Well that was generally sucktastic.
So for a theme tonight why don't we do the annual Who Might We Draft in July theme, given that its likely to be high once again.
Boxscore
Casspi ( B- ) -- couple of nice early passes for assists. Airballed an open three easily set up by Reke, and then drained a much harder stepback jumper, go figure. Another side pop. Traveled inside, then another jumper. Missed a three up top again. Was our second leading scorer, but can't really say he played wingman to reke since the bulk of Casspi's push came in the early going while Reke came out flat and took a while to get it into gear. In the 3rd picked off an open court pass to break up a Clippers fastbreak. Followed a wild JT layup attempt with an o-board and layin. Drive into the paint for the nice little finish, and had some aggressive work on the d-boards. Had a bad pass turnover to start the 4th quarter, and for whatever reason his minutes were limited as he has no impact on the late going. The whatever reason may actually have been his defense, as Omri's stubborn streak seemed to come to the fore -- as in he stubbornly refused to guard anybody who ran out to the 3pt line. Still one of the few Kings who really helped in any aspect tonight, so while he gets no pass and has to clean that up, I'm not going to exaggerate it and totally tank his grade.
[yt=John Wall]yknVsGB6iJ4[/yt]
John Wall (6'4" 195) PG -- and any draft prospects list just has to start with this phenom. Anybody who has watched me post for any length of time at all knows that I rarely gush. Not in my nature. But the first time I saw a mixtape of this guy a couple of years a back it had me gushing like a schoolgirl. I've been watching the NBA for 25 years now, and I had never seen a PG with such a combination of speed, handles, size, hops...it was just an awesome display. And of course he's gone on into college now and put it on display for the world. He's not perfect -- the jumper maybe needs work...unless its one he needs to hit (have I mentioend that he's bigtime clutch too?), he's better in the open court than halfcourt (of course with his blazing speed he is a one man break and makes everything the open court) -- but he's everybody's #1, and about as surefire a star as you are ever going to draft. Of course the difficulty is that he also plays the same position as our own phenom, who is only turning in the best rookie campaign since Lebron came out 6 years ago. In any case, its not something we will even have to worry about unless the basketball gods relent and let us get the #1 pick.
Landry ( D ) -- ouch. Not the way you want the debut to go, and of more concern than a poor performance in your first obviously unsettled game, was that many of his struggles really highlighted his biggest weakness -- he's tiny for a power player. Against a big Clippers frontline was constantly looking up at guys 4-6 inches taller than he was, and a number of his missed shots and travels were caused by him trying to compensate. Of course this is not his first pass through the league, and he does know how to comepnsate and be quite effective. But starting goto scorer in the post? Eh...we'll see. Actually got off to the good start, getting the interior pass from Casspi and finishing with the +1, then grabbing several d-boards. But it would be the last shot he hit unti the game was basically decided very late. Missed a side jumper. Traveled on the hard baseline move. Drew a foul on a post move, then missed both FTs. Very aggressive offensivley, but just looked very small tryign to force it through the trees. In the second, quick drive past Jordan but missed the FT. Another missed post move. Another attempt to drive by the much bigger man in Kaman, again resulted in a travel. Did make a nice crosscourt pass to Udoka in the corner before trying to drive through Jordan again and picking up another travel. In the thrid got an offensive reb and only 1 of the 2 FTs -- apparently this 84% FT shooter was infected by our FT woes rather than us taking after his normal steadiness. Given how poorly the post iso had gone against all the Clippers size, think we made a stragy change at halftime, and we largely quit feeding him inside in the third. Of course wihtout the ball, not able to do much. In the 4th, which has been his quarter this year, missed the post jumper over Kaman, then missed another along the baseline. Couldn't catch a post pass from Beno. Finally got another hoop with a dunk the 3:00 mark. and then added a pair of garbagetime hoops down the stretch to make it look semi-respectable. But it really wasn't. Far from the end of the world, far from determinative of anything, but just not a good debut. Probably glad he gets another chance to go at immediately tommorow against the crappy defense of the Suns (although that also means Amare).
[yt=Evan Turner]MUaWPo1vn5E[/yt]
Evan Turner (6'7" 205lb) SG/SF -- college's stat king, Turner is a swingman who is threatening to average 20-10 for a season. He's sitting at 19.8pts 9.5rebs 5.8ast 1.9stl 0.8blk right now, and that is after missing half the season after taking a bad fall on a dunk and breaking two vertebrae in his back. As in ouch. His weaknesses are that he's not a great athlete, and that he does not have true NBA 3pt range. His strenghts...everything else. He's Mr. Intangible, Mr. Do It All. He can score inside and out, rebound, pass, handle, defend...6'7" 205 was Pippen's size BTW (of course 6'7" was also the height of a former do it all unatheltic SF of our own -- Lionel Simmons). It may seem odd given our obvious frontcourt needs to start this theme off with two guards, but there is a popular line of thought that Turner could be a great backcourt fit next to Reke -- two big below the rim do everything guards next to each other.
