He was more aggressive and better tonight, but overall was BAD this series. Need to turn him into a 2-way player in a trade
Yeah he should have helped at the nail and forced KCP to make a shot . Unfortunately not playoffs material as a complementary piece
with a coach using him right for a whole season, I think we'd be pleased with what we'd see. He's a young player still figuring stuff out. Ham was just terrible for several of our players.
2020 Markieff Morris would've provided more than what Rui gave this series, and Morris was probably the least impactful of 5 other non LeBron/AD options.
Last year Rui had a pretty underwhelming regular season with us but was great in the playoffs, this year he had a pretty nice regular season once he was given the starting role and then struggled in the playoffs. I just like Rui so I'm probably a little higher on him than I should be. As far as there is a direct Rui vs. Vando debate, I continue to believe Rui is the better/more useful player because his flaws are less glaring/harmful than Vando's. I wish we could combine both guys into one player, because that player would be exactly what we need from that third frontcourt spot next to LeBron and AD. I'm not against trading Rui this summer in a deal that makes sense, but he absolutely shouldn't be moved just for the sake of being moved.
I don't want to trade Rui for f***ing Trae Young, but I am trying to warm myself up to the idea given how Rui played in this series. As otehrs have said, with a diff coach, maybe we unlock even more with Rui.
His defense was horrendous this series. Sometimes he’s ok one on one if the guy is his size, maybe even a little smaller, but his team defensive awareness…ugh
yeah, that wasn't a one-off. this is why i always preferred vando starting over him, even if vando was a minus on offense.
If he can just f***ing rebound it would make up for his defense somewhat. This is how Jokic helps is he just is a vacuum on the glass despite being slow footed. He was bad on defense not just during that final possession yes but you can't be weak on defense and the glass and be a guy who can finish playoff games
I really like Rui since we acquired him. But our window is short and we simply can’t bank on having a better coach unlock more out of Rui. We are in win-now mode and sadly Rui is great trade bait. He’s got a reasonable contract, improvement potential, and a big athletic body that can score. We have to flip Rui into a 3&D starter if we want to fix our actual issues. It’s too bad, he would have been a nice asset to keep in the p&g. Liked the improvement I saw too, kid works on his game.
Rui has to knock down his open looks. Scoring is his biggest asset, I'm not sure why he doesn't rebound well with his size. You can live with the D, if he scores and rebounds at a good clip. Still one of my favorites, seems like he has a good spirit.
a lot of rebounding is intuitive, just like many aspects of defense. that's why you see guys like doncic and jokic be good rebounders and passable defenders despite athletic limitations and guys like stromile swift be unable to grab rebounds. rui's just not an intuitive player. he's mechanical and methodical. he has obviously put a ton of work in on his individual game and will likely continue to improve on things like footwork, shooting from all areas, etc. but i think defense and rebounding are probably always going to be substantial issues.
If he can carve a role and nail it like Aaron Gordon or MPJ, I think all of Lakerland will be on cloud 9.
The thing is, with his lack of quickness on both ends of the floor its kind of hard to figure out what that role is. Offensively, he's a good but not elite spot-up shooter and a pretty nice isolation, mid-post player but he doesn't get a ton of those opportunities with LeBron and AD on the floor. Defensively, he has good size and strength but doesn't have much quickness and is pretty redundant with LeBron except without the instincts. At the beginning of the year Ham tried to use Rui as a go-to bench scorer and that didn't work out. Maybe I'm reaching, but I think if we do bring in CP3 to help run second units that idea could pan out better. One thing CP3 still does well is control pace and identify mismatch situations. If we do keep Rui, maybe the answer is to stagger his minutes away from LeBron and AD again and give him another look as a bench scorer. But that would require having another wing to close games next to LeBron and AD that probably isn't Vando.
