Drummond making his pitch to the Warriors. Lol. He would have be cool to have as a backup 5 in theory but I'm not sure if he ever developed a feel for the game to succeed in our system.
I mean did he really go from 100 mil to minimum because of his pouty ness or did his skills erode enough to where his ‘attitude’ took him from maybe 5-6 mil a year to Vet minimum?
I think he’d fit great. Can pass a little, screen, play physically. He’s just undisciplined and historically a bit selfish to be a really good starter but he’d be a great backup.
I like PBJ, but I think I can get on board with the idea that a PBJ/TJD swap is not as bad as a 28th for 57th pick trade looks like. Maybe TJD won't be any good, but PBJ is really looking like potentially Mo Speights as an optimistic upside for the near future. Mo was mostly a minimum-level player, and I think comparable guys can get gotten at that price point still. So why pay 1st round salary (multiplied by 8) and spend 3-4 years just to develop the next Mo?
Maybe PBJ will become Rashard Lewis in the modern game and make us regret. Or a shooting Looney. But, chances are he won't, and to be fair he is super young, but there really wasn't anything in his limited action in his first year that showed flashes of "we really need to see what this guy grows in to".
interesting... I didn't pay much attention to him b/c his college numbers are so terrible... what were you basing his ranking on, and how do you rationalize his college numbers? (47% true shooting, 39% 2P%, 33.8% 3P%, -0.3 DBPM etc)
so how did you know he would be good? say compared to other injured players e.g. Dariq Whitehead, Jett Howard, both of whom still put up decent numbers
I believe I can find a couple of posts where I might have mentioned it. I am of course an Arkansas homer, though, so I don't know that I can take much credit for it. Still can't believe he dropped that far, though. Cf. from June 15:
I would be very disappointed if GS passed on Nick Smith in that particular projected draft, unless there's evidence somewhere that his knee problem from the begininng of last year is chronic. The Ringer has dropped him all the way to 20 from 13 and other mocks have also deceded to hammer him all of a sudden. I personally don't see how, if he's not already gone, he gets past guard-desperate Toronto, but he's exactly in the middle of the kind of squirrely reaction that leads to guys getting picked 33rd and becoming all-stars. His biggest problems are fixable - strength (he's young - comes with the territory), and a 20 year old tendency to handle the ball as if he's still in AAU - not a skill problem, just a mental adjustment. I watched Smith all year and disagree entirely with the "forced shot" critique from the Ringer eval. Those floaters were going in at a prodigious rate before he got hurt, and Smith was very good at transitioning to other parts of his game when his shot was not going in. There's lots of focus on his low three-point percentage, but he was close to an 80 percent ft shooter in high school, and coming off injury in February in SEC play is not very conducive to showing what you can do.
Also i love Arkansas as a developmental system. I think the angriest ive been on here was when we drafted Mannion over Isaiah Joe. I followed two teams very closely that year: arkansas and Arizona and Isaiah Joe was far and away the better player. They weren’t even in the same stratosphere
The interesting part was many of the pundits saying we needed a true Poole replacement: someone with the ability to score at will THEN we have a Player ten times more talented fall to us and we went another way.
honestly though im ok with because all the Warriors have drafted/signed this year are high floor low-ish ceiling type of players PODZ, TJD, a 38 year old Chris Paul, C. joseph. I think a more balanced approach would have served best but theyve already been burned by Oubre, Wiseman, and Kuminga most recently so theyve fully swung the other way and i can respect them for that (for now pending results)
If he figures out how to play PG then he actually has fine size for his position, and sometimes these high feel guys have way higher ceilings than we give them credit for (Draymond being the example closest to home). Maybe he figures out a bunch of tricks to get his shot off, maybe the very deep range and the pull up three point shooting and the floater he flashed in college all translate which make him really hard to guard despite the lack of burst because you have to guard him so tightly, and then the rebounding and passing translate and he's actually a triple double threat like he envisions himself.
But maybe he doesn't figure out how to play PG and he can't get his shot off and he gets picked on defensively and he's out of the league in a few years.
He's honestly a fascinating combination of plus skill+feel+motor and minus athleticism+size to me, can't remember many prospects like him.
It makes you wonder if there’s a reason he was tied to the bench as a freshman at Illinois. I get that you’re playing behind a group of seniors, and he had a great year at Santa Clara, but a lot of his best games came against the dregs of the WCC and not as much as the Gonzaga’s and the Saint Mary’s.
You can draft from the mid majors but the player’s got to have it. Steph showed he could do it against high major competition when the team talent gap wasn’t outrageous and it was a relatively neutral site. Haven’t seen that with Podz yet
If his rebounding is legit good for a guard, his defensive aptitude can make up for his athleticism, and (most importantly) he's an abominable 3 man. Like DDV + confident shooting and better passing but worse drive. That feels medium ish to me?
