HoopsGuru25 wrote: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?