The cost of delaying is typically the value of your final years contract.
One of the upsides of going to college as opposed to staying in Europe. You see many young European players even at ages 20-22 who are still very skinny and can't compete with grown men. But I've seen quite a few Lithuanians in recent years go to college in the US and very quickly develop NBA ready bodies (Sabonis, Marciulionis, now Jakucionis).
I'll just add that Sheppard got a bit unlucky with the circumstances. Rockets seemingly became a contender overnight and Thompson/Eason made huge strides in their development, both in the areas where their skillsets overlap with Reed (defensive side) as well as areas where they were behind Reed (shooting and playmaking), so Sheppard didn't quite get the chance to hit the ground running as many people hoped. But his defensive playmaking still seemed to translate to the NBA (he's averaging over a block and almost 2 steals PER36). And I guess only a matter of time when his shot starts falling.
Hmm I don’t watch much NBA, but I do follow somewhat.
Their perimeter/wing players are very interchangeable and offer lots of defensive versatility to come up with different effective lineups. You're right that Eason (SF/PF) doesn't directly overlap with Reed (PG/SG), but him being able to play SF minutes allows to slide Amen (SG/SF/PF) to SG at times, which cuts into Reed's potential minutes. Then you also have Dillon Brooks (SG/SF) who's a good defensive player and can knock down threes. Not to mention the Rockets still giving a lot of PG/SG minutes to Jalen Green in advance when he's clearly shown he doesn't deserve them. And of course there's Fred VanVleet who's good defensively and spends all of his minutes at PG. And as NarrowJ mentioned there's also Aaron Holiday to compete with for backup PG minutes. Really quite a logjam there.
He had done that practically every year except the 1st when he tried to impose his SFA defense on the team and league. He is very adaptable
In the recent podcast with Goodman and Hummel, Underwood said "he was mandated to change his defense if he wanted to keep his job". I took that to mean that he realized the defense was never going to work at this level. But the phrasing almost sounds like he was told to change it.
The benefits of having a bonafide top3/top5 pick in the NBA draft coming off an E8 appearance and hopefully another deep run this year outweigh the benefit of having KJ come back for one more year IMO.
Did you listen to the whole podcast with Underwood? I did last night and Underwood went on about this. He said the players are too good and the coaching is too good in our conference. He said he’d have been fired for failing as a coach because they wouldn’t win.
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I did. He also suggested that the way the game is called on the road in this league makes it hard to play an aggressive on the line up the line defense.
agree Underwood adapts to his team and situation but IMO he is NOT great at adapting in the moment/game
I would say that's a fair assessment. I don't think he really tries to adapt in game that much. Although he's pretty good about going with the hot hand or going back to certain actions over and over if they're working.
I agree. The kid has such a great feel for the game, I wonder if it doesn’t just boil down to how he feels in the moment. He won’t take a shot when he’s open then later he will take a step back when he’s covered…and drill it.
I'm going to shamelessly take this opportunity to say, "I told you so". (Not "you" specifically, Guest)
MLT also said our Hum/Tomi lineup matches up better with Tenn than does Rez/Tomi because it will pull their big out to defend where he can’t be a rim protector in the paint.
LET’S GET EXCITED, SPORTS FANS
BU will change to be successful, but he doesn't overreact. He doesn't make quick changes of course in his evaluations but gives an approach time to either prove itself or fail before moving on. I would not call it stubborn, but deliberate.
