Thorpe: There arn't 5 guys in the league with Tyrus's upside

[Johnston797]

I like me some TT. He was my guy in the draft so I would like to believe Thorpe knows what he is talking about BUT WHAT EXACTLY HAS THORPE been RIGHT about?

It seems like to me that Thorpe is always jockriding some kid like the guy on our roster that didn't make it through training camp.

Please educate me about why Thorpe's opinon is worth 7+ pages. Please. Thank you.

[klvanzu]

It's easy to have a ton of upside when you have a loooonnnggg way to go.

[Leslie Forman]

I never understood why somebody suddenly has way more "upside" just because of their athleticism. Bird and Magic are two of the four or five greatest players ever, and they would've sucked balls at a draft combine.

Meanwhile, who's the best player ever that has a similar skillset/talent/playing style combination to Tyrus? Shawn Marion? Andrei Kirilenko a few years ago? That's not a very high benchmark.

[JeremyB0001]

I'm saying that Gay has all the physical ability of Thomas plus skills to go along with that physical ability. The reason Tyrus plays PF and not SF(when he has the body of a SF) because he has almost no skills that the average SF has.

I disagree. I've explained my strong disagreement with the assertion that he doesn't have a PF's body already. I don't agree that the reason Tyrus plays PF instead of SF is solely the fact that he doesn't have SF skills. It's due as much or more to the fact that he has PF skills. If your assertion was correct then Gay would be able to block shots and rebound as well as Tyrus can and he simply can't.

When I think of potential I think of how good a player can be when they reach their peak(maybe I'm wrong). When I think of room to grow I think of how much better a player will get throughout their career. Tyrus does have more room to grow than Gay because he's a worse player right now. I would imagine that Darko has more room to improve than Carmelo because he's 20x worse but I don't see why that needs to be said.

Doug and I discussed this a few posts back. You're free to disagree with Thorpe's terminology but I think it's pretty clear he wasn't saying he believes that at most four active players have as good a shot of being an all time great as Tyrus.

Smith shoots 47% on jumpers while Tyrus shoots 28%. Again, Smith averages 18 PPG.

Double check your stats.

Apparently I was looking at % of attempts and not % converted. My mistake.

I'm not really sure what to make of Smith's offense though since he's always attempted a lot of jumpers and he's always been bad at it. I'm not sure that reflects well on his upside. I'll certainly think lower of Tyrus' upside if in a few years he's no better at hitting jumpers than he is right now. In Smith's defense though he's still very young so the two players' situations aren't identical.

Also, it's really important to note here that Smith has attempted between 1.4 and 2.1 threes per game during the last three seasons and has never shot better than 30.9% from behind the arc. That means his percentage on 2 pointers is probably a lot higher than 82 games' "jumpers" conversion rate.

I'm not arguing over who has more room to improve..that's a meaningless conversation.

Maybe if we're comparing Smith and Tyrus but I didn't bring up Smith and neither did Thorpe, you did.

I'm saying that Josh Smith and Tyrus Thomas have very similar strength's and very similar weaknesses. Physically the only difference is that Smith may be a little bigger. He scores 18 ppg because he plays for one of the worst coaches in the NBA who has allowed Josh to play reckless and away from his strengths for 4 years. I think Tyrus can be as effective as Smith. Both have the potential to be very good defenders with limited offensive game.

Weird how suddenly - for the sake of this comparison - you're higher on Tyrus than I am. I think Smith's offense is much more well developed and he's only a year older than Tyrus. I think his two point jumper is much more advanced than Tyrus and he's more versatile because he shoots some threes (though not well). I agree his shot selection sucks. My instinct is to blame it on him but I guess I don't know how big of a role coaching has played.

You're not responding to my point. I never said they're not great athletes. I never even said they're not as good as athletes as Tyrus since I said they didn't have Tyrus' athleticism and/orcollege success.

Both Sean Williams and Andray Blatche average twice as many blocked shots as Tyrus. Both also have the ability to play center while Tyrus doesn't. Thad Young is a project SF with great physical ability a good work ethic...I believe he would have been a monster at Ga tech right now had he stayed for his 2nd year like Tyrus. If you take away character issues and all the other BS..do you think New Jersey,Washington,or Philly would trade Williams,Young,or Blatche for Thomas straight up?

You're still missing my point which is that Tyrus entered the league with a rare combination of elite athleticism AND a history of a high level of performance at the college level.

I think all three players are outstanding athletes but I'm not sure they as good as Tyrus athletically. You seem to believe that athletically they're as good or better than Tyrus but aren't really explaining why. Maybe that's what you're getting at with the blocked shots but I think it's extremely hard to argue that blocked shots are a perfect measure of athleticism. I don't even think they're the best statistical measurement of athleticism, that would probably be rebounds.

I guess maybe you're advancing a new argument that since these players have reached the NBA, their performance has shown they were drafted too low and Tyrus was drafted too high? In other words, NBA play is a major data point and they've surpassed Tyrus in that regard? If so, I think that's a difficult argument to advance when we're dealing with such small sample sizes.

Ok. It's pretty much unheard of to say that draft prospects (or 21 year olds) are undersized based on weight.

You are in denial. Tyrus IS undersized for a PF. Of course he can gain some weight but that doesn't mean he's going to become bigger than the average PF during his tenure in the NBA. His size is more ideal for a SF..not a PF. I'm not saying this will hurt him(he has a great motor)but it is what it is.

How so? I don't think I ever said that Tyrus currently has great overall size for a PF. My argument is that when considering size, players as young as Tyrus are evaluated based on two factors 1) height/length 2) ability to add weight. You're neither disagreeing with my premise nor claiming that Tyrus is lacking in either area. Basically you're complaint is that Tyrus didn't enter the NBA with an NBA ready body and extremely few players do. A lot of the ones who do aren't good prospects.

Again, he's 21 years old. I can't understand why you're talking as though his jumper and post game have peaked.

His post game and jumpshot are non-existent that's why. Players usually have the foundation for a post game when they are 21. It isn't something you can work on in one off-season and make it your go to move. Tyrus is also too small to have that effective of a post game. He doesn't have the skills or body too. Why would you want him to back down players 20-25 pounds bigger than him? He is more more suited to try to take bigger and slower players off the dribble..he will have a much easier time. I don't think his jumpshot has peaked(and for the Bulls let's hope it hasn't)but there are serious concerns that he may just be a poor shooter for the rest of his career.. I'm just saying that he is an awful jumpshooter that hasn't made much progress from year 1 to year 2 on his J which is disturbing.

I don't think he'll ever be a bit time back to the basket player either but that's certainly not required to be a good big man in today's NBA. He's converting his jumpers roughly 45% more often than last season. I think that's progress. How much did you expect him to improve from one season to the next?

I think he's shown the makings of a promising slashing game.

He has a good 1st step and good quickness. He will not be a good slasher until he is better at handling the ball.

I don't think ball handling is a huge problem. I haven't seen him getting stripped or dribbling the ball off his foot. The one problem I've seen is him sometimes losing control of the ball on spin moves. As I said in an earlier post I don't see that as ball handling so much as much as I see it as poor maneuver. I don't think that move is essential to a good slashing.

Tyrus weight is not a major problem. It will probably just limit him from playing center or developing a decent post game. In today's NBA...i would like my PF(especially one who had a top 5 pick used on him) to either be a solid mid range jump shooter or have a reliable low post game.

