42N8Bounce
Red Hot And Rebuilding
- Joined
- Dec 17, 2011
- Messages
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I hope you're right!Sleeper of this draft.
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I hope you're right!Sleeper of this draft.
I wonder how many were nba 3s42% on 250 attempts from three.
I think he breaks into the rotation right away.
Reality check: 40 players were drafted before Mr Baseball. That doesn't happen unless there are question marks.
He's a role player who has options to play baseball professionally.
Yep. The Blazers may be nothing more than leverage in his contract negotiations with the Orioles. They wouldn't have already paid him a hefty signing bonus if they believed he was committed to the NBA.
His real value is that he can be signed for ~$500K, which is cap savings over a vet minimum salary to fill out the roster.
Say goodbye to Crabbe.
Pat is a better prospect.
There is no cap savings of signing Pat instead of a vet minimum contract. Any extra money for a vet min player is paid by the league and not the Blazers. That was put in place so as not to discourage teams from signing veterans.
Pat does save the Blazers the cap space that a first round pick would have however.
I just hope he's still here in training camp because I could easily see him being included in a trade this summer.
He reminds me of Dan Marjerle.
He started 4 of his 6 games, pitched 14.1 innings, and was pulled out just before he could bat, so he had no at-bats. Was Michael Jordan this good?
This legend already has an enormous Wikipedia article. I always choose my favorite player before the season starts, which is the kiss of death, and it may be him.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pat_Connaughton
And finally, Connaughton's comparison for himself was an interesting one, also with Jazz ties: "I think for me, it's Wesley Matthews. He kind of came up the ranks and even went undrafted. He was a guy that about a similar size as me, similar height, similar weight, and he's obviously developed his shooting, he's obviously been able to develop other things: defending, handling the ball, things of that nature."
Pat said he's been told that his comp is Kyle Korver - compares himself to Wes Matthews.
Obviously as a CBB writer for SBNation’s ND site, I have shamrock-colored lenses when it comes to evaluating Pat, but you guys got a gem. He’s an incredible leader who single-handeldly changed the culture around the Irish program. In a single year they went from the bottom of the ACC to hanging the conference championship banner. The Irish couldn’t stop anyone a year ago, and Pat was a huge factor in developing a much better defensive mindset on the team.
Pat played significant minutes all 4 years in South Bend, starting all of the last 3. He never missed a game. As a freshman, he got on the floor because of defense. Those were bigger Irish teams, so Pat’s job was to lock down the opposition’s best wing player. It was only this year that the Irish were painfully undersized and had to ask Pat to play the 4. He certainly saw NBA level competition in that position against teams like UNC, Duke, and others. Pat more than held his own in that position, typically giving up 4+ inches to his opponent. I think he’ll be thrilled to get to go back to guarding wing guys and you’ll find him capable of switching just about everything on the perimeter (which ND does) as well as drifting to the block if someone wants to challenge him. He plays with a very low base and is very strong. Pat out rebounded WCS and Towns (combined) in ND’s final game vs. Kentucky.
I understand why people still talk about baseball, and he’ll never shake the "not athletic" thing. The funny thing is, a lot of people say he was a better QB than pitcher or shooting guard. He’s just a freak athlete and competitor, but his first love is basketball.
Offensively, you’re getting a guy who shot the ball better each of his 4 seasons at ND, culminating in 42.3% from the college line this year (RJ Hunter shot under 30% on the same volume vs. Sun Belt competition this season). In the combine scrimmages, Pat shot 50% from behind the NBAarc. His strength in the Irish offense this year was spacing the floor for Grant (or Demetrius Jackson) to chew people up in PnR. The Irish ran a very open system this year with a lot of sideline PnR and Pat’s role was to draw opposition 4’s out of the paint. Against teams like UNCthat tried to use length on Pat, he abused them off the bounce, but now with NBA wings defending him, the concerns about his ability to create are very fair. He’s going to need to work his handle to be effective vs. NBA 2’s and 3’s. However, he’s still going to stretch the floor for you, and he’s tremendous at coming off the back-cut in open sets and can certainly finish at the rim vs. NBA talent.
Obviously, we love the guy. He was a leader on campus, a great representative of Notre Dame, and one of the hardest workers we’ve ever seen. I know a lot of us on the east coast will be firing up league pass and a pot of coffee to stay up and watch Blazer games next season.
Here’s our draft primer on Pat.
If you want to learn more about the offensive sets he ran this year, we did a film breakdown here.
That's what I was just thinking...