Thompson ( C ) -- hit the long facing jumper, then forced a fading side j. Got the steal on Kaman as we doubled him. Hit a jumper. Was effective defending Kaman as long as we kept the doubles coming, once the Clippers' threes broke that tactic, got worked. Flashed into the paint and hit a quick post move. Jumper on the kick from Reke. Strong start and looked confident, but picked up his third of the first half on a fairly weak battling in the post call, and had to leave. Was never the same therafter. In the third got beat for inside defensive rebounding position by Kaman. Then threw up a wild post airball over Caveman Wild finish attempt on the break, but the rebound was picked up by Casspi for the layin. Back in by the mid 4th, but other than a poke steal on Kaman down the stretch. He just played a Caveman punching bad for the second half and finished up with 9pts 7rebs ot Caveman's 22pts 16rebs (in fact Kaman got 16rebs in 35+min, Jason, Landry and Hawes COMBINED for 16rebs in 84+min).
[yt=Demarcus Cousins]MyoaxVct1vM[/yt]
Demarcus Cousins (6'11" 270lb) C -- thought it was about time we get an actual big guy in here given our needs. And by big I mean BIG. Big ole physical pure center with good offensive skills and decent athleticism. As a frosh he's chewed up the college competition, averaging 16pts and 10rebs in only 22min a night of action by using the big body to establihs deep deep post position, and then just overwhelming weaker opponents. You plug him in the middle, and you just might have your physical post playing beast answer (you might or might not have your defensive answer, as he is imposing but not spry). Of course you might also have Benoit Benjamin (famous 80's Clippers hulking malingerer), as that is kind of the concern with Cousins. The brain, the motivation. Sometimes he appears sluggish and unmoitivated. Even Derrick Coleman's name gets tossed around sometimes, which if I was 6'11" and 270lbs would probably get me thrown in jail if somebody made that comparison to my face. A major bigman beast prospect...but depending upon who you ask, potentially a bust as well. Size with that talent does not come along often though, and he's looking like a Top 5 pick at this point. And yes, believe it or not that piddly little thing was the best mix I could find of him. You wonder why big kids don't want top play center anymore? Its because the 5'6" 135lb wannabes who make the mix tapes don't get excited by them the way they do a fellow flashy midget.
Garcia ( D ) -- bad performance, considerably worse that the stats alone, which were padded in the final couple of grbagetime minutes. Ineffective offensively, and got scorched on defense. And far from being an ernergetic do everything guy, looked sluggish and lacking energy. Mentioned in the Golden State game he doesn't look in great shape yet. Had his lone brihgt moment of the non-garbagetime to start, with a layup on the break. Then made a pure rustiness/unfamiliarity mistake running into Reke's driving lane and causing him to turn it over. Missed the long bailout three. Missed a three to open the third. Nowhere near Gordon as he lit us up. Started picking up fouls and eventually headed to the bench. Back in for the garbagetime, hit a three, then hit the meaningless end game dunk to make the final score 10. Garbagetime dunk to make it 10. When Westphal announced he was going to start Cisco a couple of days ago, I thought it reasonable. But not if he's really not ready to go. Plenty of other guys on our roster chomping at the bit for minutes -- no need to force things until Cisco can play like himself.
[yt=Derrick Favors]99Od-U5IF4s[/yt]
Derrick Favors (6'10" 246lbs) PF -- a 6'9"/6'10" lanky athlete with dunk competition hops, coming out of high school some (since discredited) publications had even ranked him above Wall as a propsect. He exists somewhere along the McDyess/Amare (good!) to Stromile Swift (bad!!!) continuum -- the 6'9" uber athlete who can dunk all night, but needs to add some level of skill with it to meet his potential. He's very young for his class -- still 18 and won't turn 19 until July (so will be entering the NBA a full 9 months younger than Reke did, and you will remember Reke was the second youngest guy in the whole NBA this year), and still raw. But he plays both ends, projects as a shotblocker as well as a dunker, and you put he and Donte out there together and you have the longest, most athletic forward duo in the league. May have to wait a couple of years though to see the final product however, as the post game and jumper are still works in progess.