Most of his value would come from his shot, so if that ends up being insane then he'll be good. If it doesn't work he'll be out of the league
I have consistently staked my reputation that out of all the available or possibly available choices at 19, Nick Smith would have the most success as a pro (including In our system). I just didn’t think he would be available at 19 (everyone had him mocked at 17 the latest) but Lively would. Once it was apparent that Lively was going much sooner and Smith was dropping, I said Smith Jr should be our 1st choice but I also said I didn’t think the Warriors would ever take him hence i wasn’t going to be as upset as not taking Davion
I dont have doubts as a prospect (injuries due to frame notwithstanding) but i feel the basketball community as a whole have a 1-2 year memory span. I’ll give you an example: Caitlin Clark. Everyone saying shes the best prospect to come out in years. The next Steph Curry. Sabrina Ionescu was just drafted two short years ago and she was the consensus top player to come out in years just two years ago!
Anyways back to Wemby. Saw Luka play his last year In Europe several times (on tv not in person) and his game screamed ‘Special’ every single time. Saw Wemby. Pundits saying hes the best prospect since Lebron but we just had Luka drafted in 2018 and I just dont think hes as good as Luka coming out of Europe. I think hes on par with Chet who i felt was the best prospect out of that 2022 draft but certainly no Lebron
That's spicy. What's the doubt on Wembanyama? He looked good to me, albeit not "clearly he doesn't belong" level good in one game, and seemed like he wasn't told anything in the other game.
I have doubts about what position he plays and think his game might be more reliant on his shooting coming around than people are giving credit for. Part of that is because he takes a lot of ambitious shots.
Can Wembanyama play the 5? Offensively yes, but defensively? Wikipedia says he weighs 209 pounds, is that wrong? I feel like his high center of gravity could be tough for that position, it's a very physical position. But if that listed weight is wrong and he's actually like 230 then maybe it'll be fine as he grows into his body.
Can Wembanyama play the 4? Defensively yes, but offensively? He can dribble the ball amazingly well for his size but he's still so far from the ground with the ball that it seems easy for helpers to dig on his drives. I would be interested in seeing someone like Draymond (or Tucker) guard him, I feel like he's probably never had to deal with that low center of gravity physicality that seems to throw someone like KD off in the playoffs. He could counter by shooting over those guys but can he make the shot? TBD.
I don't think he's going to bust though, he looks too impactful defensively. I'm just curious about the offense. He could presumably be Rudy Gobert if he wanted to be, but I don't get the sense that he wants to play like a big man, I think he wants to play like a wing. Maybe I'm wrong, I've barely watched him lol.
Smith looks like a very decent player who will have an NBA career. However, passing on Cam Whitmore for the Podz took a lot of balls by DunDun. Cam looks like a player that would make a difference for our bench. We'll see how this all plays out in the future.
I don’t disagree with you per se. I just didn’t have Cam falling so far that I could make a push for him but it reminds me when the Clippers bypassed on Michael Porter Jr because of injury concerns. Alot of teams (not just Warriors) overthunk this. But again never had Cam falling this far hence why i didn’t necessarily have an issue with them choosing Podz.
Salary notwithstanding Id trade Kuminga and Moody straight up for Mitchell. Ask any Kings fan if theyd take Kuminga straight up for Mitchell right now and the answer would be an overwheLming No. The consensus, right or wrong, seems to be that the series shifted once Mike Brown decided to sit Mitchell instead of matching his minutes against most of Currys
Just wanted to make that clear (now you're saying Moody AND Kuminga for Mitchell? Ok.)
No idea how to verify your claim about Kings fans being overwhelmingly against a DM for JK swap. Color me skeptical.
I am also skeptical that the consensus is that the Kings would have won if they kept playing Mitchell (personally i don't remember the rotations for either team well enough to have an opinion on that one except that Mike Brown is MUCH better coach than you or I so it is highly likely that whatever he did was, if not the best choice, better than anything we might come up with)
Dumping Mitchell from the rotation was their best chance to win tbh, they blitzed the hell out of the Warriors at Chase Center in Game 6 by replacing Mitchell minutes with Davis minutes, going small instead of going with Len, and outgunning the Warriors.
Luckily Kerr adjusted and got the Warriors getting to the line a lot in Game 7 to slow the pace down and Curry did the rest.
That's not dissonance. "Summer league doesn't prove you're good" and "Summer League provides valuable experience for developing players" are not mutually exclusive ideas. They're barely even related.
Yeah I think "integral" might be an exaggeration of opinions, and even if you remove "valuable" from your statement it still can be true. Basically, even if summer league is not that important, young players can use any experience than can get to improve. The calculus for a team may change if that player is planned to be a starter, you have to balance the risk/reward. Similar to something like preseason NBA.
That said, doing well in summer league still seems like a better thing than doing poorly. I don't know anything about Nick Smith Jr, but I do know if quinones dropped that line people here would be losing their minds.
Feels like they are going to be the Herro dumping ground… are they able to trade guys like Bertans, Gay, or Oladipo yet? Easy for them to add a pick and/or recent draft picks to the trade…
Yeah, seems like there's a good chance of Rudy Gay filling roster spot #14 for the Warriors unless OKC finds a way to trade him for a second rounder or something.
1) He's a 4, which is probably the position they are targeting
2) He's probably okay with not having a solid spot in the rotation due to his age.
