Bricklayer
Don't Make Me Use The Bat
Let BenMcLemore grow into the position. He's got the tools, just need to build his confidence. Reminds of Clay Thompson when he first started, Jackson and Malone kept playing him even if didn't play and shoot very well early in his rookie year. And now look at where he is now, the other half of Splash brothers with Curry. Trading Ellis actually helped and hastened Curry and Thompson's growth.
I know that story about Klay Thompson gets repeated around, but it really doesn't stand much scrutiny. The fact was that almost as soon as Klay was put on the court he shot the lights outs. He shot 44% from 3pt land in his very first month as a rookie. He shot 48% from 3pt land during his second month. The only thing that held back his minutes was the Ellis situation that last year. He was productive from the start.
The unfortunate fact is right now Ben's numbers look a lot more like Austin Rivers last year than they do like Klay Thompson as a rookie, and we're approaching the halfway mark of the season now.
In the past, and again here I will mention Kevin Martin as a young Sg who came in, put up poor numbers/did not show much, and then turned out pretty good. But the difference here is that Kevin didn't get any time as a rookie. Averaged 10min a game of mop up duty. He showed us nothing, but behind the scenes apparently he looked good in practice. Waht's distressing with Ben is that he's been given tons of opportunities, and thus far has just failed. Even his best streak/encouraging point is a bit of a problem. right back at the beginning of December he was starting to show a little something maybe. Was putting up more points at least, even though he still was shooting poorly. But then the trade changed our team, and now the fact of the matter is that so long as we persist in our current structure, Ben will never have that role/those shots again. This last game he played better defense. That would help. But he has so far to go on that end there are 100 guys you could trade for in the NBA with equal or better defensive prospects anytime in the remotely immediate future.
Here are the per 36 numbers of 5 guys as rookies:
Fredette 14.7pts (.386 .361 .833) 2.3reb 3.4ast 1.0stl 0.1blk 2.1TO
KevMart 10.4pts (.385 .200 .655) 4.6reb 1.7ast 1.3stl 0.2blk 1.9TO
McLemor 11.5pts (.360 .336 .792) 4.2reb 1.5ast 0.7stl 0.2blk 1.6TO
AuRivers 9.6pts (.372 .326 .546) 2.8reb 3.2ast 0.7stl 0.2blk 1.9TO
KlayThom 18.5pts (.443 .414 .868) 3.6reb 3.0ast 1.1stl 0.4blk 2.3TO