Strategy and Len

[hcsilla]

Just to cool down the enthusiasm (or now the disappointment) of the McLemore fans may I ask you what else he can do on the floor other than picture-perfect spot-up 3's and some dunks after straight drives?

I understand why a lot of people love McLemore but his limited offensive game and his lack of assertiveness is a dangerous pairing.

That made Mickael Pietrus from being described as some cross of Michael Jordan and Ray Allen to being (relatively) quickly disappeared from the NBA.

 

[SirStefan32]

Just to cool down the enthusiasm (or now the disappointment) of the McLemore fans may I ask you what else he can do on the floor other than picture-perfect spot-up 3's and some dunks after straight drives?

I understand why a lot of people love McLemore but his limited offensive game and his lack of assertiveness is a dangerous pairing.

That made Mickael Pietrus from being described as some cross of Michael Jordan and Ray Allen to being (relatively) quickly disappeared from the NBA.

I think a lot of people (including me) believe McLemore had the highest ceiling. Oladipo will be a defensive stopper who'll learn to shoot, and will be able to finish around the rim, Noel may become a good defender/ rebounder/ shot-blocker, Len may become an all-around good Center, but McLemore could become a star if he becomes more assertive.

From my perspective, you take the guy with the highest potential, which is why I would have gone with McLemore.

 

[elindholm]

I think a lot of people (including me) believe McLemore had the highest ceiling.

Those people also include Jay Bilas. I think that's what has a lot of posters concerned. It's not like Bilas is a great expert, but he has been doing this a long time, much longer than anyone in the Suns' front office. He clearly felt that the Suns should have taken McLemore or Noel at #5; in fact I think it was he who groaned audibly when Stern announced the Len pick. His is only one person's opinion, but if this board is being asked to trust McDonough over Bilas just on blind faith -- well, that's a lot to ask.

 

[BC867]

I'm a Maryland Student, so I've seen Len play a lot - The people comparing him to busts like Yi, etc. are out of their mind ...

Those guys did not play college basketball, so they were total unknowns - Len is not ... He averaged about 16-11 Per 36 minutes last year and clearly had a feel for the game (stuff you couldn't see with international unknowns), so I'm really dumbfounded why people are saying he was so bad last year

A lot of Maryland fans get on Len simply because they don't understand Team Basketball and the fact that a center can't do everything ; Fans expected him to be Shaq in college, so any little mistake he made fans got all upset, called him soft, etc. ... A lot of times Len would get the ball too far away from the basket, which had a lot to do with the guards - He did settle a few times when he shouldn't have, but I think that just has to do with him knowing that if he passed the ball back out to re-post, he wouldn't get the ball back ...

Len last year had the skill level of an NBA Player - I'm telling you, Sophomore Alex Len could step on an NBA floor and immediately be a solid defender / rebounder, while also finishing around the basket ...

That's not even talking about improvement - He improved a ton in the past year and there really is no reason at all he won't improve the next few years in terms of experience, strength, etc. and be a Very Solid NBA starter at the least

I don't see any scenario where he won't be a better player than Noel, barring injury ... His floor is higher than Noel's because of his height and defensive / rebounding ability and his ceiling is also higher because not only does is he physically superior to Noel, but he has a better feel for the game and is more skilled ... All at 20 years old

I appreciate that input. Not only that, but . . . FACT -- our General Manager chose Len and FACT -- he will be on the roster to replace Gortat.

Why, at this point, would any Suns fan give up on him becoming a solid NBA Center? He is the choice of those getting paid to choose! The new regime, not the old farts who showed no sense of direction.

 

[sunsfan88]

Isn't it obvious he thinks so? If he beats that drum as loudly as the Beasley one it's gonna get old real fast.

If Len is gonna get bashed by him every thread like he did with Beasley last year (and conitnues to do so) then he's going on my ignore list. I don't like putting people on ignore cause I think a forum is to disucss openly with everyone but damn, that would just be straight up annoying.

It's old already. Len, is going to take time to develop but there are going to be those that declare him a bust after the first mediocre game.

Exactly. Centers take a few years to develop, it would be ridiculous to even write him off after his one season.

After a game? They've already proclaimed him a bust without seeing him even PRACTICE against NBA-level talent!

I think they are underrating Len and EXTREMELY overrating McLemore. And that leads to a lot of uninformed hate.

I would have preferred McLemore, and while I was pretty ticked off the night of the draft, I'm not anymore. I'm not in the camp that the front office is stupid, so IMO McLemore's workouts must have been so bad he wasn't even considered by management. And if McLemore wasn't considered (and Noel's knee was a concern), then Len is the next best thing.

