So could Troy Daniels. And outshooting Lin is a very low bar to hit. My hope is he becomes this generation's Scott Brooks on Bulls v Lakers on Genesis.
Watching early season college hoops last year...and I see this kid for UK just draining jumpshots: off the dribble, off screens, spot up, pull up, whatever. And some of these 3's are 5 feet back from the college line. "Well, damn, this guy can shoot" genius me says. I think I'll watch more of their games. Now it's a year later, and I know it's only 2 idiot summer league games later, but that same kid is shooting those same shots but now some of those 3's are 5 feet beyond the NBA line
Spurs... surprisingly to me... learned that lesson. 6'11 jump shooting no defense playing bigs are not superstars, no badly how badly they torched the Rox in their career.
He averaged like 40PPG vs the rockets in the playoffs for a series. If you don't think Jabari giving that level of production is worth keeping I don't know what to tell you.
As I said, throw away his production versus the Rox. Small sample size. Either way, look at them. LA is broader in the shoulders, significantly. LA knew how to dip in to create small space for his turnaround. Jabari has not (yet) developed that. If he does, I love it. But even with it, I wouldn't want to rely upon in a playoff situation.
My main concern with Jabari is mental. He hangs his head in the low moments. I need him to believe, beyond reality, that he is that man. He needs to KNOW that he is that man.
I got bored and looked up the deflection stats for these 2 Summer League games. Reed has 18 deflections in those games (10 game 1, 8 game 2). That's....a lot. WAS overall only had 8. I knew it was high (and I expected him to do well there), but seeing the exact number still kinda surprised me. Maybe someone already shared those numbers, but it is probably worth repeating. He sure does gets his hands on a lot of balls. <insert Eric Gordon's "Oh my" here>
I see Reedrum and Cambreezy go well together. Mr Robinson joined the party as well. Another great game! Too bad this was Whitmores last game in the summer league. They would have definitely won the league championship with him playing all the way through. Still might though.
Reed Sheppard? After what I saw this SL better start calling him Roy Sheppard amirite? Haha #someonecomegettheirdad for real though this kid is gonna win ROY. Steal of the draft.
Crazy enough, it didn't matter, he still scored 22 at an efficient 65.5%TS% while dominating everywhere else.
Jabari may finish as a better 3-pt shooter than LMA, but that's it. He'll never command as much defensive attention as LMA did. LMA was a very efficient mid-range, volume shooter who was a savvy scorer. IMO, what kept him from being a superstar is he didn't draw enough fouls and he earned the nickname "ole 1 for 2" (his # was 12) when going to the FT line in clutch situations. I followed the Blazers very closely during the Brandon Roy years that few people remember. If Jabari gets his nerves together and stops overthinking, he might pump in 20 ppg a few times in his career. I have doubts that will happen.
