Ace Bailey ROY watch

[Tremendous Upside]

FTR is also a product of shot selection. Less contested attempts = Less fouls drawn. There is a direct and obvious correlation.

Indeed. That's why the main thing is this:

If you're going to be a jump shooter who avoids contact, you need to be ABSOLUTELY ELITE at what you do. Prime Klay was.

Ace is nowhere near that level. He's a kid who avoids contact, takes a ton of uncontested shots because defenses don't care about him (and because he really likes to shoot), yet is still only hitting at meh percentages. Together with constant rookie mistakes on defense, that makes you a pretty bad NBA player, which he is at this point.

Obviously he'll get better and there's some tremendous upside there, but these are trends that shouldn't be ignored as we watch him get more experience.

 

[HermanG]

Indeed. That's why the main thing is this:

If you're going to be a jump shooter who avoids contact, you need to be ABSOLUTELY ELITE at what you do. Prime Klay was.

Ace is nowhere near that level. He's a kid who avoids contact, takes a ton of uncontested shots because defenses don't care about him (and because he really likes to shoot), yet is still only hitting at meh percentages. Together with constant rookie mistakes on defense, that makes you a pretty bad NBA player, which he is at this point.

Obviously he'll get better and there's some tremendous upside there, but these are trends that shouldn't be ignored as we watch him get more experience.

Maybe at this point we should be happy he DOESNT take too many bad shots instead of focusing on him not being able to draw fouls?

Klay wasnt thrown there as a comp and Ace will never turn into "taller Klay". But he can turn into something between DFS and Lauri, if he turns out to be a better defender than the latter (he is certainly gonna end up being way better offensively than DFS).

Btw DFS has also had multiple sub 10% FTR seasons and Lauri wasnt much of a free thrown merchant either before his AS season. Lauri had much better FTR early in his career than Ace has, but that was a product of him wanting to dunk over people whenever he had the chance.