Eh I'm fine with the Len pick but I don't think anyone's overrating McLemore.

When its all said and done, I think McLemore will be the best player to come from this draft, followed by Burke and then Len/McCollum/Oladipo all tied for 3rd.

 

[sunsfan88]

Those people also include Jay Bilas. I think that's what has a lot of posters concerned. It's not like Bilas is a great expert, but he has been doing this a long time, much longer than anyone in the Suns' front office. He clearly felt that the Suns should have taken McLemore or Noel at #5; in fact I think it was he who groaned audibly when Stern announced the Len pick. His is only one person's opinion, but if this board is being asked to trust McDonough over Bilas just on blind faith -- well, that's a lot to ask.

You don't think McDonough has done more research on all the NBA draftees than Bilas?

Forget that, you don't think any NBA GM has done more research on all the NBA draftees than Bilas?

 

[elindholm]

You don't think McDonough has done more research on all the NBA draftees than Bilas?

Forget that, you don't think any NBA GM has done more research on all the NBA draftees than Bilas?

No. Why should I? An NBA GM has many, many other responsibilities. It's not like McDonough spends 40 hours a week watching draft prospects. Bilas does other things for a living too, of course, but I wouldn't assume that either spends more time on scouting than the other.

 

[jandaman]

About Len…

1. The ONE major reason why Suns and other scouts liked him so much is that he has shown dramatic improvement from his fresh man to his sophomore. For someone who is fresh from another country, adjusting to new life in USA and learning communication etc, he has shown ability to persevere. Who knows? Had he stayed another year, he was a good to excellent chance of improving some more, perhaps to a 14-15ppg, 10-11rpg 3bpg center. To me, that was the trajectory he was heading to. Scouts and talent evaluators always account improvement rate… this is how they can speculate on ceiling.

If Len continues to work on his game and have that hunger, as well as the team catering to his strengths… I don’t see why he cannot be a 17ppg 12rpg 2.5bpg Big man with 36 minutes, maybe 2-3 seasons from now.


It goes hand in hand with the Goodwin pick…
The Suns FO went for players with TONS of room for improvement and RAW as hell, Goodwin is turning 19 in August…. Len is 20 years old.
In a rebuilding team, I see them getting 20-24 minutes by second half of the season, atleast one of them, and improve that to 24-30 minutes in their second year.

 

[CardsSunsDbacks]

I think a lot of people (including me) believe McLemore had the highest ceiling. Oladipo will be a defensive stopper who'll learn to shoot, and will be able to finish around the rim, Noel may become a good defender/ rebounder/ shot-blocker, Len may become an all-around good Center, but McLemore could become a star if he becomes more assertive.

From my perspective, you take the guy with the highest potential, which is why I would have gone with McLemore.

There is the major problem. It is quite rare that a guy that wasn't assertive enough in college turns that around in the NBA. That is one of the reasons I actually like Goodwin more than McLemore because it is almost impossible to teach aggressiveness and that is something that a star wing player in the NBA must have.

 

[Cheesebeef]

There is the major problem. It is quite rare that a guy that wasn't assertive enough in college turns that around in the NBA. That is one of the reasons I actually like Goodwin more than McLemore because it is almost impossible to teach aggressiveness and that is something that a star wing player in the NBA must have.

but we drafted a C who has the exact same knocks on him. i mean...McLemore might have this issue, but he still ended up the leading scorer on a title contender and was a Wooden Award Finalist. Len had that knock...put up mediocre numbers, didn't elevate his team anywhere and couldn't even make the 3rd team all-ACC.

I mean...wait a second...you like Goodwin MORE then McLemore? wow.

 

[Errntknght]

I'm quite perplexed about so many people being upset that we didn't draft McLemore. I get that he's athletic and shoots well but it seems to end there. He's not as good at 1-1 defense as his athleticism suggests - he gets screened off rather easily for one thing. His off ball defense is worse as he simply gets lost a fair bit as well as getting screened off. He could improve but defensive improvement is far from a given, especially among scorers.

According to the DX report he turns passive on offense against better teams - 6 shot attempts per game in 4 out the last 5 games. I recall people on here saying he did poorly in their elimination game - whether he didn't shoot or missed when he did, I don't know.

Thats right in line with the statement in the same report that said he doesn't create his own shot often. They said he's only capable of straight lines drives to the basket and that he shot 32% off the dribble. The last bit they said in tone that suggested that was a good pctage but it sounds poor to me.