I don't think you can completely devalue defense when drafting a player. Tyrus' shot blocking and stealing ability are at a more or less elite level and that's very important if you're evaluating him. Offensively, what I care about is how well he scores. He scored reasonably well last season and he's scored poorly this season. If he scores this poorly for the rest of his career he won't be a very good NBA player but taking a third of his minutes in the league, when he's performed well below expectations, and using that as the sole basis to project his future performance would be foolish IMO. Yes he needs to develop his ability to post up, shoot jumpers, or slash to be an above average scorer in this league but I see no reason to be convinced he can't do that, especially in regard to the latter two skills.

KG,Chandler,and Camby aren't going to over power many people on the low block though. Most(if not all)of the good low post scorers in the league are over 250 pounds. I'm not saying Thomas won't be able to gain weight however a 215 pound PF is likely to remain undersized for the remainder of his career.

And yet they're all great NBA players, no?

Link please.

I'll look for it in a bit.

Excellent. I'm dying to see it.

I consider skills things that have little to nothing to do with athleticism. Passing,ball handling,BBIQ,taking charges,etc have little to nothing to with athleticism. Just about every good shot blocker needs good athleticism or long arms(neither of which can be learned or taught)to block shots.

It's an important component no doubt. However, not everyone who's tall and athletic is a good shot blocker. Chandler's a great example since he has a better combination of height and athleticism that most players in the league and yet only averages a little over one block in 35 MPG.

Generating steals is primarily based on athleticism. Look at the league leaders in steals..just about all of them are very quick players.

People often talk about steals in terms of playing the passing lane and anticipating passes. The top five players in the league in steals are CP3, Baron Davis, Butler, Gerald Wallace, and Iguodala. Perhaps as athletic point guards, the first two are considered among the quicker players in the league. Butler and Wallace aren't considered amongst the quickest players in the league though. Iguodala was considered a phenomenal defender before he ever played in the NBA and it wasn't due primarily to his athleticism since quick athletic wings are in every draft and usually aren't considered top notch defenders.

I'm not sure I would call Tyrus great at getting in position for rebounds(though I haven't been paying that much attention).

Well, there's obviously some reason he rebounds so well, no? According to you he's an undersized four, comparable to an equally athletic three like Gay yet he rebounds better than most fours. What's the explanation?

Tyrus is also an average ball handler for a PF..that is not a strength. When you factor in that he is the same size as many other SF's with much better ball handling...then his ball handling is actually pretty garbage if you ask me.

You can't have it both ways. If he's a three masquerading as a four because he doesn't have the skills of a three then he should be exposed by poor rebounding, getting exposed defensively in the paint, etc. He's not. If he plays like a four than his ability to lead the break and dribble without being stripped or dribbling off his foot is rare and hence above average.

Your ability to take highly subjective opinions that are not widely supported and make them sound like incontrovertible fact is breathtaking.

No...you look at some ones draft position to conclude your opinion. Thomas has not outproduced any of the other raw athletic players I named but he is somewhat better because he was drafted 4th? That makes no sense.

So then your argument is that we should only look at NBA play to evaluate recent draft picks? I don't think that works. Ten games into a season would you want to conclusively rate the rookies from worst to best based solely on those performances? I think not. We're dealing with a much larger sample size here but it's still very small. Tyrus has played incredibly few minutes for a high draft pick and the reasons for that seems as though it's not based on performance for the most part. It would also lead to the conclusion that anyone who has a poor rookie season (e.g. Deron Williams) was an irrefutably bad pick. The reality is that high picks are well regarded for a reason and those reasons shouldn't be completely disregarded simply because a player gets some NBA minutes under his belt.

I'm not looking solely at draft position. None of your alleged players are running circles around Tyrus though. The fact that some of them have been a bit better than Tyrus while receiving consistent minutes whereas Tyrus has been jerked around to the extreme doesn't mean a whole lot IMO. If Tyrus was performing at horrific, Adam Morrison like levels my opinion would be different. If any of the players you've mentioned were historically good at a young age, like CP3, my opinion would be different. That's not the case though. Instead we're talking about players who generally don't have Tyrus' pedigree, haven't played many NBA minutes, have been placed in far better situations than Tyrus, and aren't light years ahead of him.

think I've alluded to what makes Tyrus special already but the bottom line is that there's a reason he was drafted where he was while guys like Blatche were drafted much lower.

LOL. Blatche was drafted directly out of highschool where he was ranked MUCH higher than Thomas...so were players like Louis Williams and Monta Ellis who also went in the 2nd round but were 1st round talents. So you are saying Tyrus would have gone in the 2nd round if he came to the NBA directly out of highschool? Did you even know who Tyrus Thomas was before November of 2005? [/quote]

Well if Tyrus' spectacular NCAA season never happened this would be relevant. It did though, so this is almost completely irrelevant. I have no idea what you're getting at here. Tyrus made one of the most meteoric rises in history between high school and his first NCAA season. Are you arguing that NBA players drafted straight out of high school would have done the same? Or just making a blanket assumption that they would've been great college players because they were highly touted high school players. even though they never actually played at that level? It's not like any of these guys were regarded as LeBron, Mayo, or Oden level talents as high school players. Were any of them even top five in their recruiting class?

The point is that playing very well at the college level is a very positive indicator that a player will succeed in the NBA. Someone like Blatche simply doesn't have that feather in his cap because he never played at that level. We don't know how well he would have done. Your logic is essentially that we can't lower our expectations for an A ball player who skips two levels en route to the major leagues because he never played at those levels. Of course we can. The more information and data points you have suggesting a player is good, the better. Tyrus proved himself at a higher level of play than Blatche before entering the league. You can't just ignore that highly valuable information because Blatche chose not to prove himself at that level. That's especially true when Blatche has done nothing at the NBA level to suggest he would've been a dominant NCAA player. Basically you're just giving him the benefit of the doubt and then some because you want to.

You are living in a fantasy world. Thomas has not outproduced the players I named since he has been in the league. He also doesn't have a clear advantage in physical ability either. Saying Thomas has any more potential than Sean Williams,Amir Johnson,Thaddeus Young,or Andray Blatche is pure homerism.

If you want to accuse me of bias you might try to use some facts to back it up instead of your own highly subjective opinion. You've still never offered any support for your argument that these players are equal to Tyrus in terms of athletic ability.

Johnson has 383 career minutes. That's the equivalent of about 12 games playing starting minutes. He's only played 219 minutes or about 6 starts this season. I don't see how you could honestly argue that he's produced better or worse than anyone with that sort of sample size. He's hardly every played in the NBA.

Young has 540 minutes, roughly the equivalent of 15 starts. His PER is less than half a point better than what Tyrus posted last year as a 20 year old (one year older than Thad is now). Thad has had the benefit of more regular playing time.

Williams has 820 or the equivalent of roughly 23 starts. That's almost as many minutes as Tyrus had last season which really underscores how few opportunities he was given. Also, Williams draft position was largely the result of character issues. Maybe he should've been drafted as high as Tyrus. If that's the case it's not because those types of players are a dime a dozen it's because he was kicked off his college basketball team.

Thomas has produced as well or better than Blatche over the course of the two players' NBA careers. If that's a push pretty much every single other factor imaginable skews in Tyrus' favor. I'm not sure whether your sudden reliance on NBA productivity in very limited minutes and refusal to acknowledge any other factors is misguided or biased or what.

As I've stated, you can't rely 100% on NBA productivity until players get quite a few minutes under their belt. The multitude of reasons for which players were drafted where they were - athleticism, production, makeup - don't just evaporate because one player produces slightly better than another over the course of a few hundred minutes. If NBA production over a few hundred minutes is all that matters, you're essentially saying that the draft is a complete crap shoot and we have all the answers we'll ever need about players halfway through their rookie seasons. That doesn't hold water.
[/i]

[dougthonus]

I think a large part of the argument against Tyrus is that he's basically had massive drop offs in several of his abilities this year:

TS% is down 8%, FG% down 8.5%. That's a massive drop off for a big man who's stats in that area were pretty average to begin with. A big man shooting 39% is basically in Ben Wallace territory offensively.

