According to this, we had three of the top 5 rookies

[Rastapopoulos]

Apologies if this has been posted before.

 

[hasoos]

Interesting, but I would point out we probably were one of the few teams that played our rookies, and playing=production to a certain point.

 

[illmatic99]

Westbrook sucked some serious a$$ if you look at those stats.

He's the worst out of all rookies in 3 out of the 5 categories considered.

 

[STOMP]

Interesting, but I would point out we probably were one of the few teams that played our rookies, and playing=production to a certain point.

huh? This was a draft deep in talent and lots of rookies got similar burn as the Portland rookies... heck many of the lotto picks were starters.

STOMP

 

[mgb]

What surprises me is how well Oden did! I know it was in limiting mins, but still it's nice to see when he was in he dominated compare to other rookies.

 

[Eastoff]

fernandez is only in the top 10 for defense

 

[Nikolokolus]

Don't let MIXUM see this list, he's convinced Nic is a lousy player.

 

[Natebishop3]

Man, our future is bright!

 

[hasoos]

huh? This was a draft deep in talent and lots of rookies got similar burn as the Portland rookies... heck many of the lotto picks were starters.

STOMP

Did I say all anywhere there? All I said was to produce you have to be out on the floor, and our guys got a good burn with a fairly good team. The more time you have on the floor with a good team as opposed to a bad one, you are going to get more production. Players on bad teams have to struggle to score because there is more attention on them if they are one of the more talented players on the floor. You will note, that Rudy, Greg, Batum, etc were never even close to being the most talented players on the floor here. Now look across at the other names on the list. Many of them were the 1st, 2nd or 3rd best players on their team.

I am surprised nobody noticed that OJ Mayo isn't even on that list. Yet I would think he is up there with the best if not better than most of the players on that list and to deny such is folly.

 

[Ed O]

I am surprised nobody noticed that OJ Mayo isn't even on that list. Yet I would think he is up there with the best if not better than most of the players on that list and to deny such is folly.

Well... it's not really a matter of "folly". He wasn't very good statistically last year.

The choice of the stats is a bit subjective, so maybe you think that his absence proves the selected stats were a flawed list, but I don't agree that Mayo is one of the best rookies from last year, so I have no problem with him not making the lists.

Ed O.

 

[Rastapopoulos]

I am surprised nobody noticed that OJ Mayo isn't even on that list. Yet I would think he is up there with the best if not better than most of the players on that list and to deny such is folly.

He's not in the top ten, or the last, but that doesn't mean he's not on the list.

I don't think "to deny such is folly" - Mayo has been slammed by any number of stats. His defense is average at best, and he needs a lot of shots to score. He was a disappointment at USC, and it continues in the NBA. He looks pretty good, once in a while, but the king of that is Iverson. Oh yeah - who is now his teammate.

And notice that you can't simply blame it on him playing for a sucky team, as his teammate Marc Gasol is the third best rookie by the overall ranking scheme.

(Talking of Gasol Jr. - how long before he legs it out of Memphis? I bet his agent is already asking for a trade. The team sucks, Navarro went back to Spain rather than stay with Memphis, and they just used their #2 pick on a guy who plays the same position as Gasol. And that's not even mentioning Hadadi, who always puts up good numbers whenever he plays.)

 

[Nikolokolus]

He's not in the top ten, or the last, but that doesn't mean he's not on the list.

I don't think "to deny such is folly" - Mayo has been slammed by any number of stats. His defense is average at best, and he needs a lot of shots to score. He was a disappointment at USC, and it continues in the NBA. He looks pretty good, once in a while, but the king of that is Iverson. Oh yeah - who is now his teammate.

And notice that you can't simply blame it on him playing for a sucky team, as his teammate Marc Gasol is the third best rookie by the overall ranking scheme.

(Talking of Gasol Jr. - how long before he legs it out of Memphis? I bet his agent is already asking for a trade. The team sucks, Navarro went back to Spain rather than stay with Memphis, and they just used their #2 pick on a guy who plays the same position as Gasol. And that's not even mentioning Hadadi, who always puts up good numbers whenever he plays.)

