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Post by JB on Feb 26, 2024 12:07:11 GMT -5
Zeke's NBA career will sink or swim on the strength of his 3PT shot. this is clearly the reason for his drop in play, drop in confidence and exasperation coach Malone has with him: too undersized to play the 5 but too offensively inept to play the 4.
Zeke demonstrated with the first 1100 minutes of his NBA career that he possessed a better than average ability to shoot from 3. for whatever reason it is, be it a shoulder injury he never recovered from or a change to his shot form, he needs to stop feeling sorry for himself and just fix whatever is holding him back.
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Post by GBG on Feb 26, 2024 12:42:32 GMT -5
Zeke's NBA career will sink or swim on the strength of his 3PT shot. this is clearly the reason for his drop in play, drop in confidence and exasperation coach Malone has with him: too undersized to play the 5 but too offensively inept to play the 4. Zeke demonstrated with the first 1100 minutes of his NBA career that he possessed a better than average ability to shoot from 3. for whatever reason it is, be it a shoulder injury he never recovered from or a change to his shot form, he needs to stop feeling sorry for himself and just fix whatever is holding him back. He’s not even taking 3’s anymore in his current role (0.4 3PA per game to be exact), so how can he “fix” what he’s not even doing?! His career will sink or swim on how he defends and what position he plays. If a backup PF for our team or someone else, he will mature and do okay as a defender with ability to move his feet. If in that role, he’s asked to take over 1 3PA per game, he will get his shot back to a large extent, as he’s still a 37.2% career shooter from distance.
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Post by famicommander on Feb 26, 2024 12:52:07 GMT -5
Zeke does this every year. He has a short stretch of looking decent which fools everybody and then he goes right back to his disappearing act.
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Post by JB on Feb 26, 2024 13:37:30 GMT -5
citing Zeke's career 3pt% is an affirmation of Mark Twains famous 'Lies, damned lies, and statistics' quote.
he was a 40% or better shooter his first two seasons and 'so bad he makes Facu look like Steph Curry' in the 22-23 season and the current NBA season. so yeah, his average may say 37% but it is no way indicative of where he's at currently.
Zeke is simply not talented enough offensively to survive his shot going to the shitter and too undersized to compensate for said offensive ineptitude by playing him at the backup 5 role, as evidenced by Malone's extreme reluctance in playing him despite meeting Malone's 'play hard and hustle' requirement.
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Post by GBG on Feb 26, 2024 13:59:04 GMT -5
citing Zeke's career 3pt% is an affirmation of Mark Twains famous 'Lies, damned lies, and statistics' quote. he was a 40% or better shooter his first two seasons and 'so bad he makes Facu look like Steph Curry' in the 22-23 season and the current NBA season. so yeah, his average may say 37% but it is no way indicative of where he's at currently. Zeke is simply not talented enough offensively to survive his shot going to the shitter and too undersized to compensate for said offensive ineptitude by playing him at the backup 5 role, as evidenced by Malone's extreme reluctance in playing him despite meeting Malone's 'play hard and hustle' requirement. One could even say that Zeke’s career 37.2% 3P% understates what he COULD do at one point when used properly as a backup 4. As a backup 5, he isn’t able to get into any sort of a shooting rhythm which doubtlessly has depressed his efficiency and dragged down his career number. So who knows, if he becomes strictly a backup 4 in a future season with this or another team, he might get back into the 40’s of his first couple seasons.
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Post by scooter on Feb 26, 2024 15:57:02 GMT -5
He shouldn’t be used as a backup center. That’s the first problem with Zeke. He’s already a decent backup PF, but you don’t see that since he has rarely played the position since the 2021/22 season. It’s not Zeke’s fault that Malone changed his role to backup C, for which he’s not well-suited, at the beginning of the 2022/23 season. He puts out an effort but he lost his confidence along the way with how he was being put in and taken out of rotation, ie yanked around. If Malone used him to his strengths, as a backup PF, he’d already look like someone at age 23 who’s very much worth his extension. You are stretching to try to make this argument work. In the modern NBA, decent teams play (at any given time) either 0 or 1 guy who doesn’t have the basketball skills. There is still a role for a few Gobert types (Allen, Lively, Capela, Claxton, Hayes) who can’t dribble and shoot because dunks are such high percentage shots and rebounding is still necessary. But that’s not Nnaji because he’s not very big and isn’t a very good rebounder (career 7.1 per 36, well below that of former NBA player JaMychal Green at 9.8 per 36, to use the example brought up earlier). NBA forwards need to have dribble, pass, shoot skills and Nnaji doesn’t. You can fudge it by calling him a PF, something that existed in 1980 but doesn’t really now, but NBA coaches are not interested in playing along with that. Nnaji can play PF alongside Jokic since the latter has all of the skills. But both Porter and Gordon are really PFs because of their size, so how much need is there for that? Nnaji would work fine playing forward with Sabonis at C for the same reason. But its pretty tough to keep going with that. You definitely don’t play Nnaji in a bench unit alongside DeAndre Jordan. Which good teams play rotation forwards who can’t create a shot off the dribble? When I look around the league and see how the NBA is played now (not in the past), I see that even Dorian Finney-Smith, who is the same size as Watson, and used to be strictly a SF has (according to Cleaning the Glass) divided his time the last two seasons between 4 and 5. Malone is doing everything he can to try to avoid having Nnaji relegated to being an overpaid deep bench guy but it ain’t easy.