He's more likely to improve on the offensive side than on D because you don't have to pressure players to get them to work on their offense but it does appear that he is more of a project than someone who'll boost his team right out of the gate.

Archie Goodwin is not quite the athlete McLemore is nor the shooter but he does get to the basket better and defends better. He's probably more of a project but he's also two years younger. Being biased toward defense I think I'd rather have Goodwin between the two of them.

 

[JCSunsfan]

Just to cool down the enthusiasm (or now the disappointment) of the McLemore fans may I ask you what else he can do on the floor other than picture-perfect spot-up 3's and some dunks after straight drives?

I understand why a lot of people love McLemore but his limited offensive game and his lack of assertiveness is a dangerous pairing.

That made Mickael Pietrus from being described as some cross of Michael Jordan and Ray Allen to being (relatively) quickly disappeared from the NBA.

My fear about McLemore all along was that he would be kind of like Wes Johnson. Wes has a beautiful looking shot and great athleticism, and better length than McLemore, but he has that passive way about him. I am not saying they are going to be the same, but the hopes were just as high for him.

This is why I wanted Oladipo, but once he is gone, the passive complaints about Len go for Ben too. But Ben had the ball in his hands much more often.

Just my thinking, I might be wrong. The draft is like that.

 

[Errntknght]

Wes seems like a happy go lucky guy who's have a ton of fun when he's on the court, which might be true - that would explain why he doesn't take defense too seriously. Why rain on the other guys parade and maybe he won't rain on yours.

 

[Cheesebeef]

My fear about McLemore all along was that he would be kind of like Wes Johnson. Wes has a beautiful looking shot and great athleticism, and better length than McLemore, but he has that passive way about him. I am not saying they are going to be the same, but the hopes were just as high for him.

really? Wes Johnson was 22 when he was drafted...and never shot anywhere close to what McLemore did. And by 22...playing against college kids, you have a pretty good idea of someone's ceiling. I guess I just don't know how you can look at the two and compare them as McLemore was the much better player/shooter right when he got in college, as opposed to Johnson who was a man amongst boys...which probably has to do with why he actually put up decent stats as a 22 year old Junior.

If people were to fear McLemore would become anyone, I'd say the fear would be he becomes like Ron Mercer. And that could happen, but the kid's stroke is so freaking pure, one of the best of all time and his athleticism is off the charts. i mean, for all the talk of passivity, as a freshmen on a senior laden squad, he still led them in scoring and was a Wooden Award finalist.

I probably would have taken Oladipo over McLemore also, but it was close between the two of them.

 

[tobiazz]

About Len…

1.
If Len continues to work on his game and have that hunger, as well as the team catering to his strengths… I don’t see why he cannot be a 17ppg 12rpg 2.5bpg Big man with 36 minutes, maybe 2-3 seasons from now.

Are you sure about 36 minutes and 12 rebounds even after 3 seasons?

http://espn.go.com/nba/statistics/player/_/stat/rebounds/sort/avgRebounds/year/2013/seasontype/2

 

[Cheesebeef]

Are you sure about 36 minutes and 12 rebounds even after 3 seasons?

http://espn.go.com/nba/statistics/player/_/stat/rebounds/sort/avgRebounds/year/2013/seasontype/2

Yeah...that's not the first time someone's thrown numbers like that around. That's basically expecting Len to be one of the top 2 centers in the entire league in 3 years.

 

[sunsfan88]

I'm quite perplexed about so many people being upset that we didn't draft McLemore. I get that he's athletic and shoots well but it seems to end there. He's not as good at 1-1 defense as his athleticism suggests - he gets screened off rather easily for one thing. His off ball defense is worse as he simply gets lost a fair bit as well as getting screened off. He could improve but defensive improvement is far from a given, especially among scorers.

You couldn't be more wrong in any of these statements. McLemore is a really good defender and was one of the main reasons that Kansas was a pretty good defensive team

People crowned Oladipo as such a great defender and yet...

Has a chance to be an excellent defender due to his length and lateral speed. Despite their reputations, McLemore actually graded out much higher on overall defense in Synergy analytical statistics than Victor Olidipo ... McLemore allowed .625 PPP (points per possession) scoring in the 89 percentile (Oladipo .856 PPP and in the 39th percentile)

http://www.nbadraft.net/players/ben-mclemore

Defense won't ever be a knock on McLemore.

 

[Joe Mama]

You couldn't be more wrong in any of these statements. McLemore is a really good defender and was one of the main reasons that Kansas was a pretty good defensive team

People crowned Oladipo as such a great defender and yet...


