Bust a Scoot? (1 Viewer)

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I honestly think missing a few weeks two different times this season and another month in the off season after a few minutes in a SL game have stunted his progress. I'm not saying he'd be worlds better than what we're seeing and that is what we were sold early on when Joe was saying that he'd help Dame contend. I just think if he had been healthy the whole season maybe missing just a game or two here or there, then he'd be further along or if he wasn't I'd be even more concerned.

That's fair, but every time he misses a little time he regresses completely back to where he started. It's like he's been skill-wiped. Being able to stay on the court and being resistant to injury is a quality, too.
 
Lock him in a gym and have him practice finishing at the rim. Start with Mikan drills off both feet against coverage.

Just absolutely terrible touch right now. Very frustrating.
 
Better question is whether anyone can think of any other PGs that have ever turned it around (relatively quickly) after as rough a first season as Scoot has had. I haven't looked, so I can't really say.

Some will point to Steve Nash but he didn't have near as big a role as a rookie and the team was .500

I guess Billups might be the best case but he had a lot of unusual dynamics his first two years, rape incident, traded his rookie year, traded again before his second year, as well as a lengthy lockout and frantic 50 game season.

Can't think of any other all-star level comps that struggled as much as Scoot has this rookie season. He isn't close to the level of rookie seasons that future all-stars like Westbrook, Wall, Irving, Morant, Fox, Holiday, Trae, Rose, Conley, etc all had. Many of them were just as young, had far less pro experience. But every one performed much better.

Dozens of similar comparisons to Scoot rookie season are role players or busts. When this thread was created it was way too early and laughable. But we're probably past that point now. It's certainly not definitive Scoot is a bust but its a very worthy subject to discuss.

I'm not convinced Scoot will be a bust - but I'd certainly bet its much more likely he is than he becomes an All-star.
 
one issue that may be really hard to solve though is Ant and Scoot on the floor together. It's pretty ugly....like putting a rat and a snake in a shoe box

I look at that as a fit issue when the team is trying to make a run for the playoffs.

Were so far from that its just not even a consideration at all next season, likely not the season after either. Might be 13 new guys on the roster by the time it is, possibly with neither Scoot nor Ant.

Blazers biggest problem is they don't have one player that is an above average starter in this league. Ayton and Grant are probably the closest, but unclear they are even part of anything long term.

Blazers desperately need starting level talent - at any position.
 
Better question is whether anyone can think of any other PGs that have ever turned it around (relatively quickly) after as rough a first season as Scoot has had. I haven't looked, so I can't really say.
Chauncey? Took three years to get efficient.

His rookie stats are shockingly similar to Scoot's.

11/4/2 on 37/33/85 shooting with 2 turns in 28 mpg for CB.

13/5/3 on 37/30/82 shooting with 3 turns in 27 mpg for SH.
 
Posted this in the Chicago game thread, but it probably goes here -

Looking at the 2023 draft class advanced stats, Scoot is ranked 52nd in WS, 44th in WS/48, 39th in BPM, 52nd in VORP, and 30th in PER. That's an average ranking of 43.4.

Yea, his shooting needs a lot of work. I’m more worried about his massive right-hand dominant play. The more he gets scouted, the more opponents will expose this weakness.
 
Chauncey? Took three years to get efficient.
...& of course Chauncey came into the league 2 years older then Scoot. Gary Payton didn't exactly blow the doors off when he entered the league either and he was 3 years older... there are others

I said this earlier in the thread and was blasted for it, but I'd really like to see Scoot rework mechanics of his jumper instead of trying to work with it.

STOMP
 
Lol this reminds me of my apparently “controversial” take that Scoot is going to have to make an unprecedented jump from a 7 PER if he were to become an all-star or all-nba level player.
 
When you come out of HS and go to G league it's like up and down rat ball and probably dont get a lot of coaching as compared to a D1 school? I wonder if it would have been better for Scoot to play a year at the D1 level and if it would have been an advantage?
 
Scoot seems to be driven and lives round ball. I would think he will master the three ball in due time. He also will improve is mid range game too.
 
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...& of course Chauncey came into the league 2 years older then Scoot. Gary Payton didn't exactly blow the doors off when he entered the league either and he was 3 years older... there are others

I said this earlier in the thread and was blasted for it, but I'd really like to see Scoot rework mechanics of his jumper instead of trying to work with it.

