He's a key role player for this team - so glad we have him and I hope we continue to play him more than effing Rondo
It's amazing that he is such a solid solid defender. Goes to show how much of defense is effort and smarts.
I love how hard he is on himself. When he makes a defense mistake he's always clapping his hands together or talking to himself. Wears that emotion on his sleeve and while this isn't always good for all players I think its always a quality that fans appreciate. He owns his mistakes and we never have to question his heart/effort level.
yeah. those are arguably more important than athleticism. another key is that he's pretty strong, both with his hands and in general--another trait good defenders tend to have. but the hoop iq is critical. people like to say doncic is a bad defender, but he's actually not. will he get burned by guards in isolation? generally, yes. but that's the only way he's a negative on d. in all other ways, he's helpful and in position making plays. so the opposition has to commit to isolating on him with their best/quickest ballhandler to exploit it (not like, say, melo, where you just go at whomever he's got anywhere on the court). for example, trae young just torched caruso on a couple isos in the last game, but that's not a game-long winning strategy, for several reasons. and caruso disrupted so many other things that it came out in the wash.
Speaking of Young... I am thouroughly not impressed. Chucker. I said Darren Collison and I stand by it.
MUCH better passer and MUCH better shooter, even comparing 19 year old young to peak collison. worse on defense...than like, everyone. come to think of it, i don't see the comparison, really. very different styles of play. he's more like lou williams + court vision.
I remember well that patch where Collison averaged 27 PPG at 21 years of age and how he left UCLA after one season because his skills were so in demand by the league. (It never happened)
I meant as far as impact... not necessarily style of play. And he won't ever be anything more than IT on defense. He is tiny.
he's small, weak, and actually doesn't move well laterally on defense. so yeah, it's going to be a career-long problem. but i think you're selling his offensive ability short. if anything, his impact is more like devin booker's has been in that he puts up pretty impressive stats often in fairly impressive fashion, but his team isn't succeeding on its back. maybe his poor defense will always be a problem, but gs was able to build top defenses around curry. then again, curry is a little bigger/longer. still, though...not a strong defender and was even worse as a young player.
Someone here yesterday was actually saying Allen Iverson might be his ceiling and seemed disappointed with that.
Yeah went looking and can’t find it right now. Be a man and step up and claim that if you brought up AI as a comparison to Trae Young. I know damn well Cookie didn’t do that. Like mentioning James Haren in the same breath with Kobe Bryant.
I don't see the AI comparisons either, but we have had a history of prematurely and bizarrely comparing our young Laker talent to hall of famers.
My only critiques: it’s follicularly inaccurate...the artist gave him too much. It’s vasculaturely disproportionate...the artist gave him too little.
already a better passer than IT ever has been. IT was a sg; TY is a real pg, just a score-first pg. there's a difference, imo. so yeah, peak IT + court vision. that's pretty good. you field a team of rangy defenders around that, and you can win a lot. atlanta's trying to do that, but they're crazy young. think they went too far all-in on the youth, personally. move a few of those for nicely-fitting vets and they're a mid-pack playoff team out east right now.
I have a "a lot of run on an awful team" vibes from his play... but Atlanta games are not my vibe, so I don't know.
He's 4-11 from 3 the last two games. Along to go with his defense, off-ball movement, screen setting, he's a rotation player...
