Looks like Giannis is starting to live up to the hype

[Beat LA]

Meanwhile, KO is actually as good or better than Giannis in every respect and people can't stop complaining about him.

Mike

How?  KO is an atrocious defender, especially for someone his size, while Giannis is already a pretty good wing defender who has the physical tools to get much better over time.  The only thing that Olynyk can do better than GA right now is shoot, and maybe pass (the Greek Freak is really underrated in this department, imo), but that's it.  Who would you rather see develop - a wing player with the skills and athleticism to become a star, or a big guy who can't defend, won't play inside, and will never get faster or quicker?  Why would you ever want to have two guys on the court at the same time in Sully and KO who can't run or jump?  It just creates too many defensive problems, imo.  Besides, it's not just about numbers - it's also about how those guys get their numbers, and I'd rather have a wing who is slashing to the hoop and blocking shoots with his ridiculous wingspan than a big guy who really has shown nothing offensively outside of shooting (even though his passing ability is excellent).  KO also doesn't look like he has that aggression/assertiveness that the great ones do (maybe he's been playing with Jeff Green for too long ) and thinks too much on the court, often passing up open shots for no apparent reason, which is insanely frustrating to watch, while Giannis doesn't seem to have any of those issues out there, even though he is a very intelligent player, given his playmaking ability.

Only thing ? Olynyk is a flat out better player overall than Giannis & it isn't really close right now. 5 years down the road, who knows. KO is a unique big man in himself. He's a freak at his position because most 7 footers can't play like he does.

He knows the game better than Giannis, better shooter, & better overall team player. I'd draft KO over Giannis all day.

KO might be better offensively, but even you have to admit that it's no contest on defense in favor of Giannis.

[Rondo9]

Meanwhile, KO is actually as good or better than Giannis in every respect and people can't stop complaining about him.

Mike

How?  KO is an atrocious defender, especially for someone his size, while Giannis is already a pretty good wing defender who has the physical tools to get much better over time.  The only thing that Olynyk can do better than GA right now is shoot, and maybe pass (the Greek Freak is really underrated in this department, imo), but that's it.  Who would you rather see develop - a wing player with the skills and athleticism to become a star, or a big guy who can't defend, won't play inside, and will never get faster or quicker?  Why would you ever want to have two guys on the court at the same time in Sully and KO who can't run or jump?  It just creates too many defensive problems, imo.  Besides, it's not just about numbers - it's also about how those guys get their numbers, and I'd rather have a wing who is slashing to the hoop and blocking shoots with his ridiculous wingspan than a big guy who really has shown nothing offensively outside of shooting (even though his passing ability is excellent).  KO also doesn't look like he has that aggression/assertiveness that the great ones do (maybe he's been playing with Jeff Green for too long ) and thinks too much on the court, often passing up open shots for no apparent reason, which is insanely frustrating to watch, while Giannis doesn't seem to have any of those issues out there, even though he is a very intelligent player, given his playmaking ability.

Only thing ? Olynyk is a flat out better player overall than Giannis & it isn't really close right now. 5 years down the road, who knows. KO is a unique big man in himself. He's a freak at his position because most 7 footers can't play like he does.

He knows the game better than Giannis, better shooter, & better overall team player. I'd draft KO over Giannis all day.

KO might be better offensively, but even you have to admit that it's no contest on defense in favor of Giannis.

KO is a much better offensive player than Giannis.

[cb8883]

So far this year...

11.7 PPG, 5.5 RPG, 1.5 APG, 55% FG , 68% FT, 25% 3PT %, 0.5 STLS, 0.5 BLKS

Playing only 25 MPG

Looks like he is starting to live up to the hype. I like KO a lot, but this kid could be special by next season and is like 4 years younger than KO. Oh well....

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Atx4voQ-oyU

God I hate Danny Ainge for that pick. KO is awful and Greek Freak is going to be the next Paul George. No one except Ainge would have preferred that stiff KO to The Freak.

[knuckleballer]

So far this year...

11.7 PPG, 5.5 RPG, 1.5 APG, 55% FG , 68% FT, 25% 3PT %, 0.5 STLS, 0.5 BLKS

Playing only 25 MPG

Looks like he is starting to live up to the hype. I like KO a lot, but this kid could be special by next season and is like 4 years younger than KO. Oh well....

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Atx4voQ-oyU

God I hate Danny Ainge for that pick. KO is awful and Greek Freak is going to be the next Paul George. No one except Ainge would have preferred that stiff KO to The Freak.

