Unpopular Opinion - The Jury is Still Out that Doncic is Better than Bagley

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#1
Without a doubt, the One Who Shall Not be Named is playing out of this world.

But what if I tell you I still see a path where Bagley will become the better player? Or at least, on the same level as the heir apparent to Lebron (or so they say)?

Hear me out, I envision prime Bagley to put up roughly 20+ ppg, 10+ rebs, 2.5 assists, 1.5 blocks, 1.5 steals, shoot 35% from 3s, and a very good defender. His per 36 from last season already put him at 21 and 11, with improvement in awareness, positioning, and 3 pt shooting; I think he will very likely become this baller who fills the stat sheets.

His defense is going to get better, a lot better. I can't think of a long athletic freak who plays this hard and doesn't end up being at least a good defender. He will be good on the defensive end, I have no doubt about that. He may even become great with added strength and better acumen.

So we'are looking at a two way player who can carry your offense and a plus on defense. That's a franchise player isn't it?

Now, what if he up his scoring numbers to 26 ppg, 12 rebs, 2.5 assists, 2 blocks, 1.5 steals, and shoot 35% from 3s? That is Barkley, Malone, Webber, Anthony Davis territory. The thing is, he was already scoring 21 ppg per 36 mins in his rookie year.... and he was winging it half the time! What I'm trying to say is - these are not unreasonable numbers to expect from a prime Bagley. It's achievable if a few things that are not far fetched fall into place.

And what if he becomes a really good defender - a freak big who can guard other bigs then also switch to wings and hold his own? He'd be the Kawhi Leonard of big men. The type of player who wins in the playoffs.

Am I too optimistic? Perhaps. But I don't think it's unreasonable nor surprising if Bagley becomes that player. His ceiling is that high, from day one.

And if Bagley turns into a two-way franchise player who can carry your team offensively and defensively; I think an argument can be made that a well rounded player is better than a one-dimensional one, even if he is lights out awesome in that one dimension.

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#2
Without a doubt, the One Who Shall Not be Named is playing out of this world.

But what if I tell you I still see a path where Bagley will become the better player? Or at least, on the same level as the heir apparent to Lebron (or so they say)?

Hear me out, I envision prime Bagley to put up roughly 20+ ppg, 10+ rebs, 2.5 assists, 1.5 blocks, 1.5 steals, shoot 35% from 3s, and a very good defender. His per 36 from last season already put him at 21 and 11, with improvement in awareness, positioning, and 3 pt shooting; I think he will very likely become this baller who fills the stat sheets.

His defense is going to get better, a lot better. I can't think of a long athletic freak who plays this hard and doesn't end up being at least a good defender. He will be good on the defensive end, I have no doubt about that. He may even become great with added strength and better acumen.

So we'are looking at a two way player who can carry your offense and a plus on defense. That's a franchise player isn't it?

Now, what if he up his scoring numbers to 26 ppg, 12 rebs, 2.5 assists, 2 blocks, 1.5 steals, and shoot 35% from 3s? That is Barkley, Malone, Webber, Anthony Davis territory. The thing is, he was already scoring 21 ppg per 36 mins in his rookie year.... and he was winging it half the time! What I'm trying to say is - these are not unreasonable numbers to expect from a prime Bagley. It's achievable if a few things that are not far fetched fall into place.

And what if he becomes a really good defender - a freak big who can guard other bigs then also switch to wings and hold his own? He'd be the Kawhi Leonard of big men. The type of player who wins in the playoffs.

Am I too optimistic? Perhaps. But I don't think it's unreasonable nor surprising if Bagley becomes that player. His ceiling is that high, from day one.

And if Bagley turns into a two-way franchise player who can carry your team offensively and defensively; I think an argument can be made that a well rounded player is better than a one-dimensional one, even if he is lights out awesome in that one dimension.

.
Well said, and the most important thing is we don't know yet. Despite the popular opinion that it's already decided.
 
#3
Doncic is currently levels above Bagley. But it’s early, so we’ll see.

The one thing that I do hate about both players is they function best with high usage. I have never liked high usage players and am pretty certain, Doncic’s game would’ve turned sour for me at some point. Dallas is mostly a one man show right now. His teammates are basically spot up jump shooters. There’s very little movement or passing. It’s kinda ugly n is hard to win consistently in the playoffs. It’s Iverson’s 76ers all over again. That’s they’re blueprint in an NBA 3.0 world.

Bagley is still mostly a black hole when he has the ball on offense. Looking forward to Luke developing that part of his game.
 
#6
Without a doubt, the One Who Shall Not be Named is playing out of this world.

But what if I tell you I still see a path where Bagley will become the better player? Or at least, on the same level as the heir apparent to Lebron (or so they say)?