I don't think the Warriors are a very attractive location for the 14th spot given how set their rotation is, it will either be a vet who is okay with not playing much or a desperate guy just trying to make a roster.
Personally I'd want Danny Green (under the assumption that the Warriors are not going to sign another big man and just look to add one on a two-way). But the Warriors and Gay have been linked in rumors in the past, this is my prediction on what will happen.
He's a former star, knows the game, and can shoot the 3. A perfect Kerr pickup for our baby boomers. To make it on the Warriors, you need to be at least 34yo.
The Warriors are likely to take a patient wait-and-see approach before committing a guaranteed contract to somebody in that 14th slot, team sources indicated to The Athletic. If nothing appealing enough materializes before October, team sources indicate that the Warriors are comfortable putting their 14th spot up for grabs in a training camp competition among non-guaranteed candidates.
The Warriors still don’t have a traditional center backing up Kevon Looney. They at least explored the idea of signing Mason Plumlee and/or Alex Len in the early days of free agency, but both returned to their more comfortable locations. None of the current free agent centers appear to be moving the Warriors much.
Seeing as Lester was extended a Two-Way qualifying offer, he is one of them. Javan Johnson has another Two-Way contract at the moment I thiiiiiiink, could be wrong on that. Then from what Lacob says here, they're having/will have discussions about whether to sign Gui to a Two-Way or stash him in the G League for this upcoming season.
Podz not the only shooter in college to struggle with the three in Summer League. Jordan Hawkins is currently shooting (5/21=)24% from three midway through his third game, and Gradey Dick is shooting (3/12=)25% from three through two games.
“He's working really hard right now. We've sent coaches to go work with him. He has a great attitude right now.” vs “I know he's gonna put in the work whether people are looking or not. He's always in there looking for extra work, asking, you know, what can I do better? Watching film with coaches.”
Whelp one of these guys got some strong praise and the other praise was about as qualified as it gets.
Besides TJD just being available, what are you most looking forward to in the upcoming SL matchups against Dallas (Lively, OMax) and Houston (Whitmore)?
All I can say is Podz better outplay Whitmore, or we’ll be looking at one of our worst draft whiffs since we passed on Brandon “55 point game” Jennings in favor of that skinny unathletic combo guard who ran like a girl.
"His family relation gives him an unavoidable advantage in getting jobs and being promoted. However, he has had quite a number of jobs in the organization, so he wasn’t promoted straight to the top."
Yup, that's an accurate description. He surely didn't start at the bottom or with a rank and file position. It was Assistant GM. LOL, if he wasn't the boss' son, would he even have qualified?
You can look at his linked in profile. Graduated from Stanford with a degree in Management Science and Engineering, interned for the Celtics, then a couple venture capital firms and Chegg, then was GM of the Dakota Wizards D-League team, then became Director of Basketball Operations for the Dubs in 2010, then assistant GM for the Warriors (until 2019) as well as GM for the Santa Cruz Warriors in 2012 (through 2014), then became Executive Vice President, Basketball Operations in 2019, which is the title he holds today (and incidentally, a title that did not change after Bob Myer's departure).
Start CP3 for the first four to six minutes of the 1st & 3rd qtrs, then bring in Loon. Paul starts the first six minutes of the 2nd & 4th qtrs and comes back in for the last 2-4 minutes if needed. He still gets to start but has no more than 24 - 28 minutes per game.
My Solution: CP0 accepts that a) he's 38 (gonna be 39 during the season, I think) and b) he's come to a 4 time championship team with established starters and his role is to shore up their bench so they can get to 5 and he can get to CP1, while staying healthy so he helps in the postseason as well. No starting (except when Steph dnp for whatever reason, I guess) and fewer minutes, say 20ish!
This isn't a team where he is brought in as the savvy veteran. Warriors have plenty of guys who know how to win. This is a situation where he has to learn how to fit in AND choose to do so. Otherwise ... buh bye
That's what I've been figuring they'll start with. It shows Paul they respect him in action, and that makes it easier to make the case in the season or playoffs that he should focus on the bench unit for the best version of the team.
Have we had a Jayce Johnson discussion? I know he was hype-manning, but The Kirk quote was interesting. If LQ lands a roster spot, could Jayce be the place who’s a helpful big man on a 2-way.
I’m having a tough time forming an opinion about him. What do others think of him?
I don't think there's a discussion. Jayce Johnson is not an NBA player. Is there another side of that discussion?
I wouldn't even waste a 2-way on him. I'd rather play GP2 or JK at center. I'd rather take a flier on Huff or Papagiannis than see JJ play a minute in the NBA.
To me he is too stiff, quicker athletes in the NBA would run him off the floor. He has good size but his hands/footwork seem average. I agree with what others have said “he looks good for a G league player.”
Was in Sacramento. He looked good for a G-league player but there doesn’t seem like there’s any chance he’ll help in real nba minutes. (That’s an opinion :)
The Light Years kids were raving about him on their latest podcast (which was nice, since they tend to be tough to please, and my own impressions were more mixed) and said the biggest difference between him DDV — which Andy noted was a racist comparison to begin with, lol — is that Podz is a PG.
