re: 2023 Pels NBA Draft Discussion

Benching Trey for Richardson is a major red flag for Willie. Really really concerning decision making there

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Trey was moved to the bench for Josh Richardson after the trade deadline for no other reason than JR was a vet. Trey also couldn't get any playing time his rookie year while we were playing garrett temple.

Just inexplicable decisions thats backed by no logic.

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or maybe not back by facts.

Trey got 2 DNP's in his first 36 games. and 8 of those games he play less than 5 minutes. He played 20mpg and play in the first 13 games, and those minutes decreased to 10mpg in the next 23 games. he shot 34% from 3
GT played 22mpg in those first 13 games, and shot 37% from 3. He played 18mpg in the next 26 games, and shot 39% from 3.

It's ok to say Trey struggled a bit out of the gate, which is normal and acceptable for rookies picked 17th. GT was actually doing ok

It was at that 36 game mark where things went haywire.
GT shot 17% from 3 over the next 22 games, seeing his minutes start to decrease more and getting 3 DNPs towards the end.
Trey barely played at all during that time, getting 16 DNP's.

Then GT got benched and didn't play again for the last 22 games, except the last 3 games, and didn't play in the playoffs except for 2 shitty minutes in a blowout win.
Trey on the other hand played 20mpg in the last 17 games shooting 44% from 3, and then proceeded to play 20mpg in the playoffs shooting 48% from 3.


Not sure why this is inexplicable to you. A rookie was given minutes to start the season, started off slow, was given time to sit back and watch the game and work on a few things, and came back and had a great end to his rookie season.



Just so you can have some context, Maxey played 17mpg in his first 30 games, showed promise but struggled as he shot 28% from 3. He then got 8 DNPs over the next 26 games, and only played 10mpg in the ones he played, and still was only shooting 27% from 3.
Last 18 games of the season he plays 19mpg, and starts shooting 36% from 3, and then played in all 12 playoff games.





Ricardson was here for 25 games. He played 23mpg in 23 of them, and shot 39% from 3 and played good D.
He didn't take any minutes away from Trey, who played 34mpg in those 25 games, which is 3 minutes more than he averaged over the season, starting 21 of them while Richardson started 2.
Naji's minutes went from 26 to 19 once Richardson came aboard. Dyson's went from 19 to 13, and he had a few DNP's.




Stop with this stupidity that Willie hates playing rookies and would rather a vet play over them.

The problem is you're being too absolutist here. I get where you're coming from, and it's generally a good rule of thumb. Part of why we're so excited about Trey and Dyson is they've shown so much so early because that does usually mean something in the NBA.

However, this team currently has a lot of guards and wings. If we draft another rookie with a similar skill set and they're a 79, but all the guys a head of them besides Naji are low 80s, is that rookie bad because he can't beat out older guys with similar skill sets that are more developed?

That's what you're saying in fairly absolute terms about a situation with a bunch of unknowns and asterisks right now.

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So why draft a raw center 8th overall if you arent willing to live through the growing pains?

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To be fair, Jaxson is the one that's really failed to live up to his potential more than the Pels failed to develop him. I was really surprised at how much run he got early under SVG. He was so bad either Stan really hated Billy's defense, or the front office made a deal with Stan that he had to play one of the kids regularly and he chose Jax over NAW.

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Why not start jax his first 2 years, and see what you have in him before realizing he sucks and going out and getting a center?

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I don't think that would have changed anything other than the waste of assets by straddling. I also don't think anyone has ever defended the straddling. I could maybe see it in year 1 of Zion when you don't know what you had in anyone and you still had Jrue. But trading Jrue should have stopped the straddling.

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I don't think that would have changed anything other than the waste of assets by straddling. I also don't think anyone has ever defended the straddling. I could maybe see it in year 1 of Zion when you don't know what you had in anyone and you still had Jrue. But trading Jrue should have stopped the straddling.

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In no way do i think it would have changed the outcome of Jax. Like I said its the straddling of positions that's made no sense and cost assets as a result

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well first of all, it's stupid to draft a raw center 8th overall, and history is very clear on that.

secondly, the point of me pointing out that he played in 90% of his games his 1st two years, and we had to give up assets to get rid of our starting center each of those 2 years, and he still was no where near in contention to be our starting center should tell you all you need to know about Jaxson as a starting center in this league. He was without a doubt given the opportunity to be a starter for us, and he simply isn't good enough.
Are you trying to convince me that if he played 25mpg instead of 17mpg he'd be better right now?

