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NBA Win Totals Best Bets | Picks for 2020-21 Season-Long Basketball Futures

NBA Win Totals Best Bets | Picks for 2020-21 Season-Long Basketball Futures submitted by trex67846 to sportsgambling [link] [comments]

Analysis of My Tennis Results Over the Last Two Years and How Betting Lines as Early as Possible More than Doubled my Returns

Betting Early and Price Shopping
 
This graph shows my units gained and ROI from betting ATP tennis in 2019 & 2020. The blue line is my actual results over 615 bets in that time period. These are the odds I actually bet the matches at. The stats are as follows: 352-250-13, +77.32u, +8.9% ROI, +1.94% CLV, +12.3 average cents of CLV per bet, and I beat the closing line 70% of the time. You can see all my past bets here. Note: FWIW, people calculate CLV differently. I calculate it as the % difference in implied probability, some people do the expected value % way.
I decided to chart my returns as if I had made every bet at Pinnacle's closing line, the red line on the graph. The difference is quite noticeable. My returns betting at the closing line over those same 615 bets are as follows: +35.8u, +4.3% ROI. Getting on lines as early as possible (assuming you're on the right side) and shopping for the best prices even if its only between 2 or 3 books can make a massive difference in your results. I personally only shopped between BetOnline and Bookmaker as these books are better for tennis, but you could only imagine the insane advantage you could get shopping between 7-8 different books. Obviously many of us on sportsbook knew this was the case in theory, but I thought it would be cool for everyone to see the difference it can make over the longer-term: over multiple years and over 500+ bets, the added value from betting early and shopping for the best price will magnify your returns. After all, not many people track their results long enough to see this change. We're talking about getting only a 12 cent head start on the closing line, doubled my return after 600 picks.
It seems not all Pinnacle closing lines are as efficient as made out to be
 
I was a bit surprised to see my results at close still had a 4.3% ROI over 600 bets. This return over that sample is beginning to become statistically significant. Pinnacle is known for having some of the sharpest closing lines in the business. Now tennis isn't on the same level as, say, English Premier league, but what gives here?
This graph made by Pinnacle charts over 136,000 odds on tennis matches spanning from 2015-2019. As you can see there is an incredibly high degree of efficiency between the implied win % from the odds and the actual win % of those matches. (Note: the blue line is slightly below the yellow as the bookmaker's margin is not removed). Similarly, here is your ROI by odds groupings if you had blindly bet the Pinnacle closing line of every ATP main draw match since 2010. There's clearly a favorite-longshot bias in play here as underdog ROI's are in the negative double digits, but it seems Pinnacle's ATP closing lines are pretty efficient.
Obviously, my results betting at close vs the empirical data of over tens of thousands of ATP matches on Pinnacle are beginning to contradict each other. My opinion is that is that, although it’s true that Pinnacle closing lines are a great, if not the best, estimator of the true probabilities of a tennis match, this is only true ON AVERAGE. As bettors, we have the distinct advantage of being able to select bets where we believe the market is wrong. We don't have to bet every single match or game. In the span of 2019 and 2020 there were roughly 16,000 ATP and Challenger level tennis matches; I only bet about 3% of them.
It's certainly not out of the realm of possibility that Pinnacle just fucks up on pricing a small percentage of their bets. On the other hand, a prevailing theory may also be that there is some sort of price anchoring going on between Pinnacle and their customers betting into the line. From Joseph Buchdahl's article on Pinnacle: "Let’s suppose instead that when a price longer than the ‘true’ price is published, it is more likely that it will close still longer than the ‘true’price. Conversely, when a shorter than ‘true’ price is published it is more likely to close still shorter than ‘true’. Why should this be the case? Well, since the ‘true’ price remains unknown, both to the bookmaker and their customers, the actual value of the opener could be hypothesized to act as a kind of anchor or reference point which biases judgement and restricts the magnitude of future movements. Sure, pricing mistakes will be exploited, but possibly not by as much as they should be. That, at least, is the idea" of price anchoring.
He goes on to say: The majority of bettors will probably look at the odds before deciding whether to bet rather than undertaking their own analysis to determine a ‘true’ outcome probability. Thus, when a bettor sees a bookmaker’s price of 2.25, they might take the view that the ‘true’ price is 2.05, and not 2.00. The act of observing the 2.25 may influence their judgement to the extent that they will deviate away from the ‘true’ price and towards the anchor price. A similar argument can be applied to prices shorter than ‘true’."
So, it's possible that there is some amount of price anchoring going on, and these closing prices are closing not long enough or not short enough from their fair values. It's also possible that I've just been getting astronomically lucky for the past two years, but we can only guess until I submit more bets.
CLV Matters
 
