Talen Horton-Tucker Discussion: Growing Pains

yeah, again i stopped watching pretty early, but heart didn't seem to be the main problem to me. we weren't executing offensively, and it led to scrambling defense that let phx get confident and start hitting everything.

i suppose THT can't make that much worse, in theory. nor can he miss any more than the all-but-one open threes we missed while the game started dying.

i just think he's one fewer guy they have to attend to outside the paint, and he doesn't defend as well as wes or kcp or AC or even kuz.

also, to reiterate: i'm advocating not trading him in many threads. he's just not up to what we need right now, imo.

 

Sometimes you just need a guy whose irrationally confident and can do things on the basketball court that are hard to predict.
Phoenix is a well coached and talented team and I think at this point it's worth trying him when everyone else is so predictable or acting scared to shoot.

If they go under, tell him to fire away can't be any worse that what's happened since AD got hurt

 

i really thought the role players were looking to lebron to set the tone, and his idea was to get them going. this was played out tragicomically in the hot potato sequences. i thought guys were hustling at the beginning, at least. i couldn't bear to watch the rest, but i could definitely imagine losing heart/faith when you get down 25 and you have a hofer in streetclothes.

 

On Lakers twitter (kind of obvious but got to give credit) is the lakers best stretches have been when they've gone aggressively into the post and then countered doubles with cutter, backscreen or 5 out with Gasol 5 out at the 3 point line.

I would start with Lebron at the 5 with size across (Lebron, Kuzma, KCP, Matthews, Caruso): Vogel tried Lebron at the 5 but he put McClemore?Morris and it ain't going to work as you need to try to go man up across the perimieter

 

If he wants to take his game to the next level, he really needs to work on his shot. There's only so many times you can attack the rim and do a fancy layup. Teams will play zone and shut THT down. At the very least, get a mid-range or land 35% from three.

 

The priority is to smarten up defensively off the ball.

 

The priority is to smarten up defensively off the ball.

 

Part of me can't help but very much think how things would have played out if we were willing to give up THT for Lowry.

But still think it as the best move for the long-term to keep THT.

He was frustrating at points this season, so I totally understand Vogel not playing him much in the playoffs. But that's fine for what was essentially his rookie year.

The bright side is I think he didn't play his way into an insane contract and we should be able to retain him. I hope he can take a leap next year, but even then, we need to be patient. I'm envisioning key rotation piece by some eventual point next year, but it may take a few years before the eventual stardom that we've seen flashes of.

 

And of course he “can” learn and put in the work to shoot better ... in spite of the one guy here claiming that will never happen. At the age of 20. Certainly no guarantee that he will, but a ridiculous stance to state that it won’t ever happen. Lonzo Ball says hello for crissakes and even had to completely rebuild his shot. One year, boom, done.

 

yeah, it's probably as big a reason as the shooting for why he wasn't really trusted for playoff minutes.

 

All the tools are there. The game has to slow down for him. That will happen in a year... maybe two. That's critical with defense and the turnover issues. While we're waiting on that, hopefully he can spend all off season working on the range on the jumper.

 

i think it eventually happened for kuz, so it can certainly happen for THT.

 

Wish Vogel gave him a longer leash like he did for Schroder and Drummond who were effin up every other play

 

Better get after it this summer

 

do want.