Huh?  The Freak was the 15th pick in an awful draft.  13 other GMs passed on him and I bet it would not have been too difficult for the rest of the GMs to trade up.  In hindsight, I would have preferred him to KO as well, but I think Ainge made a good pick.  Just look at the mediocrity that was drafted ahead of KO.  Shabazz Muhammad was the pick after KO and he's riding the bench in Minny.

[Vermont Green]

First point is that if Ainge had the chance to trade KO for GA straight up right now, think he would do it?  I do.  Second point; it seems to me that there is an underlying suggestion in this thread that somehow Danny missed a chance to draft GA and did a bad job or something.  Drafting is a crap shoot.  Minni may be lucky and see GA convert all of the potential and become a star but that doesn't mean that drafting KO was not a good pick.

We have lots of picks coming up.  There will be plenty of chances to use picks on high risk, high upside types of players.  We will also likely miss on some other draftees that turn out to be better than we thought.  It happens every year in every draft just like there are major busts in every draft.  I think making a bust pick (cough cough Fab Melo) is worse than passing on a surprise pick.  It is a balance.

Why is this the view of so many people now, and not just on here, but in the media?  Imo, the only people who say that drafting is a crap shoot are the people whose teams can't draft, so the Celtics obviously qualify for this line of thinking lol.  Maybe the guy who left for Golden State was the real brains in the war room on draft nights in the past, and not Danny.  At least, that's my conclusion.  Ainge wanted to take Robert Swift and said that Yi reminded him of Garnett .  Yeah, this is why I don't trust him to be able to select players.  He's definitely got some 'splainin to do . 

Besides, what is the alternative to drafting?  Right, there isn't one.  It's the only way to build a team, or at least pieces of one, and every team that has had to develop guys like KG and Love had to draft at one point in time, too - it's not like they were handed these guys as finished products from day one.  Geesh .

I don't know how I could list all of the examples of how drafting has an element of chance to it.  I think the most glaring example is Greg Oden but if you go back in the draft and look at the top 5 picks, typically there are 2 or 3 busts or washouts.  This is after the players have been scouted, measured, tested, etc.  So by your explanation, if all the league GMs and scouts were just as smart as you, then players would be drafted in a nice order where they line up by future ability.

This drafting crapshoot has gotten worse with the younger players being drafted.  There is more projection and less track record when players come out after only one year.  The truth is you simply cannot project player ability with very much assurance, oops, I mean I guess you can but NBA scouts and GMs can't.

The only pick that I fault Danny for is Fab Melo.  I don't see how his total lack of ability was overlooked.  Paul Pierce was quoted yesterday as saying he sees players being drafted based on physical attributes vs. actual basketball skills.  I guess that is what Danny did with Melo.  Hopefully he won't make such a bad mistake again.

[jambr380]

First point is that if Ainge had the chance to trade KO for GA straight up right now, think he would do it?  I do.  Second point; it seems to me that there is an underlying suggestion in this thread that somehow Danny missed a chance to draft GA and did a bad job or something.  Drafting is a crap shoot.  Minni may be lucky and see GA convert all of the potential and become a star but that doesn't mean that drafting KO was not a good pick.

We have lots of picks coming up.  There will be plenty of chances to use picks on high risk, high upside types of players.  We will also likely miss on some other draftees that turn out to be better than we thought.  It happens every year in every draft just like there are major busts in every draft.  I think making a bust pick (cough cough Fab Melo) is worse than passing on a surprise pick.  It is a balance.

Why is this the view of so many people now, and not just on here, but in the media?  Imo, the only people who say that drafting is a crap shoot are the people whose teams can't draft, so the Celtics obviously qualify for this line of thinking lol.  Maybe the guy who left for Golden State was the real brains in the war room on draft nights in the past, and not Danny.  At least, that's my conclusion.  Ainge wanted to take Robert Swift and said that Yi reminded him of Garnett .  Yeah, this is why I don't trust him to be able to select players.  He's definitely got some 'splainin to do . 

Besides, what is the alternative to drafting?  Right, there isn't one.  It's the only way to build a team, or at least pieces of one, and every team that has had to develop guys like KG and Love had to draft at one point in time, too - it's not like they were handed these guys as finished products from day one.  Geesh .

I don't know how I could list all of the examples of how drafting has an element of chance to it.  I think the most glaring example is Greg Oden but if you go back in the draft and look at the top 5 picks, typically there are 2 or 3 busts or washouts.  This is after the players have been scouted, measured, tested, etc.  So by your explanation, if all the league GMs and scouts were just as smart as you, then players would be drafted in a nice order where they line up by future ability.

This drafting crapshoot has gotten worse with the younger players being drafted.  There is more projection and less track record when players come out after only one year.  The truth is you simply cannot project player ability with very much assurance, oops, I mean I guess you can but NBA scouts and GMs can't.