STOMP

I forgot about Payton. He came out after 4 years at OSU, and a *full* 4 years too. So there is precedent to indicate Scoot isn't a bust. We also are in a completely different time in the NBA, in that we've gone back to players coming straight out of HS (in essence) with little to no college type experience. PG's probably take longer to catch on. For example, Monte Ellis took a year to blossom, Lou Williams probably took 3-4 years and Sebastian Telfair never caught on. Although Monte and Lou were 2nd round picks.


Scoot (same with Anfernee) really would've benefited from playing at least a year or 2 of college ball.

Look at Simons rookie year, you take out his anomaly of a game (37 points, 13-21, and 9 assists) and his rookie year stats go down to 2 ppg, .47 assists a game and shot 39%.

As for the mechanics of Scoots shot, he's not good enough to act like he shouldn't be looking at everything. He did have a good stretch for a while, where his shot improved, but seems to have regressed a bit when he came back from his injury. Like he lost confidence or something. His overall shooting has been good in 3 of the 6 games, and bad in 1 and atrocious in 2.

From 2, he's been 4-8, 4-7, 1-4, 3-9, 5-6, and 3-14.

Inconsistent as hell, but in 3 games he shot really well (13-21) and in 3 games he shot so bad Keljin Blevins is offended ( 7-27).

Overall, it's 20-48 (~42%) from 2 and 4-22....much like the start of his season.

He's going to have to show signs of growth next season. You can excuse this year since its his first year of any high level competition/repetition, but not next year.
 
Lol this reminds me of my apparently “controversial” take that Scoot is going to have to make an unprecedented jump from a 7 PER if he were to become an all-star or all-nba level player.

well, he's 8.6 now. Is there a way to figure out how much of an improvement that indicates from 7? (or whatever it was earlier)/
 
I think tanking teams can stunt the progress of high draft picks like Scoot. The kid is a talented project and when we drafted him I always thought he should come off the bench until he can dominate bench pt guards. He's rushing his game and has a one dimensional offensive game with his right hand dominance. The swagger and razzle dazzle has washed off of him and beat him up a bit his rookie season. Hopefully tanking isn't going to water down Sharpe's talents at this point but it affirms to me a couple of things...the draft is a crap shoot and losing is really hard to cheer for. Chauncey is almost through his 3rd season and sits at 79 wins total...most rookie coaches would've been sent packing long before now. There are glimpses of good defense but we can neutralize any good defense with turning the ball over or failing to convert turnovers into points. Scoot and Sharpe may turn into a dynamic duo one day...one can hope. As it stands, I've gone from a die hard fan to a fringe fan waiting for the team to show up. Ayton is the closest thing we have as an alpha player right now and he's what I've enjoyed in a crappy season so far.
 
"Busta Scoot" has turned into "Bust on a Scoot"!

upload_2024-3-19_9-20-52.jpeg

He is way too nice a guy and Portland has such good luck there is no way he won't be a generational talent.
 
Better question is whether anyone can think of any other PGs that have ever turned it around (relatively quickly) after as rough a first season as Scoot has had. I haven't looked, so I can't really say.
It has to be “quickly”? When we drafted him, I planned on giving him as much time as we did Ant. Regardless of who he plays behind or the talent level of our team. Immediate giving him 3 years. Doesn’t matter, we aren’t going anywhere for 5 at the earliest in my opinion. I have a feeling it’s going to be a “rough” 18 month for you.
 
SO for those who think after 50 games or so played this kid is a “bust”……how do you feel about PGs in the past who had bad rookie seasons, yet turned it around? There are a ton out there. I can think of 5 that came out and had crappy rookies seasons, and turned it around but were TWENTY-TWO years old!! That would be in the middle of Scoot’s THIRD season right? Give this kid a chance……god damn!

This reminds me of all the shit Ant was getting.
 
SO for those who think after 50 games or so played this kid is a “bust”……how do you feel about PGs in the past who had bad rookie seasons, yet turned it around? There are a ton out there. I can think of 5 that came out and had crappy rookies seasons, and turned it around but were TWENTY-TWO years old!! That would be in the middle of Scoot’s THIRD season right? Give this kid a chance……god damn!

This reminds me of all the shit Ant was getting.

He was reading over your shoulder, wasn't he?
 
Lock him in a gym and have him practice finishing at the rim. Start with Mikan drills off both feet against coverage.

