FWIW, my money is on "shot themselves in the foot (again)" - because they're the Hawks. But I've seen enough flashes from Young in the Summer League highlights clips to not feel as morose as I did when Schlenk passed on Doncic. What's more, he's a prospect that has national media types talking about the Hawks and casual fans giving the Hawks some buzz, which is pretty weird; we didn't have any real buzz when the Hawks won 60 games and grabbed the #1 seed. So that's nice, I guess.
Imo; Young is already a really good finisher under the rim; with a capable floater game and with good touch on layups. He isn’t at Kyrie’s level; but who is? I think he isn’t that far away from Curry’s skill attacking the rim.
His floater game shows a lot of promise, but I think you're underrating how good Curry is at the rim in terms of creativity and finishing. Young uses his floater so much because he can't finish well enough at the rim, from what I can see.
Totally agree that the comps can be lazy, and the difference between Young and Kyrie/Curry is enormous now. My main point was that being 6'2"/6'3" isn't death, even in 2018. We have become obsessed with 6'7"/6'8" switchability. Such a thing is awesome, but it's not like anyone is sitting down Curry or Kyrie at crunch time because defense. I used Curry as a comparison because his resume is the most obscene, and the mantle joke works better.
I agree with all this. To finish the discussion, I'd say that while being 6-2 without wingspan isn't death by any means, it puts a ton of pressure on that player to be extremely elite offensively in order to stay on the floor, which in turn narrows (not eliminates!) the paths/equity that player has to being a championship contributor.
Agreed plus he's not nearly strong enough to play in the NBA right now.
Hadn't thought of this point, and I love it. It's a very clean way to restore normal PnR defense and reduce the endless engineering of isos, without a drastic rule change.
And I’m confident they’ll do something eventually, because it threatens to return us to the boring, isolation-focused hero ball that the league has worked so hard to move past. The C’s need to worry about how to hide Kyrie in next year’s playoffs, but by the time Trae Young is playing games in May, the problem will have been addressed.
Kyrie was 15 lbs heavier with the frame to support his size and CP3 was always an elite defender so he isn't a good comp. I mean sure.....you can say that Trae can be Steph, Isaiah or even Nash but they are the anomalies over the past 25 years and not the norm
I think Young could gain 10 to 15lbs over the next ten seasons. I don’t think he is ever going to be an above average defender, but he isn’t going to be in a situation like IT; who was always significantly the smallest player on the court.
Fwiw, over their careers, Curry has been a significantly more accurate finisher at the rim than Irving.
Well I didn’t preface that video by saying he was a great finisher around the rim because he made that specific shot. In college and just in SL; he has shown the ability to make a lot of difficult shots around the rim. Maybe he isn’t one of the best in the world at doing that; but he has a ton of potential.
The Celtics have played 8 games in 11 days, has Jabari played in all of them? It's common to give guys days off to manage rest during these insane stretches of games.
You've got to use context though. How many of Curry's finishes uncontested due to spacing or numbers on a break? Nearly all of Kyrie's come off halfcourt sets where he is negotiating through defenders in the paint.
It's not quite that many, today is their 5th summer league game in 8 days, Bird was one of 9 guys to play in all of the first 4, the other 8 are all playing again today.
Yup, exactly. Also, as SRN notes, Kyrie takes a higher % of shots at the rim than Steph. You don't get an extra point for those shots, but taking more 2-pointers that you shoot 57%+ on is a massively winning proposition. It's equivalent to shooting 38% from 3, with a higher chance of drawing fouls. Anyway, enough about how awesome Kyrie is and how even awesomer Steph is, back to summer league.
I clicked the video expecting to see a highlight reel of awesome layups. I saw one fluke shot, then it repeated, and I clicked my video player again, thinking it had glitched lol. Nope, just one fluke layup.
Yeah, that's fair. I don't doubt Curry's raw "at rim" numbers get a bump from the Warriors fast pace and motion offense; I just don't know how one would even begin to go about quantifying that adjustment. I was just pushing back on the idea that Curry's finishing skills are an easily attainable bar for young Trae Young ("he isn’t that far away from Curry’s skill attacking the rim") Curry's elite at finishing, just as he's great-to-elite at most everything else (shooting obviously, plus passing, rebounding, running around screens, setting screens, team defense, golf, choosing which US Presidents to befriend, having children, etc.)
I am not sure he needs to even get 4 or 5 years. His competition for best player under 6'4" is who? Chris Paul, Jerry West, and John Stockton? West is a tough one to even consider for his height was in no way the hindrance it is in todays game.
Not sure I buy this.
I meant Thomas is top 10 under 6'4", I didn't mean to be ordering them. Maybe he's below those other eight guys.
And Steve Nash. How quickly he's forgotten in this conversation.Yes, Steph Curry
