Definitely a chance that's true. But imo he has a good shot of being around a 15 and 10 guy, again maybe a 12 and 8 guy. Either of those imo, are worthy of his selection.
He makes a lot of rookie mistakes. I feel most are seeing his rookie mistakes as a limitation of his talent, whereas I see them as rookie mistakes correctable in subsequent years through coaching, practice, and experience.
His shot selection should improve to the point where he's not throwing up a wild air ball from some funky move. It is frustrating to see that, but I won't use that as basis that he sucks and I won't set things in stone by saying, he'll never learn to make better decisions with his shot selection.
We've also not had a lot of rookies on our teams the past few years, so I believe even if it's just a small bit, we are pitting Lopez unfairly up against the 'lens' of what we normally see from our veteran team. Any rookie to our eyes when viewed within our veteran team will probably be much more apparent (to look like a rookie, and bigger gap) than if say we saw him and compared him to a team with a bunch of young players. So when analyzing him, I feel he'll get lower marks from us just because of that.
Try to remember back at all the horrible shots that Amare had his first year or two here.
Lopez will do better when he understands his role better. When he understands his limitations, and instinctively realizes and knows the talent of players around him. When he realizes things like, pass the ball instead of throwing up a wild air ball, etc.
Plus it seems everyone hates how he bends his knees making him a 6 foot 3 player or so. Well it's conceivable he switches his approach as he matures.
I'm not saying he'll be special, I just feel we are judging him a bit harshly at this point. Maybe his basketball acumen will never be up to par, and the judgments of him are spot on. But for a 21 year old 0 month player, just finishing his rookie season, after always playing 2nd fiddle to his brother, and as a center (generally not the most athletic players in basketball) he is making the mistakes most players his age would.
I do see some improvement. He's thinking quicker. He's making whatever decision he makes much faster imo then he was at the beginning of the season. Like when he gets a rebound or receives a pass down low.
The talent some of us saw last summer is still there. He's still quick for a center, and a good fit going forward for our up-tempo system. All those things won't make him a good NBA player, but it gives him a shot. Again at 21, like most 21 year olds, he's still basically a child mentally. He hasn't been to the puppet show and seen the strings yet. When he has, like most decent NBA players, he'll start to use his strengths in conjunction to what is going on in the NBA game and use them to try to dictate the outcome of it. He's on the right team for his strengths imo, but that too doesn't mean he'll end up being good. But to cast him off now, is like believing the market is back.