Haha, it’s hard for me to say “hate listen” with any conviction, since they’re always one of the first podcasts I check for new episodes on Spotify. I’m basically just a boring old “regular listener” at this point. 😊
I agree that Sam is generally quite good. Andy still annoys me a lot of the time, but I think that’s mostly cos I can tell he’s actually a smart and decent dude who for whatever reason (mostly clicks and $$, I imagine) can’t resist engaging in hyperbole, simplistic catch phrases, and hot-takery instead of giving honest and measured analysis. Like, things with him tend to be either amazing (“I’m all in!”) or terrible (“what are we doing here????”)
I get that clicks matter, and are his livelihood to some degree. And I get that it’s only hoops. At the same time, I feel like extreme oversimplification and hyperbole are serious afflictions in our current world, and that indulging in them regularly — even if just for fun, and just about sports — is unwise. We’re all sell-outs to some degree so I can’t really throw stones, but it just feels like Andy could take down the hot-takery a few notches and still be a perfectly entertaining listen that people will check Spotify for (viz. Sam, Slater, MT2, Kerith Burke, Patrick Epino, Zach Lowe, Nate Duncan, et al.)
I should add that I love a good joke, and cut a lot of slack for exaggeration where the aim/effect is comedy. Ultimately, what I like best about Light Years is that it often cracks me up. It’s just a fine line sometimes between broad humor and gratuitous oversimplification.
highly touted high school prospect who fell off due to injuries, eh? Popovich-running.gif but with Dunleavy's face (or was that more a Bob Myers type?)
Didn't they need to trade him to duck under the cap which let them avoid the repeater tax for a year? It is often a lot about the contract and a little about the player
Yeah that was in the horrible '19-'20 season. GRIII played 48 games for us, then we traded him at the deadline, along with Alec Burks, to the Sixers for three second round picks. One of those second-round picks we used on Nico Mannion. We traded one pick as part of acquiring Oubre. The other pick we used on Tyrese Martin, whom we traded to get Ryan Rollins.
sounds like Yurtseven is signing with the Jazz
https://twitter.com/ClutchPointsApp/status/1678786874461044738
Drummond making his pitch to the Warriors. Lol. He would have be cool to have as a backup 5 in theory but I'm not sure if he ever developed a feel for the game to succeed in our system.
He still has game and is effective in a backup role....
I mean did he really go from 100 mil to minimum because of his pouty ness or did his skills erode enough to where his ‘attitude’ took him from maybe 5-6 mil a year to Vet minimum?
I think he’d fit great. Can pass a little, screen, play physically. He’s just undisciplined and historically a bit selfish to be a really good starter but he’d be a great backup.
That said he’s not a free agent
Amen...
Whoopsies. Apparently not until next offseason
He does have a pretty nice passing collection. He just turnovers a lot too lol
PBJ looks like he’s not one of the group yet.
I like PBJ, but I think I can get on board with the idea that a PBJ/TJD swap is not as bad as a 28th for 57th pick trade looks like. Maybe TJD won't be any good, but PBJ is really looking like potentially Mo Speights as an optimistic upside for the near future. Mo was mostly a minimum-level player, and I think comparable guys can get gotten at that price point still. So why pay 1st round salary (multiplied by 8) and spend 3-4 years just to develop the next Mo?
Maybe PBJ will become Rashard Lewis in the modern game and make us regret. Or a shooting Looney. But, chances are he won't, and to be fair he is super young, but there really wasn't anything in his limited action in his first year that showed flashes of "we really need to see what this guy grows in to".
Ahem. I don’t want to hear any of you saying you had him as your top choice for Warriors to draft like i did
Hoop Central
@TheHoopCentral
Nick Smith Jr. tonight:
33 Points
4 Rebounds
3 Assists
65% FG
80% 3P
interesting... I didn't pay much attention to him b/c his college numbers are so terrible... what were you basing his ranking on, and how do you rationalize his college numbers? (47% true shooting, 39% 2P%, 33.8% 3P%, -0.3 DBPM etc)
Injuries hampered him.
so how did you know he would be good? say compared to other injured players e.g. Dariq Whitehead, Jett Howard, both of whom still put up decent numbers
I believe I can find a couple of posts where I might have mentioned it. I am of course an Arkansas homer, though, so I don't know that I can take much credit for it. Still can't believe he dropped that far, though. Cf. from June 15:
I would be very disappointed if GS passed on Nick Smith in that particular projected draft, unless there's evidence somewhere that his knee problem from the begininng of last year is chronic. The Ringer has dropped him all the way to 20 from 13 and other mocks have also deceded to hammer him all of a sudden. I personally don't see how, if he's not already gone, he gets past guard-desperate Toronto, but he's exactly in the middle of the kind of squirrely reaction that leads to guys getting picked 33rd and becoming all-stars. His biggest problems are fixable - strength (he's young - comes with the territory), and a 20 year old tendency to handle the ball as if he's still in AAU - not a skill problem, just a mental adjustment. I watched Smith all year and disagree entirely with the "forced shot" critique from the Ringer eval. Those floaters were going in at a prodigious rate before he got hurt, and Smith was very good at transitioning to other parts of his game when his shot was not going in. There's lots of focus on his low three-point percentage, but he was close to an 80 percent ft shooter in high school, and coming off injury in February in SEC play is not very conducive to showing what you can do.
