Heck yeah if that’s the story without even listening yet. As well …. a Big “Hell Yeah” to AR’s older Brother!!
Folks are sleeping on Rui all of a sudden for some reason. I think he and Wood are going to be a potent 1-2 scoring punch off the bench. I'd start Vanderbilt as a tone setter like Javale, our 2nd unit is going to be a serious problem.
One thing I'm impressed about all our free agents we kept or guys who got extensions (Rui, Vando, Austin) is after securing the bag they are still hungry and still getting after it. Lots of young guys get paid and take the foot of the gas. I think all three are lunch pail, hard hat guys and I don't think that was evident with Rui before getting him. Vando had a reputation and we learned that very quickly with Austin. But I think Ham, Bron and Handy brought that side of Rui out (you either have it or you don't, so it was there just not fostered under Washington's losing culture). Hell, even DLO looks like he's in the best shape of his career.
Seems like Michael Porter jr maybe a good comp for Rui and what the Lakers may hope to be: a really big dude with a really good jumper. Neither are great playmakera and both have some lateral quickness issues on defense. MPJ despite his flaws causes a lot of problems for other teams as he can just shoot over close out. If you go big tends to be too quick for slow-footed big and can shoot over and out rebound smaller dudes.
ALL of this. Big part of why I'm so excited for this next season, these guys are hungry after tasting the WCF last season. Would also like to point out that Ham and his staff are also these lunch pail guys. Most of them were developmental coaches before becoming assistants here.
we took the player out of washington, and it seems like we may be able to take the washington out of the player.
Call it "breaking the Gilbert Arenas curse". It worked for JAVALE MCGEE. It clearly didn't work with Brick.
Most of it is the just the quotes from yesterday and commentary on that, but this nugget was buried in there:
i'm still on (prime) marcus morris. rui will never be the shooter mpj is. but he's similar in size to morris, similar in mobility. morris had to turn himself into a passable individual and team defender before his offensive abilities could matter, and i think that's where rui's heading, too. interesting on rui being the 4th starter. i'm still partial to vando, particularly with dlo at the point. but i'm fine with seeing what rui can do there.
Assuming it's AD/Lebron/Dl/Reaves at the other spots: I actually think Ham has the cache to rotate people and hopefully test out Rui/Vando/Prince and maybe even Christie at the 5th spot. Presuming one of these guys like Rui doesn't make a huge leap and play like last year, they all have different strengths and weaknesses so one player maybe great for one series but not another (Rui utility shifted a lot in the playoffs based on the matchup). That being said if Rui has dropped weight and his lateral quickness goes up a notch I could see why they would like him as a starter. Whether you like MPJ or Morris as the comp, Rui shooting appears at different level or at least his height makes it harder to defend and you can switch the big spots on defense easier.
