What's new

What Is Gordon's Ceiling???

Poor man's Harpring with better passing and worse rebounding. Said that 2 years ago and still looks the same.
 
Poor man's Harpring with better passing and worse rebounding. Said that 2 years ago and still looks the same.

even if that is all he amounts too, (and i think he will achieve more) evey team needs a harpring on it.
 
Most players don't improve very much on their core skills after their 3 years. I don't think Hayward is going to become much more than he is now. He is a good useful player but never a star.

Says who? All great players seem to improve almost every off-season in some areas. Were you blind to the progression of the 2 greatest Jazzer's of all-time? I think the Jazz may have anticipated Gordon to have a much more intense work ethic than he apparently has. If most players don't improve much on these skills after 3 years like you say it is because they are not trying very hard to do so. They become role players like Gordon is. Great players improve their game constantly because they work harder than everybody else.
 
Says who? All great players seem to improve almost every off-season in some areas. Were you blind to the progression of the 2 greatest Jazzer's of all-time? I think the Jazz may have anticipated Gordon to have a much more intense work ethic than he apparently has. If most players don't improve much on these skills after 3 years like you say it is because they are not trying very hard to do so. They become role players like Gordon is. Great players improve their game constantly because they work harder than everybody else.

yeah!! i think even karl malone took a little while to reach his dominant peak!
 
Don't forget that he had to deal with little playing time under Sloan, and then the whole D-Wil/Sloan mess that messed up the team...and a shortened off season with a new coach...give him time, he is only 22
 
It all comes down to his shooting. He obviously has to raise his percentage, but also work on a faster release. 18/5/5 is probably where he'll max out at. Which would be damn good ROI for a 9th pick.
 
Did you not see the 4 games we "used Hayward like Harden" coming off the bench about 2 weeks ago? It was a disastrophe.

Re read what I said...

Put Harden on this team as a rookie and I doubt he's as good. As he is now. Take away Durant and Westbrook and those guys and give him Al and Sap with lesser offensive guys like Favors and Kanter and those guys and Harden struggles as the guy who handles the ball. Think about it Millsap is going through the motions and not even Deron could make Al a better player. Not sure why you think his ball handling is weak. To me they look fine. Add to the fact they have no direction on offense. Put Hayward on OKC and he becomes much better.
 
Don't forget that he had to deal with little playing time under Sloan, and then the whole D-Wil/Sloan mess that messed up the team...and a shortened off season with a new coach...give him time, he is only 22

we are all getting numb to this with our grip of young players.

hayward, (the oldest of the 4) still has 6-7 MORE seasons until he's even in his prime. lots of room to improve.
 
It all comes down to his shooting. He obviously has to raise his percentage, but also work on a faster release. 18/5/5 is probably where he'll max out at. Which would be damn good ROI for a 9th pick.

How do you guys see him averaging 5 ast? To me it looks impossible. Even last year when he had numerous chances for assists as he was handling ball more and had around 30 min a game he had 3.1 ast/game average. This year it dropped to 2 ast a game. He only had couple games with 8 ast which is his career high. Sorry but I just do not see him as great passer - decent yes, but not 5 or even 4 ast average. I think 3.5 ast/game is his maximum. For 5 ast he would need to play 38-40min a game and be dominant ball handler - what team on earth would let him do it?
And think about it, 18/5/5 - that's all star numbers - even AK never had that and I think you would agree that Hayward will never be as good as AK. Jeff Hornacek had it once 1992 ( his career year) - while playing 38min a game. Again I do not think Hayward can be as good as Hornacek in his best years. Manu Ginobili never had it either... thats a heck of a ceiling you trying to put for Gordon, I think more reasonable would be to expect 15/4/3.5.
 
Most players advance after year 3......

Most players don't improve very much on their core skills after their 3 years. I don't think Hayward is going to become much more than he is now. He is a good useful player but never a star.

I'd like to challenge that a bit.....just look at one stat on the current Jazz roster to illustrate, ppg for those in the league more than 8 years.

Year 3 avg: 10.5
Year 4-8 avg: 14.1
Increase: 3.6 ppg or 34%
Notably: Mo: 12.1 to 17.4; Al: 16 to 20.5; Jamaal 8.3 to 12.4 (even look at Raja, 3.1 to 13.2)
6 of 7 players increased their scoring average
Exception: Marvin 14.8 to 11.2

Assuming average advancement for Hayward, he'll settle in around 18 ppg, I would not be too upset about that.

Perusing the rest of the league, I don't think the Jazz are outliers here. Also holds up perusing other non-scoring metrics. There is clearly improvement through year 3 and in some cases beyond.
 
Back
Top