Also i love Arkansas as a developmental system. I think the angriest ive been on here was when we drafted Mannion over Isaiah Joe. I followed two teams very closely that year: arkansas and Arizona and Isaiah Joe was far and away the better player. They weren’t even in the same stratosphere
I wasn't familiar with Isaiah Joe until you brought him to my attention. Thanks!
Maybe he'll be available b/c he's on a non-guaranteed contract and OKC has 21 players on their roster.
https://www.spotrac.com/nba/oklahoma-city-thunder/cap/
Just chiming in because I've been disagreeing with you lately, but this I agree with wholeheartedly and have ZERO idea what they were thinking!
The interesting part was many of the pundits saying we needed a true Poole replacement: someone with the ability to score at will THEN we have a Player ten times more talented fall to us and we went another way.
honestly though im ok with because all the Warriors have drafted/signed this year are high floor low-ish ceiling type of players PODZ, TJD, a 38 year old Chris Paul, C. joseph. I think a more balanced approach would have served best but theyve already been burned by Oubre, Wiseman, and Kuminga most recently so theyve fully swung the other way and i can respect them for that (for now pending results)
I think Podziemski is a low floor, high ceiling guy tbh
Medium floor medium ceiling? (Or something like that). What of his game makes you bullish of him being a high ceiling prospect?
If he figures out how to play PG then he actually has fine size for his position, and sometimes these high feel guys have way higher ceilings than we give them credit for (Draymond being the example closest to home). Maybe he figures out a bunch of tricks to get his shot off, maybe the very deep range and the pull up three point shooting and the floater he flashed in college all translate which make him really hard to guard despite the lack of burst because you have to guard him so tightly, and then the rebounding and passing translate and he's actually a triple double threat like he envisions himself.
But maybe he doesn't figure out how to play PG and he can't get his shot off and he gets picked on defensively and he's out of the league in a few years.
He's honestly a fascinating combination of plus skill+feel+motor and minus athleticism+size to me, can't remember many prospects like him.
It makes you wonder if there’s a reason he was tied to the bench as a freshman at Illinois. I get that you’re playing behind a group of seniors, and he had a great year at Santa Clara, but a lot of his best games came against the dregs of the WCC and not as much as the Gonzaga’s and the Saint Mary’s.
You can draft from the mid majors but the player’s got to have it. Steph showed he could do it against high major competition when the team talent gap wasn’t outrageous and it was a relatively neutral site. Haven’t seen that with Podz yet
If his rebounding is legit good for a guard, his defensive aptitude can make up for his athleticism, and (most importantly) he's an abominable 3 man. Like DDV + confident shooting and better passing but worse drive. That feels medium ish to me?
Most of his value would come from his shot, so if that ends up being insane then he'll be good. If it doesn't work he'll be out of the league
Yeah and given how bad he looks around the rim, that floater is going to have to be a weapon for him.
So you’re staking your full reputation on Nick Smith being the best pro out of the Draft Tourney?
Because the knock on him was that he wouldn’t pass, not that he wouldn’t shoot
I have consistently staked my reputation that out of all the available or possibly available choices at 19, Nick Smith would have the most success as a pro (including In our system). I just didn’t think he would be available at 19 (everyone had him mocked at 17 the latest) but Lively would. Once it was apparent that Lively was going much sooner and Smith was dropping, I said Smith Jr should be our 1st choice but I also said I didn’t think the Warriors would ever take him hence i wasn’t going to be as upset as not taking Davion
I like it when people diverge from the consensus on prospects, it's boring when everyone has the same opinion on guys.
Speaking of which, I'm buying a bit of "Wembanyama doubt" stock after seeing him a bit in Summer League.
I dont have doubts as a prospect (injuries due to frame notwithstanding) but i feel the basketball community as a whole have a 1-2 year memory span. I’ll give you an example: Caitlin Clark. Everyone saying shes the best prospect to come out in years. The next Steph Curry. Sabrina Ionescu was just drafted two short years ago and she was the consensus top player to come out in years just two years ago!
Anyways back to Wemby. Saw Luka play his last year In Europe several times (on tv not in person) and his game screamed ‘Special’ every single time. Saw Wemby. Pundits saying hes the best prospect since Lebron but we just had Luka drafted in 2018 and I just dont think hes as good as Luka coming out of Europe. I think hes on par with Chet who i felt was the best prospect out of that 2022 draft but certainly no Lebron
That's spicy. What's the doubt on Wembanyama? He looked good to me, albeit not "clearly he doesn't belong" level good in one game, and seemed like he wasn't told anything in the other game.
I have doubts about what position he plays and think his game might be more reliant on his shooting coming around than people are giving credit for. Part of that is because he takes a lot of ambitious shots.
