« Reply #55 on: January 20, 2022, 11:33:10 AM »
Why doesn't anyone have Ja Morant on the list? I like him better than Zion long term; I think Zion is going to break down.
Morant is going to be one of the best point guards in the NBA. Just needs to improve that shot.
Yahoo has him at 15. And looking at the list I don't know that I would quibble much with that position for him.
I pointed out the stupidity as to why Ja Morant was not on the top 10 list of best players in NBA under 25 last year. No one else seemed to quibble with it on this board.
He has obviously taken it to another level this year, but no excuse for ESPN or anyone else not recognizing this guy's talent and projection less than a year ago.
To be fair, last year Morant was averaging less than 20 pts a game and his shooting percentages were not good. His defense was bad. He’s having a break through season. I think Ja Morant is the most exciting player to watch in the NBA right now.
Yep. I thought 15th seemed about right, which is where yahoo had him in March. That made sense to me. He really kicked up in the stretch run last year and has carried that over into this year. It doesn't mean the projections were wrong last year though.
Maybe not unreasonable, but I think they have been proven wrong.
The projections are based on what is known at the time. I don't believe they were wrong. Morant elevated his game past the level he was performing at. On March 17th last year, Memphis was 18-19 and Morant was averaging 19/8/3 and shooting 23.5% from 3 with a GMSC of just 14.9. That was coming off a rookie season where in many respects he was better at 18/7/4 and he shot 33.5% from 3 with a GMSC of 13.9.
Morant has obviously exploded this year, but the evidence wasn't there to support this kind of growth. It is unexpected based on typical trajectories.
You don't believe the projections were wrong about Morant? Of course they were wrong!! He is going to make first or second team all NBA this season. If you mean to say that they were reasonable, based on data, fine, you can die on that sword.
It may be semantics, but the projections are based on data and not exceptions to the data. I don't think anyone looked at the data that was available and made the wrong projection, it is Morant changed the data in a very atypical way. He took a leap that was abnormal. Similar to guys like Kawhi and Butler, who looked like 3 and D type role players their first couple of seasons before taking an abnormal or atypical leap into the All NBA level of player. Morant was obviously better than Leonard and Butler his first 2 years, but his leap in year 3 has been tremendous and players don't typically do that. Even someone like Giannis consistently was improving. You could see the raw talent in him and could see his game just keep getting better. Now obviously Giannis' talent jumps every year were bigger than most players, but he didn't have an atypical jump all of a sudden.
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