Looks like Giannis is starting to live up to the hype

[Csfan1984]

Sorry but he is not living up to the CB hype or NBA hype to do that he would be averaging 18pts /7reb/7ast/2blk/2stl on still better than 54% fg.

Dude is still young and still struggling.  The lack of playing all his minutes at his true position "SF" is setting this kid back imo. Bucks should just give up on the experiment of him playing any 1-4 position at any given time. Let him develop into a Deing-Pippen hybrid SF and trade him or Parker for a stud at another position.

[ssspence]

Rondo would be such a good fit with GA, Parker, EI and Sanders. The Bucks should try to trade for him -- they have the assets to do it. Ainge would need to at least consider a package of Knight, Henson and change.

[Moranis]

Rondo would be such a good fit with GA, Parker, EI and Sanders. The Bucks should try to trade for him -- they have the assets to do it. Ainge would need to at least consider a package of Knight, Henson and change.

Rondo won't re-sign there and that team isn't close enough where it makes sense to trade anything of value for a rental like Rondo.

Sacramento makes a lot more sense as they are further along and they have Gay who is buddies with Rondo and thus Rondo might actually re-sign there.

[ssspence]

Rondo would be such a good fit with GA, Parker, EI and Sanders. The Bucks should try to trade for him -- they have the assets to do it. Ainge would need to at least consider a package of Knight, Henson and change.

Rondo won't re-sign there and that team isn't close enough where it makes sense to trade anything of value for a rental like Rondo.

Sacramento makes a lot more sense as they are further along and they have Gay who is buddies with Rondo and thus Rondo might actually re-sign there.

While I understand the rationale behind your statement re: Rondo in FA, I don't think it's quite that simple. In other words, if Rondo ended up on the Bucks in the next month or two, got on very well with Kidd, enjoyed playing and building with two extremely talented young wings, ran the floor with LARRY SANDERS!, they made the playoffs, then they offered him a max deal (via his bird rights) to stay? I don't see why it's an absolute given he'd leave. LeBron James signed in Cleveland, Jabari wanted to go to MIL in the draft.... stranger things have happened.

On the flip side, Milwaukee has new ownership, and may be willing to take the chance that they could get Rajon to buy in if it would only cost them Knight and Henson, particularly considering they presumably want their offense to be a bit more shot heavy for GA and Jabari (trade Knight) and Henson's a bit stuck behind LARRY SANDERS!.

Sacramento may want Rondo, but I don't see a package there that's enough to get it done. Pretty sure Ainge isn't out trolling for picks... we have those already. He'll want players, and I can't see him doing better than Knight and Henson from SAC or any other team.

[aingeforthree]

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.

Tough to judge because Giannis despite being 6'11" isn't guarding 7 footers night in and night out.  Not only does he not do it, he can't.  Too skinny.  He'd get murdered.  He's 210 pounds soaking wet.

[aingeforthree]

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'd seriously take him over Olynyk right now ?

[ssspence]

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

Thanks for posting. Fun to see many of the blog's most frequent posters / know-it-alls eat some royal crow.

[Celtics18]

I like both of 'em.  I'd love to see them playing together with a center like Nerlens Noel.  That frontline could be really impressive on both ends of the floor in a year or two's time. 

[Beat LA]

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.

Sigh.  That's not what I'm saying at all and you know you it.  Yes, I acknowledge that there is some uncertainty in drafting players, but it seems like everyone today doesn't want to take the time to develop these guys - they just want an in-their-prime superstar now, now, now, and, with a few exceptions, that's just not how things work.  You make it sound like drafting players is like playing a slot machine at a casino, where, odds are, you'll never win anything because the game is completely rigged, and only a miracle would ever yield even a serviceable player, and what I'm saying is that, if you do your homework, the guys you draft shouldn't be out of the league in less than 2 seasons (cough JR Giddens cough cough ).  I realize that every draft class is different, but 2013 wasn't nearly as bad as we previously thought - not when you have MCW, GA, Tim Hardaway JR, I'll throw in McLemore because he seems to intrigue a lot of people, Steven Adams, Trey Burke, Oladipo, Noel, KCP, Otto Porter, Plumlee, Dieng, and some guys haven't even gotten a chance to play yet, like CJ McCollum and Shabazz Muhammed, and Shane Larkin is only getting minutes this year with the Knicks.  That's hardly a bad draft, imo.

Maybe gms have too much information nowadays, and so it's become paralysis by over-analysis in some cases, but I really have no idea.

[Beat LA]

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

It's the powah of the flat top.

I want to see a lineup of Norris Cole, Shumpert, and Nerlens Noel just for the hair, lol .  Obviously, I'm two players short from a starting five, though, so are there any other flattops out there haha that I might have missed?

[BballTim]

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.

  It's pretty much the view of everyone who's familiar with drafts. Aside from a few sure things it isn't that easy to project how well players will develop or how well their games will translate into the nba. Look over some previous drafts, you'll see what I mean.

