If Bari can work with Dream and get his post moves to 2-3 dribbles or less before turnaround jumper - that would help him so much. He’s just not strong enough yet to dribble more than that in the post…so many times he turns it over before he can get his shot off He also plays better when EG isn’t on the court
That's my point I don't have a guy I was hoping we took instead of Smith I was all about the top 3 guys but its far to early to say we should have drafted somebody else and its far too early to say Eason is the 2nd best guy, Mathurin has flashed, and I am still looking to see what Murray is going to be. You can't on one hand say Smith is a rookie and 19, so he has room to grow and turn around and say everybody 4-16 are not any better they all have room to grow and get better. The thing about the other guys is that they have more multi faceted games, so their ceilings are higher, I am never going to be satisfied picking a high level 3&D guy at #3 in draft this deep.
When Jabari fills out his body, he will be a superstar defensively and could actually be a center. His potential is much higher than 3 and D guy. It’s about patience with 19 year old rookies.
Dude just because you feel some kind of way about me does not make my questions "barbed" I have given Smith props several times. How the heck is me wanting more than a quality player from the #3 pick, searching for dissatisfaction? You might not feel strong about Smith but its obvious you feel strongly about me and perceive me to be a Smith hater, i'm sorry if it bothers you that shooting 6-17 does not give me the warm fuzzies but hey that's just me.
This is all projection on your part and I have plenty of patience I have not declared what Smith is or will be be, so I don't know what you are talking about. So can we not comment about players until they turn what 21?
you literally pigeon holed him as a 3 and d guy with less potential growth about two posts ago. We can agree to disagree on his potential, neither of us have a crystal ball. I for one think we can criticize any player on the team and debate about it. I’m just saying proclamations about Jabari’s ceiling is premature.
Murray has hit a mega wall as he started out hot and now he's just a guy out there. Mathurin looks good. Great scorer. Did he fit the rebuild with the current guard grouping? Hindsight says yeah and you dump Christopher/Mathews and give those minutes to Mathurin and see who excels out of Green/Mathurin I suppose. As these guys have hit the court the draft just didnt seem as strong as some guys painted it myself included. Its Paolo and then everyone else. Im cool with giving any young player time to develop though so Im not too overly concerned with the output right now.
I have not pigeon holed anybody I am just commenting on what I have seen in college and in the pros and knowing how hard it is to be able to develop the skills he lacks. It's fine that you think what I am saying is premature, but me saying what I think does not mean I am overly critical or can't enjoy what he does well. If he develops into more than a 3&D I will be very happy and will have no problems saying I was wrong ,but I am not going to stop saying what I think because it annoys some posters. It's very telling that you have ignored everything I have said positive about Smith and just focus on the negative, I don't have favorites or players I hate I just comment on what I see and what I think will happen, you might need to try that. I am sick and tired of being called a hater just because I am not bending over backward to see the silver lining in shooting 6-17.
I agree completely, I have no sacred cows and believe at this point in a rebuild you just draft the best talent, especially when you just drafted 2 guys in the 1st round who play the same position. I am not even going to really start looking at these guys until the end of the year to see what they are all about, but I am not going to be happy about Smith shooting 6-17 ever, especially when his claim to fame is supposed to be his shooting. I am very happy he is starting to be more aggressive and the shots are falling, but that does not alleviate my fear that maybe he is more streaky than we thought and will be a boom or bust type and that's not his career but game to game. I am not going to be satisfied just because he is active on defense and blocks a shot once in a while, I am looking at the total rebuild and looking at him under the lens of if he will be worthy of a max type deal once we are actually competitive again. There are levels to this.
Jabari needs to get stronger, work on his mid range game and handle. That's it. Star potential with improvement in those three areas. Would love to see him start posting up in the mid range and bumping his defender to create some space to shoot over the top. Next step for him.
He can't catch a cold the few times he does cut to the rim. He struggles with catching the ball while moving. I saw Embiid catching wet nerf balls to improve his hands or could do that bean bag drill the 2002 Texans had Witten do lol. That's another thing I'd like him to work on.
This is generally correct, but "make 3 foot bunnies" is a really big thing that he should be doing that is really hard to overcome if he can't do it.
Still see taller Klay as his peak. He’ll likely never be a true playmaker. But I think he’ll be one hell of a finisher
Smith needs to improve across the board to garner respect but I won’t be shocked if he is our leader in 3-4 seasons.
You can't really say that. The eye test alone i can tell you Jalen, Sengun, KPJ etc are frequently trying to score the ball into the teeth of the defense, while Smith's rim opportunities are generally created when he's found open against smaller or even no defenders and he still struggles to finish like he did in college at the same distance. He's shooting a 52% at 0-3 feet rim. Worst on the team (other than Nix at 50% who i believe is like 1-2 total) - second worst is Eason at 55, though he creates so many tip ins for himself by being active around the rim i suspect this plays a role The guards are well over 60. Garuba is 70. Sengun is 67. Banchero is 67% - that's really where a 6-11 guy should be. Fwiw the best on the Rockets, albeit with a small sample size is Bruno at 87%
I feel like KPJ and Green miss more due to trying to avoid contact because they don’t get the calls… if either of them had Aaron Brooks touch around the rim I would lose my mind lol Bari looks like he always trying to decide to dunk or lay it up and it ends up rolling off the rim … he needs to commit to going strong and live with results