So for a theme tonight why don't we do the annual Who Might We Draft in July theme, given that its likely to be high once again.
Boxscore
Casspi ( B- ) -- couple of nice early passes for assists. Airballed an open three easily set up by Reke, and then drained a much harder stepback jumper, go figure. Another side pop. Traveled inside, then another jumper. Missed a three up top again. Was our second leading scorer, but can't really say he played wingman to reke since the bulk of Casspi's push came in the early going while Reke came out flat and took a while to get it into gear. In the 3rd picked off an open court pass to break up a Clippers fastbreak. Followed a wild JT layup attempt with an o-board and layin. Drive into the paint for the nice little finish, and had some aggressive work on the d-boards. Had a bad pass turnover to start the 4th quarter, and for whatever reason his minutes were limited as he has no impact on the late going. The whatever reason may actually have been his defense, as Omri's stubborn streak seemed to come to the fore -- as in he stubbornly refused to guard anybody who ran out to the 3pt line. Still one of the few Kings who really helped in any aspect tonight, so while he gets no pass and has to clean that up, I'm not going to exaggerate it and totally tank his grade.
[yt=John Wall]yknVsGB6iJ4[/yt]
John Wall (6'4" 195) PG -- and any draft prospects list just has to start with this phenom. Anybody who has watched me post for any length of time at all knows that I rarely gush. Not in my nature. But the first time I saw a mixtape of this guy a couple of years a back it had me gushing like a schoolgirl. I've been watching the NBA for 25 years now, and I had never seen a PG with such a combination of speed, handles, size, hops...it was just an awesome display. And of course he's gone on into college now and put it on display for the world. He's not perfect -- the jumper maybe needs work...unless its one he needs to hit (have I mentioend that he's bigtime clutch too?), he's better in the open court than halfcourt (of course with his blazing speed he is a one man break and makes everything the open court) -- but he's everybody's #1, and about as surefire a star as you are ever going to draft. Of course the difficulty is that he also plays the same position as our own phenom, who is only turning in the best rookie campaign since Lebron came out 6 years ago. In any case, its not something we will even have to worry about unless the basketball gods relent and let us get the #1 pick.
Landry ( D ) -- ouch. Not the way you want the debut to go, and of more concern than a poor performance in your first obviously unsettled game, was that many of his struggles really highlighted his biggest weakness -- he's tiny for a power player. Against a big Clippers frontline was constantly looking up at guys 4-6 inches taller than he was, and a number of his missed shots and travels were caused by him trying to compensate. Of course this is not his first pass through the league, and he does know how to comepnsate and be quite effective. But starting goto scorer in the post? Eh...we'll see. Actually got off to the good start, getting the interior pass from Casspi and finishing with the +1, then grabbing several d-boards. But it would be the last shot he hit unti the game was basically decided very late. Missed a side jumper. Traveled on the hard baseline move. Drew a foul on a post move, then missed both FTs. Very aggressive offensivley, but just looked very small tryign to force it through the trees. In the second, quick drive past Jordan but missed the FT. Another missed post move. Another attempt to drive by the much bigger man in Kaman, again resulted in a travel. Did make a nice crosscourt pass to Udoka in the corner before trying to drive through Jordan again and picking up another travel. In the thrid got an offensive reb and only 1 of the 2 FTs -- apparently this 84% FT shooter was infected by our FT woes rather than us taking after his normal steadiness. Given how poorly the post iso had gone against all the Clippers size, think we made a stragy change at halftime, and we largely quit feeding him inside in the third. Of course wihtout the ball, not able to do much. In the 4th, which has been his quarter this year, missed the post jumper over Kaman, then missed another along the baseline. Couldn't catch a post pass from Beno. Finally got another hoop with a dunk the 3:00 mark. and then added a pair of garbagetime hoops down the stretch to make it look semi-respectable. But it really wasn't. Far from the end of the world, far from determinative of anything, but just not a good debut. Probably glad he gets another chance to go at immediately tommorow against the crappy defense of the Suns (although that also means Amare).
[yt=Evan Turner]MUaWPo1vn5E[/yt]
Evan Turner (6'7" 205lb) SG/SF -- college's stat king, Turner is a swingman who is threatening to average 20-10 for a season. He's sitting at 19.8pts 9.5rebs 5.8ast 1.9stl 0.8blk right now, and that is after missing half the season after taking a bad fall on a dunk and breaking two vertebrae in his back. As in ouch. His weaknesses are that he's not a great athlete, and that he does not have true NBA 3pt range. His strenghts...everything else. He's Mr. Intangible, Mr. Do It All. He can score inside and out, rebound, pass, handle, defend...6'7" 205 was Pippen's size BTW (of course 6'7" was also the height of a former do it all unatheltic SF of our own -- Lionel Simmons). It may seem odd given our obvious frontcourt needs to start this theme off with two guards, but there is a popular line of thought that Turner could be a great backcourt fit next to Reke -- two big below the rim do everything guards next to each other.