The only pick that I fault Danny for is Fab Melo.  I don't see how his total lack of ability was overlooked.  Paul Pierce was quoted yesterday as saying he sees players being drafted based on physical attributes vs. actual basketball skills.  I guess that is what Danny did with Melo.  Hopefully he won't make such a bad mistake again.

I agree with many of your points, but I don't really fault Danny on Fab. Obviously he was a major bust pick, but he went late in a draft where we picked up a 'sure-thing' in Sully and were trying to fill a need.

The 2008 draft is where Danny really blew it by taking Giddens. With Jordan, Asik, and [even] Pekovic going soon after Giddens and much of CB clamoring for a center, this proved to be extremely disappointing.

Grabbing Pruitt over Gasol in 2007 was pretty devastating, too. While this choice wasn't as obviously bad at the time as Giddens, there was quite a bit of talk about Gasol around the forums here. I just don't know how so many gms were so wrong about him, especially since he was already known because of his brother.

[D.o.s.]

Telfair's not a great example to use for this discussion, although if you wanted to use him  you'd have to say Telfair would be the GA portion of the example and Kelly would be... E'Twaun Moore?

I've had the four years vs one year argument enough times on here to have zero interest in going over it again, though.

No, the comparison for KO would be Markieff Morris, drafted 13th in 2011 at 22 years old.

Who would you rather have today, Telfair or Morris?

Mike

My point was that, in addition to cherry picking Bassy out of thin air because he was drafted young, the comparison was between a guard who was a widely hyped prospect turned bust to GA, who is A) not a guard, and B) a pleasant surprise, not a widely hyped bust. Good try, though. 

The title of the thread is "Looks like Giannis is starting to live up to the hype." I know it's only a Celticsblog fad (and he's far from a bust, so basically nothing in your post i disagree with- I'm just using it as a starting point), but he is hyped in some circles. Not on the scale that Telfair was (not by a loonooog shot), but I think Giannis has gone from underrated to slightly overrated in a short amount of time.

As a sports card collector, I will say his prices are inordinately high for someone with his numbers.

Oh, yeah, I agree with this -- the difference is that Giannis was a high risk-high reward pick. To keep going with the Celtics draft analogies, he was much more Fab Melo than Jared Sullinger. There are tons of those guys who get drafted every year and never amount to much. The fact that he's progressing faster than expected is what's 'causing the hype now, but he wasn't anything more than an intriguing prospect entering into the draft.

There's a lot of people bemoaning the fact that their GM 'missed' on GA, but the fact remains that no one honestly felt that way on draft night, regardless of how you felt about KO (or anyone on any other team that skipped drafting GA). It's a lot of hindsight bias and mis-remembering because he can actually dribble the ball and chew bubblegum at the same time, if you catch my drift.

[rondohondo]

Telfair's not a great example to use for this discussion, although if you wanted to use him  you'd have to say Telfair would be the GA portion of the example and Kelly would be... E'Twaun Moore?

I've had the four years vs one year argument enough times on here to have zero interest in going over it again, though.

No, the comparison for KO would be Markieff Morris, drafted 13th in 2011 at 22 years old.

Who would you rather have today, Telfair or Morris?

Mike

My point was that, in addition to cherry picking Bassy out of thin air because he was drafted young, the comparison was between a guard who was a widely hyped prospect turned bust to GA, who is A) not a guard, and B) a pleasant surprise, not a widely hyped bust. Good try, though. 

The title of the thread is "Looks like Giannis is starting to live up to the hype." I know it's only a Celticsblog fad (and he's far from a bust, so basically nothing in your post i disagree with- I'm just using it as a starting point), but he is hyped in some circles. Not on the scale that Telfair was (not by a loonooog shot), but I think Giannis has gone from underrated to slightly overrated in a short amount of time.

As a sports card collector, I will say his prices are inordinately high for someone with his numbers.

Oh, yeah, I agree with this -- the difference is that Giannis was a high risk-high reward pick. To keep going with the Celtics draft analogies, he was much more Fab Melo than Jared Sullinger. There are tons of those guys who get drafted every year and never amount to much. The fact that he's progressing faster than expected is what's 'causing the hype now, but he wasn't anything more than an intriguing prospect entering into the draft.

