Chad Ford Mock 7.0 today Gordon and Porzingis

[NorthernLightning]

I've done my research and thought long and hard about most all of these guys. You pretend that this site is full of draft junkies, but all the choir says is that everybody stinks and we need to trade the pick since we didn't get a top 3 pick.

In other words, you act as if no-one else has thought long and hard, and if someone wants us to trade our pick, they don't have a clue about the draft. In case you missed it, that's precisely the "holier-than-though" attitude I was talking about.

I notice you still don't tell us how many Arizona games you watched, or what ones. As vague as possible, with no real value added to the conversation.

[NorthernLightning]

"Holier than thou" apparently means not going along with the lemming brigade and their 10 minute scouting shuffle on each player.

[kozlodoev]

You can't "fix" lack of athleticism/poor defense, quickly or otherwise. You can however improve jump shooting quite a bit, especially with hard work. And nobody except perhaps the resident geniuses here doubts Aaron Gordon's work ethic.

Yep, you can't teach size either. That's why an NBA GM gets suckered every year into drafting the Michael Olowokandis, Saer Senes and Rafael Araujos of the world, hoping that they could be drilled to miraculously learn the skills that somehow eluded them during the first 10 years of their basketball development.

Let me tell you, the success rate there is pretty low.

[NorthernLightning]

You sound like you've watched a lot of tape this year.

[kozlodoev]

You sound like you've watched a lot of tape this year.

And you sound like someone who can only take pot shots at people he doesn't agree with.

[BigAlTheFuture]

You sound like you've watched a lot of tape this year.

Seriously. You take strong offense when someone doesn't like Gordon. Not everybody will be in love with the kid.

[D.o.s.]

We can agree that the NBA is full of elite athletes. Given that premise:

Do you agree or disagree with the statement that a lack of defense can be fixed faster by hard work than a lack of shooting?

Like I said, you don't even understand. You can't turn a Doug McDermott into Scottie Pippen, on any timeline. He'll be lucky to even be a slightly below average defender with all the work in the world, and I say that as a big McDermott fan.

But Gordon has a very real chance of being a dominant defender like a bigger and stronger Scottie Pippen, another guy who wasn't known for his jump shot percentages.

If you want to pretend that poor athletes can become good defenders outside of perhaps the center position, there's nothing I can say to change your mind.

You can't "fix" lack of athleticism/poor defense, quickly or otherwise. You can however improve jump shooting quite a bit, especially with hard work. And nobody except perhaps the resident geniuses here doubts Aaron Gordon's work ethic.

You guys keep digging a deeper hole for yourselves.

Weren't you the one going on and on about how GM's and Celtics Bloggers overvalue athleticism in the Saric Thread?

Which is it, then?

[Future Celtics Owner]

You sound like you've watched a lot of tape this year.

Seriously. You take strong offense when someone doesn't like Gordon. Not everybody will be in love with the kid.

I think you have to pick Noah and  Randle as pf before him....but is he even a pf?

[nickagneta]

Gordon is an elite level athlete. But he has only decent rebounding skills and only decent handles with a poor outside shot. And by poor I mean atrocious.

If he could ever get to the point of being able to hit 3 pointers at a 35% clip for 2-3 3PTA per game, find 3-4 spots on the floor where he can hit a 2 pt shot at a 50% rate, and shoot FTs at a 75% rate, there is no doubt the kid could have enormous upside.

But if he can't he will be a role player, plain and simple. That's my opinion and I think that's pretty well informed having watched Gordon about a half dozen times last year and read a lot on him and seen all the you tube and draft express vids posted on this site.

My opinion is, it would be just a lot harder for Gordon to become the shooter he has to to be a great player than a player like Vonleh, who is bigger and when he fills out will play a position of need for the Celtics, center, will be to learn a system and become a better all around defender when he isn't already an atrocious defender or lacking in defensive skills like NL is suggesting.

For that reason I would take Vonleh over Gordon.

Also, at a position of need is Marcus Smart who I think will become a premiere guard defender, has above average PG skills, a streaky ability to score from outside and who has a lot of D Wade in him. I would take Smart over Gordon.

I also have been a large advocate of Tyler Ennis and think he will be one of the very best players to come out of this draft once 5-6 years have passed. The kid has Westbrook size, a Rondo play making, running a team mentality and plus shooting and passing skills as well as an ability to play clutch in the toughest situations.

