I doubt Miami does that especially because Robinson is playing 30mpg for them and playing the best basketball of his career so far. On a team with no shooters they desperately need his shooting and he’s been delivering.

Late first round pick and salary, or two firsts and a bad contract

That’s fair. And I’m not meaning to slight him by saying he’s ‘pretty decent’ - it’s extremely rare for young offensive-minded guards to come into the nba and be even neutral-impact defenders. So that is a great sign.

I still think I need to see a little more of a sample size though, but I totally agree with you that the defense has been a pleasant surprise so far.

Besides the excessive fouling, Scoot has been pretty decent on defense but this stat doesn’t mean that much tbh.

The definition of defensive rating is “points allowed per 100 possessions while X player is on the court.” Therefore, it’s super heavily influenced by who you play with. Scoot has played 210 out of his 251 total minutes this season alongside either Thybulle or Camara.

For instance, if you have a hypothetical lineup of: Trae, Marcus Smart, Jaden McDaniels, Draymond, and Giannis, nobody is ever going to score on that lineup and everyone’s drtg looks great but it doesn’t mean Trae suddenly is a good defender.

Bball ref defensive ratings are meaningless

Refs aside, that was a complete disaster of a second half offensively. Not going to win very many games putting up 34 points in a half. Also, Brogdon was totally awful down the stretch. And where was Toumani, especially when we couldn’t get a rebound?

Maybe this is a bad take but i like him shooting threes - i think ultimately he has to make open shots if he wants to be a starter/good role player in this league, because he just doesn’t really seem to have the vertical explosiveness or touch to be a roll man/dunker spot guy and operate in the paint as much as he seems to like doing.

I love the defense and rebounding though, and he moves his feet pretty well for someone his size. He’s already been pretty good at guarding centers, but i wonder if there’s some ability to switch onto guards as well. At any rate, he has the hustle and motor that’s really key in small-ball lineups (for instance you could play him at the 5 alongside Grant and Camara and not really get slaughtered in the paint)

lol that’s totally not the case.

I wasn’t able to watch our last 8 games (even the replays) until yesterday, so the last game I watched was the win against the grizzlies, then missed the entire losing streak, and then watched the win yesterday. Maybe I need to watch more games??

Individual defensive rating isn’t a very useful stat - drtg is inherently lineup based and citing it with individual players ignores all context.

For instance Trae young had a better drtg than Grant last season when we know he’s objectively not a better defender.

Kenny Atkinson isn’t really a guy who you would want to win a championship and he’s not a great X’s and O’s adjuster in the playoffs, but he’s had a great track record developing young talent (especially point guards). I’d be down to hire him - if we are running into issues with his X’s and O’s losing us second round playoff series down the road, that’s a good problem to have.

I think it would have been better if he was brought off the bench originally, but now that he’s started the first two games you can’t bench him because that would completley ruin his confidence especially after the bad first couple games he’s had. Not like we’re trying to win games anyways.

Also brogdon playing PG is bad for everyone else on the court, it’s not really like he runs an offense very well either at this point.

Sorry if the comment was unclear - I am not judging the trade or Ayton after one game. I’m just saying that we have to find ways to get him the ball and for him to be effective because he cannot be getting 2 FGA going forward.

I hate so much that the annoying suns fans that come here to crap on DA are going to make this fan base hate Nurk in return. Just sucks, man.

I said this in the other thread but 91% of Ayton’s FG were assisted or put backs last year. He’s not going to have the same level of guard play here so we really need to figure out his role offensively and get him the ball in his spots or this trade is not going to work out at all.

We don’t have a Dame or a CP3 on the roster to be able to run straight PnR the entire game and expect ayton to be impactful offensively - we have gotta be better manufacturing touches for him on things like post seals, duck ins, and things like that. Even PnR seals would be useful - these things all help out the guards too because they don’t have to be throwing passes into tight angles while on the move.

Darko Rajakovic’s system really impressed me today - I thought the “make decisions in half a second when you catch the ball, no excessive dribbling, and swing the ball to the open guy” was just coach speak (because what coach doesn’t preach passing to the open man and being decisive?) but the Raptors offense looks night and day from what it looked last season.

(Real) NBA basketball is back, baby! Waited for this moment for so long. Here are some of my takeaways from this game:

Positives

• Ant looked like he gave more of an effort on defense. He even took a charge and walled up PG and Kawhi several times!

• Ant’s passing and overall control of the offense: he looked decisive and quick and not really out of place handling the ball. He wasn’t rushed, and got to his spots at will. Good to see.

