They DO have Jett Howard! Maybe they don’t have rookies who haven’t played a game yet
You may be onto something. That sounds like a logical explanation
Oh whoops, I completely missed that.
That tweet is still wrong about Indiana, though!
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Caris with 22pts after 1 quarter - 80 point watch begins!
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Poole with 27 and a W.
I didn’t realize that Colin Castleton made the Lakers roster. He hasn’t yet played in a game but I just noticed his name in tonight’s box score.
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OK, we are so back.
Kobe Bufkin has played 4 minutes in 2 games and missed the three shots he attempted. Clearly, he was not in the rotation, and how he’s fractured his thumb, with his return tbd. He did split a pair of free throws and grabbed 1 ORB and 1 DRB.
Jett Howard is not in Orlando’s rotation, and has played 12 minutes across 3 games. He’s made a 1 and missed his three 3’s.
Caleb Houstan - also not in Orlando’s (healthy) rotation (but higher in the pecking order than Jett). He has played in 4 of their 7 games, and 13 of his 24 minutes came last night in a game Orlando was missing Cole Anthony and Markelle Fultz, thrusting him at least temporarily into the rotation. He’s made 3 of his 8 threes this year, with little other action.
If your’e sensing a trend, Moussa Diabate is also not in the rotation. He has played 18 minutes in 4 games. If there is anything of note, he has 2 steals in this short period of time, and already has 4 assists. Last year he had 4 assists in 195 minutes.
Franz Wagner is in the rotation! He’s scoring about 19 ppg again, but he’s doing it on 3 additional shots than last year - ie, he’s shooting worse. The rest here is in line with last year, while he’s grabbing an additional board. 39% from the floor/32% from 3 isn’t so hot, but we’re early yet. There isn’t a single nightmarish night dragging his efficiency down, he’s just been sort of mediocrely efficient on a consistent basis through their first 7 games.
Jordan Poole is off to a bit of a gnarly start. My prediction that he’d score 25 points per game on an 18 win team is being undone by 2 main factors (and it’s not because the Wizards are much better than that). First, they’re rarely competitive, so nobody here is averaging over 28 minutes per game, which makes scoring 25 pretty hard. Second, he’s not shooting particularly well - true shooting of 54% is a bit below average, and that’s being held back by shooting a little below his standard from the free throw line (frequently a savior for his overall efficiency) and only 33% from three. Poole salvaging his career from a nightmarish rookie year and a tough start to his 2nd was boosting his two point shooting to 52%+ a gain that he’s maintained since. But on 1800 pro three point attempts, he’s only a 33.9% three point shooter, and he’s quite turnover prone (his turnovers per 36 have hovered a shade under 4 for two seasons). Combine this with his “defense”, and a sort of unfortunate profile is developing here. The lack of three point accuracy, pile of turnovers, and shockingly high foul rate for a guard make his offense, on balance, unable to compensate for his defense. Seems like he may need to thank his stars he got that contract.
Mo Wagner is again off to a hot offensive start - like last year, he’s scoring about 23 points per 36 minutes - fantastic production. He’s at a gaudy 70.3% true shooting despite shooting a decent volume of threes (2 per game in 18 minutes) rather poorly (28%). He’s shooting 81% at the rim, 70% in floater range, and essentially doesn’t shoot between 10 feet out and the line. Add in his ability to get to the line and make them…he’s still arguably the best offensive bench big in the league. We close to 130 games or so of production at this level.
Every two weeks, the hardest guy for me to evaluate is always Caris Levert. To the positive - 4.5 assists to 1 turnover in 33 minutes per game. 34% three-point shooting on 6+ attempts, is, for him, quite strong (he’s really only finished better than this last year (39%) but on two fewer attempts per game in more minutes on the floor). Last year was, however, his poorest as a two-point shooter (46%) and he’s down to 43% so far this year, dragging down his overall efficiency. Mostly, this drop has been seen in his midrange jumpers (10 feet to the arc). He’s often in a more suitable (in my opinion) role than last year, when he was a 5th starter spacing the floor. In his most used lineup, he’s the main ball-handler in a bench-mob+Mobley lineup (surprisingly positive in net rating!), and in his second most used, he’s next to Donovan Mitchell as a secondary ball handler when they stagger Mitchell and Garland.