Although not all of these closing lines are efficient, my results are better as my CLV improves. See some of these stats for reference.
  • When getting positive no-vig CLV: +66.78u, +16.0 ROI% over 291 bets
  • When getting negative no-vig CLV: +10.55u, +2.33% ROI over 324 bets
When my closing line value does not even beat out the bookmaker's vig, the returns are a measly +10u over 324 bets. When I overcome the juice, my ROI skyrockets to 16% over 291 bets.
Lessons learned / Advice
 
  • Bet as early as your bet size will allow and shop for the best prices. It will lower the sportsbook's hold and will vastly improve your returns. This is the easiest way to improve your edge right off the bat. I think my results showed this.
  • Perhaps focus your betting on less efficient markets. Want to bet NFL or NBA for example? Focus on player props, instead of sides and totals. You're more likely to have an actual edge and are also more likely to find prices way off from the rest of the market
  • If you do decide to dabble in more efficient (hard-to-beat) markets, keep track of your CLV. Once you obsess over beating the closing line you become more price sensitive and more process oriented rather than results oriented. Your focus shifts to accumulating expected value over time that will produce results in the "long-term", rather than "trying to pick winners." on a day-to-day basis. CLV isn't the ultimate proxy for success, there are some exceptions, but the benefits a bettor achieves from making this his / her main focus cannot be overstated.
Anyways, sorry for the long post; hope you enjoyed the read. If you want to follow me this tennis season, I post everything in the Tennis Daily thread. I also have a telegram channel that you can follow so that you get notifications of when I bet. Reddit isn't always the best medium for sharing plays. The next tournament is in a few weeks with the Australian Open right around the corner. Best of luck!
submitted by BreakfastAtWimbledon to sportsbook [link] [comments]

FuboTV DD (First time making DD, please give advice)

