Talen Horton-Tucker Discussion: Growing Pains

It's not that difficult to understand and actually makes sense IMO

1)he's elite at getting to the rim and he's able to finish extremely well

2) he makes and takes a lot of difficult shots at the rim
-this is not surprising as teams are not guarding his jumpshot so teams are collapsing on him. I mean it's not only the lack of a left hand but those turn around one legged shots are crazy
-remember when he passes out which again he is very good at and he gets an easy shot for teammates that won't count on this stat

3) the 0 is a percentile. It doesn't mean he gets no easy buckets but in comparison to other NBA players he takes highest number of difficult shots at the rim

 

Kinda like Kobe's fadeaway or Steph's 30+ foot shots. Even though they make impossible shots look routine, it's a bad shot for nearly everyone else in the league, hence a F rating.

 

No one gives THT an F in the corner.

P. Swayze

 

The lack of a decent % 3 pt shot will keep his price down a bit in the off-season and hopefully, he'd take an early bird deal from us, around 8mil so that we can use the full mid, if available, on someone else. Then THT needs to spend the off-season working on the perimeter. If he develops there we'll have an awesome deal.

Also if the team decides to clean house and sign Drummond, I think we can go over the cap on THT and AC using bird and early bird, not sure as I also think the cap space must first be cleared to sign Andre and that would be a monumental task.

 

he also needs to be better defensively, especially off the ball.

i don't think drummond is worth all the shuffling. at best, he's the guy we could spend the MLE on, imo. feel like i see the same things here that made cleveland and detroit move on from him without much fanfare despite his video game rebounding numbers. remember how quickly kenneth faried went from darling to out of the league?

 

Can you imagine by next year if THT’s handles in traffic keep improving at the pace they have? Holy crap. He must put in a ton of work. Sure he has some turnovers but g-damn those jukes and handles and footwork and body mass and wingspan and relentlessness .... getting to the rack at the age of 20.

 

reminds me a little of young tyreke evans with his clever finishes, strength, and juke-yness.

 

That's my first reaction to any idea of keeping him unless there is some just incredible undeniable magic between he and AD/Lebron. Don't see the Faried comparison, Drum's been in the league for years and is established as one the best centers, he isn't going the way of the dodo. The guy has averaged 16 boards in a season, that's Rodman-type numbers with better offense (though maybe not quite Rodman defense). Him, AD and LBJ make us HUGE (again).

Anyways there needs to be some serious magic there to rip apart this roster like it would take to possibly offer him a deal. He's 27 so I see him looking for the biggest offer he can get or if he stays here, something in the 80% range of what the market bears.

But I have no idea how they would pull it off. We are at 81.5mil with Lebron/AD/Deng whom we won't trade and can't offload. Cap is projected to be $112 million and the tax $136.6 million. That's 30.5 mil if they magically trade everyone else for expiring contracts and/or picks. Without bird rights, I honestly don't know what there are talking about when Vogel talks about him being here "long term" or Trevor Noah talking about tearing down the roster. I don't see the money working. The other point is that maybe he can't get max money or near it due to the market for traditional centers being barren but there is always a team looking for someone that could be a simi-star in their small market. It just doesn't seem doable.

 

Trez probably opts out. This will undoubtedly be the pinnacle of AD2’s basketball life and thrills galore these playoffs on this squad under this coaching staff, trying to win a championship with the LA Lakers. He has history with Rob his ex agent on top of that. I’m willing to bet a little something is worked out to allow him to be OK with the mid-level that Trez leaves on the table. Or something else. Take out a huge insurance policy (can Lakers pay for that?) in case of career ending injury until they can get him up to decent valuable Big Man pay again.

 

i know this is derailing the thread, but i'm not positive trez opts out. he might, and he might get offers, but he had a great year the year before and wasn't pursued with big money. if he stays, we have early bird and the ability to give him a healthy raise the following year, which could also raise competing offers. i don't think it's a foregone conclusion he walks.

and i think the only way drummond stays is if he's willing to take the MLE for two years in the same fashion, if that makes sense. that seems less likely, though again, almost nobody pursued him in trade, meaning nobody cared about having his bird rights, which means nobody was interested in maintaining anything near his previous salary going forward.

 

Needs to play much better tonight, with KCP out.

 

Moar THT. Let him loose

 

He's so good with spacing, you can't just keep him out of the paint. More reason to bench Drummond

Future star as he's got the big cajones to take difficult shots when it matters: those two shots were hard as hell but Doris Burke hasn't seen THT play, he makes those weird shots all the time with his ridiculous reach

 

He needs to keep working on counters like using his left hand or developing a jumper otherwise he will turn into a predictable guy like Tyreke Evans.

Postup jumper on Campuzzo was awesome in the 4th

 

He has used his left several times when he really needed it so not like he doesn’t have the start of needed ambidexterity around the rim. And yep that step back Dirk/LeBron mid range has been money for him. Guessing he hits 70-80% on those.

 

in fairness, it was really off-court stuff that kept evans from being a quasi-star, right?