I thought I'd create a thread to discuss the good things that have happened this season. 1) Alperen Sengun has been a revelation. His 3pt shot does not seem far off and he is elite in the post and as a big passer. Players who average 20 points, 10 rebounds, 5 assists and almost 2 blocks are rare and highly successful in the NBA. He has shown he can make it there and that's a very exciting asset. 2) Jalen Green has not improved at much except adding a little bit of muscle and getting to the line at an elite rate for a 20 year old (and a skinny one at that). In a league where fouls are more easily called, speed/quickness is going to thrive more than ever and our guy has an elite first step. If we can complete the weapon and improve his finishing at the rim with intense training and adding bulk, we will have a hell of a weapon on our team. Jalen's free throw rate is one of the best positive indicators I've seen out of our rookies. 3) Tari Eason is extremely raw. Extremely. Like he has to play a lot of basketball and get a lot of coaching before becoming a starter. However, he has shown exceptional defense (one of the best in his draft class) and his 3pter although not the prettiest thing in the world is dropping at almost 36%. These are solid fundamentals which will allow us to utilize him sooner rather than later. If you can hit 3's and play good defense, you're automatically an NBA rotation player. If he does those things slightly better next season with a little more muscle and some NBA experience under his belt I think we will have a really special super role player. I can see a more energetic OG Anunoby kind of future for him. 4) Jabari Smith's defense has been excellent. I think he's probably the best overall defender in his draft class and that's half the game. For a rookie he's way ahead of schedule here and I think he can develop into a pure perimeter guy but I also think there's an opportunity to train him to anchor a defense. He has the mentality for it but in terms of strength he's 2+ years away from it. I believe it won't take long next season for Jabari to get recognized as one of the best young defenders in the NBA. His last 4 games have been very promising offensively. 5) Garuba's 3pt shot makes it possible we will at least recoup the investment we made in him. It's easy to forget he's ultra young in the NBA and I think in a year or two he will be at minimum an excellent backup C. I think we can use that or get value for it in trade. 6) I love Tyty Washington's potential. I love what I've seen from him despite his 3pt shot and floater disappearing. A common theme among our core is that all of them need to get much stronger, we have a uniquely skinny core. We're going to see a lot of easy growth just from weightlifting. I hope Tyty gets a lot more reps this season and this summer he will know what he has to do to make it in the NBA. I know that if he outplays KPJ next season, they will prefer him over KPJ. Tanking time is over. 7) We have given A LOT of minutes to EXTREMELY young players. It's honestly a good experiment and there is not a lot of precedent for tanking so hard and drafting so fast+young. We've taken a very extreme approach and I really think it's smart to give a ton of minutes to the kids. I feel like we've gotten a lot of the stupid mistakes out of the way simultaneously with like 7 draft picks and we're going to benefit from that in the future (in the form of more rapid growth season to season). I don't agree that just because they didn't run the thing with the winning culture described by some that there wasn't an opportunity for these kids to grow even if the stats don't show it while tanking. I'm glad Jalen Green understood just how hard it is to be one of the best backcourts in the NBA. I'm glad KPJ saw that he is not James Harden. I'm glad Alpi had to play in an uncomfortable role and adapt and never stop improving. Really good things have happened for our future this season. I've often said, a culture change is a matter of changing the coaching staff and 2-3 veterans. Maybe even the head honcho. We have a really good core that meshes well together and I'm super excited about the draft (whether we pick 1st or 5th) and next season. I really think you guys are too down on these kids, the tanking has made them look much worse than they actually are.
Oohhhh damn I thought you were talking about the fanbase lol I was like guy, not a single person on here is saying
I agree on Sengun. I agree that Jalen has the speed to get to the line and has a good chance to be a scoring machine, but I can’t call it a good thing that he hasn’t really taken the step we needed to see this year. Next year will be pivotal. Tari and Sengun were my favorite positive things that happened this year. Can’t put Jabari on this list of positive things unless he finishes out the season strong (I’ve liked what I’ve seen the last couple games). I think he’s gonna be good long term. I like Garuba and have been excited to see the shooting; he’s definitely been a positive this year. But I think he’s the example of a developmental prospect and we have a bunch of those on the team already. If we make a big trade that clears some significant roster space, I’d love to keeping developing Garuba because he appears to be a hard worker (despite being a little plump), but we need size and that’s not Garuba. agreed TyTy has looked like a positive so far. Not sure why he’s not getting more court time while Nix is getting 35 min the other night. I thought we are trying to figure out what we have in our best prospects? 1st round pick vs udfa and one is clearly a better prospect? Makes no sense what Silas is doing. I’d add KJ to the list of positives. It’s year 3 for him and he has gotten better every year. Thats all you can really ask for and whether or not he sticks with the team he’s pumped his value up to 1st round pick status.
Top 6 pick Tons of assets Tons of cap space Possible superstar wanting to sign here. It's not all bad.
Even though its frustrating what this season has turned into, their is the positive side that can't get any worse next season and we have set ourselves up to be way better off in the future. Torture to watch us lose game after game, but all we can do is grit our teeth and get on with it and see the bright side of it if you will. Sengun has been immense and if works on the defensive part of his game will be elite, and agree with the other young guys and your take on them also. Might not seem like it, but we are still way better off than a lot of other teams.
I’m going to laugh my ass off at the meltdowns on this forum if Silas doesn’t get fired this offseason
ha . . . that was the thinking of many of us who predicted 20-25+ wins THIS season. We figured last year it couldn't get any worse. Boy, were we wrong.
Well yeah I ws in the same boat haha. But got to keep the positivity going, has to work at some point right?
Again, Green upped his ppg by 5 while dropping his ts% by one. This is in context with the roster being very much worse than last year such as Jabari replacing Wood or having a vet pg like Augustine or Dennis. He is also the center of perimeter defense attention. So dropping your ts% by 1 and upping your ppg by 5 while experiencing defenses gameplaning for you for the first time(starting line ups of opposing teams change because of Green) with a worse supporting cast around you means you had to improve. And if you payed attention he has significantly improved in things like ball handling and strength.
9) KJM is a friggin monster and anyone that was okay with trading him a while ago look like big ole dummies now
This team has size, talent, and athleticism. For them to be as bad as they are is almost miraculous. I could be happy about these 'good things' if I wasn't burdened with perspective of what the team should be.
