I didn’t like FVV and wanted him traded, but there is no reason to lie to make a point. FVV is an excellent defender and shot around 34% from 3 last year. He’s not good enough to start at pg for a championship contender, but neither is Reed.
And FVV shot 37% from 3P in his first season with the Rockets. Reed had a good game despite having a cold 3pt night. He was aggressive and generally held up on the defensive side.... Ime didn't start Reed at the beginning of the 4th quarter instead had him come in midway to close.
twas what I said. So, in an indefinable indefensible NBA world - - rookie is an odd and moving target. As is MVP. As is MIP.
It’s not a moving target it’s actually pretty well-defined. Blake never played an NBA minute the year he was drafted so he was still considered a rookie when he came back the following season. How is that similar to what was being discussed?
First, my parsing of the language was challenged by NBA definitions of ‘rookie’. Second, the question, as I dimly recall, was RS and minutes from last season/development thus season. Again, as I parsed…
It's not, the Reed guzzlers just can't accept that he sucked his first year so as @astrosrule stated they're doing the reverse DD where they're trying to claim he's been a pro less time than he has. It's fine because year 2 he's leaped forward further than any other of our prospects (had much further to leap, but still) and is looking like a great prospect now. But he is not remotely a rookie, he's a 2nd year player having to make up for an abysmal rookie campaign for his draft position.
I don't know why we have to debate about whether he's a rookie. He was pretty bad out of the gate last year. It's certainly debatable whether he should have been played more even when he was clearly not ready for the big league game. On the one hand, we were not a tanking team anymore. We were aiming at playoffs seeding. So it's understandable for the coach to not play anyone who is a liability on the floor. On the other hand, it's really not clear what they had done to develop him other than eventually sending him to the g-league for a handful of games. He promptly dominated in the g-league. So it's kind of no point for him to learn anything there other than boosting his confidence. Fred got hurt and he had a huge game against OKC. And toward the end of the season when we were resting our starter, he started two games and did very well. So it seems that whenever he was given the key with big minutes, he thrived. A lot of Reed fans argued that he should have been played like that much earlier. What's frustrating is that this season, with Fred out, he is still not given the key in the offense. I guess it's mostly because of the presence of KD. If they really want to develop Reed and Amen to be the future co-PGs, they should stop this "give KD the ball" nonsense. Run some offense with the two kids playing real PG role.
Issue is that KD, Sengun and Reed are all terrible defenders. Jabari is an average to above average defender and Amen is only one guy that I'd prefer lasts until his mid 30s. There's a reason the last couple of games the team looks so much better with Capela out there with Amen, Reed and KD.
I think the "terrible defenders" thing is overblown. We won several close games in the past week. Reed was on the floor during crunch time together with Sengun and KD. If they were so terrible on defense, why were they trusted to finish games like that? (And don't get people started again about Reed not playing in OT at Philly.)