Defense won't ever be a knock on McLemore.

let me just say that in a relatively small sample, 32 isolation situations, McLemore was one of the worst in college this past season. That's really the best indicator of his individual defense for a perimeter player. Pick and roll ballhandler and offscreen are also good to look at, but a lot of that depends on how they are scheming their defense. He was much better in those situations.

These numbers can be helpful, but the tool is really more useful for finding and viewing the video to judge for yourself.

Joe

 

[Suns in rebuild mode]

The only thing I see in the west is one legit All star center in Howard and that's it Duncan but I see him more as a PF rather than a Center but still he what 37. I guess you could make an argument for Cousins but he doesn't play defense.

So if Len ended up being a 17-11-2 guy he'll likely see an all-star game before McLemore does especially in the west were there's a ton of Guards who are all star talents.

Its funny how they say McLemore may be the only all star from this class when really Noel or Len don't have to be great players so to say to make an all star game.

I wanted us to take McLemore but the more I think about it I'm OK with the Len pick manly cause legit low post center's are hard to find. I for one think Cleveland will regret not taking Len or Noel good big men are hard to find offensively or defensively minded one's.

I do believe Len did make the All Defensive Acc team for what it worth.

 

[Suns in rebuild mode]

The only thing I see in the west is one legit All star center in Howard and that's it Duncan but I see him more as a PF rather than a Center but still he what 37. I guess you could make an argument for Cousins but he doesn't play defense. Almost forgot Marc Gasol who Len may end up being like as a pro minus Gasol's passing ability.

So if Len ended up being a 17-11-2 guy he'll likely see an all-star game before McLemore does especially in the west were there's a ton of Guards who are all star talents.

Its funny how they say McLemore may be the only all star from this class when really Noel or Len don't have to be great players so to say to make an all star game.

I wanted us to take McLemore but the more I think about it I'm OK with the Len pick manly cause legit low post center's are hard to find. I for one think Cleveland will regret not taking Len or Noel good big men are hard to find offensively or defensively minded one's.

I do believe Len did make the All Defensive Acc team for what it worth.

 

[sunsfan88]

The only thing I see in the west is one legit All star center in Howard and that's it Duncan but I see him more as a PF rather than a Center but still he what 37. I guess you could make an argument for Cousins but he doesn't play defense. Almost forgot Marc Gasol who Len may end up being like as a pro minus Gasol's passing ability.

So if Len ended up being a 17-11-2 guy he'll likely see an all-star game before McLemore does especially in the west were there's a ton of Guards who are all star talents.

Its funny how they say McLemore may be the only all star from this class when really Noel or Len don't have to be great players so to say to make an all star game.

I wanted us to take McLemore but the more I think about it I'm OK with the Len pick manly cause legit low post center's are hard to find. I for one think Cleveland will regret not taking Len or Noel good big men are hard to find offensively or defensively minded one's.

I do believe Len did make the All Defensive Acc team for what it worth.

Your username is very...unique. Props for creativity

 

[Cheesebeef]

No one here is going to persuade someone else that their opinion is wrong so i Guess ill just end my part of the discussion with something simple.

I didn't like the pick, but I hope to be proven wrong.

 

[Errntknght]

You couldn't be more wrong in any of these statements. McLemore is a really good defender and was one of the main reasons that Kansas was a pretty good defensive team

People crowned Oladipo as such a great defender and yet...


Defense won't ever be a knock on McLemore.

In that same report you linked, I found the following:
"Where McLemore struggled defensively was in isolation, showing a need to expand his feel for the game, focus on fundamentals, get lower and not bite on fakes as heavily. Shows solid effort, he just needs to make a better effort of getting low, anticipating, and not allowing opponents to get by him on penetration ..."

That does agree with what Joe Mama said in his post and it does explain how DX came up with the examples of his 1-1 failures in their video. They didn't make any mention of isolation situations being the only phase of his defense that was poor. In fact, they said that his off ball defense was lacking as well and showed 5 or so examples of that. Of course, he wasn't actually guarding the guys when they shot in those cases so it may be that they don't figure into his PPP numbers - of course they might figure in since I'm not cognizant of their methodology.

I did listen to an interview with his coach Bill Self regarding McLemore but he made no mention of his defensive capabilities, good or bad.

I watched some other videos featuring McLemore but they were highlights so he wasn't shown defending except for a few blocks at the basket. Basically, everything I said was was gleaned from several viewing of his DX report and it appears they didn't do a balanced job on his D given that he had such a low PPP.