If I was Gasol I'd have zero worries about being able to beat out by Thabeet, but yeah, he probably will hoof it sooner rather than later, especially when it comes time to get paid -- no effing way Memphis is going to extend any of these young guys (maybe Mayo, but I doubt it).

 

[SheedSoNasty]

No matter what those stats say, I'd trade Fernandez to get Westbrook in a heartbeat. As much as I like Rudy, Westbrook looks to be the better player.

 

[Rastapopoulos]

No matter what those stats say, I'd trade Fernandez to get Westbrook in a heartbeat. As much as I like Rudy, Westbrook looks to be the better player.

"Be" in what sense? "Looks like he has a higher ceiling" I will grant you. Although Rudy is a far better passer, which is a bit damning, as Westbrook is supposed to be a PG. Westbrook is one of those players who will have to be so good they can be played at SG (like Dwyane Wade, Steve Smith, Jalen Rose and any number of "PGs" who turned out not to be such in the NBA, the apotheosis of which was Iverson. Even Penny Hardaway was moved to SG later in his career.)

But answer me this: if Westbrook is so damn good, why did Memphis's summer league team get its arse kicked even before he stopped playing for them?

I would trade BAYLESS for Westbrook, because they strike me as very similar, but Westbrook will be the better defender, because of his longer arms.

 

[Rastapopoulos]

As a follow up: is anyone else tired of hearing what a wunderkind Sam Presti is, and how the team he has assembled will trample all other teams underfoot in the very near future? This I have to see. It looks to me an awful lot like a bunch of tweeners in the bad sense. Even Mr. Jesus Christ Almighty Durant can't play a lick of defense, so he's only half a player. And Green is a SF too slow to play it (and Durant is there anyway) and Westbrook is a short flashy SG who can't shoot.

But maybe that's just me.

 

[Ed O]

As a follow up: is anyone else tired of hearing what a wunderkind Sam Presti is, and how the team he has assembled will trample all other teams underfoot in the very near future? This I have to see. It looks to me an awful lot like a bunch of tweeners in the bad sense. Even Mr. Jesus Christ Almighty Durant can't play a lick of defense, so he's only half a player. And Green is a SF too slow to play it (and Durant is there anyway) and Westbrook is a short flashy SG who can't shoot.

But maybe that's just me.

I agree he's getting too much credit. Durant's amazing, and Presti is doing a lot of things well, but I think it's still the honeymoon phase. Until they step up to .500 (like the Blazers did in Roy's second year, although he was three years older than Durant was last year) I think it's going to be unwarranted.

They're on the right path, for sure, but too much credit too soon for Presti IMO.

We'll see if, after they finish with low-to-mid 30's wins this year if people stop riding his jock quite as much...

Ed O.

 

[Natebishop3]

As a follow up: is anyone else tired of hearing what a wunderkind Sam Presti is, and how the team he has assembled will trample all other teams underfoot in the very near future? This I have to see. It looks to me an awful lot like a bunch of tweeners in the bad sense. Even Mr. Jesus Christ Almighty Durant can't play a lick of defense, so he's only half a player. And Green is a SF too slow to play it (and Durant is there anyway) and Westbrook is a short flashy SG who can't shoot.

But maybe that's just me.

They should have drafted Rubio.

 

[mgb]

Did I say all anywhere there? All I said was to produce you have to be out on the floor, and our guys got a good burn with a fairly good team. The more time you have on the floor with a good team as opposed to a bad one, you are going to get more production. Players on bad teams have to struggle to score because there is more attention on them if they are one of the more talented players on the floor. You will note, that Rudy, Greg, Batum, etc were never even close to being the most talented players on the floor here. Now look across at the other names on the list. Many of them were the 1st, 2nd or 3rd best players on their team.

I am surprised nobody noticed that OJ Mayo isn't even on that list. Yet I would think he is up there with the best if not better than most of the players on that list and to deny such is folly.

While in some ways that might be true, usually a player on a bad team gets a lot more mins and might get a lot of stats that he wouldn't get on a good team. So I'd say just the opposite is true.