His shot blocking rate is down by about 35% as well.

His foul drawing rate is way down (about 33%).

These aren't the types of things you see from someone on the cusp of breaking out.

The defense is that Tyrus hasn't had a real opportunity this year, and I think that's true to an extent. He has averaged more minutes per game this year though, so it's not the rock solid defense people think it is. Also, the whole team has played worse and this may have adversely effected the quality of his looks as well. There is a hangover around the whole group.

I want to see him get 20+ minutes a night consistently so we can find out if his issue is playing time (and I think it is a big part of it), but to say he's come into this year and shown an ability to improve because his jumper percentage has gone up from 20 to 28% while it's still basically a sub-NBA caliber talent while at the same time his skills which were very good have dropped off tremendously doesn't make sense. He's regressed this year. Maybe that's largely on our coaching staff, team performance, situation, I don't know. But it doesn't point to him being a 'break out' player outside of the fact that people could feel he was breakout player this year.

Basically, the strongest argument for him being ready to bust out next year is that people thought so this year, and not based on anything he's been able to do this year or this off season.

[TB#1]

[HoopsGuru25]

I disagree. I've explained my strong disagreement with the assertion that he doesn't have a PF's body already. I don't agree that the reason Tyrus plays PF instead of SF is solely the fact that he doesn't have SF skills. It's due as much or more to the fact that he has PF skills. If your assertion was correct then Gay would be able to block shots and rebound as well as Tyrus can and he simply can't.

You don't think Tyrus not being able to hit a jumpshot despite being the same size as a good number of 3s in the NBA has anything to do with him being a 4?

Doug and I discussed this a few posts back. You're free to disagree with Thorpe's terminology but I think it's pretty clear he wasn't sayinghebelieves that at most four active players have as good a shot of being an all time great as Tyrus.

Then it was a dumb title and actually might be an insult to Tyrus. The title might as well been "there aren't five players underachieving more than Tyrus Thomas" or "There aren't five players getting less out of their talent than Tyrus Thomas". It could have even been "there aren't five players who are being misused by their coach more than Tyrus Thomas". I don't see the point of pointing out that he has more room to grow than other good young players because he is worse than them. That should be pretty obvious already.

I'm not really sure what to make of Smith's offense though since he's always attempted a lot of jumpers and he's always been bad at it. I'm not sure that reflects well on his upside. I'll certainly think lower of Tyrus' upside if in a few years he's no better at hitting jumpers than he is right now. In Smith's defense though he's still very young so the two players' situations aren't identical.

Also, it's really important to note here that Smith has attempted between 1.4 and 2.1 threes per game during the last three seasons and has never shot better than 30.9% from behind the arc. That means his percentage on 2 pointers is probably a lot higher than 82 games' "jumpers" conversion rate.

All your stats tell me is that you aren't really watching Josh Smith play. Josh....like Tyrus has a bad jumpshot(being a better shooter than TT doesn't mean he should still shoot them). The only difference is that he shoots ALOT more of them despite them being very ill-advised shots. This hurts his team. Josh Smith and Tyrus offensive games do not reflect well on their upside....because both will likely be undersized 4's with bad jumpshots and no low post games for the remainder of their careers.

Maybe if we're comparing Smith and Tyrus but I didn't bring up Smith and neither did Thorpe, you did.

I compared TT's athletic ability to Smith and Rudy Gay among other players. You said Smith was already very good yet he doesn't have a significant advantage over Tyrus in athletic ability or skillset. I'm saying that Tyrus could(or should)be able to match what Josh Smith does..more so on the defensive end and not the offensive end(Tyrus doesn't play for a coach who will let him do w/e he wants on offense like Josh).

Weird how suddenly - for the sake of this comparison - you're higher on Tyrus than I am. I think Smith's offense is much more well developed and he's only a year older than Tyrus. I think his two point jumper is much more advanced than Tyrus and he's more versatile because he shoots some threes (though not well). I agree his shot selection sucks. My instinct is to blame it on him but I guess I don't know how big of a role coaching has played.

I HIGHLY doubt that I'm higher on Thomas than you are. You are just higher on Josh Smith's(one of my fav players) poor offensive game than I am. I think that both Tyrus and Josh will be very good defensive players in the future.The only thing "versatile" about Smith's game is that his coach has allowed him to do things on offense that he has no business doing for over three years now. The comparison was because both are still very raw players with great athleticism..there is nothing hindering Thomas from becoming as good as Smith.

You're still missing my point which is that Tyrus entered the league with a rare combination of elite athleticism AND a history of a high level of performance at the college level.

LOL when did I say I cared about this? This is something I would have cared about in May-June of 2006...where he was drafted and what he did in college is completely irrelevant to what he's doing now..especially considering the majority of the players I compared him too never even stepped foot on a college campus. If you compare Tyrus to straight out of HS players the same age..the only stats that really matter are what they are doing right now.

I think all three players are outstanding athletes but I'm not sure they as good as Tyrus athletically. You seem to believe that athletically they're as good or better than Tyrus but aren't really explaining why. Maybe that's what you're getting at with the blocked shots but I think it's extremely hard to argue that blocked shots are a perfect measure of athleticism. I don't even think they're the best statistical measurement of athleticism, that would probably be rebounds.

I actually based my comparison among athleticism by watching all of them play but maybe that's too hard for you to understand. Rebounds are a better statistical measurement of ATHLETISICM than blocked shots? This is also funny BTW since you basically said that rebounding was more of a skill than athleticism earlier on in the thread. There are players who are of comparable height who don't have any where near the leaping ability who can rebound just as well if not better than Tyrus. David Lee,Chuck Hayes,,Milsap,Josh Boone,Al Jefferson,Emeka Okafor,etc are all similar rebounders to Tyrus despite being worse athletes. Zach Randolph is a better rebounder than Tyrus and I've yet to see him dunk a basketball or leap more than a foot off the ground for that matter. You don't even have to be an average athlete for your position to rebound...the most important thing is desire(which players like Curry and Bargnani don't have). I've seen alot of short players who didn't have good athleticism become good rebounders in the NBA...I don't know many good NBA shot blockers who weren't considered athletic for their position(particularly for a 6'8-6'9 4 like Tyrus) or didn't have long arms(both which are god given).

I guess maybe you're advancing a new argument that since these players have reached the NBA, their performance has shown they were drafted too low and Tyrus was drafted too high? In other words, NBA play is a major data point and they've surpassed Tyrus in that regard? If so, I think that's a difficult argument to advance when we're dealing with such small sample sizes.

I'm saying that Tyrus hasn't separated himself from a number of other young players in production and he doesn't have a clear advantage in potential. Will I be suprised if Tyrus becomes the best player out of Amir Johnson,Sean Williams,and Thad Young? No. I also wouldn't be suprised if he becomes the worst player out of the bunch either. I'm not bringing these players up to show that Tyrus was drafted too high or too low because none of them were in his draft class...that is an entirely different argument. I'm arguing that Tyrus hasn't done anything to warrant having more potential than any of those players....which makes me wonder why he was chosen in particular by Thorpe. There had to be some agenda behind it.

How so? I don't think I ever said that Tyrus currently has great overall size for a PF. My argument is that when considering size, players as young as Tyrus are evaluated based on two factors 1) height/length 2) ability to add weight. You're neither disagreeing with my premise nor claiming that Tyrus is lacking in either area. Basically you're complaint is that Tyrus didn't enter the NBA with an NBA ready body and extremely few players do. A lot of the ones who do aren't good prospects.