• Williams’ defense. He’s just super intelligent overall on that side of the floor and uses his length and anticipation to get a ton of deflections. I can definitely see how he was a DPOY candidate a few years ago.

• Camara has fantastic defensive instincts for a rookie. He’s active with his hands, his rotations are crisp and on time, and he uses verticality very well. But I think I was most impressed by his footwork – being able to stay in front of Norm and Bones Hyland as a big forward is great to see.

• not sure if this is a positive, but a lot of guys in the game thread had their expectations adjusted. So, maybe a good thing. This season is going to be pretty painful at times.

Negatives

• Scoot. Yikes. Not much more to be said here either. Definitely a “welcome to the league” moment, but I’m not down about him long term. These kinds of nights are going to happen for pretty much every rookie. Glad he had a good stretch in garbage time though so he can go into next game on a positive note – that’s big for a 19 year old making his debut.
• Ayton had a nightmareish debut. The foul trouble hurt him and he never really got into a rhythm. He was an 18/10 guy on the Suns but a lot of that was due to elite guard play (91% of his FG last season were either assisted, or putbacks). With less elite guard play here, I’m not exactly sure what his role is supposed to be offensively. He just…seemed invisible for long stretches of the game and that’s not what you want from your max contract center. Don’t get me wrong, he was solid defensively and not hurting the team, but I sort of wanted to see a bit more from him – something that a replacement level center can’t replicate.
• Brogdon at PG. He’s had a very long track record of not being a great primary ballhandler, and being much better when he’s able to be a secondary or tertiary option. He’s not the type of guard that is going to efficiently get a team into an offense and get guys into the right spots. Pretty much every time he brought up the ball today, the ball stagnated and it led to a late-shot-clock forced shot. He’s a great player and very effective when he plays off the catch within the flow of the offense, but not when he’s asked to be the primary ballhandler.
• The team defense looked discombobulated all night. I get that some of it is due to having a team full of new guys who haven’t played together before, but man. If Chauncey doesn’t get these guys to communicate and actually play defense, we aren’t going to get a chance to play in fast and in transition offensively because we’ll be taking the ball out from under the basket every time. Yikes.

• Team defense - with a younger, more athletic team with mobile bigs, I’m curious to see how the team defense looks this year. I understand that Rob Williams is going to get injured and miss time, but our starting lineup Scoot/Ant/Thybulle/Grant/Ayton should not be a statistical bottom-5 starting lineup defensively like we were last year.

• Sharpe in a creation role - for most of last year Sharpe was in a purely play-finishing role (catch-and-shoot, catch-and-dunk). Throughout the tank and the preseason, we’ve seen him in more of a creation role, with some PnR touches and Chicago actions and things like that. I’m excited to see where that can go, and what is offensive ceiling really is.

• How Scoot will deal with defenders going under screens - he shot around 39% on midrange jumpers last year, the vast majority of them being pullups off the dribble. The form and footwork look good, but most defenders are probably going to continue going under screens until he can consistently make them pay. So I’m curious to see if the percentage can come up a little bit.

• Ant’s defense - he’s made it a huge focus on the offseason to improve on defense and not be a liability on that end. I’m interested to see if his effort improves and how he will look defensively this year. Last year he already improved from “worst-in-the-league” to just regular bad, and if there’s ever a time to take a leap it’s now.

• How our halfcourt offense will run - Chauncey has preached about being uptempo, fast, and playing in transition (which is great) but I want to see how our halfcourt offense will function. After 10 years of being one of the most efficient halfcourt offenses in the league mostly because of Dame, I’m curious about how we will look without him. I don’t expect it to be good this season, but at some point we have to develop a functional halfcourt offense to win games in the playoffs.

• Ayton in a creation role: in Phoenix he was catch-and-dunk, catch-and-hookshot, catch-and-turnaround jumper, or catch-jabstep-jumper. I’m interested to see what happens if he actually gets the ball in some sort of creation role, and how he will look. He averaged 18ppg last season but 91% of his FGM were either assisted, or putbacks (so basically he was never in any sort of self-creation role). Interested to see if that changes.

wonder if there was some bad blood between these guys lol they were constantly arguing on the court and on the bench two years ago. Kinda weird because they were college teammates too.

wiseman because he will singlehandedly tank your entire defense by just being on the floor whereas reddish is really actually decent-ish on that end (he’s actually pretty good when he decides to lock in, and mediocre when he doesn’t).

even offensively reddish won’t singlehandedly tank your team when he’s not engaged - he will just brick shots and turn the ball over but when he’s feeling lazy he just stands in the corner being invisible (which is bad, but if you play him for like 10 minutes per game he won’t destroy your team like wiseman will).