Just absolutely terrible touch right now. Very frustrating.
Yep.
When Scoot gets to the basket, he just throws it up there like he's trying to get fouled. I think he is so used to being so physically dominant -> that he never refined many of his skills (finishing, passing, dribbling, IQ/control, etc). His actual skill set is very low for an NBA player....

The fact that he can occasionally make a positive impact is remarkable and makes me hold out hope.
 
I think anyone who drafts a guy who was a blue chip prospect in high school and went to the GLeague Ignite is going to have to expect to wait and see because the guys coming from that program just have not been ready to live up to the hype they had going into it.

The league really needs to look at how that team is coached and managed. I do not think it's a good place for guys to go from high school to and develop their games. Jalen Green was a huge disappointment but is starting to turn things around, the same could be said for Kuminga, Dyson Daniels hasn't done much but the list is short because it is a new program.

I just think responsible families would get their blue chip prospect sons to programs that are both known to develop talent and that are working towards a goal of winning something. Whether that's in the NCAA or a pro team in Australia or Europe. I just don't think this model of exhibition games is good at all and Scoot was in it for two years.

I've mentioned this before but Scoot went to the Ignite instead of his senior year of high school and in the two years after only played 19 exhibition games... that's it. I just don't think guys are going to develop playing around ten games a year that have no meaning other than showcasing them. To contrast that both high school varsity teams and NCAA teams play 25-35 games a season and those programs are trying to win championships at some level. Ignite just has a bad formula.
 
SO for those who think after 50 games or so played this kid is a “bust”……how do you feel about PGs in the past who had bad rookie seasons, yet turned it around? There are a ton out there. I can think of 5 that came out and had crappy rookies seasons, and turned it around but were TWENTY-TWO years old!! That would be in the middle of Scoot’s THIRD season right? Give this kid a chance……god damn!

This reminds me of all the shit Ant was getting.
Ant ALWAYS had skills - remember that Sacramento game in his rookie year? And he could always score. He just couldn't play a team game. He's still not great at the things he wasn't good at, and his skills now are the ones that were obvious back then.

Scoot, on the other hand, looks raw as shit. He's big and strong, not particularly athletic, can't shoot for shit, doesn't have great court vision, AND doesn't know how to play a team game. He's got a lot more climbing to do than Ant did. Even Chauncey (who is Scoot's BEST CASE scenario, and also the incredibly rare case who looked like a complete bust and clawed his way back) could shoot better than Scoot can.

The only reason to have any hope about Scoot is Jalen Green winning Western Conference Player of the Week. But even he, shit as he looked coming out of the G-League, always had otherworldly hops.

This is a big Summer for Scoot, that's for fucking sure. And if anyone offered anything of value for him (a la Indy with Jermaine) then I'd trade him in a nanosecond. And if BPA when we pick in this year's draft is a point guard, we better fucking take him. Another passing-on-Chris Paul-because-we-have-Telfair and I swear to God I will rain down fire on the Moda Center
 
Ant ALWAYS had skills - remember that Sacramento game in his rookie year? And he could always score. He just couldn't play a team game. He's still not great at the things he wasn't good at, and his skills now are the ones that were obvious back then.

Scoot, on the other hand, looks raw as shit. He's big and strong, not particularly athletic, can't shoot for shit, doesn't have great court vision, AND doesn't know how to play a team game. He's got a lot more climbing to do than Ant did. Even Chauncey (who is Scoot's BEST CASE scenario, and also the incredibly rare case who looked like a complete bust and clawed his way back) could shoot better than Scoot can.

The only reason to have any hope about Scoot is Jalen Green winning Western Conference Player of the Week. But even he, shit as he looked coming out of the G-League, always had otherworldly hops.

This is a big Summer for Scoot, that's for fucking sure. And if anyone offered anything of value for him (a la Indy with Jermaine) then I'd trade him in a nanosecond. And if BPA when we pick in this year's draft is a point guard, we better fucking take him. Another passing-on-Chris Paul-because-we-have-Telfair and I swear to God I will rain down fire on the Moda Center

Do you set some kind of calendar alert to remind you to post the same shit all the time? We get it. You don't like Scoot.
 
I don't understand some of you fuckers.

When it became apparent that he wasn't going to be the turn-key player that some of us hoped, then it was time to recalibrate your expectations for the season. He has had good stretches. But he keeps getting hurt and then plays badly when he returns. The guy came back from a core injury. Accept that he needs development and then wait and see what we have next season. Why keep posting this same tired shit over and over again. We get it. He's not the player that we hoped he'd be right off the bat.
 

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