You are over-reacting. I was referring to Tyrus being unable to become a goodlow post player(which limits his offensive potential)...I said it's going to be hard for an undersized PF to have a good low post game(even ignoring things like good footwork) because he's going to have a tough time posting up players who are 20 pounds bigger than him. Would you want Aaron Gray to try to take players off the dribble despite being bigger than the average center? No because he's more effective using his size to post them up just like Tyrus will be more effective to use his quickness to take guys off the dribble. Tyrus doesn't have a low post game so his jumpshot and ball handling will be critical to how good he becomes in the future. His jumpshot has a LONG way to go before he is even considered mediocre in that category(which might not even happen). I believe he can become a very good slasher if he puts in the time to develop his ball handling which hopefully he's is doing.

I don't think he'll ever be a bit time back to the basket player either but that's certainly not required to be a good big man in today's NBA.

A good offensive game isn't even required to be a good big man in the NBA. If Tyrus is a very good defender and averaging double digit rebounds...he will be considered a good big man. I'm speaking strictly on his offensive game. There are very few good undersized PF's who are considered "good" offensive players with no low post game or jumpshot.

He's converting his jumpers roughly 45% more often than last season. I think that's progress. How much did you expect him to improve from one season to the next?

I've never seen some one use the phrase 'small sample size" as much as you and then provide such a lame stat like this. Tyrus is a "better" but still bad jumpshooter yet he's a worse offensive player overall this year. It's not that hard to hard for a bad jumpshooter to improve to a better level of bad. He's also gotten alot worse of other things he used to be good at(shot blocking and finishing inside in particular). But then again those could just be "small sample sizes" just like his "improved" jumper.

I don't think ball handling is a huge problem. I haven't seen him getting stripped or dribbling the ball off his foot. The one problem I've seen is him sometimes losing control of the ball on spin moves. As I said in an earlier post I don't see that as ball handling so much as much as I see it as poor maneuver. I don't think that move is essential to a good slashing.

It's not a weakness because he's a 4...but for Tyrus it could better. I've yet to see him do anything that would make me think that it's a strength. Bringing the ball up the court against no defensive pressure is not impressive to me. There are 3s who are his size who have much better ball handling. What is stopping him from becoming as good of a ball handler as them?

I don't think you can completely devalue defense when drafting a player.

When did I say you could? I said I would like my PF to be able to score in the low post or hit a jumpshot. Tyrus would be a monster in the future if he could just hit open 15-18 footers like Udonis Haslem or Antonio Mcdyess. Amare Stoudamire has been virtually un-guardable since he added this to his arsenal.

Offensively, what I care about is how well he scores. He scored reasonably well last season and he's scored poorly this season. If he scores this poorly for the rest of his career he won't be a very good NBA player but taking a third of his minutes in the league, when he's performed well below expectations, and using that as the sole basis to project his future performance would be foolish IMO.

Well to expect Tyrus to score as well(free throws in particular) as he did last year with no offensive skillset was quite foolish. I'm not sure how he got to the free throw line as much as he did his rookie year because it didn't seem like he was getting the ball in isolation and going 1 on 1 with his man than often(which most high guys with high FT attempts do). Maybe it was because he played so wild and out of control which has stopped this year(which is also why his turnovers,blocks,and fouls are probably down). This year he is getting to the free throw line about the same rate that Chandler has in his career which sounds about right for the 4th or 5th option on offense.

Yes he needs to develop his ability to post up, shoot jumpers, or slash to be an above average scorer in this league but I see no reason to be convinced he can't do that, especially in regard to the latter two skills.

I think Tyrus will become a good slasher. I just think he's going to remain a bad shooter for the rest of his career.

And yet they're all great NBA players, no?

Garnett is great. Camby and Chandler are very good. I think Tyrus can become a very good player. I don't think it's realistic to expect that he becomes a great player.

Excellent. I'm dying to see it.

Per 40 minute numbers have little to do with who is actually the better scorer. Tyrus can't score out of the post or hit a mid-range jump shot on a consistent basis like Aldridge. When you factor in how much points Tyrus scored off of easy baskets and his FG percentage was still lower...it shows you how big the difference is in scoring/offensive skillset.

So? It'd be one thing if Aldridge was a back to the basket scorer who could arguably provide spacing for our offense and thus make the players around him better. That's not the case though, he's a face the basket player who makes some finesse post up moves on the periphery of the paint. I can't really see how else the ways in which a player scores makes a difference. If Tyrus can score almost as much as Aldridge with a much lesser skill set then that just makes his upside higher because he can conceivably develop those skills in the future whereas Aldridge probably won't develop the athleticism to get to the line or score in transition the way Tyrus does.

http://www.realgm.com/boards/viewtopic. ... c&start=60
You completely ignored Tyrus lack of skillset in terms of the development in his offensive game. Something also tells me that you will defend Tyrus no matter what.

It's an important component no doubt. However, not everyone who's tall and athletic is a good shot blocker. Chandler's a great example since he has a better combination of height and athleticism that most players in the league and yet only averages a little over one block in 35 MPG.

I never said all people who are tall and athletic are good shot blockers. However those two(well really standing reach instead of height)and/or leaping ability determine how good of a shot blocker you can be.

People often talk about steals in terms of playing the passing lane and anticipating passes. The top five players in the league in steals are CP3, Baron Davis, Butler, Gerald Wallace, and Iguodala. Perhaps as athletic point guards, the first two are considered among the quicker players in the league. Butler and Wallace aren't considered amongst the quickest players in the league though. Iguodala was considered a phenomenal defender before he ever played in the NBA and it wasn't due primarily to his athleticism since quick athletic wings are in every draft and usually aren't considered top notch defenders.

Steals don't=good defense. They are a part of defense(minor)but I would consider on ball defending and help defense on the interior to be much more important. I don't really care about steals but it's just logic that quick players are going to get more steals than players with below average foot speed.

Well if Tyrus' spectacular NCAA season never happened this would be relevant. It did though, so this is almost completely irrelevant. I have no idea what you're getting at here. Tyrus made one of the most meteoric rises in history between high school and his first NCAA season. Are you arguing that NBA players drafted straight out of high school would have done the same? Or just making a blanket assumption that they would've been great college players because they were highly touted high school players

I'm not saying anything like this. As I said earlier..this would be relevant for June of 2006. When comparing players you might want to actually compare what they did on the same level. Saying Thomas is better and has more potential than similar players like Blatche because what he did in college makes no sense. Blatche never had a chance to go to college. However..he was ranked higher than Thomas in highschool and is having a better season than him right now and they are the same age. Wouldn't comparing them NOW make more sense then comparing them on a level where only one played?

It's not like any of these guys were regarded as LeBron, Mayo, or Oden level talents as high school players. Were any of them even top five in their recruiting class?

Monta Ellis and Andray Blatche were ranked 3rd and 4th in their highschool class while Lou Williams(all Mcdonalds All Americans) was ranked 7th according to Rivals.com. Tyrus Thomas was not ranked(out of 150)in 04/ I don't see why this..or what Tyrus did in college is relevant as to what they are doing in the NBA right now though.

The point is that playing very well at the college level is a very positive indicator that a player will succeed in the NBA. Someone like Blatche simply doesn't have that feather in his cap because he never played at that level. We don't know how well he would have done. Your logic is essentially that we can't lower our expectations for an A ball player who skips two levels en route to the major leagues because he never played at those levels. Of course we can. The more information and data points you have suggesting a player is good, the better. Tyrus proved himself at a higher level of play than Blatche before entering the league. You can't just ignore that highly valuable information because Blatche chose not to prove himself at that level.

