Pat Connaughton

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Wizard Mentor said:
Agreed, but I think that Stotts will apply a "tie-goes-to-the-Vonleh" metric, if for no other reason, because of familiarity with the system. If one of the rookies start, you can be sure they earned it.

The interesting question to me is "how much to pay Vonleh." I would absolutely pay him $8 mil/year. His agent will want $14. We'll see how he plays this year...
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If he plays well enough to ear $10 million plus; I think he will be traded. Portland can't afford to pay that when they have younger guys coming up who will earn less.
 
UKRAINEFAN said:
If he plays well enough to ear $10 million plus; I think he will be traded. Portland can't afford to pay that when they have younger guys coming up who will earn less.
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Yeah, my guess is Vonleh is traded this season. He's just going to cost significantly more than Collins/Swanigan, and probably won't be significantly better to justify the cost. Why pay $10M for 100% when you can pay $1.5M for 90%? (And that's assuming Collins/Swanigan don't end up as good as Vonleh by the end of the season...and I think it's likely one of them can be at least as good.)

Now, if we could lock him in on an Ed Davis contract I'd be up for keeping him!

Also, if we're somehow able to trade Turner and/or Meyers for someone on a much cheaper contract I'd be more inclined to keep Vonleh. We've cut 1/3rd of our bad contracts - only 2/3rds to go!
 
mook said:
Listened to some Blazers podcast earlier this year (can't remember which) and there was a lot of focus on Pat, and two recurring themes kept coming up:

1. He's a natural leader. Eh, I know, leadership doesn't mean much if you aren't NBA-level talent, but if you see that trait in a guy who also has a lot of athleticism and some NBA upside, well, it's an intangible that tips the scales over another guy with similar stats. If somewhere down the line he develops into a Derek Fisher-level utility player, well, it's nice to know he's got that ability to bring along younger players on the team down the road.

2. He sees Allen Crabbe as his role model for sticking in the league. Work hard, develop a bankable skill or two, and that contract will come. If you look at Crabbe's three point shooting in 3 years of college (.382) and Pat's 4 years (.386) you can kind of see how he connects those dots in his mind. In Pat's mind there's a template for success, and I think it's pretty realistic (as compared to, say, Meyers Leonard, who seems to just drift with the wind.)

I'm also a big believer in trajectory. Crabbe had a nice little growth curve. CJ and Dame did too. Not just in scoring but overall production over multiple years early in their careers. It can be a small, incremental stat improvement that just sneaks up on you. In Pat's first year, he played 4mpg and had a PER of 4. In his second, he was trusted with 8mpg and had a PER of 11.8. The PER is less important than the minutes, in my mind--the coach actually saw more ways he could help the team the longer he was on our team. That's encouraging. Does that mean he plays 16mpg this year with a PER or 22? Probably not. But he improved from his first season to the second. Seems pretty likely he can do that again.

(A complete absence of even the smallest incremental trajectory in Vonleh and Meyers is why I've pretty much given up on them.)

I'm glad we picked him up for the year. There's limited downside, he seems like a positive personality on the bench, and I think given the lack of pressure on him and the opportunities he'll see this year with Crabbe gone, he's got a good chance to get to be a Crabbe-level utility player.
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It was interesting in his post-game interview in his coming out party against the Suns the first guy he mentioned was Crabbe. I think both he and the franchise see Crabbe as the blueprint for his success. Pat has more athleticism and is a better defender, so you can see us actually keeping him around for the long term if Game 1 is an indicator of what we can expect.
 
theprunetang said:
I had bad acne in high school....ugh.
People called me Pruneface.
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Look at the way we had to endure social injustice. I used witch hazel, rubbing alcohol and other caustic liquids to eliminate acne. Nowadays, every other TV commercial is about script drugs and the product to clear acne can wipe your skin off and other serious physical afflictions may occur..
 
rasheedfan2005 said:
Is patty c legit?
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One game.
I will not overreact to one game.
I will not draw conclusions from one game.
I will not get excited about Pat after one game.
I will not declare him a legit NBA player after 1 good game.

But if he does it again against Indiana...

gif+chris+colfer+excited.gif
 
Pat did his work in the off season and in preseason and the 1st game it show it. Summer league they tested him out to maybe to handle the ball more but that not his strength. Strength is play off the ball and hit the open shot.
 
The most important part that I saw was how comfortable he looked out there. He didn't hesitate on his threes and ran the court in transition really well. In summer league and preseason he was doing too much. In this game he only did what he was supposed to, and looked great.
 
Thanks to his baseball pedigree and his new instant-offense-off-the-bench role, 750AM radio host Justin Myers has now dubbed Pat "The Heater".

Yay or nay?
 
PtldPlatypus said:
Thanks to his baseball pedigree and his new instant-offense-off-the-bench role, 750AM radio host Justin Myers has now dubbed Pat "The Heater".

