Thanks to POBOBS, he will not be getting that paycheck: Kornet has a team option next year at $2.4M.
Between Kornet and Hauser, some nice indentured servitude coups for Stevens.
The Unikornet
- Thread starter kazuneko
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Between Kornet and Hauser, some nice indentured servitude coups for Stevens.
No doubt they are not good for the player.... but of course they only get put in when the team has all the leverage.
Brad doing a nice job of finding rotation/fringe rotation guys that no one else is really too interested in. They're willing to take the team option(s) down the road to secure a guaranteed paycheck.
Kornet’s offensive development has been a big part of his emergence. He’s remarkably become something of a rim runner, and - somewhat improbably- the reverse dunk has become his signature shot. He’s now at 15 straight shots without a miss, including a sweet 15ft hook shot last night. Still needs to hit 20 more straight to match Wilt’s all-time record, but it’s definitely been fun to watch.
Lol..not likely to happen, but there is a possibility that he could break the non-Wilt consecutive shot record. As far as I can tell, 18 straight by Serge Ibaka (in 2018) is the most consecutive shots anyone has made other than Wilt.
Just the sheer implausibility of a 7'2" almost-below-the-rim rin runner makes it all the more fun. He also moves pretty well for someone who is that tall and the least athletic looking guy on the team, and has gotten pretty good at gurading the rim against ordinary guards/wings (emphasis on ordinary, he's not stopping Ja Morant
).
I love Xander, but acquiring him, at the cost of retaining Machado, seems like a bad decision.Just the sheer implausibility of a 7'2" almost-below-the-rim rin runner makes it all the more fun. He also moves pretty well for someone who is that tall and the least athletic looking guy on the team, and has gotten pretty good at gurading the rim against ordinary guards/wings (emphasis on ordinary, he's not stopping Ja Morant
Looks like the Internet is already starting to dribble around the edges...
Blake said in his post game interview that the bird sign Kornet did in game is a Cornish Game Hen. Is he now the Game Hen?
I think you’re underrating Kornet. He’s presently the backup center on the best team in the league and performing well in his role.
A lot of his seeming unathleticism/lack of force early in the year might have just been getting over the ankle and back to game speed. He does not look physically out of place on the floor anymore.
Yes. I look at him now and think "how has this guy been bouncing around the league for 5 years?"
I’m a huge believer is overall “system” play across team sports. @benhogan just recently posted about why individuals ratings might not be the best way to evaluate a player because of that. And the value of Grant Williams for a contract and why it might be worth more to the Celtics than some other teams…
It just seems to me that this team
shows how much overall team construction leads to effectiveness, which the. leads back to how players are perceived.
Which I think is what you guys are getting at.
Kind of? I think Kornet is also just legitimately a better and more athletic player than I thought he was. The system is giving him a chance to show that, but most of this is him playing a lot better (and maybe being healthier).
I think we are in agreement; I mean the system maybe gives him the opportunity to maximize his ability.
Maybe this is too much Brad worship, but the idea that he might be able to identify that he would work here…
One way or another, the Celtics have him doing better than anyone expected, yeah?
Which is, of course, awesome. For whatever reason.
I think the system works at least for the bench in part because Luke is executing it so well.
I think he was miscast on offense when he came into the league, shooting mostly corner threes at a pretty good clip and not doing much else. Now he's screening for the primary initiatior on offense or setting very good off-ball screens to get other shooters open. I think he's definitely stronger than when he came into the league, less afraid of playing under the basket, and that helps, but he also knows where to be at all times and is making an extraordinary effort to get his teammates open.
As for rim protection... The guy has blocked shots everywhere he's gotten minutes to the tune of 2.1/36 for his career.. But those were some bad Knicks and Bulls teams he was on, and I think his skill on defense went unnoticed because there was no system for him to fit into. He's really bought in: bench teams don't want to drive at him and so they settle for inefficient midrange shots. Sooner or later -when the C's hit some threes - they get buried.
I thought he played really well for the C's in the ~250 minutes he got back in 2021. Competent defensively, a huge breath of fresh air after TT. He's showing out now though.
I think he was miscast on offense when he came into the league, shooting mostly corner threes at a pretty good clip and not doing much else. Now he's screening for the primary initiatior on offense or setting very good off-ball screens to get other shooters open. I think he's definitely stronger than when he came into the league, less afraid of playing under the basket, and that helps, but he also knows where to be at all times and is making an extraordinary effort to get his teammates open.
