Question: Alen Smailagić, great Warrior or GREATEST Warrior?
Question: Alen Smailagić, great Warrior or GREATEST Warrior?
Come on, we're all thinking it, I just typed it out loud.
Current Depth Chart
PG. Stephen Curry / Jordan Poole / Ky Bowman
SG. Klay Thompson / Damion Lee / Mychal Mulder
PF. Draymond Green / Eric Paschall / Kevon Looney
This is an approximate guess by me. Your depth chart might look different.
Alen Smailagić
The Warriors have famously loved this guy for a while, going so far as to hide him from other teams when they didn’t have contractual control over him. He made a splashy and very bold appearance in the big leagues, dunking on LeBron, shooting 3s, and missing spectacularly ambitious plays.
And he expanded the minds of his teammates by serving them Serbian food.
He did try on defense but was too slow to contest a lot of drives.
The stats have to be taken with many grains of salt due to small sample size and chaotic team situation, but ESPN RPM surprisingly likes him with Offensive RPM +0.07 (#22 out of 96) and Defensive RPM -0.48, putting him overall at #32 out of 96 PFs.
Cleaning The Glass stats also love him: Excellent scorer and assister, but very turnover-happy. Slightly above-average steals and rebounder. Fouls somewhat frequently, rarely blocks. On defense, he’s average at blocks and offensive boards and really bad at steals, fouling and defensive rebounding.
And advanced stats like BPM are quite negative on Smiley.
So, are we going to see Smailagic playing any kind of serious role next season?
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He's really fun to watch. Like Jordan Poole, Smiley has the guts to go for the big play in the big moment, with no regard to how it worked last time (if there even was a last time).
He's also still green, so it'll take a while until he knows when that's actually a good idea and when it's best *not* to go for it.
On defense, he also seems pretty green. Maybe not fleet-footed and stable enough to ever be a great outside defender, but he definitely could grow to become a better interior defender... Based on what I've seen of his personality so far, he seems like a hard worker so I think we'll see a bit more of him near year, mostly Kerr "stealing minutes." If I had to guess, Smiley will have a couple break-out moments but won't be a reliable contributor until the season after...
I really like him. I think he's got such an interesting upside with his range of skills, energy, sneaky athleticism and chutzpah.
I can envision a scenario where he has a great offseason improving his body, in particular improving his core strength and balance. If he does that it would not be shocking to me at all to see him actually be a decent contributor as an energy big with some skill. Even if he still doesn't know what he's doing out there too much. Then his future growth is tied to his skill and IQ improvements with the upside of a high quality starter.
Or, maybe the body never comes to the level he needs. Or his decision making doesn't come around. And he's kind of an entertaining but frustrating player. Wide range of outcomes for him.