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Post by LotharBraunBrownBryant on Feb 26, 2024 16:31:30 GMT -5
Zeke at one point had shooting skills, and he's a fairly effective offensive rebounder (draws a lot of loose ball fouls too.) Right now he doesn't have enough of enough different skills to be a consistent NBA rotation player for a team with championship expectations, but getting his shot back would do a lot.
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Post by scooter on Feb 26, 2024 16:40:36 GMT -5
too undersized to play the 5 but too offensively inept to play the 4. I used too many words to describe exactly THIS fact about the guy. I think the FO screwed up in thinking that Nnaji/warm body with an $8 mil annual salary would be a useful trade piece. Sure it is, if you want to trade Watson for a decent veteran bench player making $10 mil/year.
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Post by famicommander on Feb 26, 2024 17:12:52 GMT -5
It's telling that when Zeke puts together a handful of games in which he isn't a disaster we act like it's a miracle.
He hasn't had more than 3 rebounds in a game since December 18. He hasn't had more than 4 since November 27. He has had 5 or more rebounds in a game twice all season. He has pulled down 10 rebounds just 3 times in 179 career games.
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Post by jimijam28 on Feb 26, 2024 18:44:22 GMT -5
it about time zeke will get hurt- wash and repeat.
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Post by AbdulJabber on Feb 27, 2024 1:35:10 GMT -5
it about time zeke will get hurt- wash and repeat. Yep.Zeke needs to stay healthy and play enough minutes for the game to slow down. He's in his 4th season, but he's only played about the equivalent of one season as a regular rotation player. He's still a kid and hasn't even played as much at a high level of competition as Strawther.
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Post by duh88 on Feb 27, 2024 5:06:26 GMT -5
Zeke is honestly looking better than ever, in regard to his aggression. I think he's finally realized the only way he stays in the NBA is if he asserts himself as a big man.
I'm going to be optimistic - I don't think Zeke disappears.
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Post by scooter on Feb 27, 2024 14:33:45 GMT -5
I think he's finally realized the only way he stays in the NBA is if he asserts himself as a big man. That is not sustainable because he’s the same size (standing reach and wingspan) as Herb Jones and Trey Murphy (and Covington and O. Porter among older players). Unless you are Draymond Green, its extremely unlikely to be both a medium size player and a “big man.” To be fair, Brandon Clarke also made it work for awhile, although IMO the jury is very much out on how well that will work post-Achilles tear. On the positive side, Nnaji does have 1.5” of reach on SGA, so all he needs to do is develop an arsenal of PG skills and he’ll have excellent size for position.
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Post by GBG on Feb 27, 2024 14:45:46 GMT -5
I think he's finally realized the only way he stays in the NBA is if he asserts himself as a big man. That is not sustainable because he’s the same size (standing reach and wingspan) as Herb Jones and Trey Murphy (and Covington and O. Porter among older players). Unless you are Draymond Green, its extremely unlikely to be both a medium size player and a “big man.” To be fair, Brandon Clarke also made it work for awhile, although IMO the jury is very much out on how well that will work post-Achilles tear. On the positive side, Nnaji does have 1.5” of reach on SGA, so all he needs to do is develop an arsenal of PG skills and he’ll have excellent size for position. You’re trying to imply he’s a tweener who can’t be useful at any position. That’s incorrect as we have already seen Zeke be a useful player as a backup 4 in his ages 20 and 21 seasons when he would have been a sophomore and junior at Arizona if he didn’t come out early. You’re salty on Zeke because we passed up Bane. It’s something you’ve brought up more than once. It’s not Zeke’s fault that he isn’t as good as Bane and our FO erred in passing him up. He’s still not a complete waste if used correctly. He’s shown some things in this league. A career WS/48 of .108 which is average in NBA, and totally fine for a 15 mpg backup. He’s at 2.3 blocks per-36 this season, so he might be getting stronger and springier which is lost by fans in his otherwise dismal season. His career blocks per-36 is just 1.1, so that’s an uptick in skill. Y’all gonna look pretty myopic by the time Zeke is 25-27 and is doing fine for some other team as a backup 4. Your takes today just pile on what is obvious. It’s boring to root against Nuggets players anyway, and sorta sad.