Can Wembanyama play the 5? Offensively yes, but defensively? Wikipedia says he weighs 209 pounds, is that wrong? I feel like his high center of gravity could be tough for that position, it's a very physical position. But if that listed weight is wrong and he's actually like 230 then maybe it'll be fine as he grows into his body.
Can Wembanyama play the 4? Defensively yes, but offensively? He can dribble the ball amazingly well for his size but he's still so far from the ground with the ball that it seems easy for helpers to dig on his drives. I would be interested in seeing someone like Draymond (or Tucker) guard him, I feel like he's probably never had to deal with that low center of gravity physicality that seems to throw someone like KD off in the playoffs. He could counter by shooting over those guys but can he make the shot? TBD.
I don't think he's going to bust though, he looks too impactful defensively. I'm just curious about the offense. He could presumably be Rudy Gobert if he wanted to be, but I don't get the sense that he wants to play like a big man, I think he wants to play like a wing. Maybe I'm wrong, I've barely watched him lol.
He has strong wing energy on offense, for sure lol. It feels like he could be something special, idk
Smith looks like a very decent player who will have an NBA career. However, passing on Cam Whitmore for the Podz took a lot of balls by DunDun. Cam looks like a player that would make a difference for our bench. We'll see how this all plays out in the future.
I don’t disagree with you per se. I just didn’t have Cam falling so far that I could make a push for him but it reminds me when the Clippers bypassed on Michael Porter Jr because of injury concerns. Alot of teams (not just Warriors) overthunk this. But again never had Cam falling this far hence why i didn’t necessarily have an issue with them choosing Podz.
For me, the main guys they might have "passed on" were Leonard Miller or perhaps Dariq Whitehead.
Wait! You're still on that? You're saying you'd trade Kuminga for Davion straight up right now?
Salary notwithstanding Id trade Kuminga and Moody straight up for Mitchell. Ask any Kings fan if theyd take Kuminga straight up for Mitchell right now and the answer would be an overwheLming No. The consensus, right or wrong, seems to be that the series shifted once Mike Brown decided to sit Mitchell instead of matching his minutes against most of Currys
Just wanted to make that clear (now you're saying Moody AND Kuminga for Mitchell? Ok.)
No idea how to verify your claim about Kings fans being overwhelmingly against a DM for JK swap. Color me skeptical.
I am also skeptical that the consensus is that the Kings would have won if they kept playing Mitchell (personally i don't remember the rotations for either team well enough to have an opinion on that one except that Mike Brown is MUCH better coach than you or I so it is highly likely that whatever he did was, if not the best choice, better than anything we might come up with)
Dumping Mitchell from the rotation was their best chance to win tbh, they blitzed the hell out of the Warriors at Chase Center in Game 6 by replacing Mitchell minutes with Davis minutes, going small instead of going with Len, and outgunning the Warriors.
Luckily Kerr adjusted and got the Warriors getting to the line a lot in Game 7 to slow the pace down and Curry did the rest.
Its summer league. They shut Wemby down after scoring 27 points and his team lost because they were happy with his individual performance.
> It’s summer league.
👍
me: we need to sit our draftees to avoid any unnecessary injuries
DNHQ: no! Summer League is an integral part in the developmental process
Me: a player i thought was the most talented available at 19 just dropped 30 plus points on high efficiency
You: its just summer league
The dissonance on here sometimes makes me chuckle
That's not dissonance. "Summer league doesn't prove you're good" and "Summer League provides valuable experience for developing players" are not mutually exclusive ideas. They're barely even related.
Yeah I think "integral" might be an exaggeration of opinions, and even if you remove "valuable" from your statement it still can be true. Basically, even if summer league is not that important, young players can use any experience than can get to improve. The calculus for a team may change if that player is planned to be a starter, you have to balance the risk/reward. Similar to something like preseason NBA.
That said, doing well in summer league still seems like a better thing than doing poorly. I don't know anything about Nick Smith Jr, but I do know if quinones dropped that line people here would be losing their minds.
I just realized that OKC currently has a whopping 21 players on their roster.
https://www.spotrac.com/nba/oklahoma-city-thunder/cap/
So they can start a second team in Seattle
Feels like they are going to be the Herro dumping ground… are they able to trade guys like Bertans, Gay, or Oladipo yet? Easy for them to add a pick and/or recent draft picks to the trade…
Because they don't have nearly enough draft picks...
Yeah, seems like there's a good chance of Rudy Gay filling roster spot #14 for the Warriors unless OKC finds a way to trade him for a second rounder or something.
What's so good about Rudy Gay anyway? He's old and washed at this point of his career.
Two things, basically:
1) He's a 4, which is probably the position they are targeting
2) He's probably okay with not having a solid spot in the rotation due to his age.
I don't think the Warriors are a very attractive location for the 14th spot given how set their rotation is, it will either be a vet who is okay with not playing much or a desperate guy just trying to make a roster.
Personally I'd want Danny Green (under the assumption that the Warriors are not going to sign another big man and just look to add one on a two-way). But the Warriors and Gay have been linked in rumors in the past, this is my prediction on what will happen.