This entire paragraph is meaningless. I'm not discussing who should have been drafted earlier. You might be a couple years late on that. I'm discussing who is better now and who has more potential. I've seen nothing out of Tyrus that would suggest that it's clearly him for any of those categories.

That's especially true when Blatche has done nothing at the NBA level to suggest he would've been a dominant NCAA player. Basically you're just giving him the benefit of the doubt and then some because you want to.

I'm not giving any one the benefit of the doubt. I didn't even say that Blatche would be better than Tyrus down the line. However...at the very least he's as good as Tyrus right now(and having a better year BTW)and they are the same age! I'm asking why David Thorpe wrote this article about Tyrus when there are players younger than Tyrus with similiar physical ability who has not been better than. Blatche is one of those players.

If you want to accuse me of bias you might try to use some facts to back it up instead of your own highly subjective opinion. You've still never offered any support for your argument that these players are equal to Tyrus in terms of athletic ability.

Yeah you have offered a ton of evidence to disprove my argument.

Johnson has 383 career minutes. That's the equivalent of about 12 games playing starting minutes. He's only played 219 minutes or about 6 starts this season. I don't see how you could honestly argue that he's produced better or worse than anyone with that sort of sample size. He's hardly every played in the NBA.

It's because Tyrus can't do many things than Johnson can't do. I'm not sure as to why he is seen to have a higher upside. I have also heard people say that players get better with the more minutes they get(I'm not sure if I'm in this camp). Why would this not be the case for Amir Johnson is only 20 years old?

Young has 540 minutes, roughly the equivalent of 15 starts. His PER is less than half a point better than what Tyrus posted last year as a 20 year old (one year older than Thad is now). Thad has had the benefit of more regular playing time.

Thad has the benefit of more playing time than Thomas but Amir Johnson has the benefit of less playing time so his numbers don't count according to you. You can't be serious.

Thomas has produced as well or better than Blatche over the course of the two players' NBA careers. If that's a push pretty much every single other factor imaginable skews in Tyrus' favor. I'm not sure whether your sudden reliance on NBA productivity in very limited minutes and refusal to acknowledge any other factors is misguided or biased or what.

Blatche(and Sean Williams who you left out)have been better than Tyrus this year. Both Blathche and Sean Williams are the same age as Tyrus Thomas. Saying that Blatche or Sean Williams have any less potential that Tyrus is BS. I think you are the only one in this thread that doesn't understand this.

As I've stated, you can't rely 100% on NBA productivity until players get quite a few minutes under their belt. The multitude of reasons for which players were drafted where they were - athleticism, production, makeup - don't just evaporate because one player produces slightly better than another over the course of a few hundred minutes. If NBA production over a few hundred minutes is all that matters, you're essentially saying that the draft is a complete crap shoot and we have all the answers we'll ever need about players halfway through their rookie seasons. That doesn't hold water.

When did I say anything about the DRAFT? I said that it's unfair to say that players who are younger with similar physical ability than Thomas have just as much potential. Tyrus has not separated himself from any of them at the NBA level. He isn't more likely to develop a jumpshot or more likely to become a great player than any of the other players I mentioned.

[JeremyB0001]

I think a large part of the argument against Tyrus is that he's basically had massive drop offs in several of his abilities this year:

TS% is down 8%, FG% down 8.5%. That's a massive drop off for a big man who's stats in that area were pretty average to begin with. A big man shooting 39% is basically in Ben Wallace territory offensively.

His shot blocking rate is down by about 35% as well.

His foul drawing rate is way down (about 33%).

These aren't the types of things you see from someone on the cusp of breaking out.

The defense is that Tyrus hasn't had a real opportunity this year, and I think that's true to an extent.

It's obviously cause for concern. You're painting it as an all out, across the board regression though - for which the only way to defeind him is to provide reasons why his play isn't meaningful. That's obviously not the case though. If those set backs told the whole story, his PER from last year would be down 6 or 7 points and not less than one. At the same time he's seen his assist rate improve by 60%, his foul rate decrease by 36%, and his turnover rate decrease by 75%. I think that does create a case for a breakout season because if he can combine the improvements he made last season with the things he did well last season, that's the breakout season. Who seriously expects the guy to continue to be a 40% shooter?

He has averaged more minutes per game this year though, so it's not the rock solid defense people think it is.

When you throw in the DNP's though, I'm sure he's averaging substantially fewer minutes per game that he's been available than he did in the second half of last season. The argument for young players is usually that they need meaningful, consistent minutes. I don't think many predicted Tyrus would see minutes the way he has this season.

I want to see him get 20+ minutes a night consistently so we can find out if his issue is playing time (and I think it is a big part of it),

Absolutely. I don't see why even the biggest Tyrus haters wouldn't want this because if they're confident they're right they'll be vindicated once this happens.

but to say he's come into this year and shown an ability to improve because his jumper percentage has gone up from 20 to 28% while it's still basically a sub-NBA caliber talent while at the same time his skills which were very good have dropped off tremendously doesn't make sense. He's regressed this year. Maybe that's largely on our coaching staff, team performance, situation, I don't know. But it doesn't point to him being a 'break out' player outside of the fact that people could feel he was breakout player this year.

Basically, the strongest argument for him being ready to bust out next year is that people thought so this year, and not based on anything he's been able to do this year or this off season.

As I noted above, the jumper isn't the only place he's improved. I don't really see regression as a sign that a player won't break out. I almost see it as the opposite. If someone's gotten away from what they do well then they seem more capable of taking a large step forward from their current level of performance than someone who's never played at a high level before. I don't think anyone was expecting Tyrus to improve his astronomical block or FT rates as it is. The issue whether a breakout player is can he improve and Tyrus has improved in a number of areas. It's unfortunate it's coincided with regression in other areas but I don't think that means his skills are somehow prone to regression. I don't think he'll stop making good passes next season, revert to his old high turnover ways, or watch his FG% drop down to 35%.

[kyrv]

Jeremy, my recollection is that Tyrus didn't see good minutes until the second half of last season, after Noc got hurt. I would like to see the PER for that time.

This year, with being jerked around, some of us expected this was not the way to develop him, not that this was going out on a limb.

He's played SF, some, which lowers his FG% and reduces his rebounds and blocks.

Anyway, basically the Bulls are giving a clinic on how to draft a project and then not only not developing him, but really jerking him around, to his detriment, and the detriment of the team.

His breakout year? Hmm... have to guess his first or second year away from the Bulls.

[dougthonus]

It's obviously cause for concern. You're painting it as an all out, across the board regression though - for which the only way to defeind him is to provide reasons why his play isn't meaningful. That's obviously not the case though.

If those set backs told the whole story, his PER from last year would be down 6 or 7 points and not less than one.

His PER last year was around 18 for the second half of the season. If you start from the post all-star break, his PER has gone down 4 points which is a serious regression. Prior to the all-star break, he was terrible.

At the same time he's seen his assist rate improve by 60%, his foul rate decrease by 36%, and his turnover rate decrease by 75%. I think that does create a case for a breakout season because if he can combine the improvements he made last season with the things he did well last season, that's the breakout season. Who seriously expects the guy to continue to be a 40% shooter?

If he decides to keep shooting jump shots as a frequently as he is now, then yes. I expect him to continue to be a sub-40% shooter. If he stops shooting jump shots, then I expect it to go up again.

