He's still only 22 going on 23, hell, he hasn't even had the chance to play a full season with any team. I thought he was decent in his limited role last season. Maybe the Lonzo effect, the increase in pace and ball movement, can shift him into another gear as it did for Caruso and Thomas in the Summer League. It's a minimum signing, which still leaves us with the Room Exception if we need to use it.
i really don't understand any of the negative sentiment. He's 22 going into his 4th year on a 1 year minimum deal. Personally, I'm not convinced Ian Clark is the better player and I'm definitely not convinced Clark would be a better fit. He doesn't have a high ceiling, but i thought he looked alright last year. I don't think anyone expects him to suddenly become a key, impact player, but I really don't see how much harm he can do us. We have enough guys that need their touches to help them develop. Ennis isn't shiny, but at least he's not a dummy. We complain about the FO interest in Rose. We complain about signing a 22 year old to a 1 yr mininum. We complain that Clark isn't a real PG. Can anyone provide some better options available for a backup PG?
i don't think I was. I'm pointing out that none of the solutions would be referred to as great. I can understand why some might be strongly opposed to Rose, but very few were gung ho. Clark brings shooting, but he was in a pretty great situation in limited minutes and isn't really a point. Ennis isn't a great player but he'll hardly hurt us. I'm just surprised that anyone could be vehemently against this, considering the options.
He didn't play horrible for us last year and if all the reports are true of him living in the gym this off-season and getting better. I can't imagine that he gets any worse than he was this last year. I wanted Clark instead but I'm okay with this. He already has some continuity with Luke and our staff so he won't need much time if at all to adjust to how we want to play.
I expected this, I'm good with it. We upgraded every single position this offseason, there wasn't money left for backup PG.
He'll end up 3rd string again most likely. Wouldn't be surprised now if they just go Clarkson 1 and Hart 2 and Ennis backup 1. Need some defense in that unit anyways. Hart getting slept on a bit due to that ankle injury, he could force a few people to fight for their position.
I'm not particularly negative, I just have almost no expectations. A guy who bounced around for a while found a bit of success in an open offense on a tanking team... I hope he continues to find success for sure, I just don't think he's very good. At the minimum, it's not really a bother, but if Lonzo misses any time we're in trouble. That's part of the reason I really wanted Rose or even Rondo on the team. If Lonzo misses a game, we're looking at a rotation of Ennis/Caruso. Yikes!
No i totally hear what you're saying. I'm not proclaiming this a great signing. I thought there were a couple ultra-negative posts and didn't feel like quoting. either way, i think you might have referred to it as "meh" which is pretty spot on. I just don't see much negative. I'm also not that scared of Jordan stepping into the starting PG role if needed. maybe I'm overly optimistic of the Lonzo Effect. While he makes some tremendous passes, a lot of what he does is just making the right play and as everyone says, it's contagious. I don't know, I didn't see any backup PG signing moving the needle much in either direction.
Yeah I think until Lonzo goes down, I'm not going to worry too much about it. Plus, Clarkson can play the back up PG and then we'll rely more on Ingram to be a point forward if Lonzo goes down for an extended period.
We could have had Rondo for the Room Exception. But I think a lot of the guards we could afford (Rondo, Rose) don't want to play behind a rookie in a limited role. We still have that Room Exception in case a player is waived or something like that.
And we tried. We waited weeks to sign a backup pg while we tried to get Hill, Rondo, Rose. I can't fault them for trying and those guys taking bigger or perceived better deals. Bringing back Ennis is a solid fallback move. This season is all about the growth of the young players and other players on year deals, preparing for 2018, and we accomplished that.
And he has 2.5 years of unsurprisingly unproductive basketball elsewhere. 4th team in 3 years, undersized, no defense, not really a playmaker, the only thing that boosted his value is that he shot about 8% higher from 3 than his career average. What happens when he reverts to the mean? He's an undersized, no defense, not really a playmaker and average at best shooter. My post isn't that perplexing, his high point has been average at best and that was on a team playing for nothing and he had free reign to do whatever he wanted. I'll look at his 2.5 years and 3 other teams + plus the fact that "his surprisingly productive year" yielded no other team coming to give him a contract as he's not very good. I don't care if it's a 1st string player or a 15th man on the end of the bench, I'll evaluate them all the same. He's not very good and I would have looked elsewhere We don't have our pick next year, so it would be in our benefit to sign the best players we can to win as many games as we can. As Real said, if Lonzo goes down and Ennis plays bigger minutes, IMO, the opinion on him will change when we aren't rooting for losses and need wins.
Take Trevor Ariza for instance. He was pretty much unknown until he came to us. Bounced around from team to team for 5 years. Sure he had the physical tools for a defender, but it wasn't until he was on the Lakers where that was most apparent for him. I'm pretty sure most of us said "we traded for who?" when we got him. Same for Whiteside. Nobody gave him a shot his first 4 years in the league, now he's the centerpiece in Miami. Not saying Ennis would explode into a star player or anything, but sometimes opportunities arise for certain players and make the most of it. The backup PG market is very slim, there wasn't much elsewhere we could look.
Give me a list of the players that worked out in the league with Ennis' build and qualities that felt through the cracks and then turned into a solid role player. And after you do that give me a list of the players that failed. Compare lists and then you will see why I'm skeptical. The Ariza/Whiteside comparisons aren't really relevant because they had the physical tools to be solid players if they put it together, Ennis does not.
Well, to be fair, give me a list of PGs we could have signed instead of Ennis with what we had to offer in money and years that still allows the KCP signing to happen. It's not like we didn't try.