He's a former star, knows the game, and can shoot the 3. A perfect Kerr pickup for our baby boomers. To make it on the Warriors, you need to be at least 34yo.
lol
https://twitter.com/TheWarriorsTalk/status/1678949829643501569
As you wish
For the record I wasn't saying I was hoping for it, just a prediction.
What I'm hoping for is that Toronto trades Siakam in like a 4 for 1 deal and cuts OPJ because they have too many guys.
The Warriors are likely to take a patient wait-and-see approach before committing a guaranteed contract to somebody in that 14th slot, team sources indicated to The Athletic. If nothing appealing enough materializes before October, team sources indicate that the Warriors are comfortable putting their 14th spot up for grabs in a training camp competition among non-guaranteed candidates.
The Warriors still don’t have a traditional center backing up Kevon Looney. They at least explored the idea of signing Mason Plumlee and/or Alex Len in the early days of free agency, but both returned to their more comfortable locations. None of the current free agent centers appear to be moving the Warriors much.
https://old.reddit.com/r/warriors/comments/14x7qdx/slater_the_warriors_are_likely_to_take_a_patient/
https://theathletic.com/4679031/2023/07/11/warriors-summer-league-roster-chris-paul/
any news on two-way candidates?
Seeing as Lester was extended a Two-Way qualifying offer, he is one of them. Javan Johnson has another Two-Way contract at the moment I thiiiiiiink, could be wrong on that. Then from what Lacob says here, they're having/will have discussions about whether to sign Gui to a Two-Way or stash him in the G League for this upcoming season.
Podz not the only shooter in college to struggle with the three in Summer League. Jordan Hawkins is currently shooting (5/21=)24% from three midway through his third game, and Gradey Dick is shooting (3/12=)25% from three through two games.
Someone should tell Gradey that he needs to stop dicking around and get serious in SL.
Does it really, tho? 🤔
“He's working really hard right now. We've sent coaches to go work with him. He has a great attitude right now.” vs “I know he's gonna put in the work whether people are looking or not. He's always in there looking for extra work, asking, you know, what can I do better? Watching film with coaches.”
Whelp one of these guys got some strong praise and the other praise was about as qualified as it gets.
Don't look now, but Charlotte's summer league team is not looking completely hopeless against Portland. (24-22 POR).
Besides TJD just being available, what are you most looking forward to in the upcoming SL matchups against Dallas (Lively, OMax) and Houston (Whitmore)?
All I can say is Podz better outplay Whitmore, or we’ll be looking at one of our worst draft whiffs since we passed on Brandon “55 point game” Jennings in favor of that skinny unathletic combo guard who ran like a girl.
Why even take a guard when they had Monta? Should of a taken a big. smh
Hill woulda been just the right PF pairing!
"His family relation gives him an unavoidable advantage in getting jobs and being promoted. However, he has had quite a number of jobs in the organization, so he wasn’t promoted straight to the top."
Yup, that's an accurate description. He surely didn't start at the bottom or with a rank and file position. It was Assistant GM. LOL, if he wasn't the boss' son, would he even have qualified?
I don't think RealGM's timeline is accurate.
You can look at his linked in profile. Graduated from Stanford with a degree in Management Science and Engineering, interned for the Celtics, then a couple venture capital firms and Chegg, then was GM of the Dakota Wizards D-League team, then became Director of Basketball Operations for the Dubs in 2010, then assistant GM for the Warriors (until 2019) as well as GM for the Santa Cruz Warriors in 2012 (through 2014), then became Executive Vice President, Basketball Operations in 2019, which is the title he holds today (and incidentally, a title that did not change after Bob Myer's departure).
My solution...
Start CP3 for the first four to six minutes of the 1st & 3rd qtrs, then bring in Loon. Paul starts the first six minutes of the 2nd & 4th qtrs and comes back in for the last 2-4 minutes if needed. He still gets to start but has no more than 24 - 28 minutes per game.
My Solution: CP0 accepts that a) he's 38 (gonna be 39 during the season, I think) and b) he's come to a 4 time championship team with established starters and his role is to shore up their bench so they can get to 5 and he can get to CP1, while staying healthy so he helps in the postseason as well. No starting (except when Steph dnp for whatever reason, I guess) and fewer minutes, say 20ish!
This isn't a team where he is brought in as the savvy veteran. Warriors have plenty of guys who know how to win. This is a situation where he has to learn how to fit in AND choose to do so. Otherwise ... buh bye
That's what I've been figuring they'll start with. It shows Paul they respect him in action, and that makes it easier to make the case in the season or playoffs that he should focus on the bench unit for the best version of the team.
Have we had a Jayce Johnson discussion? I know he was hype-manning, but The Kirk quote was interesting. If LQ lands a roster spot, could Jayce be the place who’s a helpful big man on a 2-way.
I’m having a tough time forming an opinion about him. What do others think of him?
He can't defend bigs, has no athleticism, and doesn't fit on the Warriors.
I don't think there's a discussion. Jayce Johnson is not an NBA player. Is there another side of that discussion?
