As a Sixers fan and a Truster of a process, you basically wrote everything that has been bugging me since the season started. The funny thing is, the big who is doing the most to help us on the court is Jerami Grant(and with a smaller sample size, Richaun Holmes). He can switch on the pick and Roll, Run the floor, help protect the rim, ect. I'm hopeful that teams takes the attitude of "Hey, these guys would be performing better in a different, better system." Which is why I think the Bucks overpaid for MCW last year.
Grant is an intriguing guy if he can get his 3P% back to where he was as a rookie but as it stands now everyone trying to trade for him would think they might get him as a buy low guy.
I'm not sure the Bucks overpaid for MCW as much as they didn't want to pay Brandon Knight and Khris Middleton. It can be tricky to evaluate those things in 3-way trades.
Great piece. I'm a long time reader of this blog and die-hard Sixers fan. Hinkie hasn't been building a team, he has been collecting what he thinks is the most valuable pieces he can. From there, players emerge that you can build with and/or trade for other pieces to build with. That has left the team with it's four highest potential players as C/PFs. We have seen the negative side of that this year. The last 30 or so game of last season Noel was absolutely fantastic. Was a savant of a defender and averaged about 13/10/2/2/2. He was surrounded with shooters and an elite penetration PG in Ish Smith that willingly got him the ball in good spots. This year hasn't be favorable. He plays about 2/3s of his minutes at PF and his production has suffered. He can't make as great of an impact guarding the perimeter, Canaan and McConnell can't drive like Ish, and Okafor is clogging the paint. It's been very hard to play a two man game. The team is force feeding him on post ups and isos which explains his big increase in turnover rate. Okafor on the other hand has been hurt by the pairing as well. It's tough enough to get the ball into the post, and almost impossible when Noel's defender is sagging. Then we have to deal with Okafor not being able to defend in space... Like you said both of their values are lower because of the pairing. I hope this pairing is addressed at the deadline or in the summer, for both of their sakes.
Noel would probably be easier to move than Okafor because it's easier to build a team around a two-way rim runner than a low post guy who can't defend and needs to play at a slow pace. Either way though you wouldn't be getting max value. It's tough.
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ReplyDeleteAs a Sixers fan and a Truster of a process, you basically wrote everything that has been bugging me since the season started. The funny thing is, the big who is doing the most to help us on the court is Jerami Grant(and with a smaller sample size, Richaun Holmes). He can switch on the pick and Roll, Run the floor, help protect the rim, ect. I'm hopeful that teams takes the attitude of "Hey, these guys would be performing better in a different, better system." Which is why I think the Bucks overpaid for MCW last year.
ReplyDeleteGrant is an intriguing guy if he can get his 3P% back to where he was as a rookie but as it stands now everyone trying to trade for him would think they might get him as a buy low guy.
DeleteI'm not sure the Bucks overpaid for MCW as much as they didn't want to pay Brandon Knight and Khris Middleton. It can be tricky to evaluate those things in 3-way trades.
Great piece. I'm a long time reader of this blog and die-hard Sixers fan. Hinkie hasn't been building a team, he has been collecting what he thinks is the most valuable pieces he can. From there, players emerge that you can build with and/or trade for other pieces to build with. That has left the team with it's four highest potential players as C/PFs. We have seen the negative side of that this year. The last 30 or so game of last season Noel was absolutely fantastic. Was a savant of a defender and averaged about 13/10/2/2/2. He was surrounded with shooters and an elite penetration PG in Ish Smith that willingly got him the ball in good spots. This year hasn't be favorable. He plays about 2/3s of his minutes at PF and his production has suffered. He can't make as great of an impact guarding the perimeter, Canaan and McConnell can't drive like Ish, and Okafor is clogging the paint. It's been very hard to play a two man game. The team is force feeding him on post ups and isos which explains his big increase in turnover rate. Okafor on the other hand has been hurt by the pairing as well. It's tough enough to get the ball into the post, and almost impossible when Noel's defender is sagging. Then we have to deal with Okafor not being able to defend in space... Like you said both of their values are lower because of the pairing. I hope this pairing is addressed at the deadline or in the summer, for both of their sakes.
ReplyDeleteNoel would probably be easier to move than Okafor because it's easier to build a team around a two-way rim runner than a low post guy who can't defend and needs to play at a slow pace. Either way though you wouldn't be getting max value. It's tough.
Delete