There's a lot of people bemoaning the fact that their GM 'missed' on GA, but the fact remains that no one honestly felt that way on draft night, regardless of how you felt about KO (or anyone on any other team that skipped drafting GA). It's a lot of hindsight bias and mis-remembering because he can actually dribble the ball and chew bubblegum at the same time, if you catch my drift.

well since I started the Giannis hype on cblog, I feel entitled to say , I told you so


http://forums.celticsblog.com/index.php?topic=64919.0

[pearljammer10]

First point is that if Ainge had the chance to trade KO for GA straight up right now, think he would do it?  I do.  Second point; it seems to me that there is an underlying suggestion in this thread that somehow Danny missed a chance to draft GA and did a bad job or something.  Drafting is a crap shoot.  Minni may be lucky and see GA convert all of the potential and become a star but that doesn't mean that drafting KO was not a good pick.

We have lots of picks coming up.  There will be plenty of chances to use picks on high risk, high upside types of players.  We will also likely miss on some other draftees that turn out to be better than we thought.  It happens every year in every draft just like there are major busts in every draft.  I think making a bust pick (cough cough Fab Melo) is worse than passing on a surprise pick.  It is a balance.

Why is this the view of so many people now, and not just on here, but in the media?  Imo, the only people who say that drafting is a crap shoot are the people whose teams can't draft, so the Celtics obviously qualify for this line of thinking lol.  Maybe the guy who left for Golden State was the real brains in the war room on draft nights in the past, and not Danny.  At least, that's my conclusion.  Ainge wanted to take Robert Swift and said that Yi reminded him of Garnett .  Yeah, this is why I don't trust him to be able to select players.  He's definitely got some 'splainin to do . 

Besides, what is the alternative to drafting?  Right, there isn't one.  It's the only way to build a team, or at least pieces of one, and every team that has had to develop guys like KG and Love had to draft at one point in time, too - it's not like they were handed these guys as finished products from day one.  Geesh .

I don't know how I could list all of the examples of how drafting has an element of chance to it.  I think the most glaring example is Greg Oden but if you go back in the draft and look at the top 5 picks, typically there are 2 or 3 busts or washouts.  This is after the players have been scouted, measured, tested, etc.  So by your explanation, if all the league GMs and scouts were just as smart as you, then players would be drafted in a nice order where they line up by future ability.

This drafting crapshoot has gotten worse with the younger players being drafted.  There is more projection and less track record when players come out after only one year.  The truth is you simply cannot project player ability with very much assurance, oops, I mean I guess you can but NBA scouts and GMs can't.

The only pick that I fault Danny for is Fab Melo.  I don't see how his total lack of ability was overlooked.  Paul Pierce was quoted yesterday as saying he sees players being drafted based on physical attributes vs. actual basketball skills.  I guess that is what Danny did with Melo.  Hopefully he won't make such a bad mistake again.

I agree with many of your points, but I don't really fault Danny on Fab. Obviously he was a major bust pick, but he went late in a draft where we picked up a 'sure-thing' in Sully and were trying to fill a need.

The 2008 draft is where Danny really blew it by taking Giddens. With Jordan, Asik, and [even] Pekovic going soon after Giddens and much of CB clamoring for a center, this proved to be extremely disappointing.

Grabbing Pruitt over Gasol in 2007 was pretty devastating, too. While this choice wasn't as obviously bad at the time as Giddens, there was quite a bit of talk about Gasol around the forums here. I just don't know how so many gms were so wrong about him, especially since he was already known because of his brother.

Agreed. Agreed. and Agreed. TP.

[D.o.s.]

Telfair's not a great example to use for this discussion, although if you wanted to use him  you'd have to say Telfair would be the GA portion of the example and Kelly would be... E'Twaun Moore?

I've had the four years vs one year argument enough times on here to have zero interest in going over it again, though.

No, the comparison for KO would be Markieff Morris, drafted 13th in 2011 at 22 years old.

Who would you rather have today, Telfair or Morris?

Mike

My point was that, in addition to cherry picking Bassy out of thin air because he was drafted young, the comparison was between a guard who was a widely hyped prospect turned bust to GA, who is A) not a guard, and B) a pleasant surprise, not a widely hyped bust. Good try, though. 

The title of the thread is "Looks like Giannis is starting to live up to the hype." I know it's only a Celticsblog fad (and he's far from a bust, so basically nothing in your post i disagree with- I'm just using it as a starting point), but he is hyped in some circles. Not on the scale that Telfair was (not by a loonooog shot), but I think Giannis has gone from underrated to slightly overrated in a short amount of time.

As a sports card collector, I will say his prices are inordinately high for someone with his numbers.

Oh, yeah, I agree with this -- the difference is that Giannis was a high risk-high reward pick. To keep going with the Celtics draft analogies, he was much more Fab Melo than Jared Sullinger. There are tons of those guys who get drafted every year and never amount to much. The fact that he's progressing faster than expected is what's 'causing the hype now, but he wasn't anything more than an intriguing prospect entering into the draft.