I wouldn't even waste a 2-way on him. I'd rather play GP2 or JK at center. I'd rather take a flier on Huff or Papagiannis than see JJ play a minute in the NBA.
To me he is too stiff, quicker athletes in the NBA would run him off the floor. He has good size but his hands/footwork seem average. I agree with what others have said “he looks good for a G league player.”
Yeah, his gate when he runs down the court is um…not aesthetically pleasing.
Was in Sacramento. He looked good for a G-league player but there doesn’t seem like there’s any chance he’ll help in real nba minutes. (That’s an opinion :)
I haven't watched a lot of SL, is JJ the guy who keeps getting stuffed around the rim? Like, a lot? Or is that someone else?
Stuffed *by* the rim a few times lol
Yeah... he's the #36 who gets stuffed most of the time. Not the #44 guy that gets stuffed every single time.
I have to admit, I am not sure I know who I was watching based on your descriptions, but I think maybe it was #44. LOL.
Mike is #44. I don't think he qualifies as a big. Sample size is very small, though.
Oh, is it 12, then?
Perry is #12. Jantunen is #18. Jantunen looks the most promising to me in the paint.
Seems like a decent G league guy, but a bit too slow to do much in the bigs. Iirc, Jay Huff ate him for lunch a few games last year, for example.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ez5aPEqE0Ns
Podziemski refers to himself as a point guard in the first seconds of this video.
The Light Years kids were raving about him on their latest podcast (which was nice, since they tend to be tough to please, and my own impressions were more mixed) and said the biggest difference between him DDV — which Andy noted was a racist comparison to begin with, lol — is that Podz is a PG.
Hahaha so did you hate watch the podcast? I feel like Sam is pretty good
Haha, it’s hard for me to say “hate listen” with any conviction, since they’re always one of the first podcasts I check for new episodes on Spotify. I’m basically just a boring old “regular listener” at this point. 😊
I agree that Sam is generally quite good. Andy still annoys me a lot of the time, but I think that’s mostly cos I can tell he’s actually a smart and decent dude who for whatever reason (mostly clicks and $$, I imagine) can’t resist engaging in hyperbole, simplistic catch phrases, and hot-takery instead of giving honest and measured analysis. Like, things with him tend to be either amazing (“I’m all in!”) or terrible (“what are we doing here????”)
I get that clicks matter, and are his livelihood to some degree. And I get that it’s only hoops. At the same time, I feel like extreme oversimplification and hyperbole are serious afflictions in our current world, and that indulging in them regularly — even if just for fun, and just about sports — is unwise. We’re all sell-outs to some degree so I can’t really throw stones, but it just feels like Andy could take down the hot-takery a few notches and still be a perfectly entertaining listen that people will check Spotify for (viz. Sam, Slater, MT2, Kerith Burke, Patrick Epino, Zach Lowe, Nate Duncan, et al.)
My $.02, anyway. YMMV…
…
I should add that I love a good joke, and cut a lot of slack for exaggeration where the aim/effect is comedy. Ultimately, what I like best about Light Years is that it often cracks me up. It’s just a fine line sometimes between broad humor and gratuitous oversimplification.
Imagine being a rookie guard (Podz) and having Steph + CP3 as your vets. Lol.
I think the fact that both of them were at the last game watching might’ve had him over amped.
I think I might go bald. One would guess he's getting very different messages from both of them.
If you could combine CP3’s ability to take care of the ball with Steph’s everything else, that player would be pretty good.
Might as well just do a Steph brain transplant at that point ... :)
Honestly, I'll be pretty happy if Podz develops into a solid backup point guard who can shoot 3's at an above average clip.
And be able to at least defend other guards. Pretty much all the talent evaluators thought he could be an NBA player on offense.
"...probably some veterans who are looking to get back in it."
Hoping that means some Harry Giles, GRIII action
Harry Giles has two-way eligibility, could make a lot of sense. Don't know much about him but read somewhere that he can pass a bit?
highly touted high school prospect who fell off due to injuries, eh? Popovich-running.gif but with Dunleavy's face (or was that more a Bob Myers type?)
I always gets two-way eligibility mixed up. He played 3 seasons, but he was under contract for 4 seasons.
Interesting the '17 class often say Harry Giles was 'the guy' before his injury.
Giles is newly two-way eligible under a rule that was basically introduced for Giles himself:
https://celticswire.usatoday.com/2023/06/30/nba-boston-celtics-jt-two-way-flex/
Get ‘Er Dun, leavy!!!
awesome, thanks
Yeah two decent names that are worth a look in preseason. Wish GR3 would have never been traded. At least allowed to finish off the year
Didn't they need to trade him to duck under the cap which let them avoid the repeater tax for a year? It is often a lot about the contract and a little about the player
Yeah that was in the horrible '19-'20 season. GRIII played 48 games for us, then we traded him at the deadline, along with Alec Burks, to the Sixers for three second round picks. One of those second-round picks we used on Nico Mannion. We traded one pick as part of acquiring Oubre. The other pick we used on Tyrese Martin, whom we traded to get Ryan Rollins.