Yay or nay?
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I like it. We really need a thread dedicated to Pat's official nickname. Patty Ice, Patty Fastball, Thunder Pat, The Heater. What else......
 
I don't understand how someone can be so shitty in SL, and then light it up in the regular season. It makes no sense.
 
Natebishop3 said:
I don't understand how someone can be so shitty in SL, and then light it up in the regular season. It makes no sense.
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He was trying to run the team as the PG. Not his skill set. He is much better spotting up or cutting to the rim.
 
Natebishop3 said:
I don't understand how someone can be so shitty in SL, and then light it up in the regular season. It makes no sense.
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I tried, and mostly failed, to explain this previously. Pat is a system guy. He excels within a structured system where he knows his role, where he is supposed to be, when he is supposed to be there and what he is supposed to do. Within the structured system, he knows where and when he is likely to get his shots. He has the confidence to shoot those shots without hesitation. He also relies on others performing their roles within that system.

Pretty much the exact opposite of the disorganized rat ball of summer league. In Vegas, he was playing a different role, in an unstructured environment with a bunch of strangers who didn't know "the system".

I also have mentioned several times, going back to middle of last season, that I felt Pat's career arc could very well follow the same arc as Allen Crabbe's. Guys like Crabbe and Connaughton, both second round picks, don't get much PT as rookies. They see a little more PT their second year. Over half of that is garbage time, but they do see an occasional run with the rotation guys, usually as the result of an injury, suspension or foul trouble. That's where we get the first glimpses of how they may potentially perform within the system. Pat didn't get a lot of meaningful PT last season, but I commented several times that when he did play meaningful minutes he looked comfortable out there with the rotation guys. He played within the system and didn't try to do too much (or too little).

Now that he's in his third season, he is comfortable and confident. His coaches and teammates have also seen what he can do in practice and in games, when given the chance, and also have confidence in him.

In spite of his shooting woes, and my criticism of Jake Layman, Connaughton's progress gives me hope that Layman may also eventually develop into a valuable rotation player - another system guy. Everyone got overhyped on Layman after this first miracle eight minutes of garbage time against GSW, but other than that, he had a terrible rookie year. It's kind of funny now, but if you go back and compare Jake's and Pat's first year stats, they are amazingly similar, especially their shooting percentages. Throw out those first 8 minutes against GSW, and rookie Jake actually shot the ball worse than rookie Pat.

Jake is seeing Pat have success and he's seen how it happened. It's the perfect blueprint for him to follow. Keep working hard, be a good teammate, listen to our coaches and learn the system and your role in it.

The Spurs have always had an uncanny ability to mold marginally talented guys to fit their system. Those have often been veterans castoffs that disappointed elsewhere. They seem to get suddenly good when playing for the Spur and then drop off when traded elsewhere. In POR's case, they seem to be growing their own system guys through the use of second round picks. That's actually a great tool to have. Second round picks are always available for a song. So, if you identify a guy you think could work in your system, you go out and get him, for little, or nothing.

Very low risk. Especially when selecting guys who played three or four years of college ball. You have a large enough sample size to know what you're getting. You know these guys won't be superstars (they wouldn't have stayed in college that long, or be available in the second round), but you also have seen how they have improved over a 3 - 4 year span and what they can and can't do well. Crabbe, Connaughton and Layman were all second rounders acquired via draft day trades. They also all played 3 - 4 years of college ball in solid programs. Neil and his staff have done a good job identifying those guys.

I know I'm known as a Crabbe hater around here, but he was actually a great value for a second round pick (until he got overpaid). Many second rounders don't ever sniff an NBA roster. So, getting a player that becomes an average NBA 6th man, or even just a rotation player, is good value for any 2nd round pick. With Connaughton, it's looking like Neil (and his scouts) have hit on two and a row. Here's hoping Jake will make it three for three.

BNM
 
Natebishop3 said:
I don't understand how someone can be so shitty in SL, and then light it up in the regular season. It makes no sense.
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I only remember one shitty game from him in SL, he looked like our best player in a couple other games and then got hurt as he was starting to play better.
 
Natebishop3 said:
I don't understand how someone can be so shitty in SL, and then light it up in the regular season. It makes no sense.
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It makes all the sense in the world. He was not playing PG in the game last night. He was in SL. He is an excellent catch and shoot guy next to 1 or 2 ball handlers (Dame, ET, Napier). He is not when he is the PG and the #1 option.
 
Boob-No-More said:
I know I'm known as a Crabbe hater around here, but he was actually a great value for a second round pick (until he got overpaid). Many second rounders don't ever sniff an NBA roster. So, getting a player that becomes an average NBA 6th man, or even just a rotation player, is good value for any 2nd round pick. With Connaughton, it's looking like Neil (and his scouts) have hit on two and a row. Here's hoping Jake will make it three for three.

BNM
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Don't forget our guy Will Barton.

If this is more than just a flash in the pan for Patty, then that's 3 straight second rounders that Neil hit in consecutive drafts.
 
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