yeah the pendulum definitely swung too far last year, it was his second year and he didn't have enough help around him yet. he'll probably be an MVP candidate soon
― k3vin k., Tuesday, 29 December 2020 17:03 (three years ago) link
let’s wait and see if he can cease being literally the worst defensive player in the NBA before start going that far
― J0rdan S., Tuesday, 29 December 2020 17:07 (three years ago) link
He’s playing better than luka so far this season
― Spottie, Tuesday, 29 December 2020 17:23 (three years ago) link
trae was amazing last year, were ppl really hating on him that much, obvs the defense is awful but he was nuts last year
― lag∞n, Tuesday, 29 December 2020 17:33 (three years ago) link
the thing that cld take him to the next level is just better 3pt shot selection / refining his technique on that part of his game, hes so good at driving and passing theres really no need to be taking all these crazy 3s, and if he is going to take them they shd be more fundamentally sound, same thing as luka actually, both of them should watch a bunch of harden tape and maybe a lil less steph
― lag∞n, Tuesday, 29 December 2020 17:37 (three years ago) link
they both also have the team/coaching issue where they dominate the ball too much, and they were traded for each other, crazy
― lag∞n, Tuesday, 29 December 2020 17:39 (three years ago) link
hawks have really used a lot of high draft picks on guys who are not playmakers
― lag∞n, Tuesday, 29 December 2020 17:47 (three years ago) link
Trae's not a playmaker?
― Heez, Tuesday, 29 December 2020 18:03 (three years ago) link
...
― lag∞n, Tuesday, 29 December 2020 18:04 (three years ago) link
or are you just talking about Hunter
― Heez, Tuesday, 29 December 2020 18:05 (three years ago) link
― J0rdan S., Tuesday, 29 December 2020 18:08 (three years ago) link
so
― lag∞n, Tuesday, 29 December 2020 18:08 (three years ago) link
dame hasnt gotten an mvp is trae gonna be better than him
― ciderpress, Tuesday, 29 December 2020 18:09 (three years ago) link
theres getting an mvp and theres being an mvp candidate
― lag∞n, Tuesday, 29 December 2020 18:11 (three years ago) link
probably not xp
― Heez, Tuesday, 29 December 2020 18:13 (three years ago) link
If we’re going off 3 game samples Terry Rozier is in the mvp race
― Matt Armstrong, Tuesday, 29 December 2020 18:27 (three years ago) link
That was kind of the point of my post.
― Heez, Tuesday, 29 December 2020 18:33 (three years ago) link
Anyway Hawks are gonna trade Collins sooner or later
he was on a team that was 27 games under .500 lol― J0rdan S., Tuesday, December 29, 2020 1:08 PM (twenty-nine minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink
he was 20. what’s the track record for 20 year olds who put up his numbers? what’s his floor, kyrie irving?
― k3vin k., Tuesday, 29 December 2020 18:39 (three years ago) link
― trans-panda express (m bison), Tuesday, 29 December 2020 18:43 (three years ago) link
if we're gonna do a three game mvp, i think 29/15/14 kinda wins it
― the serious avant-garde universalist right now (forksclovetofu), Tuesday, 29 December 2020 18:47 (three years ago) link
well 29/12/14, but still
― k3vin k., Tuesday, December 29, 2020 1:39 PM (six minutes ago)bookmarkflaglink
yeah it's just simply impossible to imagine trae young having a career worse than kyrie irving
― J0rdan S., Tuesday, 29 December 2020 18:50 (three years ago) link
kyrie really shouldve been one of the prime beneficiaries of the game getting called ridiculously tight the last few years but hes been injured the whole time
― lag∞n, Tuesday, 29 December 2020 18:53 (three years ago) link
I would argue that trae has superior court vision than kyrie or dame
― Heez, Tuesday, 29 December 2020 18:55 (three years ago) link
need a larger sample size unless you mean "right now" in which case i think kyrie has the edge there
― the serious avant-garde universalist right now (forksclovetofu), Tuesday, 29 December 2020 18:59 (three years ago) link
comparing trae's stats across eras is useless given his insane usage rate, his style of play, and the style of play of the league in general. his floor is a good stats high usage point guard who makes some all star games and whose teams don't win anything. take your pick of these sorts of players from years past -- stephon marbury, gilbert arenas w/o the knee problems, baron davis...
― J0rdan S., Tuesday, 29 December 2020 19:07 (three years ago) link
his ceiling is a good stats high usage point guard who makes a lot of all star games and whose teams don't win anything so... chris paul hehe
― J0rdan S., Tuesday, 29 December 2020 19:10 (three years ago) link
Comparing him to someone like Marbury or Gil insane to me. Those guys were straight up ball hogs that hurt their teams
― Heez, Tuesday, 29 December 2020 19:14 (three years ago) link
i mean, trae young's *floor* is definitely that of a ball hog player whose teams don't accomplish much. whether his assist numbers would superficially paper over the ways in which his play "hurts" his team would be a matter of interpretation. in his age 23, 24 and 25 seasons gilbert arenas made 3 all star teams averaging something like 27/6/5 on .500ish teams that made the second round once and got bounced out of the playoffs in the first round twice. that general level of individual value and team success is well w/in the range of outcomes for trae young -- he could also transcend that up to the level of dame lillard or whoever.