Hear me out, I envision prime Bagley to put up roughly 20+ ppg, 10+ rebs, 2.5 assists, 1.5 blocks, 1.5 steals, shoot 35% from 3s, and a very good defender. His per 36 from last season already put him at 21 and 11, with improvement in awareness, positioning, and 3 pt shooting; I think he will very likely become this baller who fills the stat sheets.

His defense is going to get better, a lot better. I can't think of a long athletic freak who plays this hard and doesn't end up being at least a good defender. He will be good on the defensive end, I have no doubt about that. He may even become great with added strength and better acumen.

So we'are looking at a two way player who can carry your offense and a plus on defense. That's a franchise player isn't it?

Now, what if he up his scoring numbers to 26 ppg, 12 rebs, 2.5 assists, 2 blocks, 1.5 steals, and shoot 35% from 3s? That is Barkley, Malone, Webber, Anthony Davis territory. The thing is, he was already scoring 21 ppg per 36 mins in his rookie year.... and he was winging it half the time! What I'm trying to say is - these are not unreasonable numbers to expect from a prime Bagley. It's achievable if a few things that are not far fetched fall into place.

And what if he becomes a really good defender - a freak big who can guard other bigs then also switch to wings and hold his own? He'd be the Kawhi Leonard of big men. The type of player who wins in the playoffs.

Am I too optimistic? Perhaps. But I don't think it's unreasonable nor surprising if Bagley becomes that player. His ceiling is that high, from day one.

And if Bagley turns into a two-way franchise player who can carry your team offensively and defensively; I think an argument can be made that a well rounded player is better than a one-dimensional one, even if he is lights out awesome in that one dimension.

.
I like your optimism but please, for the love of god, don't bet any large sums of money on this happening.
 
#8
Thou who shall not be named had a 4 year professional basketball head start on Bagley. Plus he has had the freedom to handle the ball at the highest rate in the NBA without fans screaming for him to not be a blackhole. The vast majority of NBA draftees do not have a lot of experience or a polished game. This is the price NBA teams must pay for one and done talent. So I have nothing but patience for Bagley.

I want to see the Kings in the playoffs as much as the next person, but I'm not going to chase a 20 year old player out of town because he isn't meeting my time schedule.
 
#9
VF is gonna have to lock this thread. Cmon, really? Seriously? Does anything else have to be said?

Do we really have to show how ridiculous this thread is? Id rather not because it will just delve into a shouting match. Just a sign of the times.
 
#13
He couldn't even beat Bagley's team with Bagley on the bench. Donkey Doughboy is very overrated.
Id love to see you take that hot take outside of this website. Actually id rather you not take it outside of here. I try to push how knowledgeable our fan base has become and that would set us back to day one.
 

kingsboi

Hall of Famer
#15
Luka can have the MVP trophies down the road and the numbers....I just want the Kings to be good again under any circumstances and if that means having Bagley being a super sub at this point in his early career then so be it
 

Capt. Factorial

trifolium contra tempestatem subrigere certum est
Staff member
#19
So, I don't understand why this is so hard, but apparently it is. Let me break it down.

Luka Doncic is not "he who shall not be named". Luka Doncic is an NBA player who appears to be budding into a superstar. That's fine, there are a lot of players who have budded into superstars before. Appropriate discussion of Doncic, within context, is fine. It's not like we ever stopped people from talking about LeBron, or Duncan, or Shaq, or Kobe, etc.

The difference with Doncic is that the Kings had an opportunity to draft him and made a different decision. In and of itself, that's not the biggest deal either - we've passed on any number of such players, including Stephen Curry, Giannis Antetokoumpo, and Kawhi Leonard. The reason there's a problem is that among those who preferred Doncic on draft day, there is a group of people who won't let it go. And when that group makes it their mission to repetitively post (and I mean repetitively, over and over and over and over and over and over and over) these petulant screeds about how they were right and everybody else was wrong and Vlade is an idiot and making doe eyes at Luka it turns the board toxic. This isn't Lukafans.com, it isn't Mavsfans.com, and there are other places where these sort of sentiments are more appropriate. We discouraged it here, and when mere discouragement clearly wasn't going to work - nearly a year and a half after the draft, mind you - we forcibly moved it off to the NBA forum.

We're not going to drag it right back onto the front page in the form of a Bagley vs. Doncic thread, which is exactly the same argument.

If folks want to have a thread about the future potential of Marvin Bagley, especially now that he's coming back from his broken hand - a thread for optimism about Bagley's road and how he's going to help the Kings - that's perfectly appropriate for our site. We don't need to drag Doncic back in to start the same old fight. We're tired of that fight. We're done with that fight. We don't even care who wins or who loses that fight in the end. That fight is not going to be allowed to define this website.
 

VF21

Super Moderator Emeritus
SME
#20
One more comment. If any of you see something like this and no mods are on the board, REPORT THE POST. Nobody did, which helped contribute to this not being seen sooner by a mod. There's no double standard here but mods do have lives away from KF - believe it or not. thanks.
 
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