I agree that Rui will be huge for us. I would start him from what I know so far, mainly because I am not confident in AD or Lebron to shoot well from range and having three players start that aren't three-point threats might be too many. On the other hand, maybe AD and Vando come in much improved in that regard. Either way, I really like both Vando and Rui. Going to both be big parts of our championship runs over the next few seasons.
The shooting is nice and all but I wonder if he put in any time with boxing out. If you look at his numbers his big issues thru his career is consistent intensity/effort, rebounding, and defense. AD is going to eat a lot of rebounding chances but a guy his size should be able to really help the defense by gobbling up defensive boards: underrated reason Denver had a slight edge on the Lakers was Jokic's rebounding ability. Kuzma was also not a great rebounder but when asked to that dude put effort into getting boards in the bubble year - he grabbed a lot of contested 50-50 balls in the playoffs: you need secondary scorers to be able to do the little things like that to win a title
They could call Austin up to front of the class to demonstrate the rocket science apparently of how to do it.
Rui is great to have here. Such a talented young player and he’s stretched his game with Handy. Also love that he worked with Lebron and it’s fun that he called him his understudy. Besides being able to fit alongside Lebron as well as an ability to be a bench scorer I like that we can have Rui in case Lebron misses time this year. Similarly with AD and Wood. Of course these guys aren’t superstars like the above but both can fill similar roles for periods of time if necessary in the regular season.
yeah, those first two or three forays to the hoop were ugly. vando's first two were ugly, too, but he was fouled on one of them. rui was just wildly chucking it off the glass. i actually used to do that early in games if i was too amped. like if i got a breakaway in the first few possessions...i was going to blow that layup because i was going too fast. loved the bully ball on kuminga and the immediate post up when he got the small on him. didn't love that he took a semi-contested three instead of swinging to the wide open wood at the top of the key. but at least he made it!
Being able to work out with Lebron is gonna be the career turn he needed. Good to see he was able to shed the Washington stink and willing to put in work to get better.
Rui looks like a bit of a black hole once he gets the rock, but his jumpshot was looking nice. Looking like Kawhi out there.