― J0rdan S., Tuesday, 29 December 2020 19:34 (three years ago) link
That kind of points to the impossibility of comparing across eras. Marbury was definitely ball dominant, but he averaged around 8 assists/game almost every season of his career, right up until the final Knicks phase. He couldn't shoot though, and I kind of doubt he would've learned to be a significantly better shooter in the modern game. Trae as that player, but with the shooting capacity he already has, is pretty damn good. Remains to be seen whether it can translate to team success. I think he's a good enough passer that he can rebalance his arsenal enough for that elusive winning formula, in the right context. Will be fun to watch either way, though, and doubly so if he can hover close enough to Luka to generate barstool arguments and think pieces about the draft day trade for years to come.
xp similar to what J0rdan said. J0rdan, love your bball insights and much respect for your take on the game
― Lavator Shemmelpennick, Tuesday, 29 December 2020 19:37 (three years ago) link
atm trae is more or less singlehandedly making watching hawks games fun for the first time since like 2014
― the serious avant-garde universalist right now (forksclovetofu), Tuesday, 29 December 2020 19:39 (three years ago) link
xp ha thanks :) i love chatting ball w/ my guys
― J0rdan S., Tuesday, 29 December 2020 19:40 (three years ago) link
just looked up trae's player projection page on 538
https://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/2021-nba-player-projections/trae-young/
performance of the 10 most comparable players
1. chris paul2. stephon marbury3. russell westbrook4. devin booker5. kyrie irving6. gilbert arenas
this seems entirely reasonable to me as a range of outcomes. devin booker showing up is interesting for better or worse
― J0rdan S., Tuesday, 29 December 2020 19:41 (three years ago) link
having watched most of the guy's games, the chris paul comparison is the only one that fits. he has superb court vision which i would not attribute to the rest of that group. i'm not arguing that his teams will outperform any of those other players (or even that he'll have a better career than a few of those guys), just that stylistically, he's much different
― Heez, Tuesday, 29 December 2020 19:54 (three years ago) link
J0rdan, love your bball insights and much respect for your take on the game
― Lavator Shemmelpennick, Tuesday, December 29, 2020 2:37 PM (two hours ago) bookmarkflaglink
please do not encourage the chris paul slander -_-
― k3vin k., Tuesday, 29 December 2020 21:43 (three years ago) link
CP3 is controversial. Not his all-star status, but just where to place him in an era of fabulous guards.
― Respectfully Yours, (Aimless), Tuesday, 29 December 2020 21:48 (three years ago) link
noticed cp3s status amongst contrarian minded people even those who arent really huge basketball fan has reached god level, a natural byproduct of him being generally underrated
― lag∞n, Tuesday, 29 December 2020 22:03 (three years ago) link
cp3 is at least the 3rd greatest PG of all time maybe 2nd so yeah
― trans-panda express (m bison), Tuesday, 29 December 2020 22:06 (three years ago) link
as the original cp3 fan i feel pretty comfortable saying chris paul is a lot like john stockton, both of them are wildly overachieving little guys who play extremely sound basketball and make their teammates better, but both are limited in comparison to the greatest players of all time by their inability to score points at an elite level, for instance if i had to win a playoff game i would take steph over cp3 every time, and i would take isiah thomas too, but also being the best at any particular position isnt meaningful
― lag∞n, Tuesday, 29 December 2020 22:17 (three years ago) link
simmons and russillo did a book of basketball episode on him recently...simmons’ take was truly deranged, basically a standard twitter egg perspective, russillo is a stan and also generally is a much better thinker about basketball so his was much more informed
2nd or third is probably right, depends how the rest of curry’s career shapes out. (maybe third or fourth, I admit my sense of isiah’s place is very incomplete.) comparing those two is fascinating because it’s a comparison between a guy who always plays well and never wins and a guy who usually underperforms yet wins anyway
― k3vin k., Tuesday, 29 December 2020 22:25 (three years ago) link
tangentially i do wonder what guys like marbury or arenas would’ve looked like if they got to play in the spacing era as opposed to the last gasp of the packed inside the arch, no movement era
― J0rdan S., Tuesday, 29 December 2020 22:33 (three years ago) link
arenas was really ahead of his time. he would have cooked in today's game.
― call all destroyer, Tuesday, 29 December 2020 22:34 (three years ago) link
the guy who wouldve been just unstoppable is iverson
― lag∞n, Tuesday, 29 December 2020 22:35 (three years ago) link
I think Marbury had personal issues that would have always derailed him
― Matt Armstrong, Tuesday, 29 December 2020 22:36 (three years ago) link
CP3 has such a brain-boggling highlight reel though, so many plays that just seem impossible
― frogbs, Tuesday, 29 December 2020 22:38 (three years ago) link
Iverson would have averaged 10 assists per game as a shooting guard in today’s game
― Matt Armstrong, Tuesday, 29 December 2020 22:39 (three years ago) link
I’ve always been so confused by the zoomer/millennial stat nerds who think iverson sucked but love Westbrook
there are stats nerds who love westbrook?
― micah, Tuesday, 29 December 2020 22:42 (three years ago) link
stands to reason as he makes a lot of stats
― Clay, Tuesday, 29 December 2020 22:43 (three years ago) link