I dont know if Walton is underachieving as the Lakers arent exactly loaded with talent to begin with, but he certainly isnt Brad Stevens.

Ball is a good help defender. He plays some smart defense off the ball and can sneak up on the defensive end to jump the passing lanes for steals or block a shot from the weak side.

Chris, i really like your article and your takes on the NBA in general but in no universe was Lonzo Ball drafted because of his defensive ability whatsoever.

His rebounding is also padded by the fact that Brook Lopez cant get to any missed shots unless they bouce directly into his hands.

A less efficient Rubio without the plus defense and with below average ball handling skills who literally cannot shoot a basketball while moving to the right.

Probably a bit early to call him a bust. Point guards in the NBA tend to take longer to reach their full potential. Payton took a few years, so did Stockton. Its just that Ball has so many holes in his game that hes going to have to overhaul a lot more than his jumper to become a quality starter in the NBA. I mean,…

ZO2for15

He looks like the kind of guy who buys mock turtle necks only so he can cut out the mock turtle neck part of the shirt in front of friends so he can make the joke: “only fags wear mock turtle necks”.

Is that Buddy Hackett starring in the biopic of a young Harry Carey?

Do you think the Sixers wait on Fultz to see how he pans out instead of testing the market and going after a guy like Beal? Part of the problem that i see in Philly is that they have a lot of nice pieces but they dont have that one stand out scorer who they can depend on in a crunch. I figured that the reason why they…

While i agree with your statement i can see a GM looking at Parson’s stats from his 2nd and 3rd seasons and thinking “WHEN he comes back from injury we have a guy who is one of the better all around forwards in the NBA”. The key word is “when” because Parsons hasnt been healthy in 4 seasons and his game has regressed…

but the moment something happens it’ll crash further and faster than anything in the real world

It is sort of damning with faint praise. I completely agree that Howard’s scoring in the low post is a useful skill, but it’s basically his only useful skill on offense (outside of put back dunks on offensive boards). By staying down in the low block most of the time he makes it certain that the center guarding him…

Howard’s shooting numbers are better than Ewing because Howard takes 80+% of his shots from 5 feet and in. Howard was a much better athlete than Ewing (at least the NBA Ewing) but Ewing was an overwhelmingly better player with more skills than Howard had even in his prime. Ewing developed more as a player during his…

Hes a lock as a Hall of Famer, being (arguably) the best player at his position for 6 or 7 seasons. The problem with him has always been the same, he has coasted by on his athletic ability for most of his career and never completely developed. Now that his athletic ability is in decline it shows on the court. He…

It was a terrible movie, but every time i see bees i hear Nic Cage screams from The Wicker Man.

One of two things: he goes to China and becomes Marbury2.0 or he stays in the states and becomes Stevie Franchise 2.0.

An injured super prospect? Philadelphia, meet your newest Sixer.

I get exactly what you’re saying. Rookie PG’s especially have a steep learning curve in the NBA. The difference being that pretty much every rookie PG can at least physically dribble right and pull up for a jump shot. Ball cannot. He is effectively the Derek Zoolander of pro basketball.

It’s not that he’s a bad shooter, it’s that he literally can’t shoot the ball when going to an entire direction. The reason he’s shooting so badly is that every NBA defender knows to always defend him going left and it’s showing up in the stat sheet.