I also like Garry Harris and feel he could be a lot like Bradley Beal and that he has that type of upside.

Those are guys I have talked about, though maybe Harris less than the others, and have suggested that the C's go after those players.

But given my long standing dislike for young players, something that is well known on this site, I would absolutely rather trade both first rounders this year for an established star as I believe winning basketball starts with established, experienced stars that know how to play winning basketball.

All if this wouldn't be known by NL as instead of friendly discourse and conversation he instantly goes into swarmy, passive aggressive insulting mode and would rather take the conversation into an immature "My opinion is better than yours" direction rather than ask polite questions regarding why people might disagree with him and respectfully discussing the difference of opinions.

[NorthernLightning]

a poor outside shot. And by poor I mean atrocious.

35% is atrocious? You misused that big word again when you claim that I said Vonleh's defense is atrocious.

Look up "hyperbole".

[NorthernLightning]

When people say something like "Gordon has ZERO offense" or "Gordon's outside shooting is Atrocious", they deserve to be called out on it.

There's ways to discuss and compare two players without using hyperbole and mischaracterizations to boost your case. If you get called out for making some patently disprovable hyperbolic statement, be prepared to be called out on it, and don't blame the person calling you out for your hyperbole.

I already said I'm high on Vonleh and wouldn't be disappointed if we drafted him at 6. No reason to use big words like "atrocious" to mischaracterize my critiques of Vonleh's court awareness on help defense.

[D.o.s.]

If you get called out for making some patently disprovable hyperbolic statement, be prepared to be called out on it, and don't blame the person calling you out for your hyperbole.

Pots.

Kettles.

Black.

[NorthernLightning]

If you get called out for making some patently disprovable hyperbolic statement, be prepared to be called out on it, and don't blame the person calling you out for your hyperbole.

Pots.

Kettles.

Black.

Atrocious.

[BballTim]

We can agree that the NBA is full of elite athletes. Given that premise:

Do you agree or disagree with the statement that a lack of defense can be fixed faster by hard work than a lack of shooting?

Like I said, you don't even understand. You can't turn a Doug McDermott into Scottie Pippen, on any timeline. He'll be lucky to even be a slightly below average defender with all the work in the world, and I say that as a big McDermott fan.

  You can't turn a poor defender into a Scottie Pippen, just like you can't turn a poor shooter into a Bird/Nash/Price/Allen/name your all time great.

But Gordon has a very real chance of being a dominant defender like a bigger and stronger Scottie Pippen, another guy who wasn't known for his jump shot percentages.

  I watched very little college ball but I can still comfortably claim that Gordon's chances of being a dominant defender like a bigger, stronger Pippen are remote at best. Pippen was 1st team all defense and was one of the best defensive small forwards ever. Claiming that someone who's never played a game in the nba has a very real chance of defending at that level is silly.

[Evantime34]

We can agree that the NBA is full of elite athletes. Given that premise:

Do you agree or disagree with the statement that a lack of defense can be fixed faster by hard work than a lack of shooting?

Like I said, you don't even understand. You can't turn a Doug McDermott into Scottie Pippen, on any timeline. He'll be lucky to even be a slightly below average defender with all the work in the world, and I say that as a big McDermott fan.

  You can't turn a poor defender into a Scottie Pippen, just like you can't turn a poor shooter into a Bird/Nash/Price/Allen/name your all time great.

But Gordon has a very real chance of being a dominant defender like a bigger and stronger Scottie Pippen, another guy who wasn't known for his jump shot percentages.

  I watched very little college ball but I can still comfortably claim that Gordon's chances of being a dominant defender like a bigger, stronger Pippen are remote at best. Pippen was 1st team all defense and was one of the best defensive small forwards ever. Claiming that someone who's never played a game in the nba has a very real chance of defending at that level is silly.

A bigger and strong Scottie Pippen is ridiculous, but similar to Scottie Pippen is not.

If you look at what Pippen did in college Gordon has outpaced him at the same age. Don't act like Gordon is just some has been prospect, he has been one of the best players on numerous different USA national teams. Gordon was one of the best defenders in the country while being one of the youngest players in the country last year, leading a defense without a single solid shotblocker to the #4 spot in the county.