Talen Horton-Tucker Discussion: Growing Pains

Kuz faded hard in the playoffs and didn’t contribute much in our championship run unfortunately.

This was the best game THT has played since his first three this season. That’s a helluva long dry spell.

 

Good points FrontofJersey22. Kuz did improve greatly in his rebounding and defense over his years here and I defended his play a lot on this board in that regard. You are right about that and we are seeing some defensive improvement from THT.

Ultimately though I don’t miss Kuz at all because while he improved in the regular season he never was a great fit here and in the playoffs he totally disappeared.

With THT I’m not seeing his fit either really. He’s a good young talent but if we can get a better fit at wing who is also young like Grant I'd do that trade. I feel like we are too guard heavy and need more size.

 

You might be right abeer3. I think the FO is going to evaluate the situation moving forward. Probably no moves until close to the deadline. We most likely want to see how Nunn looks on the court, see how Grant heals up and continue to monitor THT’s progress before they make such a decision. They also probably give Johnson a couple more 10 day contracts during this period of evaluation. That’s my gut instinct of how this all plays out. Maybe with Stanley’s D and if Nunn plays well they might shelf the idea of moving THT and see how he develops. I’m not opposed to that nor to a conservative approach about weighing options for the next month. I’m impatient with THT but he did show us something last night finally!

 

Interestingly enough, I think the FO kind of feels the same. Vogel has been saying that when Nunn returns he’s going to play significant minutes. He intimated that it was probably THT who would play less in that case which makes a ton of sense. I don’t think they will totally shelf him but I do believe he’s the guard in the rotation who will get less minutes.

 

Here's the article that kind of confirms what you are talking about JSM.

https://www.silverscreenandroll.com...ndrick-nunn-role-minutes-return-date-timeline

Here's the exact wording from Vogel in there: “Kendrick is going to get a ton of minutes when he gets back healthy. It’s going to be at the expense of somebody else, at least for the time being, to see how he fits in our system alongside our stars, and all that stuff will play out. So I have a general idea, but all of that is still to be determined.”

He's not going to limit Bradley who is playing great on both sides of the ball right now. And he's not going to curtail Monk who is red hot. They shouldn't cut back Reaves as he's been such a huge plus rating whenever he's been in this year and like Bradley plays both sides of the ball well, plus adds passing and boards.

That leaves . . . you guessed it THT who has been struggling except for last game. We've seen THT - he's a work in progress and he's quite young. Time to see what Nunn can do instead.

Even though you were half-joking I believe you are right and he's going to get shut down.

 

Yeah, I don't want it to but it might. I'm still thinking THT is the guy Vogel is thinking about though because he's praised Reaves' two game quite a bit this year. I believe he'll still get minutes. THT looks like the odd guy out right now. And I believe JSM while only partially joking kind of hit on what will happen. They will cut down THT minutes and play Nunn a lot to evaluate his fit with our guys, while keeping Stanley Johnson on 2 consecutive 10 day contracts. During this time they'll be figuring out if they want to keep on with what we have for the rest of the season or make a move at the deadline which will be shortly after that.

 

He actually already had it or at least was in protocols.