Now whats really perplexing me is how does Oladipo get such raves for his defense when he comes in the 39 percentile in PPP against. A much better stat would be each guys PPP ratioed to the averaged PPP of guys he guarded in all of their games. You figure Oladipo drew the toughest assignments since he's supposed to be an elite defender but could it really make that much difference? The other side of that same coin is the possibility that the Kansas coach gave McLemore the easiest def. assignments because he did have trouble in iso situations and you don't want to needlessly burden your leading scorer.

Anyway, sunsfan, I thank you for pointing out my failure to dig deeper before sounding off. Thanks to both you and Joe I learned a fair bit about the measures that are used to rate these guys. I'm afraid I'm not going to take Joe's advice to view Ben's game tapes and see for myself... if we'd drafted him I might resort to that.

 

[tobiazz]

So if Len ended up being a 17-11-2 guy he'll likely see an all-star game before McLemore does especially in the west were there's a ton of Guards who are all star talents.

This really begs the question.

Over the last 20 years, these sort of numbers have only happened about 60 times, or by about three players per season. These are the 18 players who have managed a stat line close to 17-11-2 (better than 16-10.5-1.8):

Shaquille O'Neal
Hakeem Olajuwon
Tim Duncan
Kevin Garnett
David Robinson
Dwight Howard
Patrick Ewing
Alonzo Mourning
Dikembe Mutombo
Jermaine O'Neal
Chris Webber
Elton Brand
Antonio McDyess
Andrew Bynum
Derrick Coleman
Shawn Kemp
Pervis Ellison
Yao Ming

http://www.basketball-reference.com...at=&c5comp=gt&c6mult=1.0&c6stat=&order_by=age

If Len manages even 14-9.5-1.5 after a few years, that would be quite an accomplishment and still put him behind the likes of Howard, Cousins, Al Jefferson, Marc Gasol, in All Star voting, at that point in time. If some of the centers from the East move to the West by then, forget about it.

I think taking a shot at Len is not the worst thing in the world, but it seems more likely to me that McLemore continue his college shooting percentages and be as good as Kevin Martin (borderline all star) than for Len to improve across the board and play enough minutes while bulking up and not experiencing foot issues.

 

[Joe Mama]

In that same report you linked, I found the following:
"Where McLemore struggled defensively was in isolation, showing a need to expand his feel for the game, focus on fundamentals, get lower and not bite on fakes as heavily. Shows solid effort, he just needs to make a better effort of getting low, anticipating, and not allowing opponents to get by him on penetration ..."

That does agree with what Joe Mama said in his post and it does explain how DX came up with the examples of his 1-1 failures in their video. They didn't make any mention of isolation situations being the only phase of his defense that was poor. In fact, they said that his off ball defense was lacking as well and showed 5 or so examples of that. Of course, he wasn't actually guarding the guys when they shot in those cases so it may be that they don't figure into his PPP numbers - of course they might figure in since I'm not cognizant of their methodology.

I did listen to an interview with his coach Bill Self regarding McLemore but he made no mention of his defensive capabilities, good or bad.

I watched some other videos featuring McLemore but they were highlights so he wasn't shown defending except for a few blocks at the basket. Basically, everything I said was was gleaned from several viewing of his DX report and it appears they didn't do a balanced job on his D given that he had such a low PPP.

Now whats really perplexing me is how does Oladipo get such raves for his defense when he comes in the 39 percentile in PPP against. A much better stat would be each guys PPP ratioed to the averaged PPP of guys he guarded in all of their games. You figure Oladipo drew the toughest assignments since he's supposed to be an elite defender but could it really make that much difference? The other side of that same coin is the possibility that the Kansas coach gave McLemore the easiest def. assignments because he did have trouble in iso situations and you don't want to needlessly burden your leading scorer.

Anyway, sunsfan, I thank you for pointing out my failure to dig deeper before sounding off. Thanks to both you and Joe I learned a fair bit about the measures that are used to rate these guys. I'm afraid I'm not going to take Joe's advice to view Ben's game tapes and see for myself... if we'd drafted him I might resort to that.

there's really nothing wrong with the way draft express handled it. My guess is that they watched a lot of video to come to those conclusions. I mean here's the thing. These stats don't give credit for defensive schemes or help defense. However with isolations if you have really bad numbers like McLemore did you are getting beaten frequently. They may have watched a bunch more Kansas defense and determined that the other, more positive numbers had more to do with his teammates than him. Or it's possible they had him defending the other team's worst players in order to stay out of foul trouble.

I actually didn't watch much of McLemore's defense. I did watch a fair amount of Oladipo, and I was impressed.