PJ Tucker is an extremely limited offensive player. He shoots nothing but wide open corner threes and assisted layups. He never gets to the free throw line (less than 1 FTA per 36), has no handle, nor any post moves. I like PJ Tucker but he has benefited from playing in HOU immensely.
Grant was even more limited than that last year, by his own doing IMO. He reminded me of early Theis in that regard. Sure, he'd take the open three, garbage rebound, screen well, and make a pass. But he was so drilled into the moving-with-purpose-good-basketball-plays mode, that defenders could flock away from him most of the time. The ball was a hot potato. It would be better if he felt comfortable attacking the rim when he's disregarded, and his college film shows a guy that can.
Yeah, since he’s been on Houston, he’s been at about 70% 3PAr and 12% FTr, with nearly 70% of those threes coming from the corner. Those are crazy numbers, but a lot of that is the Rockets’ system. He was around 40/22/70, respectively for those stats, with Phoenix. FWIW, Grants usage last year was Tucker’s career average. And keep in mind Tucker basically first started (outside a handful of minutes in his rookie year) his career at 27 after a long stretch in Europe.
The hopes for Grant and Romeo are the same, but neither guy was anywhere as good as rookies as Smart and Brown. Romeo couldn’t stay healthy to get on the court, and when he did, he was horrible at the offensive end, and ok for a rookie on defense.
Fact. With the slight caveat that the Celtics 2015 and 2017 Celtics weren't quite as good as the 2020 Celtics, Brown/Smart got far more run than Grant/Romeo as rookies:
The stats you cite don’t support the proposition you cite them for. As rookies, Jaylen played 17.3 mpg and Grant Williams played 15.1. I’m not sure we can read much into that difference. Smart was clearly both better and more trusted (he played 27 mpg as a rookie).
I brought it up originally and was comparing Grant to Marcus (solid defense, questions on offense) and Romeo to Jaylen (athletic with questions about fundamentals especially outside shooting).
An extra 2 mpg and 9 additional games comes out to 28.5% more minutes, which is not insignificant (and Brown played 215 playoff minutes to 170 for Grant in the playoffs). The shortened season is an obvious mitigating factor, but no matter how you slice it:
This makes more sense, although I think it's drastically underselling Marcus' role as a rookie (noted above, but 27 mpg and 38 starts is worlds apart from what Grant provided last year) and overselling Romeo's. The latter really didn't show anything positive last year, other than that he isn't a defensive liability against backups (plus his upside is far lower than Brown's).
How do we know the long layoff didn't help young players develop their game more than usual?
I don't think that anyone thinks that Romeo is nearly as explosive as Jaylen, and he gives away length as well. But he is sneaky athletic and profiles as JB lite imo. Potential secondary scorer, good in transition, good defender. If he had Brown's twitch and body, he's not on the board at 14.
The 27.5% figure is deceptive because, as you note, the season was shorter. The difference is 2 mpg, which is about 13%. It’s also a small enough difference that role flexibility potentially explains the gap.
Yeah, I dunno. I don’t think think Romeo’s particularly athletic for an NBA SG, so it struck me to see him compared to Jaylen on the basis of athleticism, as that was JB’s major selling point coming out of Cal. I think people like to try to contextualize new guys by comparing them to known quantities, but I don’t think JB is a particularly useful frame of reference for Langford, who I think is better thought of as a potential secondary ball handler, who hopefully can run the PnR if a couple of things break right, as opposed to an uber-slasher like JB.
Yeah, it would be ideal if he became a secondary ballhandler at his height, but it doesn't seem to be his bread and butter. Imo if he ever earns big minutes on this team, his offensive contributions will likely be as a slasher (and shooter) because he doesn't seem to do much else. I'd love to be wrong and see him turn into a combo guard, but that's why I see him as poor man's JB too.
I’m a bit bearish on his ball-handling too from what we’ve seen, but I absolutely think PnR ball-handler potential was part of the appeal in drafting him. We had posters here who’ve penciled him in for PG minutes, which I always thought was a stretch. For the team’s sake, I hope we’re both wrong because a Jaylen with average athleticism who can’t really shoot yet is a pretty meh prospect.
I think his most obvious comp for top end is DeMar DeRozan, similar size, couldn't shoot the 3, entered the league as a limited passer, high emphasis on FTs and finishing. Romeo is a better defender, but not the mid-range shooter young DeRozan was.
Is that the chair that Acie Earl owned in his tryout?
Ha! And thus his The Chairman nickname.
It's funny, this was the shortest offseason in NBA history (and with the Celtics going deep into the playoffs there are less than 3 months between games that count), but it feels like it's been a year. 2020 has been both motionless and never ending.
yeah, those appear to be some half speed or less walkthroughs, he's not really running hard or jumping or doing anything that would stress the hammy, just getting used to the sets, and his teammates
That's the first thing I thought too, because they showed Tatum's jumper going in. Guess Grant's didn't.
Agreed. Sounds like at least one player screamed, "And one!" after every made basket.
It is not just you. He looks beefier up by the shoulders to me. The Tatum dream machine is coming to life.