 

[Nikolokolus]

As a follow up: is anyone else tired of hearing what a wunderkind Sam Presti is, and how the team he has assembled will trample all other teams underfoot in the very near future? This I have to see. It looks to me an awful lot like a bunch of tweeners in the bad sense. Even Mr. Jesus Christ Almighty Durant can't play a lick of defense, so he's only half a player. And Green is a SF too slow to play it (and Durant is there anyway) and Westbrook is a short flashy SG who can't shoot.

But maybe that's just me.

It's not just you ...

Christopher Reina isn't exactly slobbing their knobs

http://realgm.com/src_feature_piece...ising_oklahoma_city/s_championship_potential/

My prime concern when it comes to forecasting Durant's ceiling overall is his defense.

I'll concede that the Thunder are significantly better offensively with Durant on the floor, even if the stats don't agree. During the 08-09 season, the Thunder scored 103.2 points per 100 possessions with him and 103.9 without him; but the 8.2 points per 100 possessions worse they were defensively is statistically too massive to ignore. Oklahoma City was a net -8.4 points worse with Durant than they were without him.

The -8.4 is the statistical equivalent of an iceberg.

I feel as though I have a fair and grounded opinion of LeBron and see him for where he is great and where he remains limited, but the absurdity of any kind of comparison between these two players after the 08-09 season is exposed by simply looking at that -8.4. In LeBron's second season, he was already at +9.4 and it wasn't until his Team USA experience when he began committing himself to a full consistent effort defensively. LeBron does more than a dozen things very well to impact the game and Durant is largely a two-outcome player (points and rebounds) right now.

As the 2009-10 season begins, my money says that this statistic will absolutely be the most fascinating storyline to watch because it will be the ultimate determination of where this franchise is heading. It must improve dramatically for Durant to be fairly grouped amongst the LeBrons, Wades, Kobes and Yaos, who typically are at a minimum of +10.0 for this metric.

The blowhards who have already called TKO on the Oden/Durant debate are embarrassingly premature in that assessment (3). A second season, 100% healthy Durant only had a +2.7 PER in comparison to a first season, 80% healthy Greg Oden.

Pretty interesting read from a pretty well respected analyst.

 

[B-Roy]

A lot of it is misleading, like win shares and +/-. Portland won 54 games, and that skews the data for our players. Most of the rookies were playing on terrible teams.

 

[Masbee]

A lot of it is misleading, like win shares and +/-. Portland won 54 games, and that skews the data for our players. Most of the rookies were playing on terrible teams.

Oh. That explains why Gasol lead all rookies in Win Shares.

See, I don't think you understand how these stats are calculated.

 

[andalusian]

As a follow up: is anyone else tired of hearing what a wunderkind Sam Presti is, and how the team he has assembled will trample all other teams underfoot in the very near future? This I have to see. It looks to me an awful lot like a bunch of tweeners in the bad sense. Even Mr. Jesus Christ Almighty Durant can't play a lick of defense, so he's only half a player. And Green is a SF too slow to play it (and Durant is there anyway) and Westbrook is a short flashy SG who can't shoot.

But maybe that's just me.

It's not just you. I am still blown away by the fact that the Blunder are a much much better team (at least as far as win% is concerned) when Durant does not play.

Add the fact that 'ships are won on defense and the only one that seems like he can play defense on that roster is Westbrook - and this team looks like it is going nowhere fast.

 

[STOMP]

Did I say all anywhere there? All I said was to produce you have to be out on the floor, and our guys got a good burn with a fairly good team. The more time you have on the floor with a good team as opposed to a bad one, you are going to get more production.

good grief dude... reread what you wrote/what I responded to. You said..."I would point out we probably were one of the few teams that played our rookies, and playing=production to a certain point."

Compared to most draft years lots of rookies got regular run in 2008-9, not a few. Specifically, lots of them started and played similar and more minutes then Portland's stellar crop. None of the playing with a good team qualifiers you added in your 2nd were present either. There is nothing wrong with correcting a false statement.

STOMP