There's a lot of people bemoaning the fact that their GM 'missed' on GA, but the fact remains that no one honestly felt that way on draft night, regardless of how you felt about KO (or anyone on any other team that skipped drafting GA). It's a lot of hindsight bias and mis-remembering because he can actually dribble the ball and chew bubblegum at the same time, if you catch my drift.

well since I started the Giannis hype on cblog, I feel entitled to say , I told you so


http://forums.celticsblog.com/index.php?topic=64919.0

You get a gold star. Everyone else, report to the doctor for memory loss tests.

[Moranis]

First point is that if Ainge had the chance to trade KO for GA straight up right now, think he would do it?  I do.  Second point; it seems to me that there is an underlying suggestion in this thread that somehow Danny missed a chance to draft GA and did a bad job or something.  Drafting is a crap shoot.  Minni may be lucky and see GA convert all of the potential and become a star but that doesn't mean that drafting KO was not a good pick.

We have lots of picks coming up.  There will be plenty of chances to use picks on high risk, high upside types of players.  We will also likely miss on some other draftees that turn out to be better than we thought.  It happens every year in every draft just like there are major busts in every draft.  I think making a bust pick (cough cough Fab Melo) is worse than passing on a surprise pick.  It is a balance.

Why is this the view of so many people now, and not just on here, but in the media?  Imo, the only people who say that drafting is a crap shoot are the people whose teams can't draft, so the Celtics obviously qualify for this line of thinking lol.  Maybe the guy who left for Golden State was the real brains in the war room on draft nights in the past, and not Danny.  At least, that's my conclusion.  Ainge wanted to take Robert Swift and said that Yi reminded him of Garnett .  Yeah, this is why I don't trust him to be able to select players.  He's definitely got some 'splainin to do . 

Besides, what is the alternative to drafting?  Right, there isn't one.  It's the only way to build a team, or at least pieces of one, and every team that has had to develop guys like KG and Love had to draft at one point in time, too - it's not like they were handed these guys as finished products from day one.  Geesh .

I don't know how I could list all of the examples of how drafting has an element of chance to it.  I think the most glaring example is Greg Oden but if you go back in the draft and look at the top 5 picks, typically there are 2 or 3 busts or washouts.  This is after the players have been scouted, measured, tested, etc.  So by your explanation, if all the league GMs and scouts were just as smart as you, then players would be drafted in a nice order where they line up by future ability.

This drafting crapshoot has gotten worse with the younger players being drafted.  There is more projection and less track record when players come out after only one year.  The truth is you simply cannot project player ability with very much assurance, oops, I mean I guess you can but NBA scouts and GMs can't.

The only pick that I fault Danny for is Fab Melo.  I don't see how his total lack of ability was overlooked.  Paul Pierce was quoted yesterday as saying he sees players being drafted based on physical attributes vs. actual basketball skills.  I guess that is what Danny did with Melo.  Hopefully he won't make such a bad mistake again.

There is a very large difference between someone like Greg Oden and someone like Adam Morrison.  Guys get hurt, it happens, and sure Oden had had some injuries, but he was fully healthy at the time of the draft and coming off one of the better NCAA tourney runs and freshman seasons of any center ever.  Obviously knowing he gets hurt, you don't take him #1 if you do it over again, but if that draft was held again tomorrow and you had no idea what KD and Oden become, Oden still goes #1.  Adam Morrison had bust written all over him at the time of the draft and he was in fact a bust.  That is something that happens, but is a lot less frequent than you are making it out to be.  And sure not all top 5 picks are created equal, and some guys never quite put it together (like say Bargnani from the Morrison draft), but a guy like Bargnani has had a pretty solid career, he just doesn't compare with other #1 picks or even the guy who went #2 (Aldridge), but if you redrafted that draft Bargnani goes around 5 - depending on your needs and what you do with Roy these are the guys that could have gone ahead of him Aldridge, Rondo, Gay, Millsap, Roy, and Lowry.  Sure it means you didn't get the best value at #1, but it also doesn't make Bargnani a total bust either.

[D.o.s.]

Since we're all about jumping to conclusions based on incomplete sample sizes and projections...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=Rxlj25oHlyU

[kozlodoev]

Since we're all about jumping to conclusions based on incomplete sample sizes and projections...

There will be no dumping on Shumpert! He gave my fantasy team a LeBron-like stat line the other day.

[D.o.s.]

oh, no, did you see who he dunked on?

[kozlodoev]

oh, no, did you see who he dunked on?

It's the powah of the flat top.