He’s a good player. No doubt about that. I don’t want to lose him as a suns fan. I do think he gets better too , but I don’t want to keep him if it’s going to be at that price tag.
I just don’t see him being the number two guy behind Booker and winning titles. It works when he’s your 3 or arguably 4th best player. No doubt about that.
Idk, this draft is being slept on a little.
I really like Griffin even though I keep forgetting he’s out there. I also think Sharpe has a lot of upside but there’s a ton of growth that needs to happen. Real boom or bust pick.
I think griffin could potentially be a number two but I’m very confident he could be a nice number 3,
The more I think about grant and Stewart for Ayton the more I think it’s a nice deal for both teams. Yes you give Ayton the max there but the more I think about the pistons with say sharpe or griffin at 5 the more I’m ok with the pistons paying Ayton at this stage of the build.
I also kept forgetting you have diallo, not sure how you guys feel about him but I like him. Ayton making more sense by the minute.
Cade
Diallo
Sharpe or griffin
Bey
Livers
Ayton
Is a nice young team
40% is pretty bullish given he’s shot mid thirties for two years
Think if I’m Phoenix, I find a way to keep Ayton and just try to find and groom a Chris Paul replacement.
Andre helped his team. Not to the point of being a contender but they were better off with him. I don’t know if you’re an advanced stats guy but he led the league in Defensive Win-Share twice and was always amongst the league leaders in PER. Ayton’s a bit below in PER and well below in DWS, even at the same age.
Would a 22 or 23 year old Andre Drummond do just as well as Ayton has done with a HOF-level leader like Paul, an all-star SG like Booker, and some great 3 and D guys like Bridges and Johnson? Probably. I mean, how much of an impact did Ayton have before Paul and Jae Crowder arrived? Monty Williams helped too. The Suns went 37-72 in games Ayton played in, over his first two years in the league. And that was with Devin Booker, and some other decent players.
Although, maybe you’re saying that Ayton’s numbers his first two years (which included his career-highs in PPG, RPG, and BPG) were also empty stats?
Regardless of who may have been a better talent, I think Andre turned out to be overpaid and I don’t think Ayton would be a good value at anything over 20 mil a year.
Maybe he’ll blossom into an all-star? I’d say that’s a decent possibility. Right now, I’d say he’s the 7th best C in the league. I’d put Jokic, Embiid, KAT, Bam, Gobert, and Allen ahead of him. In a league that values traditional centers less and less by the year, I’d rather the Pistons spend the bulk of their money elsewhere.
Drummond is one of the classic examples that people go to when they talk about the problems with certain all-in-one box score stats. In this case, PER and DRTG give a lot of weight to defensive rebounding. Studies have shown that in fact DREB% isn’t very useful to look at bc when that player leaves the court, the team’s DREB% changes very little even though the people getting the rebounds changes a lot. So the marginal rebounds a classic big secures are pretty scant and giving a lot of credit to their high % isn’t a great idea. The next generation of box score stats, like BPM, solve for this somewhat and, e.g., make it clear Drummond was nowhere near the best defender in the league in any of his seasons of play. And the best all-in-one stats do a principled merger of their context adjusted plus minus and their box score stats.
As far as I know, this last group of stats think Drummond is a perfectly cromulent basketball player but he’s never been nearly as good as Ayton has been over the past season and a half. The best (not by THAT much) of that last group of stats is generally thought to be DARKO, which compares the two players like so:
There’s a lot to read on this subject and I don’t have as much offhand as I’d like to cite here. But if you want to read a good summary of what NBA teams think of the various all-in-one-stats, go here. There’s an Athletic article that I can’t find that had a similar guide, I think?
Reading about BPM is worth your while though. Can do so here.
I agree about replacing Paul but if you pay Ayton and you aren’t going to be drafting early the next 2-3 years, you’re going to be in a situation where you can’t pay someone and you have to hope you find a pg gem late in the draft which is tough.
It makes a bit more sense for Detroit to spend the cash because they’ve had the resources to draft young guards to build with on rookie deals.
If Paul retires in two years you have Booker, Ayton, and bridges taking up most the cap.
Cam is going to get paid eventually too and then you need to hope you hit a home run on the next two drafts with little to no draft capital or you pray a vet is willing to come on a discount to contend ( real possibility but still not a lock).
Detroit paying Ayton the max makes more sense to me now that I consider their roster more but I can see fans being lukewarm on it.
OK lol at Drummond’s cromulence but there’s another discussion to be had about how cromulent is nowhere near perfectly cromulent.
Without even understanding the metric much at all, that graph matches my emotional feeling on Drummond as a player. He was good at what he did, was limited in what he was good it, didn’t move the needle much overall for the team. I would have described him as slightly above league average…just like that graph does.
I do think guys like Drummond can be even more effective in the right system where their strengths are emphasized and weaknesses minimized.
I don’t have a strong opinion on Ayton. He doesn’t feel like a max guy to me but the situation almost ends up making him one either for Phoenix trying to chase a title or a team like the Pistons trying to get assets without a lot of options.
But if you have Booker and Bridges, you might as well try to compete.
marginally cromulent
I’m not a CBA expert at allllll but my vague sense is:
People tend to think all maxes are about the same but they actually vary a great deal. Ayton’s prospective deal would cover his peak as a player and the $$ per year compares favorably if you accept DARKO’s valuations as basically correct.
My impression is giving Ayton his $$ is way more about opportunity cost than whether or not the contract will be a good one. It being much more difficult to tank is the most obvious to me. The other being, I suppose, a superior player could come along and you won’t have whatever resources used to acquire Ayton to go after him.
That Shamet deal 
He’s eighteen.
Think he’s 20. just saying if he can jump from 35 to 40, Ivey can’t? cause he’s 20?
He was 19 this year, and shot 34% on high volume, a huge % off the dribble, and has been scouted forever as an elite shooter (I think it’s notable he is, in two years, the only hotshot recruit to hit the Ignite team and not see their shooting crater.
Also, I agree with you on Ivey - his attempts aren’t as hard (or numerous) as Green, but I’m at the least not “concerned” about his shooting.
Hypothetically does Detroit try snag Mitchelll via trade to pair alongside Cade if possible? Would you guys try to make that addition? Personally I would.
It wouldn’t hurt to ask.