[BballTim]

Rondo would be such a good fit with GA, Parker, EI and Sanders. The Bucks should try to trade for him -- they have the assets to do it. Ainge would need to at least consider a package of Knight, Henson and change.

Rondo won't re-sign there and that team isn't close enough where it makes sense to trade anything of value for a rental like Rondo.

Sacramento makes a lot more sense as they are further along and they have Gay who is buddies with Rondo and thus Rondo might actually re-sign there.

While I understand the rationale behind your statement re: Rondo in FA, I don't think it's quite that simple. In other words, if Rondo ended up on the Bucks in the next month or two, got on very well with Kidd, enjoyed playing and building with two extremely talented young wings, ran the floor with LARRY SANDERS!, they made the playoffs, then they offered him a max deal (via his bird rights) to stay? I don't see why it's an absolute given he'd leave. LeBron James signed in Cleveland, Jabari wanted to go to MIL in the draft.... stranger things have happened.

  LeBron signed in Cleveland because he's from Cleveland. He didn't just randomly pick them.

[CelticsFanFromNYC]

And because we like to compare, here's Olynyk's numbers:

12.8 PPG, 6.2 RPG, 1.6 APG, 59 FG%, 75% FT, 48% 3PT%, 0.6 STLS, 1.0 BLKS

Playing only 26 MPG.

Olynyk = bust
Antetokounmpo = rising superstar

Sounds about right for Celticsblog. [Not responding to rondohondo, just the general tenor on the boards these days.]

I don't know why people can't understand that Giannis is 4 yrs younger , thus has more potential. Besides the shooting 3's, Giannis is already putting up similar numbers......

That's fine. Potential and two dollars gets you a cup of coffee right now.

For all we know, Giannis has the potential to suffer a serious knee injury later this year. Or to never develop an outside shot. Or to be stuck in a perpetually rebuilding franchise. Or to be hit by a truck tomorrow.

All I know is that ten games into this current season, Olynyk is producing at a similar level.

First, I've never heard anyone say Kelly O is a "bust."

Second, yes this would be an issue of potential vs. real value if Olynyk was putting up vastly greater numbers than Antetokounmpo, except GA is putting up similar numbers already and has loads of basketball growth left in him.

So does KO.....

Yeah I'm not really understanding. So GA is younger. Sebastian Telfair was once four years younger than a lot of guys he was drafted with.... I don't think that needs further examining.

Im in New york.. Sesbastian was soooo over hyped..  That  ESPN documentary made his NBA 2K10 stats sky rocket!

[Moranis]

Rondo would be such a good fit with GA, Parker, EI and Sanders. The Bucks should try to trade for him -- they have the assets to do it. Ainge would need to at least consider a package of Knight, Henson and change.

Rondo won't re-sign there and that team isn't close enough where it makes sense to trade anything of value for a rental like Rondo.

Sacramento makes a lot more sense as they are further along and they have Gay who is buddies with Rondo and thus Rondo might actually re-sign there.

While I understand the rationale behind your statement re: Rondo in FA, I don't think it's quite that simple. In other words, if Rondo ended up on the Bucks in the next month or two, got on very well with Kidd, enjoyed playing and building with two extremely talented young wings, ran the floor with LARRY SANDERS!, they made the playoffs, then they offered him a max deal (via his bird rights) to stay? I don't see why it's an absolute given he'd leave. LeBron James signed in Cleveland, Jabari wanted to go to MIL in the draft.... stranger things have happened.

On the flip side, Milwaukee has new ownership, and may be willing to take the chance that they could get Rajon to buy in if it would only cost them Knight and Henson, particularly considering they presumably want their offense to be a bit more shot heavy for GA and Jabari (trade Knight) and Henson's a bit stuck behind LARRY SANDERS!.

Sacramento may want Rondo, but I don't see a package there that's enough to get it done. Pretty sure Ainge isn't out trolling for picks... we have those already. He'll want players, and I can't see him doing better than Knight and Henson from SAC or any other team.

James is from Akron and Parker is from Chicago (thus Milwaukee was close to home of the teams with high picks).

Rondo is not going to re-sign in Milwaukee.  They aren't close enough to a title, he has no ties to the city, and it is cold and snowy all winter long and isn't a place like Chicago.  He will not re-sign there, so they won't trade anything of value for him.

[D.o.s.]

2013 wasn't nearly as bad as we previously thought - not when you have MCW, GA, Tim Hardaway JR, I'll throw in McLemore because he seems to intrigue a lot of people, Steven Adams, Trey Burke, Oladipo, Noel, KCP, Otto Porter, Plumlee, Dieng, and some guys haven't even gotten a chance to play yet, like CJ McCollum and Shabazz Muhammed, and Shane Larkin is only getting minutes this year with the Knicks.  That's hardly a bad draft, imo.

That looks about as bad as people projected to me?