He has done it against the teams on the schedule - for the year he is shooting 49% from 3 and 51% from 2…. and in 22 minutes a game is scoring 13 points a night. The only thing he hasn’t really done is draw fouls. This is what he is, he hasn’t cherry picked a couple teams with GLeague players to exploit. I would keep him on the bench for now - but this is who he is.
Don't worry, after his second MVP and on a night has the flu and shoots 2 for 10 from 3 they will all come back as strong as ever.
I've tried to stay out of the Reed threads as it seemed like there is too much overreaction both ways. It reminds me of when Amen had a bit of a rough start to his career, and so many people thought he was a huge bust. It seems most of CF is on board with Reed now, but I do expect him to have some rough shooting here and there. That happens. Probably even happened to start the season. I actually thought he was getting to his spots fairly easily early in the season, but he was just missing the shots. Making shots is pretty important, but I was fairly confident he'd be able to make those shots given enough reps. Up until fairly recently, my biggest issues with Reed have been his tentativeness (aka lack of confidence) and his poor defense. On the latter, it wasn't necessarily his inability to defend but seemingly his aversion to physicality (also some poor defensive fundamentals at times). He did look better to start this season, but I felt like he was still pretty bad at this in the preseason and to start the season. He's slowly looking better here (though it depends on matchups/etc.). Even with those matchups against Franz where he got called for fouls, I like that better than simply giving up on those plays. Honestly with some officials, I don't know if they would have called each of those fouls, and there's a chance Reed successfully defends an all-star level talent while at a huge size mismatch. I'll take that. Obviously his deflections, steals, blocks, etc are great, but I'm definitely more interested in his "regular" defense. Still very much a WIP, but I think he is becoming playable on that end of the court. As for confidence, that doesn't seem to be much of a problem right now. We'll see how he looks when teams adjust and/or the shots stop going in for a longer stretch, but hopefully he can still find ways to score given the lineups on this team. A bit longer term, I'd like to see more on-ball reps, but I think he should focus on these simple actions first (with simple decision making). He can still flash his vision, passing, etc even when not getting a ton of these reps. For similar reasons, I'm fine with him staying on the bench for now. If he continues to score at a high level for a longer stretch and/or starts flashing more of those high level playmaking/on-ball skills, then maybe it's time to reconsider things. Even if he's coming off the bench, he can get 25-30mpg if he's producing well, so not really that big of a deal IMO.
Personally, I LOVED THIS! Bane was being an ass and trying to intimidate/taunt Reed, so he gave him a little somethin' somethin'. Reed is a ball player and I'm sure he's been in these situations before growing up, where another player is testing you and like any bully you punch them in the nose or trip their sorry ass.
Yeah, it's weird. When he sits in the corner he rarely sees the ball. There are good chunks of time (like last night) where he doesn't take a shot. When the kid's on we need to do a better job of feeding him the ball. He's so unselfish he doesn't hunt his shot enough.
Reed's grin at the beginning of the Orlando game when he was draining the deep ones showed he's really started to realise that he can actually do what he did in college. I genuinely didn't think he had it in him tbh but I'm super happy he's turned around and become probably more on the offensive end than the pundits gave him credit for. I still think he's got a couple of years to get to Fred level on defense but tbh he's such an electric and efficient shooter when he's on that it just more than offsets the weaknesses there when you also factor in his over-gambling does actually get him a lot of steals and blocks and deflections. Reed when he's playing as good as he has the last few games looks far more like the PG of the future than Amen tbh. He's actually the first of our young draft picks who wasn't TyTy who actually does look like a real PG.
It's been interesting to watch him learn a balance of aggression and fundamentals. The past couple of games, the stocks numbers have been down a bit, but he also hasn't been BBQ chicken in targets on defense. It'll be curious to see as the season progresses if teams find ways to spam ISOs against him -- it's become less frequent, and I can't quite tell if it's new scouting, change in approach, or just matchups.
it's getting kinda of weird the barriers to entry people are placing on Reed. Feels like usually top 3 picks get a loooooooooooooong runway to start games and figure things out...
With both Sengun and KD getting doubled there's no way there isnt enough space for Jabari. He is the one who is supposed to provide spacing with his 3.
Nothing he is doing here is something he can't do in the NBA. Look at those off ball actions they run for him to get open shots. Double pin downs ala Steph. Ime... what are we doing bro. Run some plays for the man.
Reed is top 15 - 20 in BPM, VORP, and WS/48 min. No one higher than him is younger than him. What does this mean?
The shooting is probably a little overheated right now, so those numbers will come down when the 3P% does. No reason he can't end up being a 42 - 45% three point shooter though.
I think high draft picks actually have a lot more scrutiny and expectations to produce quickly, especially if their team is in dire need of talent. The spotlight is on them because of their draft position. How much runway did Markelle Fultz, Lonzo Ball, and Scoot Henderson get? Jabari's another example. He really struggled his rookie year and fans were not patient. His poor shooting is kind of forgotten now that he's settled into his role, but people at the time really thought his form was broken and were criticizing the arc on his shot and everything.
It means for 1, BPM, VORP, and WS/48 min are all similar. For 2, it means while BPM, VORP, and WS/48 min are data points, there are better, newer metrics that should be used instead. Granted, the better metrics take more time to adjust such that they underrate Reed at the moment, IMO. I like Reed, but BPM, VORP, and WS/48 min all use steals and blocks highly to rate defense. These are things Reed does well, but those stats don't measure what Reed sucks at.
As long as he can maintain 40% from 3PT land, the opportunities to attack close outs, drive&dish and pick&pop will be available. I think he has a solid game. That jumper forces defenders to guard him very close and that opens all his other weapons up. Defensively if he can maintain this elite steals rate (2.6 steals per 36) then he can hang off the bench. Udoka didn't count him among the "3 playmakers that are learning" so maybe they just see him as more of an undersized SG at the moment. They played him with Holiday too. Might be a good way to get production out of him while he works on his floor general game. Really like his game. He has that jumper down to where he can do a snatch-back step-back 3 smooth AF. That's as difficult as a jumper gets.
The big key for him on this team, with this coach, is going to be pestering Fred all the time to teach him how to play above-average man defense as a small guard. If he can get there, a starting backcourt job is his for the taking.
Yeah, trying to fit in with vets, limited touches can make your conference waver. I mean we seen Horry struggle with it and he was a 4 yr player and sec player of the year. Reed is progressing nicely. To me his next step is to demand the ball in the backcourt. I don't like the idea of Alpi bringing the ball up and turning his back to the defense.
