SOARING LIKE AN EAGLE...
Thaddeus Young (+1)
Young has averaged 14 ppg in only 28 mpg, while shooting 58% from the field. He has notabily hit 5 of his 9 threes in his first 3 games, a stark difference from the 6 of 19 he compiled in all of last season. He was 10-22 from 3pt range in the preseason so his improved stroke is definitely for real. What remains to be seen is exactly where his percentage will level off as his sample size grows - he is currently a 39% career 3pt shooter thanks to his early season outburst although I expect him to finish somewhere in the mid-30s.
Young has averaged 14 ppg in only 28 mpg, while shooting 58% from the field. He has notabily hit 5 of his 9 threes in his first 3 games, a stark difference from the 6 of 19 he compiled in all of last season. He was 10-22 from 3pt range in the preseason so his improved stroke is definitely for real. What remains to be seen is exactly where his percentage will level off as his sample size grows - he is currently a 39% career 3pt shooter thanks to his early season outburst although I expect him to finish somewhere in the mid-30s.
In any event, this is great news for his development as his questionable long-range shooting is what led the Sixers to sign Kareem Rush and Donyell Marshall. Both have barely gotten off the bench, and we could see a rise in Young's minutes as the season progresses. Iggy and Lou and combined for 4-22 3PT so Young may have emerged as the team's top perimeter threat (and at worst has shown he's just as capable shooting the rock).
Rudy Fernandez (+1)
OMG NO PICTURE!
Rudy has already established himself as a legitimate Sixth Man of the Year contender, averaging 14 ppg in 27 mpg off the bench. He is second on the team in pp36 and has only committed two turnovers. The assists haven't been there, but he hasn't had to play the facilitator role with Blake, Rodriguez, and Roy running the offense.
Nicolas Batum (+2)
Batum has 18 points, 5 steals, and 2 blocks in his 43 minutes (3 games) of action this season. It's not much of a sample size but he's at least shown he can be an effective hustle player off the bench. He's certainly had a better start to his rookie year than Jerryd Bayless.
Derrick Rose (+1)
Rose is looking like the Rookie of the Year favorite already, and seems to have forgotten his age. The only PGs to perform at a high level at age 19 were Magic, Zeke, and CP3, so this bodes very well for Rose's future prospects if he keeps it up.
However, for Rose to reach that level, he's going to have to make his teammates better. He is averaging 18 and 4, and I'd probably be more impressed if that were 15 and 6. I get the feeling Rose is headed towards "Bigger/Athletic Tony Parker" rather than CP3/D-Will territory. B.A.T.P. is essentially Agent Zero minus his 3pt chucking and terrible vision, which is pretty good, but I don't know if we've ever seen a player like that win a championship. But I'm rambling about a Bushless future right now, let's stick to the present (Vote on Tuesday)!
DECLINING LIKE THE ECONOMY...
Jerryd Bayless (-2)
Bayless has struggled badly out of the gate and is not getting the big minutes some expected after he dominated the summer league. It's been said many times, but summer league tells us absolutely nothing about a player other than how much of a ball hog they are (the bigger the hog, the greater S.L. success - for reference see: Donte Greene, Anthony Randolph, Nate Robinson, Lonny Baxter, Marco Belinelli, etc.).
Anyway, 83 Offensive Awareness is a bit high for a 20 year old rookie PG with below average vision. Bayless is essentially the 3rd string PG and SG behind the Spanish connection of Sergio and Rudy. It doesn't look like he'll get much of a chance until next season barring injury.
13 comments:
Please take a look at JR Smith's shot and 3pt tendencies and Walter Hermann's 3pt tendency, especially since Smith is now in the starting lineup. I just let the CPU play each other as Nuggets vs Pistons and Smith had 25 points at halftime, 48 for the game with 12/15 3's. He shot whether someone was in his face or not and usually hit. Walter Hermann was doing the same thing except he was missing after going 1/12 with 0/10 3's. The 99 3pt tendencies have got to go
New No. 3?
Rodney Stuckey knows new Piston Allen Iverson likely will want to keep jersey No. 3, which Stuckey currently wears.
"We're going to have to talk about it, I guess," said Stuckey, who might look for some form of, uh, compensation from Iverson for giving him his jersey.
"Like I said, we'll talk about it."
Stuckey said the only other jersey number he remembers wearing was No. 32, but that's being worn by Richard Hamilton.
"I want to do a single number, so I'll probably do something like 9 or something," he said.
Haha that is actually somewhat accurate for Smith. Last year he averaged 10 three point attempts per 36 minutes! Of course, he only hit 4 per 36 minutes, not 12. But if I ever had to put money on whose gonna break the 3PM game record, it's Smith.
Walter Herrmann on the other hand, only attempted 6.2 per 36 mins and has attempted 5.0 per 36 for his career. You know how easy it is to look stuff like that up and say hmm, mayyyyybeeee a 99 is a little high?
LOL in the old days Iverson's compensation to Stuckey would have been to not pull a gun on him in exchange for his #.
I'm talking about 2K regarding Herrmann btw, as well as so many other players they screwed the tendencies up on. I have to think it's the Insider's doing because the tendencies were consistent the last two years and it seems like they made these drastic changes without even play testing them.
For up to date images go to Yahoo Sports. Keep this blog up and keep the recaps here. Edit the tendencies yourself as wel,l don't base them off the original 2k ones.
The problem with Rose assists numbers aren't that he isn't setting his teamates up. It's that they just aren't making the shots. Tyrus and Deng are shooting horribly. That 4 asists per game would easlily be 6 maybe even 7 if those guys would just finish the play for him. He had 9 assists in the first game cause they were finishing the play. His assists will go up as the season goes along.
hey i grabbed your latest roster and mcdyess was still on the pistons...maybe i got it too early? not sure what was going on.
theres the crackpot
I kinda thought Bayless was rated a little high anyway, but how does he warrant a 2 point decrease playing slim to no minutes?
AI will be wearing #1
Bayless has yet to show he deserves an 83 though, even when we go back to the preseason. An 83 is well above average, it is 16 points from the top. I think we all know Bayless is not 16 OffAwr from Michael Jordan, Magic Johnson, Kobe Bryant, etc.
I dropped him 5 points in OffAwr. If you go by how he has actually played in those limited minutes, he'd get even more of a drop. If he were really that offensively aware, he wouldn't be a 3rd string behind Steve Blake and Sergio Rodriguez (or at best, in a timeshare with Sergio).
Billups is wearing #7
hi rashidi...i dont wanna sound like a big ass kisser here but i would just like to say that i've been a big follower of your comments on 2k sports forums for nba 2k9..and I really think your ratings are much better than the so-called 2k insider 2k sports hired. anyway, i'm quite new when it comes to online downloading of rosters and I would really appreciate it if you could give me a hand in downloading your updated roster. thank you rashidi!
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