Which One Of These NBA Players Under Age 25 Would You Start Your Team With?

[HacheMan]

What do you mean? He is just going to be a way better all-around player than both of them unless he is a total idiot and I don't know it or something.

He should be the best defensive player in the league in a few years...RAPM, win shares, +/- per 100 whatever way you want to measure it he should far outpace them.
He went 16-10 2nd half of this season as a 19 year old rookie, he should get to 19-11 pretty soon if you just want to go by raw #s for pts/boards. He should be top 5 in the NBA in blocks next year...

By stat line do you just mean pts and boards?

I actually thought he would make a bigger splash his rookie season like Blake did.
And you're right he did have a better 2nd half.
He's clearly going to be a better shot blocker, but I honestly don't think his point & rebound talents will surpass Love and/or Griffin in the same number of years.
Never know though, only time will tell...

 

[PatsFan1283]

I actually thought he would make a bigger splash his rookie season like Blake did.
And you're right he did have a better 2nd half.
He's clearly going to be a better shot blocker, but I honestly don't think his points will surpass Love and/or Griffin in the same number of years.
Never know though, only time will tell...

what about defense? it is 1/2 the game....It isn't as easy for people to see as offense so they often relegate it to a small phrase at the end when judging a player.

Kevin Love great for a fantasy league but I'd take a lot of guys over him that can play both ways. I think both Minn and LAC would swap their guys for AD.

All 3 of these guys have been injury prone fwiw so that is something to watch for...

 

[HacheMan]

what about defense? it is 1/2 the game....It isn't as easy for people to see as offense so they often relegate it to a small phrase at the end when judging a player.

Kevin Love great for a fantasy league but I'd take a lot of guys over him that can play both ways. I think both Minn and LAC would swap their guys for him.

Yes sir Pats that's why I mentioned the shotblocking presence.
But that still doesn't make him a better rebounder than Love or even Griffin, and probably safe to say definitely never the scorer.
Probably a bad time to bring this guy up but he's nowhere near a Dwight Howard, which he will have to get to in order to compare him to Love or Griffin.
But again we won't know for a couple more years...:toast:

 

[PatsFan1283]

Yes sir Pats that's why I mentioned the shotblocking presence.
But that still doesn't make him a better rebounder than Love or even Griffin, and probably safe to say definitely not the scorer.
Probably a bad time to bring this guy up but he's nowhere near a Dwight Howard, which he will have to get to in order to compare him to Love or Griffin.
But again we won't know for a couple more years...:toast:

I think you probably severely underrate how good he is going to be defensively and the type of impact that type of defense has on a basketball game.

Also I think you severely underrate how bad Kevin Love is defensively and how that type of impact has on a basketball game.

Also AD already a better rebounder than Blake pretty clearly.

Hache who do you think will be better next year Pelicans or Twolves?

 

[CHOPTALK]

Well that's what makes this intersting, hearing everyone's opinions.

But why on Earth would you take Davis over those 2 guys?

I would take any of the 3 listed over Rose, but would even take Rose over Anthony Davis.
Davis is going to get better but even so his stat-line is still going to take a lot of work to reach Love's or Griffin's...

Nonsense, Davis value is already higher then Griffen right this second.

 

[HacheMan]

Hache who do you think will be better next year Pelicans or Twolves?

Depends which team wants to be in the Andrew Wiggins sweepstakes the least/worst lol

 

[PatsFan1283]

Depends which team wants to be in the Andrew Wiggins sweepstakes the least/worst lol

You think Kevin Love is that good and you don't expect him to lead his team to the playoffs next year? Going playoffs isn't THAT hard if you are 1 of the best in the world.
He isn't a 2nd year player anymore or anything

 

[CHOPTALK]

I actually thought he would make a bigger splash his rookie season like Blake did.
And you're right he did have a better 2nd half.
He's clearly going to be a better shot blocker, but I honestly don't think his point & rebound talents will surpass Love and/or Griffin in the same number of years.
Never know though, only time will tell...

I scored the same amount of points griffen scored in his rookie season

 

[HacheMan]

Nonsense, Davis value is already higher then Griffen right this second.

But I think people are judging Griffin too much based solely on this year vs his first 2 seasons in which he tore it up, the same way too many are basing Derrick Rose's 'greatness' on that one standout season...

 

[HacheMan]

I scored the same amount of points griffen scored in his rookie season

haha good one... His OFFICIAL rookie season when he won ROY lol


http://www.therxforum.com/showthread.php?t=845330

 

[PatsFan1283]

I have a higher opinion of Blake than most (big reason his #s down was because LACs bench would blow a lot of teams out and he would sit 4th Q, I play NBA fantasy and saw this happen a ton, hurt CP3s #s even as well)

However, Kevin Love has simply just become overrated by the general public. Always hurt, can't D, never been playoffs for a reason. Not trying to rip him but his drawbacks are such that he won't ever be a top 5 player in the NBA or anything and top 10 is probably a stretch. Paul George is at worst the 3rd best perimeter defender in the league at 23 and just took a team to the conference finals, no smart GM is taking Kevin Love over Paul George....

Even you seem skittish on him leading his team to the playoffs this year, he is going into his 6th season....