Tim Hardaway Jr. is off to a great start for him - he’s shooting a TON (14 shots, 9 3’s) in 28 minutes off the bench. He’s shooting 3’s at right about his Maverick career clip (38% - quite good on that volume) and has been the third leading scorer at 18 ppg on the #1 offense in the league through 7 games. Tim’s role has always been to space the floor for Luka, and that’s going double now that Kyrie is there…and he’s doing quite a good job at that thus far.
I think we can accept that Duncan Robinson is never going to shoot it like he did in his age 25 and 26 seasons again, but we CAN hope he shoots it better than last year (age 28 season). Thus far, he’s chugging along right at age 27 season pace - 37.5% on close to 10 attempts per 36 minutes, and scoring over 11 points per game. He’s also at a career high in 2 point shot mix (30% of his shots prior career high was 19%) and has made all his shots at the rim (12% of his shots). It’s a good recovery from a very tough year (until the playoffs) for him.
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Thanks as always for this write-up! I was hoping for a little more positive reporting, but I appreciate the detail since I don’t follow the NBA regularly.
Obviously there’s a lot of time for the young early departures to find their way in the NBA and that adjustment is a tough one. It is also good that they got paid while they work through that. But at the same time it will be frustrating if most of these guys don’t get a second contract. We’re getting close to that with Caleb and Moussa - not looking great.
As much we all love the Magic and their Michigan fetish, I think it was a hard place for Jett to land. The following guys play 2 or 3:
Franz
Ingles
Suggs
Black (drafted ahead of him)
Gary Harris
Houstan (not great shakes, but ahead of Jett)
Kobe…the Hawks three best players are guards. The Hawks 19 most used lineups have 2 of Young, Murray, and Bogdan Bogdonovich, and #20 has Kobe…and accounts for literally all of his minutes (3:19)
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https://twitter.com/ActionNetworkHQ/status/1718414353953693892
Poole stinks. He’s got basketball ability but no sense of his limits. He is capable of dribbling but not of stringing together dribble moves, not without kicking the ball directly into an opponents hands. He is capable of willfully transmitting the basketball to others but hates doing so, and anyway is at least as likely to fire a pass into the stands as he is to connect with an open teammate. He is good at making layups in a layup line but bad at making them in a contest. He is good at shooting from distance but bad at noticing when there is a 7-foot-3 opponent in position to knock his shot out of the sky.
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well luckily he makes up for all that on the defensive end, right?
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I was one of the people who was always so frustrated with Poole at Michigan. Partially because of those bad habits but partially because it is so obvious how much raw talent he has. Having played and coached sports my whole life there’s nothing more frustrating than the kid with all the talent who doesn’t have the work ethic or effort to put it all into practice. Going to be a wild ride for Jordan this year on a bad team willing to let him do his thing and see what happens.
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You don’t get into the NBA without a work ethic. He went from one of the worst players in the league when he first started at GSW to a key contributor on a championship team. I think Jordan’s thought process is he got his ring and the money so he’s gonna get his numbers.
Players who have zero work ethics (like Jamarcus Russell, Johnny Football, etc.) are very rare in today’s game.
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You’re right - that’s unfair to me about work ethic. Maybe discipline is better? It isn’t that Jordan doesn’t work hard, it is how he applies his skills to make winning basketball plays.
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Really, we never knew that was how you felt.
Yes I wrote that
I’m sure his worth ethic is very high as it is with the vast majority of these guys (maybe not James Harden these days?)
I think he’s an extremely undisciplined basketball player, and an archetype of player I don’t really enjoy.
The results for the past 13 months speak for themselves
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Caris did it better.
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