As for rim protection... The guy has blocked shots everywhere he's gotten minutes to the tune of 2.1/36 for his career.. But those were some bad Knicks and Bulls teams he was on, and I think his skill on defense went unnoticed because there was no system for him to fit into. He's really bought in: bench teams don't want to drive at him and so they settle for inefficient midrange shots. Sooner or later -when the C's hit some threes - they get buried.
I thought he played really well for the C's in the ~250 minutes he got back in 2021. Competent defensively, a huge breath of fresh air after TT. He's showing out now though.
He also doesn't complain when a bad call goes against him. I am not one to dwell on that, but when it is compared to Tatum and Grant and a few others, it is nice to see
I have a theory that centers have the best senses of humor. This adds a bit of evidence to that.
Somewhere at a Shreveport, LA high school basketball game sits Stromile Swift in utter amazement that his name was mentioned in a 2022 NBA presser.
I’m surprised this thread has had 135 responses with no discussion of “the Kornet contest”.
Just saw this image on Reddit which gives a good perspective on what it looks like from the shooter’s perspective. It’s an interesting innovation but one thing that is unclear is how effective it has been.
Scal swears that it’s rarely failed, and some guy on Reddit claims that only 3 of 15 attempts against it have succeeded. Seems like more attempts have probably been tried, but subjectively it has felt that it’s been largely effective.
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I'm not going to go through video of all Celtics' opponents shots against the Kornet Kontest, but from memory, I'd be surprised if teams are over 25% against it.
One problem, as Mazzulla noted yesterday, is that it gets Luke very off-balance against a pump and go, and guys have started to attack it that way.
It's a weird play because of this distance, but also the timing. He needs to anticipate the shot and be up there when the shot is taken. It does leave him vulnerable to a drive.
Saw this yesterday and thought about posting it, guess I should have!
View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-3FkAMAAuRk
Always fun to discuss and that Heat Check video is great. Go back to post 4 in this thread to see more discussion of the process
Crazy both that that channel has 602K subscribers, and that humanity is incentivized to produce in-depth video on the Kornet Kontest without being asked.
People still don't fully understand the impact of wiring everyone up, socially and financially, into a 24/7 hivemind.
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I'm not going to argue with the coach, but is he more vulnerable than he would be if he was on the ground and closer to the shooter?
I can see how the defense is effective. I'm surprised no one has wondered if Kornet has ever played volleyball because that is pretty close to a textbook block form (two foot set jump, arms straight up, hands joined in the middle). Kornet sometimes moves forward in the air though, which is not something you would do in volleyball for obvious reasons. Timing your jump with that of the offensive player is pretty much what you do in volleyball so the pump and go isn't an option if Kornet executes this correctly.
The biggest issue with this move is that it takes him wildly out of rebounding position. But with a three pointer I'm guessing it's less of a concern given the increasing likelihood of a long rebound. I'm sure the coaching staff is clued in on this stuff a lot better than I am so they know what they're doing giving him the green light on these.
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Given today's shooting skills, I wonder if the prevailing internal idea is, "first job is to make him miss. We'll worry about the rebound after"?
My mind's eye of long ago is that defenders were more focused on boxing out the shooter on the long jumper than contesting it.
The Celtics are (surprisingly) 6th in defensive rebounding, and do it with a lot of gang rebounding. I think the team is quite comfortable with the ability of the other guys to secure misses.
Luke plays drop coverage and loses all of his defensive powers being out on the perimeter. He also primarily guards the worst outside shooter. So I wouldn't expect him to be on the ground, up close to an outside shooter, in a good guarding position like a wing should be.
Brooks Lopez should start it up. AND if it really works TimeLord with his reach/jumping ability/rim protection would be a menace for the opponent's worst shooter, while protecting the rim in his free safety role
Good Kornet Contest talk. I haven't watched every minute, but pretty much all of them. I've seen his long-distance contest beaten maybe twice. Sure, it puts him out of position in the sense that nobody is now guarding the rim probably. I think that its effectiveness is currently based in its weirdness. We'll see. Wouldn't be surprised if people start shooting typical "open" numbers against it eventually.
Weirdness, novelty, and him guarding the worst 3pt shooter are probably the causes.
Wouldn't be surprised if he mixes in a hand clap or jazz hands
when he leaps, he's just goofy enough to pull it off