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Ochai Agbaji, Can Someone Shed Some Light?

Aneurism said:
The only young player that turned out to be anything from that era was G.Hayward. The rest just weren't good enough to crack the roster. In a competitive environment, if the youth don't have enough talent to shift the vets then perhaps there is a reason why they are on the bench (tank or otherwise)
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But still no excuse to not squeeze something out of Big AL/Millsap/Devin Harris/Richard Jefferson/Marvin Williams when they clearly had value to contenders.
 
The biggest problem with Agbaji right now is that he's not an NBA level ball handler at his position. He simply can't put it on the floor at all against SG's, which really limits what he can do on the court. And you can't use him strictly as 3&D guy on the wing because he's undersized. If you don't have modern NBA wing size, you need to be a threat to drive, and he isn't at this point.

In other words, he's a tweener until he seriously improves his dribbling.

When you get a 4 year NCAA player who was heavily featured on his college team, you expect them to be much closer to a "finished product" than someone who was a one-and-done. Unfortunately, I don't see a really high ceiling for Agbaji. He looks like a career 7th or 8th man to me. Don't see much trade value either.
 
Tremendous Upside said:
The biggest problem with Agbaji right now is that he's not an NBA level ball handler at his position. He simply can't put it on the floor at all against SG's, which really limits what he can do on the court. And you can't use him strictly as 3&D guy on the wing because he's undersized. If you don't have modern NBA wing size, you need to be a threat to drive, and he isn't at this point.

In other words, he's a tweener until he seriously improves his dribbling.

When you get a 4 year NCAA player who was heavily featured on his college team, you expect them to be much closer to a "finished product" than someone who was a one-and-done. Unfortunately, I don't see a really high ceiling for Agbaji. He looks like a career 7th or 8th man to me. Don't see much trade value either.
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I frankly have to question the Jazz's scouting recently. Apparently the Jazz brass loved Agbaji coming out of the draft. But when I watched as much of him as I could after the trade, I was worried about his relatively laid-back approach both offensively and defensively as well as his lack of ball handling. Clearly there's some potential, but when you're rebounding at basically the same rate as the 6" (5-10?) Remy Martin, and you're not really all that much of a self-creator as a 4-year player, the NBA is going to be a steep hill to climb.

I know the draft always has its hits and misses, but I don't know what the Jazz were thinking they saw in Ochai to have him as highly regarded as they're reported to have done. Hope he ends up proving me wrong.
 
idiot said:
I frankly have to question the Jazz's scouting recently. Apparently the Jazz brass loved Agbaji coming out of the draft. But when I watched as much of him as I could after the trade, I was worried about his relatively laid-back approach both offensively and defensively as well as his lack of ball handling. Clearly there's some potential, but when you're rebounding at basically the same rate as the 6" (5-10?) Remy Martin, and you're not really all that much of a self-creator as a 4-year player, the NBA is going to be a steep hill to climb.

I know the draft always has its hits and misses, but I don't know what the Jazz were thinking they saw in Ochai to have him as highly regarded as they're reported to have done. Hope he ends up proving me wrong.
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This looks like finisher. Maybe you missed it. He has dibble skill

View: https://twitter.com/ushernba/status/1586241141196083201?s=46&t=P5AbUlWE-qgilj_p-R8aKw
 
I'll stick with my draft evaluation. Ochai is going to be a Danny Green type. Probably play 10-12 years in the league. He's athletic and can shoot. A bit undersized at the wing (6'-5") but his measurements/wingspan published before the draft were very good (6'-10" wingspan). Explosive off two feet. Shot 40% from 3 his senior season at Kansas. He's doesn't have great handles by NBA standards but has a high basketball IQ and will make the right passes. Good dude in the lockerroom. He's not going to stop the Jazz from drafting a few bigger wings but believe he has a chance to be a rotation player for this team for a long time.
 
Tremendous Upside said:
The biggest problem with Agbaji right now is that he's not an NBA level ball handler at his position. He simply can't put it on the floor at all against SG's, which really limits what he can do on the court. And you can't use him strictly as 3&D guy on the wing because he's undersized. If you don't have modern NBA wing size, you need to be a threat to drive, and he isn't at this point.

In other words, he's a tweener until he seriously improves his dribbling.

When you get a 4 year NCAA player who was heavily featured on his college team, you expect them to be much closer to a "finished product" than someone who was a one-and-done. Unfortunately, I don't see a really high ceiling for Agbaji. He looks like a career 7th or 8th man to me. Don't see much trade value either.
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What a strange take considering he has never been given the opportunity to do much of anything.
 
Agbaji seems to know how to position himself and he has good body control. He seems like an opportunistic scorer: he seems to know when the other team is lagging on defense and he gets where he needs to be to potentially get an easy score.

At least he contributed when finally getting some minutes. It'll be interesting to see if he gets some consistent minutes or if they send him back to the pine for entire games.
 
kabenac said:
Agbaji seems to know how to position himself and he has good body control. He seems like an opportunistic scorer: he seems to know when the other team is lagging on defense and he gets where he needs to be to potentially get an easy score.

At least he contributed when finally getting some minutes. It'll be interesting to see if he gets some consistent minutes or if they send him back to the pine for entire games.
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I think, if he ever gets real minutes in the starting 5 with Mike or another proven floor general, he is going to be much better than when he has to play off of lesser playmakers, or less likely to share teammates.
In a game where JC tried to shoot himself into the game and choked, Ochai should have gotten a ton of usage,especially with Sexton still nowhere near his 3rd year self playing hurt now etc.
The scouting report says high level explosive athlete, with exceptional lateral movement skill on both sides of the ball. Has a respectable basketball IQ, after graduating from KU.
He largely plays best off ball guard, or sf on both sides of the ball. But needs alittle tighter handles to be considered a threat to create offense as a pro. He is fine at making the right pass and the right read, he just is not that guy that is going to go get you 30 on his own. He might drop 25 sometimes if he is fed though.
 
I’d like to see Agbaji and Fontecchio get more burn here. I’m hoping that the vets getting a lot of playing time ahead of them are being shopped for additional assets.
 
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