willing to bet on guys like KJ the way the NBA game is going, has great scope now he finally has an NBA level coach. i just wonder what he could of accomplished with JVG
I'm excited about kj too. I'm excited about some of the other guys as well. I agree that having a real coach will do wonders.
If he could learn how to shooting well enough and the Harden PG thing works great, I can see KJ one day being the starting SG of the team. He brings the defense that could guard opposing PGs
----------------------------------------------- ariza, beverley, brewer, and KJ won't finish the season in houston. ----------------------------------------------- Kind of funny when you read those 2 parts together. Since you predicted neither of them would finish this season in houston.
Still not sure he has a good enough jumper for this system.. With comments like your opening statement, i guess you believe Koby Stevens is you midfilder answer as well.
good point! i might have to update the sig to remove kj. i thought he'd make a good sweetener in a trade to dump brewer, but he's shown some growth this preseason, and on his contract he's a steal. he might be working his way into 'long term plans' with dekker and capela.
3s and D and KJ will see floor time. No 3s, no D, no floor time. *imagines KJ Wiltjer Beverly hybrid*
I wish we had him on the cheap for another 3 seasons. Dude can flat out defend and as a cutter with James he has looked perfect for this system. We desperately need athletes and his ability to rebound, defend and protect the rim allows us the ability to play slow, white shooters...
I like KJ as a defensive stopper, and like him next to Harden on the 2. he can get a decent 25 minutes this season. I don't really get why are you guys hyped on Dekker so much. Until he develop a threat from the 3 point line he's pretty useless, he's no Parsons, at least not just yet. I don't see him getting significant minutes on the rotation
KJ McDaniels is an incredible athlete, but a bad basketball "player" by NBA standards. He's a shooting guard who is a career .286 shooter from deep, and .397 shooter overall. His release is also too slow to ever develop a shot off the dribble, but that's a moot point considering he can't put the ball on the floor to save his life. To top it all off, his career assist-to-turnover ratio is south of 1:1. If he's not on the receiving end of an alley oop, he's basically useless on offense. He won't get significant run here unless things go very, very wrong with this team.
You state past facts that are certainly true, but he has certainly looked improved thus far. No? 1. He has the makings of an elite defensive player that can guard 3, even 4 positions. 2. His ability to get to the free throw line looks real and his decision making on the break looks like it could be a strength. He was actually putting up decent assist rates in the DLeague in these situations. 3. His release has absolutely quickened, though it is still inefficient. You could see this in the summer league, and so far in the preseason. The release is not the problem, imo. He can get it off in plenty of time. It's more about connecting at 35 percent. 4. I wouldn't underrate off-ball cutting and catching lobs as a skill, especially with Harden and the spacing we get from our shooters. So far he seems to be our best natural cutter. That's exciting. It seems to me like you haven't watched him much this year, because he seems to be improving/maturing for the better, IMO.
Well, I've watched every minute of preseason and I'm just not seeing anything that indicates marked improvement. Maybe the sample size is too small, or perhaps I didn't watch enough last season to properly contrast where he is now with where he was before. And while I admittedly didn't watch much of summer league (mostly just highlights), his stats aren't exactly blowing me away at .393 from the field, an improved but still sub par .333 from deep, and a less than 1:1 assist-to-turnover ratio. That's all with a generous 30 minutes per game against a relatively low level of competition. And I'm not sure citing D-League assist stats helps your argument when he just barely managed to scrape by the 1:1 threshold (3.0:2.9 to be exact). If anything, you should point out his improved shooting while down in the Valley, which is still not particularly impressive, but encouraging nonetheless. As for being an elite defender, we'll see; he certainly has the physical tools for it. The problem I see is that being an elite defender, especially on the perimeter, requires excellent court awareness - something I don't think he has in general. In my view, he'd have to be Tony Allen level defender to warrant having him on the court for extended minutes if his shooting doesn't improve by leaps and bounds.
Understandable. When I watch Trevor Ariza and Corey Brewer, I can't help but think that KJ can carve out a solid niche in the NBA. He doesn't gamble, he is a certified fast break stopper, and his rotations on D are very fluid. If he can stay in his bubble offensively and attack the rim and shoot only when he is wide open, I think he will be okay.
I agree with this - he does look like a better player this year. I think the important thing to consider here is fit with the roster - we don't need to judge these players in a vacuum because it leads to ridiculous arguments about whether a player has the right skill set to play on the average NBA floor - and clearly we don't need to care about that. All we care about is how does he fit with this offense & how does he fit with this defense. As noted before, KJ is a decent cutter and clearly is an effective finisher and that amounts to something when Harden is drawing so much of the opponents defensive focus. When looking at KJ as a shooter though it's important to note that as long as he is playing with Harden, he is not just going to get 3pt shots - he is going to get relatively open 3pt shots. That makes a difference because obviously most players shoot better percentages the farther away their opponents are and McDaniels has to date rarely benefited from playing along side an above average creator who can get him those types of looks. I also have to look at the other players on this roster - not a lot of natural off ball cutters aside from Gordon and not a lot of multiple position defenders aside from Ariza. Even if D'Antoni wasn't the coach of this team, I would compare KJ to a very poor man's Shawn Marion and as a bench guy on this team - that's a valuable asset given how much he costs us. I think you absolutely have to give KJ a longer leash because if he can grow into a Shaw Marion type player, he would be a very nice fit on this roster for a long time. Remember Shawn was not a particularly great shooter for much of his career. At some point you have to take the Pops approach and just focus on what a player does well(in KJ's case - it's defense), and try to grow that into an elite skill instead of wasting too much time trying to improve on their weaknesses. In other words, work on the shot but work on defense more.
Didn't we get him for Canaan and couple 2nds? We're good if he turns out to be in the rotation. We'll see if he can defend quicker athletic guys like Westbrook, Paul, Curry because if he can then he could get a lot of burn. Let's face it Ariza and Brewer can't. Bev and KJ are gonna have to check the PGs so that James can guard their weakest player. It's Dekker I'm worried about. What does he do well?