Thompson ( C ) -- hit the long facing jumper, then forced a fading side j. Got the steal on Kaman as we doubled him. Hit a jumper. Was effective defending Kaman as long as we kept the doubles coming, once the Clippers' threes broke that tactic, got worked. Flashed into the paint and hit a quick post move. Jumper on the kick from Reke. Strong start and looked confident, but picked up his third of the first half on a fairly weak battling in the post call, and had to leave. Was never the same therafter. In the third got beat for inside defensive rebounding position by Kaman. Then threw up a wild post airball over Caveman Wild finish attempt on the break, but the rebound was picked up by Casspi for the layin. Back in by the mid 4th, but other than a poke steal on Kaman down the stretch. He just played a Caveman punching bad for the second half and finished up with 9pts 7rebs ot Caveman's 22pts 16rebs (in fact Kaman got 16rebs in 35+min, Jason, Landry and Hawes COMBINED for 16rebs in 84+min).
[yt=Demarcus Cousins]MyoaxVct1vM[/yt]
Demarcus Cousins (6'11" 270lb) C -- thought it was about time we get an actual big guy in here given our needs. And by big I mean BIG. Big ole physical pure center with good offensive skills and decent athleticism. As a frosh he's chewed up the college competition, averaging 16pts and 10rebs in only 22min a night of action by using the big body to establihs deep deep post position, and then just overwhelming weaker opponents. You plug him in the middle, and you just might have your physical post playing beast answer (you might or might not have your defensive answer, as he is imposing but not spry). Of course you might also have Benoit Benjamin (famous 80's Clippers hulking malingerer), as that is kind of the concern with Cousins. The brain, the motivation. Sometimes he appears sluggish and unmoitivated. Even Derrick Coleman's name gets tossed around sometimes, which if I was 6'11" and 270lbs would probably get me thrown in jail if somebody made that comparison to my face. A major bigman beast prospect...but depending upon who you ask, potentially a bust as well. Size with that talent does not come along often though, and he's looking like a Top 5 pick at this point. And yes, believe it or not that piddly little thing was the best mix I could find of him. You wonder why big kids don't want top play center anymore? Its because the 5'6" 135lb wannabes who make the mix tapes don't get excited by them the way they do a fellow flashy midget.
Garcia ( D ) -- bad performance, considerably worse that the stats alone, which were padded in the final couple of grbagetime minutes. Ineffective offensively, and got scorched on defense. And far from being an ernergetic do everything guy, looked sluggish and lacking energy. Mentioned in the Golden State game he doesn't look in great shape yet. Had his lone brihgt moment of the non-garbagetime to start, with a layup on the break. Then made a pure rustiness/unfamiliarity mistake running into Reke's driving lane and causing him to turn it over. Missed the long bailout three. Missed a three to open the third. Nowhere near Gordon as he lit us up. Started picking up fouls and eventually headed to the bench. Back in for the garbagetime, hit a three, then hit the meaningless end game dunk to make the final score 10. Garbagetime dunk to make it 10. When Westphal announced he was going to start Cisco a couple of days ago, I thought it reasonable. But not if he's really not ready to go. Plenty of other guys on our roster chomping at the bit for minutes -- no need to force things until Cisco can play like himself.
[yt=Derrick Favors]99Od-U5IF4s[/yt]
Derrick Favors (6'10" 246lbs) PF -- a 6'9"/6'10" lanky athlete with dunk competition hops, coming out of high school some (since discredited) publications had even ranked him above Wall as a propsect. He exists somewhere along the McDyess/Amare (good!) to Stromile Swift (bad!!!) continuum -- the 6'9" uber athlete who can dunk all night, but needs to add some level of skill with it to meet his potential. He's very young for his class -- still 18 and won't turn 19 until July (so will be entering the NBA a full 9 months younger than Reke did, and you will remember Reke was the second youngest guy in the whole NBA this year), and still raw. But he plays both ends, projects as a shotblocker as well as a dunker, and you put he and Donte out there together and you have the longest, most athletic forward duo in the league. May have to wait a couple of years though to see the final product however, as the post game and jumper are still works in progess.
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