fishonjazz
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I agree
IF KANTER PLAYED AT KENTUCKY...
- Thread starter Jeffrey32
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The Blue Elephant
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That was actually a great draft in retrospect. Kawhi Leonard, Klay Thompson, Jimmy Butler, Nikola Vucevic, Tobias Harris, Chandler Parsons, Isaiah Thomas. Probably the best draft since 2003.
fishonjazz
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Yup and honestly if you are putting Harris and vucevic in there then you may as well throw Burks and kanter in there too
Don't forget Irving (all-star), Jonas (solid starter), and Knight (solid starter). We got ****ing Kanter.
Getting Kanter in this draft is like looking in your candy bag after Halloween and you got all that weird off-brand **** that comes in an orange wrapper while your friends got King Size Snickers bars.
The Blue Elephant
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Honestly I am not so sure about Jonas V. He is only averaging 3.7 minutes in the 4th quarter. He has played 13 games with zero minutes in the 4th quarter. I found someone say this in an NBA forum
"He's not very good defensively, and doesn't give as much effort as Amir and Patterson, imo. Stats also indicate that the Raptors are better on both ends of the floor when Amir and Patterson are out there together. Valanciunas doesn't need to be out there in the fourth quarter to improve his game since he plays decent minutes, and the Raptors have a better shot of winning if they go with their superior lineup. Raps fans have an oddly high opinion of Val. He's a slow post-up player with questionable footwork and below average defense. He might get there eventually, but there is no justifiable reason for Casey to play him in the fourth right now."
and then someone who is a raptors fan says this
"I completely agree with you. I not a huge fan of Casey, but I agree with him on not playing JV much in the 4th. I have no idea what other raptor fans see in him. Everybody ignores how bad he on defense, particularly on pick and rolls and his help defense. Whenever other teams go small, raptor fans are up in arms when Casey goes small as well, instead of letting JV take advantage of the match-up, ignoring the fact that he is not good enough on offense to overcome his lack of ability to guard smaller, more mobile big men."
"It's his defense which is the problem.
Valanciuans ranks 59/76 qualifying centers in RPM. 63/76 DRPM. His ORPM is 52/76, but the eye test says he's better than that. All three stats are negative (that's bad with DRPM)
On a typical good night, Valanciuanas is only matching buckets with his man."
"It's his defense. As someone who's watched all of Lithuanian national basketball team's games in recent years, let me tell you that JV would get benched in key stretches by our coach as well. JV's help defense can leave a lot to be desired sometimes."
"He's not very good defensively, and doesn't give as much effort as Amir and Patterson, imo. Stats also indicate that the Raptors are better on both ends of the floor when Amir and Patterson are out there together. Valanciunas doesn't need to be out there in the fourth quarter to improve his game since he plays decent minutes, and the Raptors have a better shot of winning if they go with their superior lineup. Raps fans have an oddly high opinion of Val. He's a slow post-up player with questionable footwork and below average defense. He might get there eventually, but there is no justifiable reason for Casey to play him in the fourth right now."
and then someone who is a raptors fan says this
"I completely agree with you. I not a huge fan of Casey, but I agree with him on not playing JV much in the 4th. I have no idea what other raptor fans see in him. Everybody ignores how bad he on defense, particularly on pick and rolls and his help defense. Whenever other teams go small, raptor fans are up in arms when Casey goes small as well, instead of letting JV take advantage of the match-up, ignoring the fact that he is not good enough on offense to overcome his lack of ability to guard smaller, more mobile big men."
"It's his defense which is the problem.
Valanciuans ranks 59/76 qualifying centers in RPM. 63/76 DRPM. His ORPM is 52/76, but the eye test says he's better than that. All three stats are negative (that's bad with DRPM)
On a typical good night, Valanciuanas is only matching buckets with his man."
"It's his defense. As someone who's watched all of Lithuanian national basketball team's games in recent years, let me tell you that JV would get benched in key stretches by our coach as well. JV's help defense can leave a lot to be desired sometimes."
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He is pretty slow. Most players his size have trouble guarding the PNR.
He sucks at passing like Kanter, he doesn't block shots (not as bad as Kanter, but still bad). He does score efficiently, hit his FT's, and manages to get to the line. I wouldn't consider him a top 10 center, but for a 3rd year big he is doing pretty well, at least from a statistical standpoint.
In my view the real question is, "if Kanter had played in Turkey/euroleague". Remember, he lost one more year before joining Kentucy and if he had played against Euroleague competition during this time span, I believe he would have been a much better player now. Of course, that also means maybe he would have drafted lower than #3 but playing against defensive minded Euroleague teams, would have improved his bball IQ.
Kanter would have played **** D in college. Defense is largely effort, focus and IQ, on any level, Kanter has none.
There are no "ifs" Kanter just sucks. It doesn't matter if he played in Europe, UK, D-League, a different team, he is ***.