Easy to miss, but the trophy is a 3D incarnation of the tournament bracket, as all trophies should henceforth be.

If his FT percentage were up I wonder if you’d argue that it’s an indicator that his crappy shooting is just bad luck. Maybe he’s just a bad shooter. Isn’t it possible his 41% from 3 was an anomaly in college since he only shot 67% from the line?

Randle is not bad and is in fact good.

Vonleh is younger than Hield or Kaminsky.

You’re not going to believe this but Julius Randle is 38th in points (tied with Russell Westbrook), 35th in rebounds and 22nd in blocks per 48 mins out of all NBA players. Pretty good for someone who sucks.

No one expected this bad of shooting though. His FT % is down double digits from college and theres no difference between shooting college FT and NBA FT. He can make some passes, and get a couple boards, but the Lakers are better when he rides the bench.

Genuinely curious, have you watched any Lakers games this season? Neither Nance nor Kuzma “passed” him in the rotation. Luke decided prior to the season that Randle would best help the team by coming off the bench. Also, even in the “positionless” NBA, he and Kuz are completely different players serving completely…

You have players on here who are much better than Lonzo Ball. Why is he (and his 29.9% FG and 53.8% FT shooting) not on this list?

“I realize that PER isn’t the end-all statistic; that being said, it’s one of the better advanced metrics.”

Julius Randle and Kris Dunn do not belong on this list. What did they do?

I didn’t really trust your basketball opinions before. Now I REALLY don’t trust your basketball opinions. Covington is a well above average versatile wing defender who is also an above average three point shooter (nearly 50% this season, which is obviously unsustainable but nonetheless in line with his…

You just responded to a post about basketball metrics by invoking a football metric. Please tell me that you understand how absurd this is.

QBR != PER.

But if he’s in his fifth year, that means he either got a new contract or his rookie deal was extended. Doesn’t either result rebut the accusation of buttness?

This reads like an article by someone who doesn’t actually watch NBA basketball, but plays a lot of 2K.

Nah, he’s not butt. I mean, he’s not amazing like some process dork will try to sell you, but he’s good on defense and (small sample size so far) is taking advantage of actually being able to play with players who aren’t butt (looks at the last list with like, 65 Sixers on it deservedly).

Base on what is he “still pretty butt”? Anything objective here or is someone going to have to pry this horrible take from your cold dead hands?

This is a terrible opinion. He is an elite wing defender and finished 4th in DPOY voting. If he wasn’t on an awful team and got a little more notoriety he might have made 2nd team all defense. He was asked to do entirely too much on offense and asked to take forced bad shots, often late in the shot clock, because the…

Chris Jent! Damn, I can’t forget him!

All my inclinations were to pick Wilder but in the end I think I just chose Deontay logically.