You think Jarrett Allen was given more of a chance?
That terrible Nets team started Mozgov the first 13 games of the season. He sucked, so then they started Tyler Zeller over the next 37 games. Rookie Jarrett Allen was imporessing in his 16mpg he was getting, while he did have 10 DNP's during those first 50 games, but he took over the starting position for the last 22 games and has never looked back since.

Very similar situation in that you don't expect a rookie to come in and start at center, but you give him minutes, and make him earn it. Jarrett Allen earned it, b/c he's fricking good. Jaxson is not good.

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Again that's not what im arguing. Jax sucked but the front office straddled the fence of trying to win now and develop for the future. If you pick the lane of development then you're ok with him sucking and you're not spending assets the first 2 years on centers to play over him. If you're trying to win now you don't even make the pick in the first place, you trade it for an established center. Instead we chose to sit on the fence, waste an 8th pick on jax, assets on favors and adams, and we're in year 5 still looking for our center

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Again that's not what im arguing. Jax sucked but the front office straddled the fence of trying to win now and develop for the future. If you pick the lane of development then you're ok with him sucking and you're not spending assets the first 2 years on centers to play over him. If you're trying to win now you don't even make the pick in the first place, you trade it for an established center. Instead we chose to sit on the fence, waste an 8th pick on jax, assets on favors and adams, and we're in year 5 still looking for our center

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I don't understand what your straddling even means. We drafted a rookie, gave him a chance, and he sucked. We traded for a legit center that same year, and he sucked. We traded again for a legit center, and he sucked. Now we traded again for a center, and he's been solid.
What does win now or develop for the future have to do with Jax's progression? he was given plenty of opportunity, and failed.

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If you pick the lane of development then you're ok with him sucking

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no, you're never ok with them sucking. and you don't draft someone expecting them to come in and be a starter, and you certainly can't go into the season with no depth at that position b/c you expect your lottery pick to play 48mpg. What are you trying to say, you draft Jax and don't have any backup 5's on the team? Favors was literally brought in to be a stop gap until Jax eventually would take over, but he sucks, so he never took over. What are you advocating the team had done in that year? just play Jax as a starter and have what as his backup?



I'm not sure you understand this part, but when you're picking in the lottery, you don't draft for a need. You dont' say i'm going to take the best center at 8th no matter what. You go into the draft looking for the best player that fits your team, and by fit i mean the culture much more so than the roster structure. the only roster structure decision i would say is if you are a team that likes to take defensive minded players and mold them into good enough offensive players, or vice versa.

Not picking a G/F at 14 b/c you think we have too many already and you think we need a 4/5 would be the stupidest decision you can make. You draft BPA, simple as that, regardless of position. Doesn't matter if you're trying to win now or play OKC development sucking.

I don't hate Jax. I think he should play more.
I also don't think he's a starting center for any NBA team, but i do think he's exactly what we want off the bench in a backup big.
If he'd simply realize his role in the NBA, and play with energy at all times, then we wouldn't be having discussions about whether or not to resign him. He's not worth the $9-10M/yr he'll want, and we don't really have the room to give it to him. But i could see us giving him a Hart/Bamba type 1 year deal that makes it easy to trade him, assuming no one else wants to give him a long term deal at $10M/yr, which i doubt anyone does.

His biggest attribute is his energy, speed and athleticism. But when he watches other rebound and doesn't run the floor, he becomes rather worthless, and he does that too often. Him playing more is simply tied to him giving a shite about playing hard.

Replying to both of y’all basically

I sincerely think Jax was being miscast as a “guard big” in the preseason and early in the year. His shot was not falling and he lost confidence and so did the staff.

However, once he was put back in the rim running pick and roll big position, he played pretty damn well imo on both sides of the ball.

We don’t really know the full story or scope of why he was in the doghouse. Maybe he was acting out in practice. Maybe Griff told him and Willie that he was trying to trade him. Who knows?

What I do know is that he provided some excellent minutes down the stretch of the last 2 seasons. His only real rough patch of games was in the phx series, which is understandable. At least he contributed by pulling Booker’s hamstring and fighting Crowder a bit.

I don’t disagree that he is probably worth less than $10M a year.

I don’t think he’s a lost cause though. But I also don’t know the guy personally and what happens behind the scenes. I just saw the effort that he played with down the stretch in the last 2 years so it makes me think that something is still there to tap into.

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The Jax hate is crazy

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He’s a bad rebounder for a center and may lead the league in illegal screens per 36. I don’t see how he’ll ever get minutes on a winning team, I just don’t see a role for him. He can’t rebound well, fouls a lot, and never developed any type of skill on offense.