What do you like about Mario Hezonja? I'd never heard of him before. He's from Croatia and has a nickname similar to Nurkic "the beast". Nothing in his stats stand out though. Except shooting only 40% from 2pt range last year. I noticed he was the #5 overall in 2015.
Hozenja, while intriguing as a player for a protected second rounder is actually 6 months older than Vonleh and can't sniff any PT on the Magic.
I dont think his ability to earn PT in Orlando is a reasonable measuring stick to his ability. Harkless comes immediately to mind as a success story who was languishing on the Magic bench. Hezoenja can really shoot the rock I think some of his stats are misleading and when I have watched him it has been a situation that looked to me like the coaches didnt like his attitude, so he never played, not that he couldnt play. Noah on the other hand has not shown much to me (outside of some decent defensive chops) that gives me reason to think he has much staying power in the NBA. I'd be willing to swap them for that reason and to take a flyer on a top-5 pick, at a position of need, still on their rookie deal. Sounds to me like a classic shrewd Olshey move.
sorry but I disagree. as far as really shooting the rock , he shot less than 30% from three and the small sample size dismissal would be countered by the fact that he averaged over 2 attempts per game in his 65 games played last year. harkless was under utilized by Jacques Vaughn, henzoenja has played for both scott skiles and frank vogel. can't equate his usage to moe's.
No, it was his rookie year (2 seasons ago) his second season was last season where he shot 30% 3p 42%2pt played less minutes and generally had a bad attitude. I think this could be a similar situation that we snagged Nurk out of. He had 3 coaches in 2 years and none of them seemed to want to play him, he is a lot better than he has shown, given how he played for Barcelona and the numbers he was putting up there as a teenager. I dont know where vonleh fits on this team, because I really like Swanigan and I am on the record saying Collins will start at the 4 some time next year. I just feel like we need to get better on the wing, and expecting Jake Layman to blossom into something is a fools errand imo to me that means we should look to take flyer on a guy like Hezonja. If it costs Vonleh so be it.
Who said anything about a big splash? It's a re-shuffle of the deck in all likelihood--Harris is a questionable offensive and defensive fit--but just thought it was a plausible move.
Hey man, I'm all for making a move that moves us up a tier (right now I see our ceiling being the #5 seed), but there's just not a lot of those kind of moves out there besides maybe Melo at this point.
Love was the other guy I was thinking about but unless we are giving up one of the core 3 for him, I don't think there's a deal there that makes sense for both teams until next summer at the earliest. And even then I presume there will be better offers out there for him than we'll be willing make.
