the season. He's playing the same way he did in his rookie year, except he's just getting more shot attempts. I wish we got more of summer league Keegan.
He's chucking up 3s like prime Ryan Anderson... I would like to see more than that out of him.
Keegan really has to up his ball handling though. He hasn't really shown much in his first 3 games of the season. He's playing the same way he did in his rookie year, except he's just getting more shot attempts. I wish we got more of summer league Keegan.
He's chucking up 3s like prime Ryan Anderson... I would like to see more than that out of him.
My reasoning is this:
1- Franz gets more credit for his defensive potential and projectability as a defender than his actual results as a defender probably deserve. Sure, he was touted as a good defensive prospect coming out of college but the defensive metrics, stats, and the good ol' eyeball test don't really match that. As far as a 6'9" guy being asked to guard wings goes, I guess he's okay but he's not been the world beater on that end that KoC and those guys have randomly predetermined him to be. Keegan may not have quite as much lateral quickness as Franz (even though I feel like Franz gets a bit of an "awkward looking white guy" pass on that end as well) but he's show flashes as a help defender both in college and this season that Franz has never really shown consistently. My wager on their long term potential is that Keegan's ability as a help defender and weak side shot blocker is going to help his team more than Franz Wagner: sort of solid point of attack defender who rebounds and blocks at a rate far worse than is typical for his size.
2- Franz's on-ball offensive ability gets a lot more credit than it probably should. It feels like guys are so focused on crowning the next Luka that they do on whether that's actually what a guy should be doing longterm or not. Franz's driving ability is good, yes, but he's still not really a good player in the context of an offensive system. I guess it's overall just a philosophical difference between believing in an elite shooter's ability to develop on ball as opposed to believing in an on-ball guy's ability to become a shooter but I think that Keegan's unique ability as a 6'9" guy capable of shooting and moving offball like Steph/Klay is rarer than that of a 6'9" guy who can pass when a defense collapses onto him (this is also a skill that Keegan showed he's starting to develop in the Lakers game). Franz to his credit is a solid perimeter shooter and his free throw percentage is great at the volume of shots he gets but he is absolutely nowhere close to the same class of shooter as Murray is.
3- We really need to stop comparing guys in regards to age as opposed to years in the league. Players develop at different rates both physically and basketball skill-wise. Dame didn't even come into the league until he was 22 so are we supposed to rank him lower all time than the guys who came into the league as high schoolers or one-and-dones? As opposed to using Franz's numbers in the context of him being 21-years-old, if we list them in regards to him being in his second year in the league, Keegan's currently on pace to have a similar/greater season at lower usage than Franz had last season. Franz spent his youth in Euroball academies and came into his size earlier than Keegan, who was a late bloomer who also wasn't a full-time basketball athlete until he was into his teens, it's not like his skills came out of nowhere.
1- Franz gets more credit for his defensive potential and projectability as a defender than his actual results as a defender probably deserve. Sure, he was touted as a good defensive prospect coming out of college but the defensive metrics, stats, and the good ol' eyeball test don't really match that. As far as a 6'9" guy being asked to guard wings goes, I guess he's okay but he's not been the world beater on that end that KoC and those guys have randomly predetermined him to be. Keegan may not have quite as much lateral quickness as Franz (even though I feel like Franz gets a bit of an "awkward looking white guy" pass on that end as well) but he's show flashes as a help defender both in college and this season that Franz has never really shown consistently. My wager on their long term potential is that Keegan's ability as a help defender and weak side shot blocker is going to help his team more than Franz Wagner: sort of solid point of attack defender who rebounds and blocks at a rate far worse than is typical for his size.
2- Franz's on-ball offensive ability gets a lot more credit than it probably should. It feels like guys are so focused on crowning the next Luka that they do on whether that's actually what a guy should be doing longterm or not. Franz's driving ability is good, yes, but he's still not really a good player in the context of an offensive system. I guess it's overall just a philosophical difference between believing in an elite shooter's ability to develop on ball as opposed to believing in an on-ball guy's ability to become a shooter but I think that Keegan's unique ability as a 6'9" guy capable of shooting and moving offball like Steph/Klay is rarer than that of a 6'9" guy who can pass when a defense collapses onto him (this is also a skill that Keegan showed he's starting to develop in the Lakers game). Franz to his credit is a solid perimeter shooter and his free throw percentage is great at the volume of shots he gets but he is absolutely nowhere close to the same class of shooter as Murray is.
3- We really need to stop comparing guys in regards to age as opposed to years in the league. Players develop at different rates both physically and basketball skill-wise. Dame didn't even come into the league until he was 22 so are we supposed to rank him lower all time than the guys who came into the league as high schoolers or one-and-dones? As opposed to using Franz's numbers in the context of him being 21-years-old, if we list them in regards to him being in his second year in the league, Keegan's currently on pace to have a similar/greater season at lower usage than Franz had last season. Franz spent his youth in Euroball academies and came into his size earlier than Keegan, who was a late bloomer who also wasn't a full-time basketball athlete until he was into his teens, it's not like his skills came out of nowhere.
We can revisit it when Keegan averages 26ppg -- which he will within the next 4 years. I watched him play a lot at Iowa and rookie year Keegan was barely scratching the surface of what he's capable of on offense. None of his individual skills are eye-grabbing but the more you watch him play you can see how he plays with calculated aggression and preternatural poise
This is a discussion as old as the draft itself but I really don't think comparing players at the same age works for predicting future development. Guys come to the NBA when they're ready for the NBA and some of them never get better than their first year while others continue improving every year for a decade.
As a rookie Franz Wagner put up numbers as the number two option on an Orlando team that won 22 games. There's really no way to compare his rookie year performance to what Keegan was doing as the fifth or sixth option on a team which ultimately finished the season as the #3 seed. You can break down skill by skill and say which guy is better off the dribble, going left, going right, finishing through contact, passing out of double teams, etc. but that's still not going to tell you what will actually happen in a game tomorrow. There's a long list of players who checked every box you can check from a skills stand point and were still mediocre pro players because they lacked something which is much harder to quantify. A mental edge perhaps and a methodology for dissecting your own game and finding ways to improve.
I'm not saying Franz Wagner doesn't have that. But if you're just looking at age, stats, and skills and assuming similar growth curves than you're going to way underestimate some players and way overestimate others. Predicting who is going to outpace the average growth curve and who will fall behind is more intuition and dare I say wishful thinking than data science.
This is a discussion as old as the draft itself but I really don't think comparing players at the same age works for predicting future development. Guys come to the NBA when they're ready for the NBA and some of them never get better than their first year while others continue improving every year for a decade.
As a rookie Franz Wagner put up numbers as the number two option on an Orlando team that won 22 games. There's really no way to compare his rookie year performance to what Keegan was doing as the fifth or sixth option on a team which ultimately finished the season as the #3 seed. You can break down skill by skill and say which guy is better off the dribble, going left, going right, finishing through contact, passing out of double teams, etc. but that's still not going to tell you what will actually happen in a game tomorrow. There's a long list of players who checked every box you can check from a skills stand point and were still mediocre pro players because they lacked something which is much harder to quantify. A mental edge perhaps and a methodology for dissecting your own game and finding ways to improve.
I'm not saying Franz Wagner doesn't have that. But if you're just looking at age, stats, and skills and assuming similar growth curves than you're going to way underestimate some players and way overestimate others. Predicting who is going to outpace the average growth curve and who will fall behind is more intuition and dare I say wishful thinking than data science.
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