When you throw in the DNP's though, I'm sure he's averaging substantially fewer minutes per game that he's been available than he did in the second half of last season. The argument for young players is usually that they need meaningful, consistent minutes. I don't think many predicted Tyrus would see minutes the way he has this season.

MPG only count games he plays in. It's minutes / games played. So this isn't a factor. Even if it was a factor, he's on pace for about 7 DNPs this year vs 10 last year. He's on pace for higher MPG, and more games played even if we don't change the way we're using him, so these arguments don't make sense when comparing to last years performance where he had similar obstacles, but they were even worse than this year.

As I noted above, the jumper isn't the only place he's improved. I don't really see regression as a sign that a player won't break out. I almost see it as the opposite.

If regressing is a sign of break out potential and playing better is a sign of breaking out, then all players are about to break out. A regression could be a sign that a guy is likely to improve next season (since this season is an unnatural low), but it's certainly not a sign that a player will perform better than a typical season in the next season.

Of course, we don't know what a typical Tyrus season looks like yet, and if he just returned to end of 2006/07 season Tyrus I think we'd all be a lot happier than what he's been doing so far.

I don't think anyone was expecting Tyrus to improve his astronomical block or FT rates as it is.

I don't think anyone was expecting them to have massive drop offs either. I'm not complaining that they didn't improve. I'm not complaining that they fell off either. I'm complaining that these were his key strengths in his good moments, and they have now fallen to rates that are more or less pedestrian rather than elite.

The issue whether a breakout player is can he improve and Tyrus has improved in a number of areas.

He has mildly improved his shot. His other improvements seem like a lack of aggression (fewer TOs, fewer fouls) and have had corresponding drop offs in free throws generated, close baskets, and blocked shots. Which creates the discussion did he improve at those things or is he just playing more passively now? Since his overall PER is down about 4 points from when he was playing at a high level, I think it shows more passivity. Especially since his foul rate and TO rate were much lower in the second half of last season.

It's unfortunate it's coincided with regression in other areas but I don't think that means his skills are somehow prone to regression. I don't think he'll stop making good passes next season, revert to his old high turnover ways, or watch his FG% drop down to 35%.

I don't expect him to continue to regress. However, he needs to improve a lot to be a better player, and while I agree with your case that he won't continue to regress it doesn't mean that he'll start improving a lot. I'm hoping that all he needs is consistent playing time to get back to playing very well. He has shown an ability to do it over a reasonably long period of time, so I don't think it was a fluke.

However, he seems to have his confidence shaken this year for whatever reason. Some guys struggle to come back from that, and I don't think Tyrus is one of those guys, but who knows.

[AirP.]

I think too many of fans don't quite understand what potential is.

I'm still standing on my stance that since Tyrus was a late bloomer in the height department, it's going to take him years to get use to not being small(as he's gradually doing). Where as players like Josh Smith, Shawn Marion and Rudy Gay have basically been bigger then the average most of their lives, they're use to their length and their tendencies were shaped because of playing with their size. Tyrus was short most of his life, thus his tendencies are more like a small guard, not taking the ball up strong inside, trying to make tough passes, trying to dribble in traffic. These are just his instincts that will slowly change in time.

Ballhandling - Is he trying to do too much, yes and that's where he's having problems. Tyrus has outstanding handles in some aspects of ballhandling. A guy without skill can't go between his legs or behind his back unless really concentrating on it and even then it looks awkward, Tyrus does these things instinctively right now during the games if you watch him. When he's getting the ball to a guard after a rebound, if a defender is in the way he sometimes just tosses behind his back left handed to the guard without any hitch in the pass. Not a huge thing but definitely not something a guy with no skills can't do.

Low post skillls - He doesn't have the footwork, plain and simple, but he has skills down there, he can put up shots with either hand and shot from either hand is smooth and looks natural. Tyrus plays with nearly zero powergame and why? Because he's not use to doing it, Tyrus is a prime example of someone who needs a PF like Charles Oakley to teach him the ropes, maybe adding the Brown Bear will help that dramatically in the next few months.

Outside shot - His shooting motion is smooth, he looks good shooting the ball and his jumpshots are getting more consistent overall even if they're not going in all the time. A miss is a miss but like last night, his first 2 jumpers were both in and out, last year I doubt they'd been that close. Overall, not looking at his makes and misses, his shot is much better and that's a lot of progress, not always can you look at FG% to see if someone is a better shooter.

One on one moves - Nearly nonexistent. He can get past his own man but after that, really doesn't know what to do when another defender helps out. He just doesn't seem to realize that he can just go over defenders. He has 2 pet moves, one... get by the defender and 2 hand dunk it, two... take a wide stride and try to do a spin move, not to score but to turn around and hit a teammate that he just drew the defender off of for a easy jumper... too bad the guy he usually passes to is Ben Wallace.

I maintain Tyrus has 3 problems right now.
1. Not use to the speed and strength of the game in the NBA, which gets him in trouble, more consistent time on the court would really do him a lot of good.

2. Not use to his size. A unique situation, a late bloomer. Playing 4 years in college would have given him enough time to get better use to his size and of course, he'd be a much better player coming straight into the NBA.

3. Skill set for his size, goes hand and hand with #2. You can teach things all you want, but without repetition to make it an unconscious decision or call it his instinct when on the court, you're not going to have complete success.

Look what happened with Tyrus last year, he received sporatic minutes early on like he did this year and we got mixed results from him, terrible nights and some bright spots from time to time. Look at Thabo getting solid minutes, a month ago people thought he was garbage, now he looks like he may have been a great pick and a player we can build with.

With that said... I still think Tyrus is a couple of years off of where he'll end up being... hence not near his potential. He still can contribute well for the team when on the court now, but it just is a glimpse of what he'll do for a team once he reaches his stride in his career.

What I expect from Tyrus in his prime...
- A solid jumper
- 10+ rebounds a night
- 2+ blocks a night
- 2-4 assists a night(mostly where he makes it an easy play, not just pass to an open shooter)
- Make a game changing play each night if not each half
- Point wise, 16-18 ppg

[BULLHITTER]

^^^

very good post; i wholeheartedly concur.

[kyrv]

Doug, to me you are making the case that the Bulls aren't developing Tyrus. That's why most of us have been complaining all year.

===========================

Q: Yes, but what does Tyrus have to do, does he get zero blame?

A: Tyrus job is to be developed by the Bulls, get a *lot* of consistent minutes, and get better. Tyrus' job is to be really good within a couple years (of development, not jerking around).

There also shouldn't be a need to mentally break players like Thabo or Tyrus (or Tyson) just because the Bulls can.

[JeremyB0001]

I don't agree that the reason Tyrus plays PF instead of SF is solely the fact that he doesn't have SF skills. It's due as much or more to the fact that he has PF skills.

You don't think Tyrus not being able to hit a jumpshot despite being the same size as a good number of 3s in the NBA has anything to do with him being a 4?

I don't see what part of my posts suggests that. If Tyrus could combine solid SF skills with 10 boards, 2 blocks, and 2 steals a game though he'd probably be an All-Star right now and we probably wouldn't be having this conversation.

Then it was a dumb title and actually might be an insult to Tyrus. The title might as well been "there aren't five players underachieving more than Tyrus Thomas" or "There aren't five players getting less out of their talent than Tyrus Thomas". It could have even been "there aren't five players who are being misused by their coach more than Tyrus Thomas". I don't see the point of pointing out that he has more room to grow than other good young players because he is worse than them. That should be pretty obvious already.

I don't see how it would be an insult. If someone says to an actor making one of his first films "You could be one of the best in the business one day," that's an insult because Haley Joel Osmont was nominated for an Oscar when he was 12 or because Cuba Gooding Jr. won one for one of his first films?

