During camp it was announced Lindsey Harding was going to be the South Bay coach but apparently they changed their minds? It’s Zach Guthrie again same as last year. I remember seeing a list of players and this year’s varsity coaches after that and found it odd that her name was not included, but figured it was because of that. Which still seemed dumb. Guess they feel she is more valuable with the Big club?
Drew Timme is a former college basketball player who played for the Gonzaga Bulldogs from 2019 to 2023. He was a standout player, earning multiple accolades including being a three-time consensus All-American and the all-time leading scorer for Gonzaga with 2,307 points. You still think he can't substitute Hayes or Kleber ?
He couldn’t look any worse than Kleber did last night. I wonder if JJ will give him a chance- my guess is that he won’t unless either Jax or Maxi are out resting or injured.
so, apparently bufkin is playing quite well in the g league. https://soaringdownsouth.com/hawks-regret-dumping-former-first-round-pick-grows-thrives-g-league problem is that we don't have him on a two-way, so he can be picked up by anyone. if it were my choice, i'd let timme off his two-way and pick up bufkin. i know timme's probably outplayed manon, but manon is the archetype we're trying to develop, so i'd give him more rope (check manon's block in the second clip below!). he was drafted as an offensive player, iirc. but according to the hawks article, he played well defensively. it's hard to know much, as he barely played in two years for the hawks and didn't play on his 10-day with the grizzlies this year, but those g-league clips look good.
It would make sense to let Timme go since JJ won’t have any interest in developing him. I think Timme has a decent game, but I think he’s missing either a few inches of height(for the center spot) or more athletic ability(as a four) to become a NBA role player. He’s a classic tweener who probably needs to be on a lower tier team in order to develop.
I’ll gladly eat crow on Timme if he can play anywhere close to this for us. I’m still not convinced he’s an NBA player, but his scoring skill and passing ability really stand out on this team. I did not expect him to be much of anything he did in the G-League here, but he has with some ease, maybe he’s figured it out, maybe defenses haven’t caught up to him yet, I don’t know. Basically he’s way better than Dalton, so give him those minutes, can’t be any worse and so far it’s been way better.
We can’t give young players time and try to develop them though, we’re working towards a championship with Gabe Vincent.
Imagine we could have three of our prospects with Gabe’s salary split between them, with 3 year contracts, Timme, Bufkin, and DSJ
unfortunately, we'd have three guys sitting on the bench while we played reaves 40mpg at pg. this one's a coaching issue, imo. jj's too mistake-averse/cautious, so he rolls with the vets. lots of coaches do this, but jj a) just signed an extension and b) preached a lot about development in the past. development doesn't just happen in the g-league. the teams that are having dividends paid by former two-ways actually played these guys in games over a long period of time before they became the finds they are now. jj's lack of interest in playing young players has me questioning my philosophy on roster construction, as at this point we should just consolidate all the vets into one more max deal so that the rest of the roster MUST be filled by two-way type guys. this is how phx and philly are sort of accidentally developing players, lol. same with the clips. they ran out of options, so their coaches were forced to play young guys, who are generally outperforming the mle vets that would have been playing instead.