 

[HarryCaray]

Not to go all GTC08 on this board but if Love was black and had pulled half the shit he has in Minnesota you guys would be drawing and quartering him...

-Signed a huge extension and then that summer said the team needs to improve because he "is a proponent of surrounding greatness with greatness" that is an actual quote
-Despite never even making the playoffs and always being hurt he has managed to find time to do more media than anyone in the NBA. Putting his face in every commercial, viral video, etc...
-Pretty much a total non-entity on defense....Harden/Rose/Melo come to mind as stars thats D doesn't match their O but as an interior player if you are bad on D it impacts a lot more of the game..

I personally don't have a problem with any of this because I just follow what happens on the court but his skin color definitely isn't hurting him (neither is playing on Minnesota to be fair, nobody cares what he does because his team is largely irrelevant)

This is the bigger factor IMO.

 

[PatsFan1283]

This is the bigger factor IMO.

Agreed but if he's black he probably does get a lot more shit....Especially for the "Proponent of surrounding greatness with greatness" comment. I'm not even kidding, he said that at the Olympics last year...


Anyway I'm not trying to be GTC but it is a reality a white guy gonna get more leeway from fans than a black guy...

 

[HacheMan]

You're right about some things regarding Love Pats but he's played more games than Derrick Rose the past 3 seasons, and how do you discount being one of, if not the league's best rebounder AND putting 25 ppg?
Have we ever seen the league's top rebounder also be able to step behind the arc and drain 3's like this guy?
And I guess this goes back to everything you said about it and it's a shame because he could have, and still can be possibly, something special.

But anyhow, my choice of the 4 players listed would be Harden.
6 months ago no way I would have ever thought it but the guy is for real.
6th in the league in steals also proves that he has the all-round game to go with 26-6-5

 

[CHOPTALK]

Hey Patsfan.

I know we talked about this the other day but would like your updated opinion on the Pelicans moves.

I know you were against there win now strategy but the core of the Pelicans is looking pretty good.
Still have plenty of salary cap space for future moves.

There is not a single bad contract on the entire team unless Gordon cant stay on the court.

AD, Holiday, Gordon, Anderson, Tyreke Evans.

Thats a pretty solid young core right there IMO.

 

[HacheMan]

Chop you're not hoping for a huge letdown from your team to have a shot at Wiggins next year?

 

[CHOPTALK]

http://www.grantland.com/story/_/id/9462545/the-remaking-new-orleans-pelicans

This is a great story on the situation.
Just what we have been talking about.

 

[CHOPTALK]

Chop you're not hoping for one big letdown for your team to have a shot at Wiggins next year?

You cant tank every season HACHE.
The tank 3 or 4 years in a row method only works about 2% of the time.

OKC did it.
The Spurs did it.

But look at all the failed teams that have done it.

Charlotte has been doing it since they were in the league.
Washington
Sacramento
The Bucks
Raptors

The list is long.

We already got our tank player in Anthony Davis.
He is the franchise.
He is going to be a top 5 player in this league very soon.

I guess its time to build around him the way the Spurs did for Duncan.


OKC is the only team I can think of that double tanked and it worked out. And even they have not won a title yet.

 

[PatsFan1283]

Hey Patsfan.

I know we talked about this the other day but would like your updated opinion on the Pelicans moves.

I know you were against there win now strategy but the core of the Pelicans is looking pretty good.
Still have plenty of salary cap space for future moves.

There is not a single bad contract on the entire team unless Gordon cant stay on the court.

AD, Holiday, Gordon, Anderson, Tyreke Evans.

Thats a pretty solid young core right there IMO.

Yeah Evans I'm not a big fan of but he is definitely salvageable. The Kings were messed up bigtime with ownership/coaching the last few years and he has talent.

I think once you make the Jrue move you are basically saying we're not tanking/rebuilding anymore so after that might as well keep going in that direction, atleast it stuck with the plan.

4/44 seems like a lot for him but they were mostly done forming their team anyway.

fwiw Zach Lowe is the best NBA writer I think. He used to write about law/finance but now he is the go to guy for NBA, his stuff really breaks down the game like nothing else I've seen out there...

It is tough to say how they will be, a lot of ? marks...Evans/Jrue/Gordon all used to having the ball in their hands a lot, Gordon hasn't been healthy in 2 years.

If AD makes the leap they should be a playoff team though...

 

[PatsFan1283]

You cant tank every season HACHE.
The tank 3 or 4 years in a row method only works about 2% of the time.

OKC did it.
The Spurs did it.

But look at all the failed teams that have done it.

Charlotte has been doing it since they were in the league.
Washington
Sacramento
The Bucks
Raptors

The list is long.

We already got our tank player in Anthony Davis.
He is the franchise.
He is going to be a top 5 player in this league very soon.

I guess its time to build around him the way the Spurs did for Duncan.


OKC is the only team I can think of that double tanked and it worked out. And even they have not won a title yet.

Ehh I would've tanked 1 more year considering how good the top guys are in this draft but I can see why they didn't. With Davis in the fold playing 35mpg it is going to be tough to have a better shot at a high draft picks than teams outright trying to lose.