I don't think the comparison is meant to be to someone like Josh Smith. People almost never say that about players who have arrived already. The reason it's a valid, complimentary statement is because in Thorpe's expert opinion, he's disagreeing with people like you who would lump Tyrus in with all the promising other young players like Blatche who haven't arrived yet.

All your stats tell me is that you aren't really watching Josh Smith play.

Ok. They tell me Smith makes at least a few more two point jumpers than Tyrus does right now.

Josh....like Tyrus has a bad jumpshot(being a better shooter than TT doesn't mean he should still shoot them). The only difference is that he shoots ALOT more of them despite them being very ill-advised shots. This hurts his team. Josh Smith and Tyrus offensive games do not reflect well on their upside....because both will likely be undersized 4's with bad jumpshots and no low post games for the remainder of their careers.

I can see some positives for Smith. Even if his jumper will never be good, what if he just got a coach who smacked up upside the head until he improved his shot selection. Lu stopped shooting threes and his efficiency went through the roof.

I'm a bit more optimistic about Tyrus improving his jumper than I am with Smith. Smith is only a year older than Tyrus but Tyrus has shown some improvement in his jumper (Smith has been pretty constant) and has less NBA experience to hone the shot.

You're still missing my point which is that Tyrus entered the league with a rare combination of elite athleticism AND a history of a high level of performance at the college level.

LOL when did I say I cared about this?

Oh ok. I'll make sure I ask you if you care about something before I bring it up next time to make sure it's relevant. Do you care about scoring? Is that an important measurement of a basketball player? Is it alright if I discuss that when responding to your posts?

This is something I would have cared about in May-June of 2006...where he was drafted and what he did in college is completely irrelevant to what he's doing now..

That's beyond absurd. Deron Williams posted a 12.4 PER in his first season during which he played more minutes in the league than Tyrus has to date. That same season Bracey Wright posted a 12.1 PER, Travis Diener posted a 12.7 PER, and Salim Stoudamire posted a 12.5 PER. What you're telling me is that those three players had just as much NBA potential as Williams after that season because what happened prior to the season was by that time irrelevant? Please tell me you're joking. The factors that affect a player's draft stock don't have much affect on predicting the future play of someone like Steve Nash who's played thousands of NBA minutes. It absolutely does with players like Williams, Durrant, Tyrus, and Blatche who have logged few NBA minutes.

especially considering the majority of the players I compared him too never even stepped foot on a college campus. If you compare Tyrus to straight out of HS players the same age

Likewise, just because a player didn't play college ball that doesn't mean they're a clean slate when they reach the NBA and if they score 20 points in their first game they're destined to be one of the greatest of all time. People who get paid for a living to judge how good a player will be in the NBA to look at the makeup, athleticism, high school success, and skills of someone like Blatche and decide how good an NBA prospect he was. Based on those factors, the experts, the professionals, believe Blatche was a second round pick and not a first overall pick like LeBron or Howard. That is NOT meaningless or irrelevant.

I actually based my comparison among athleticism by watching all of them play but maybe that's too hard for you to understand.

Sorry. I get confused really easily. I have a hard time understanding things.

Rebounds are a better statistical measurement of ATHLETISICM than blocked shots?

That's Hollinger's stance based on empirical studies he's conducted.

This is also funny BTW since you basically said that rebounding was more of a skill than athleticism earlier on in the thread.

I said that I think rebounding like most everything at the NBA level is not purely a product of athleticism and involves skills also. The fact that it's tied to athleticism more than other skills doesn't mean it's based purely on athleticism.

There are players who are of comparable height who don't have any where near the leaping ability who can rebound just as well if not better than Tyrus. David Lee,Chuck Hayes,,Milsap,Josh Boone,Al Jefferson,Emeka Okafor,etc are all similar rebounders to Tyrus despite being worse athletes. Zach Randolph is a better rebounder than Tyrus and I've yet to see him dunk a basketball or leap more than a foot off the ground for that matter. You don't even have to be an average athlete for your position to rebound...the most important thing is desire(which players like Curry and Bargnani don't have). I've seen alot of short players who didn't have good athleticism become good rebounders in the NBA...I don't know many good NBA shot blockers who weren't considered athletic for their position(particularly for a 6'8-6'9 4 like Tyrus) or didn't have long arms(both which are god given).

Again, I never said it's based entirely on athleticism, just more so than other stats. Shot blocking isn't as good a measurement of athleticism because it relies on height more. Look at Shawn Bradley. He was a world class shot blocker but a pretty average rebounder. You can't look at shot blocking to measure Chris Paul's athleticism but you can see that he's a good rebounder for his size.

I'm saying that Tyrus hasn't separated himself from a number of other young players in production and he doesn't have a clear advantage in potential.

Ok. I think he separated himself by having a season where he was one of the best players in college basketball. Sure, players like Amir, Blatche, and Williams didn't really have the opportunity but we can't just assume they would've done the same (maybe you can try to make an argument that Johnson's D-League dominance is comparable). You'd rather have the doctor who's successfully performed the heart surgery very well in the past than the one who's credentials suggest she can quite possibly do it well too but has never been given the opportunity. You're right that this means they have to show what they can do in the NBA. The problem is you're forming conclusions after just a few hundred NBA minutes and completely disregarding most everything we know about them aside from their limited NBA performance.

I'm not bringing these players up to show that Tyrus was drafted too high or too low because none of them were in his draft class...

Obviously there's some variation between draft classes but Tyrus would've been a top 10 pick in any draft and Blatche would've been a second rounder in any draft.

You are over-reacting. I was referring to Tyrus being unable to become a goodlow post player(which limits his offensive potential)...I said it's going to be hard for an undersized PF to have a good low post game(even ignoring things like good footwork) because he's going to have a tough time posting up players who are 20 pounds bigger than him.

What young bigs have a lot of potential in the low post? Bynum and Oden are the only two that come to mind.

Tyrus doesn't have a low post game so his jumpshot and ball handling will be critical to how good he becomes in the future. His jumpshot has a LONG way to go before he is even considered mediocre in that category(which might not even happen). I believe he can become a very good slasher if he puts in the time to develop his ball handling which hopefully he's is doing.

Tyrus doesn't need to be a good slasher and a good jump shooter to be a great player in the league unless you think he needs to average 20+ PPG to do so. His jumper is up to 29% from 20% so far this season and I'd say 35% is mediocre so we disagree about how far away he is in that regard.

He's converting his jumpers roughly 45% more often than last season. I think that's progress. How much did you expect him to improve from one season to the next?

I've never seen some one use the phrase 'small sample size" as much as you and then provide such a lame stat like this.[/quote]

The small sample size here is in a completely different context. We're the comparing productivity of one NBA skill by a player to productivity in that skill by the same player in a different season. I don't have the statistical wherewithal to give you a P-value or anything but I'm highly confident that the 45% difference is statistically significant. I'd just as easily concede that the regression in Tyrus' FG%, free throw attempts, and blocks aren't the result of random chance.

I just believe that at least as far as his FG% goes he's more likely to produce the way he did last season than the way he has this season if the future. These numbers don't exist in a vacuum. I think his jump shooting improvement is meaningful and will continue because he worked hard on the skill in the offseason, his form looks improved, and his confidence taking the shoot looks improved. I think his FG% will improve because I believe he's better near the basket than he's been lately and that his skills don't resemble those of a PF who's incredibly bad at converting shots. Feel free to disagree with my reasoning but I don't think sample sizes are much of an issue here.

It's not that hard to hard for a bad jumpshooter to improve to a better level of bad.

In other words there's a lot of room for improvement? I agree. I think that supports the notion that he has lots of potential to improve.