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Post by famicommander on Feb 27, 2024 14:46:45 GMT -5
Zeke is making more next season than Watson, Braun, Strawther, and a two-way combined. That's the main problem. If he were making Vlatko money there wouldn't be a problem.
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Post by GBG on Feb 27, 2024 14:49:14 GMT -5
Zeke is making more next season than Watson, Braun, Strawther, and a two-way combined. That's the main problem. If he were making Vlatko money there wouldn't be a problem. JMG was a waste and completely overpaid at $8.1 million his final season here at age 31. It was clear he was on downhill slope of career with no upside left, and he had lost his 3PT shot that year too. At least Zeke has time on his side to get better in his age 23/24 season coming up. Let’s root for him, shall we?
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Post by famicommander on Feb 27, 2024 14:50:57 GMT -5
Zeke is making more next season than Watson, Braun, Strawther, and a two-way combined. That's the main problem. If he were making Vlatko money there wouldn't be a problem. JMG was a waste and completely overpaid at $8.1 million his final season here at age 31. It was clear he was on downhill slope of career with no upside left, and he had lost his 3PT shot that year too. At least Zeke has time on his side to get better in his age 23/24 season coming up. Let’s root for him shall we? You can't seem to differentiate between people evaluating his play to this point in his career and rooting against him. You have a delusionally positive outlook on the guy based on extremely small pockets of barely above average play, mostly from two or more years ago. You could even make a case for Facu if you only cherry picked his best 10 games as a Nugget.
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Post by GBG on Feb 27, 2024 14:55:45 GMT -5
JMG was a waste and completely overpaid at $8.1 million his final season here at age 31. It was clear he was on downhill slope of career with no upside left, and he had lost his 3PT shot that year too. At least Zeke has time on his side to get better in his age 23/24 season coming up. Let’s root for him shall we? You can't seem to differentiate between people evaluating his play to this point in his career and rooting against him. You have a delusionally positive outlook on the guy based on extremely small pockets of barely above average play, mostly from two or more years ago. You could even make a case for Facu if you only cherry picked his best 10 games as a Nugget. There is nothing delusional about seeing a 23 year-old big forward who has a career WS/48 of .108, as someone who has upside to being a useful “average quality” backup 4 in the right situation. Nuggets might not be the right situation and he might have to be traded to reach that delusionally high upside of a pretty damn decent backup 4. I’m not saying he has the potential to be a starter or even a good role player. Just someone who earns his $7.47 million he’s slated to earn in the 2026-27 season. You and scooter are fairly delusional in thinking you have better minds on Zeke talent evaluation than Calvin Booth, who gave him the four year deal.
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Post by famicommander on Feb 27, 2024 14:58:20 GMT -5
You can't seem to differentiate between people evaluating his play to this point in his career and rooting against him. You have a delusionally positive outlook on the guy based on extremely small pockets of barely above average play, mostly from two or more years ago. You could even make a case for Facu if you only cherry picked his best 10 games as a Nugget. There is nothing delusional about seeing a 23 year-old big forward who has a career WS/48 of .108, as someone who has upside to being a useful “average quality” backup 4 in the right situation. Nuggets might not be the right situation and he might have to be traded to reach that delusionally high upside of a pretty damn decent backup 4. I’m not saying he has the potential to be a starter or even a good role player. Just someone who earns his $7.47 million he’s slated to earn in the 2026-27 season. He doesn't have upside. He lacks the ball skills to be a forward and he lacks the size to be a big. If he could rebound, box out, and set screens at a consistently high level he could possibly be a useful player despite his offensive ineptitude. But he can't.
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Post by GBG on Feb 27, 2024 15:04:01 GMT -5
There is nothing delusional about seeing a 23 year-old big forward who has a career WS/48 of .108, as someone who has upside to being a useful “average quality” backup 4 in the right situation. Nuggets might not be the right situation and he might have to be traded to reach that delusionally high upside of a pretty damn decent backup 4. I’m not saying he has the potential to be a starter or even a good role player. Just someone who earns his $7.47 million he’s slated to earn in the 2026-27 season. He doesn't have upside. He lacks the ball skills to be a forward and he lacks the size to be a big. If he could rebound, box out, and set screens at a consistently high level he could possibly be a useful player despite his offensive ineptitude. But he can't. What’s absurd is thinking a mobile 6’”10 player who displays energy, intelligence, and both the ability and desire to defend multiple positions has “no upside”. When he’s 27, you might be shocked to see he’s as good as Darrell Arthur was at that age. Another good comp to Zeke, IMO. Or maybe he will always be hurt or in some coach’s doghouse and never get there. But he has upside to be better than he’s been THIS season. As for cherry picking, isn’t that what you’re doing right now in denouncing Zeke as a useful NBA player based off his terrible season so far?
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