re: Ball, Bledsoe, Zion, Ingram, Adams

I like Having a Center who can get more than 3 inches off the ground

I mean he shot under 37% on the season. His 2 pt. % was under 40. He was hitting 3s at a decent rate, but that was it (also did poor for a guard at the line at under 68%).

So that's more than the first few games.

Is the consensus that Lonzo can’t be the PG of the future? I’m admittedly a more casual fan, so excuse my ignorance, but these last couple days are the first i’ve heard of Lonzo at the 3. Seems like the thing holding him back from being a good guard was his shooting and he improved that.

Also, can Ingram guard 2’s? I thought he was locked in at SF.

He makes up for it with length

I wish we could get Mirotic back

I think the best thing to do is let all these guys compete in Gundy’s system and let a natural hierarchy develop. I don’t think anyone knows if NAW has improved or not (worth giving him a shot) I am not sure if Lonzo has regressed or not, not sure how much weight Kira has added over the past year in lockout. Lots of unknowns and the competition will obviously piss off someone but I think it’s the best way.

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No way in hell Kira starts the season, LMAO

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Probably not. But the thing will be since so much of the roster will be new, he won't be at the disadvantage of guys who are more experienced under SVG competing for minutes with him. Everyone Kira is going to get minutes from won't be here...

Though there's also the real possibility that Kira spends most of the season in G League.

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I like it actually. We got eaten alive by bigs last year especially when Zion wasn’t out. We got a defensive upgrade from favors that can protect the paint and get rebounds. Our rebounding was terrible last year.

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I really hope some of you all temper your expectations. I think like last year, our defensive and rebounding success is going to come down to the growth and effort our young guys put in. Lonzo, Zion, Ingram, Hayes, NAW, maybe Kira. Because it doesn’t matter how good Adams is if those guys can’t stay in position or execute the team defense properly. Like happened so often last year. Leading to Favors being blamed a lot for what were breakdowns he had no control or realistic capacity to stop. For our young bigs being utterly terrible on the boards when Favors wasn’t out there, and even when he was.

Adams is about equal a rebounder to Favors and before coming here Favors had a far superior DFG% around the rim. With Adams the better DFG% overall.

Favors: DFG% less than 6ft, 18/19: 49.4%
Overall DFG%: 50.2%
Reb% 18/19: 15.2%
Reb% 19/20: 18.5%

Adams: DFG% less than 6ft, 18/19: 57.5%
DFG% less than 6ft, 19/20: 53.9%
Overall DFG% 18/19: 47.6%
Overall DFG% 19/20: 47.9%
Reb% 18/19: 13.1%
Reb% 19/20: 17.3%

And I know people continue to claim Adams is going to be the superior player boxing out, but that also really isn’t demonstrated in the numbers. Like everything Favors fell off when he came here due to having so many inferior defensive players around him, and inferior coaching, but when both were on playoff teams Favors was elite:

Favors: % TEAM REB WHEN BOX OUT
18/19: 92.9%
19/20: 76.8%

Adams: % TEAM REB WHEN BOX OUT
18/19: 86.1%
19/20: 80.1%

The one place Adams does rightfully outclass Favors is on screens. But even there it’s not some huge chasm. Adam’s last year assisted in around 10ppg off screen assists and Favors around 7.8ppg. Which was a career high for both Adams and Favors. And OKC utilized the PnR heavily, so I think it’s fair to say that has a good chance of being the case here as well with Bledsoe. Who before Mil was a near elite PnR guard.

All this is to neither knock Adams or praise Favors, but simply to illustrate that our success on defense is likely not going to be magically solved by our new center. He’s the better player and some of those stats are assisted by Favors playing with Gobert a good bit, but the success of our defense is going to come down to the young guys. Especially without Jrue who could consistently guard the best player 1-3, which while Bledsoe is elite defensively as well, is not that versatile.

Why would you ever use career numbers over their most relevant and recent production?

Career numbers are inherently tricky and often far less reliable because they are skewed by how a person came into the league, how much they developed from where they started, and how long they have played at their current level.

Favors numbers weren’t an outlier, I checked. and neither were Adams. They are both pretty damn consistent in their respective output. In fact if you go back another year Favors only looks better in key categories. With a superior rim DFG%, overall DFG%c and team Reb% off box outs.

The point being is again not to compare the two and have a pissing match, Adam’s is better, period. Even if the stats aren’t entirely in his favor, other factors like playing next to Gobert affect it. The point is that there is not some enormous chasm between the two to suggest that replacing one with the other is about to produce some giant leap in improvement by that change alone. Our hopes for success need to be routed to where they really should be: the young guys. Adams is not going to magically make up for three starting subpar defenders and a back up big that needs to learn to rebound. Our key to getting into the top half of the league defensively will be through them, not Adams