he hasn't changed my mind about him as a player or the deal to acquire him:
- felt the trade was an grievous overpay at the time and feel even more so now. At the time, saw his skill level as about the same as Richardson's but could understand having to include either Romeo or a first rounder for having him under contract 3 more years. No way he should have cost both, never mind that pick swap.
- his D has been very good - pleasantly surprised at that.
- his ball handling has been solid for a back up PG. noticed that if he's under pressure, he has some issues. noticed it particularly in this series with Miami. to be fair, none of our PGs are top notch ballhandlers like Rondo or Kyrie and it's a bit of a concern.
- his shooting/scoring is abysmal. his supporters get excited if he makes a basket and feel that's all he needs to make. I look at it as he's replacing the production of Richardson, Schroder and Romeo and he's not even close. Teams can just leave him wide open and play for the pass and that's what Miami's doing. He's not making them pay. He's worse than Smart ever was in that regard. Supporters clamoring that he's a better shooter historically so he must revert to that are wrong in that regard because players sometime start out better and get worse. His shot from deep isn't even close to going in. wide to either side usually which is not good.
- his BBIQ seems solid - makes far fewer mental mistakes than most of the other players on the team. doesn't turn the ball over trying to be flashy. generally makes the basic, smart play with the ball. on this team, that's an asset.
As I've said all along, he's not a stiff. he's definitely a rotation quality player but he's not the godsend many here proclaim him to be. We overpaid, badly. I don't want to hear about any expected shooting improvements in the coming years because we have a chance to win the title THIS year and that's when we need him to deliver at least some production on offense. if we had more shooters/scorers on the team where we didn't need much scoring from him that'd be different but that's not the case this year.