Rafael Stone Press Conference after Reed Sheppard pick

And you remember when Banchero is out of the league and Jabari is still hanging around...

 

No - they were fed stuff by the front office. I don't know if Gatlin was, but Kelly Iko clearly was. It was an attempted smoke screen to see if teams that wanted Clingan would overpay to get to #3 in the draft. The Rockets smoke screens are really poorly done, but they are always out there. Luckily they have not overly harmed the Rockets.

 

Damn, to my surprise Stone is growing on me. Very good press conference and it's hard to argue with the BKN trade with the assumption the Knicks trade doesn't happen with our swap already agreed to. He's stretching our window for draft and trades, which gives us more flexibility in the future as we see how our guys develop and which stars get frustrated and may want to join us. I have to give him a well done on trade and #3 selection.

 

The Magic had the 2nd easiest schedule in the nba and Banchero was not efficient at scoring the ball.

I downloaded from basketball reference all players with 1,500 minutes played last year.

I deleted out all centers and guards and then sorted by ts%.

Banchero, among just forwards, was 67th out of 80 in ts%.


You can't tell me it's because most other forwards have little usage.

Here are some players just above him:

Kuzma
Bridges (both)
Keldon Johnson
Dillon Brooks
Jabari Smith
Max Strus
Bruce Brown
Julius Randle


An offensive forward who isn't great at scoring? Gee, sign me up... let's give him the most shots on the team...

 

Instead we ended up with a defensive forward who isn't great at defense .

 

If you lead a team to the playoffs, the team has to have a better total +/- of 1 point for the whole season with you on the court. Tari had a better +/- in 13 games than Paolo's entire season despite Tari only played 22 games and that the other Magic out played the other Rockets.

 

Wut?

 

Does this Reed guy have a bball nickname he is carrying over from college?

 

Ben Simmons was a 3 time All-Star, All-Defensive, All-NBA and very effective player who succeeded despite his shooting limitations.

The wheels fell off when Doc Rivers short-circuited his brain. Not entirely Doc’s fault. I think his mental fragility was always there, but Doc should have recognized that and handled him a little differently. I assume his physical problems now are mostly real, but could be a mental thing as well.

My point is that a player that has many other excellent skills, especially defensively, can make himself valuable without a 3 point shot.

 

The Saxophone.

 

Cocaine Curry

 

Yes that's why he's recognized around the league by precisely 0.0 % of neutral observers as having had a superior season to Paolo Banchero and actually the neutral observers are just laughing and laughing and laughing

 

Make themselves valuable? Of course that's possible.

Become a max-worthy star? For me in this era I don't believe that can happen. In fact I think it's the reason why Sixers/Simmons kept getting bounced from the playoffs, and the reason why Embiid elevated to MVP status as soon as he was gone. I believe he would reduce spacing for Green/Sengun and that would be a far bigger disaster than any benefit he can bring.

 

No not the first game but if Jalen does not come out ready to play VERY early in the season he will be benched. Ime will not waste near as much time trying to jump start Jalen like he did last year. Jalen needs to bring the post ASB game he has displayed every season all season from the start. If he does he will get the max extension. Playing like **** for most of the year only turning it on after the ASB will not work anymore.

 

Yet I would still prefer his upside. Banchero is a loser chucker.

You want someone like Banchero taking the most shots on your team you're asking to lose. Jabari had a 60% ts% in 3 out of 7 months. Banchero had never done that in a month his whole career.

I'll take the potential of Jabari over the mediocrity of Banchero...

Honestly it's like you're arguing how awesome Julius Randle is... sounds silly...

 

Other than passing, what is Banchero better than Tari at?

Attempting shots?

 

They replaced him with James Harden and fared no better in the playoffs. And that was with an MVP on the team.

I just don’t see a player of Ben Simmons’ caliber (strictly his play on the court) a disaster.

 

Basketball

 

Second game?