There are 3s who are his size who have much better ball handling. What is stopping him from becoming as good of a ball handler as them?

Can and should he improve? Sure, why not? This is a ridiculously high standard though.

Well to expect Tyrus to score as well(free throws in particular) as he did last year with no offensive skillset was quite foolish. I'm not sure how he got to the free throw line as much as he did his rookie year because it didn't seem like he was getting the ball in isolation and going 1 on 1 with his man than often(which most high guys with high FT attempts do). Maybe it was because he played so wild and out of control which has stopped this year(which is also why his turnovers,blocks,and fouls are probably down).

This would hold more weight if I saw people saying it prior to the season. Free throws are generally related to taking the ball hard to the basket. That doesn't correlate with blocks at all. Other than charges, it doesn't correlate with turnovers or fouls very much either. If he was "wild" when he went to the rim last year and that's the reason he drew so many fouls, I'd like him to start doing it again because I don't think it would hinder other parts of his game much at all.

I think Tyrus will become a good slasher. I just think he's going to remain a bad shooter for the rest of his career.

I don't think you've ever explained why you don't think he can't improve. You even mentioned players like Amare who vastly improved their jumpers. It's not a terribly uncommon occurrence. Your argument seems to be "I don't think he can improve his jumper because it sucks." Well those are the guys who usually improve their jumper a lot, because they're the ones who can really benefit from putting in the time and working to get better.

And yet they're all great NBA players, no?

Garnett is great. Camby and Chandler are very good. I think Tyrus can become a very good player. I don't think it's realistic to expect that he becomes a great player.

I think he can be better than Camby or Chandler but I think most Bulls fans are with me when I say that I won't be disappointed if he's that good.

You completely ignored Tyrus lack of skillset in terms of the development in his offensive game. Something also tells me that you will defend Tyrus no matter what.

So you admit you were dead wrong when you claimed I said Tyrus was better than Aldridge offensively? If that quote proves anything it proves that I didn't foresee Tyrus' regression in free throw attempts and FG% this season. In addition to in no way supporting the claim that I said Tyrus is a better scorer than Aldridge, I don't think it makes me look too foolish either. As I noted before, I don't recall any posts prior to this season claiming that "Based on his skill set Tyrus can't continue to get to the line and convert field goals at the rate he did last season."

Blatche never had a chance to go to college. However..he was ranked higher than Thomas in highschool and is having a better season than him right now and they are the same age. Wouldn't comparing them NOW make more sense then comparing them on a level where only one played?

I don't think that Blatche is having a meaningfully better season than Tyrus.

Everyone was ranked as a better high school player than Tyrus so that's pretty irrelevant. You have to give more weight to certain data points more than others. Being good in college means more than being good in high school. Something that happened two seasons ago (Tyrus' college season) means more than something that happened four seasons ago (Blatche's most recent high school season).

It's because Tyrus can't do many things than Johnson can't do. I'm not sure as to why he is seen to have a higher upside. I have also heard people say that players get better with the more minutes they get(I'm not sure if I'm in this camp). Why would this not be the case for Amir Johnson is only 20 years old?

As I think I said before, Johnson is about as big a question mark as it gets. I don't think you can say he has more ability to bust out because we don't know what his baseline is. You give the nod to the player with favorable data points over the one with next to no data points.

Thad has the benefit of more playing time than Thomas but Amir Johnson has the benefit of less playing time so his numbers don't count according to you. You can't be serious.

Because Johnson didn't play college ball. You act like I'm talking about Durant or something. The point is simple: when you have virtually no reliable track record because you haven't played a lot at a high level (NCAA, an advanced European league) you're a huge question mark until you get a lot of minutes under your belt.

My point with respect to Thad is that he's probably benefited some compared to Tyrus by being able to play consistent minutes. It has nothing to do with the track record argument I'm making about Johnson or my overall point that none of these players - Tyrus included - have played enough NBA minutes to rely on NBA performance as the only factor here.

The analysis is: I don't think Thad is outproducing Tyrus (15.5 v. 14.8 PER as rookies) especially when you consider that Thad has been given a better opportunity to develop and I think Tyrus has the better resume coming into the league so I'd give the edge to Tyrus. The only thing that gives me pause is that Young is a 19 year old rookie whereas Tyrus was 20. It's a close call, particularly if Young maintains or improves on this production as the season continues.

Blatche or Sean Williams have any less potential that Tyrus is BS. I think you are the only one in this thread that doesn't understand this.

I doubt many people would agree with you that Blatche has more NBA potential than Tyrus. Again, I don't think he's having a meaningfully better season. You talk like he's doing great and Tyrus is doing poorly when they've been pretty much equally good. As I've said every other consideration skews pretty strongly in Tyrus' direction.

Williams is doing better than Tyrus but again, not enough for me to give him the edge at this point. Even if the only reason he was drafted where he was is that he was a head case in college, that's enough for me to give Tyrus the edge this early in a player's career when he's not outperforming Tyrus by a huge margin. If he has the same edge at the end of this season or next season, I'll reconsider then.

Tyrus has not separated himself from any of them at the NBA level. He isn't more likely to develop a jumpshot or more likely to become a great player than any of the other players I mentioned.Tyrus has not separated himself from any of them at the NBA level. He isn't more likely to develop a jumpshot or more likely to become a great player than any of the other players I mentioned.

Just like how Deron Williams didn't do anything to separate himself from Travis Diener at the NBA level, right?

[JeremyB0001]

His PER last year was around 18 for the second half of the season. If you start from the post all-star break, his PER has gone down 4 points which is a serious regression. Prior to the all-star break, he was terrible.

I guess I don't understand the point. If he'd posted an 18 PER he'd be on the fast track to All-Star and quite possibly superstar status. I don't think anyone really expected that this season though. I'd take your point to be that his blocks, free throw attempts, and FG% has decreased even more than we realize by looking at last season's numbers but you're the one who relied on the season totals in the first place.

If he decides to keep shooting jump shots as a frequently as he is now, then yes. I expect him to continue to be a sub-40% shooter. If he stops shooting jump shots, then I expect it to go up again.

Based on my math if he was converting non-jumpers at the rate he was last season, his overall FG% would be 46.3%. Instead it's 38.9%. The increase in jump shots attempted has played a pretty small role in his drop off in FG%.

He's on pace for higher MPG, and more games played even if we don't change the way we're using him, so these arguments don't make sense when comparing to last years performance where he had similar obstacles, but they were even worse than this year.

Last year he played fewer minutes at the beginning of the year and more at the end. They didn't wildly fluctuate the way they have this season though.

If regressing is a sign of break out potential and playing better is a sign of breaking out, then all players are about to break out.

His PER is down less than a point. That's not a serious overall regression. He's a much worse player this season when the numbers suggest he's about as productive, just in different ways. The dissapointment is that he didn't improve quite a bit. Again, if you're saying he had to post an 18-20 PER this season not to regress because of his strong second half that means you're saying he was on the superstar track and your offseason posts didn't suggest you believed that.

He has mildly improved his shot. His other improvements seem like a lack of aggression (fewer TOs, fewer fouls) and have had corresponding drop offs in free throws generated, close baskets, and blocked shots. Which creates the discussion did he improve at those things or is he just playing more passively now?

As I said in my last post, I don't see all that much connection between FG% and free throw attempts and turnovers and fouls. Fouls usually happen on defense and turnovers and fouls occur while dribbling and passing more often than when attempting shots. If it is because of an overall lack of aggression he should try to learn to regain that aggressiveness in certain areas (taking the ball to the basket) but not others (wild passes, etc.).