I tried to make it easy to skip around if you just want to see the financials or estimates. Just scroll to them if you don't care what the company is or their sectocompetition/management. TL;DR at bottom with final thoughts.
Introduction
“FuboTV ($FUBO) is an American streaming television service that focuses primarily on channels that distribute live sports, including NFL, MLB, NBA, NHL, MLS and international soccer, plus news, network television series and movies.
Launched on January 1, 2015 as a soccer streaming service, FuboTV changed to an all-sports service in 2017 and then to a virtual multichannel video programming distributor (vMVPD) model. As a vMVPD, FuboTV still calls itself sports-first but its expanded channel lineup targets cord cutters, offering a selection of major cable channels and OTT-originated features that can be streamed through smart TVs, mobile and tablets and the web. The service is available in the United States, Canada and Spain as of 2018."
From their home page:
They are the only competitors in their space of digital sports broadcasting, offer 4K streaming and upscaling of live sports, cloud DVR capability ranging from 250 or 1000 hours on standard plans, and is available on Roku, Apple TV, Amazon Fire TV, Chromecast, Samsung Smart TVs, Xbox One, Android TV, Android Smart TVs, and Android/iOS smartphones and tablets, with plans ranging from $24.99/month to $79.99/month (not including add-ons).
They have also recently acquired one company and have made plans to acquire another to allow for in-house sports betting. They have stated in a press release that they plan to release a sportsbook before the end of the year. This will push them into a broader spectrum outside of only TV and sports streaming, and into the sports betting sector along with DraftKings ($DKNG), FanDuel ($PDYPY), and Penn National Gaming ($PENN).
Plans and Add-ons
FuboTV offers three standardized plans as of February 8, 2021: the Family plan is priced at $64.99/month (normally $75.97/month), Elite at $79.99/month (normally $100.95/month), and Latino Quarterly at $24.99/month, along with offering additional add-ons. Each plan offers a range of channels, cloud DVR capabilities (which allows fast-forwarding through commercials), and casting to multiple devices simultaneously. Only the Elite plan does not offer a 7-day free trial (Channels page).
The Family plan includes 117 channels (mostly news and entertainment with roughly 40 that offer sports, including ESPN), up to 250 hours of DVR space, and casting to 3 devices at once. The quarterly prepaid includes a free upgrade to 1000 hours of DVR space and 5 casting devices at home with 3 on the go (Channels page).
The Elite plan includes 164 channels (includes an additional “47 entertainment channels”), up to 1000 hours of DVR space, and casting to 5 devices at home with 3 on the go. This plan does not offer a quarterly prepaid (Channels page).
The Latino Quarterly plan includes 250 hours of DVR space and can be streamed on up to 3 devices at once, but only has 32 channels. This plan needs to be prepaid every 3 months for a total charge of $74.97 and does not offer a monthly service (Channels page).
Upgrades include additional DVR space--1000 hours for an additional $6.99/month for the Family and Latino Quarterly--and increased device casting--an additional 2 devices at home with 3 on the go for another $9.99/month for the Family and Latino Quarterly plans. You can also add a variety of channels and sports packages (the Latino Quarterly has fewer channel add-ons compared to the Family and Elite plans, which both have the same channel varieties). Sports Plus with NFL RedZone is an additional $10.99/month, but includes all professional and college sports broadcasting services for football, basketball, baseball, hockey, tennis, fighting, etc. (Channels page).
Fubo has recently removed its former Standard plan, which included only 65 channels, up to 2 casting devices, and only 30 hours of DVR support for $60/month.
Financials and Growth
Fubo has yet to file an annual report as they have gone public in October of 2020, but they have filed a 10-Q for Q3 2020. All numbers in thousands.
Assets-
Between December 31, 2019 and September of 2020, assets have increased from $368,225 to $799,313 (a 117% increase) . Total current assets increased from $17,973 to $58,016, but accounts receivable decreased from $8,904 to $6,975--this may be attributed to the increase in prepaid subscriptions which increased from $1,445 to $12,177 which shows strong customer satisfaction and retention.
Liabilities-
Liabilities have increased from $145,049 to $290,376 (a 100% increase). The largest contributors to their liabilities are “Due to related parties” increasing from $665 to $85,847, “Warrant liabilities” increasing from $24 to $28,085, and “Accounts payable” from $36,373 to $61,679. Long-term borrowings have decreased from $43,982 to $25,905.
Revenues-
Subscription revenues increased by $53,433, totaling $92,945 for the year. Total revenues including advertisements and licensing have increased by $61,202, totaling $112,669 for the year and an increase of 47% YOY. Q4 revenue is estimated to be between $94,000 and $98,000 which would be a 77-84% increase YOY.
Expenses-
Subscriber related expenses total $114,315 for the year. Total expenses have totaled $500,249 for the year.
Subscribers-
Ended Q3 with 455,000 paid subscribers, a YOY increase of 58%, and plans to end 2020 with over 545,000, an increase of 72% YOY.
Competition
Its closest competitors are Hulu + Live TV (owned by Disney ($DIS)), YouTube TV (owned by Alphabet ($GOOG)), and Sling TV (owned by Dish Network ($DISH)).
Hulu + Live TV
YouTube TV
Sling TV Blue
Sling TV Orange
The vMVPD Sector
Cord-cutting has become increasingly popular over the last few years with consumers dropping traditional cable and satellite networks in favor of streaming services--such as Hulu, Netflix, Disney+, etc.--and vMVPD services.
In 2019 alone, 6.3 million people cut their cable connection, totaling 39.3 million. In a survey of what they might miss most from cable networks, 52% said they don’t miss anything, 23% missed live events on TV, 22% missed news, and 19% missed live sports. Although not all of those that miss aspects of cable will pay for another subscription service, the sentiment exists for a sports-focused platform that offers other large networks as well.
Another report by Parks Associates reveals that 17% of vMVPD subscribers switched from traditional TV within the last twelve months. In the same report, a survey conducted on current broadband households determined that 43% were “likely to switch to a… vMVPD within the next 12 months." The potential growth exists for the live digital broadcasting space, although it is slowing down.
With the spread of COVID and quarantines, people have been spending more time at home. When things open and quarantines end, that will be the true test for these providers as people will spend less time watching TV.
The Sports Betting Sector
Legal sports betting has taken a huge leap in recent years with the introduction of online sports betting; the ability to place wagers from anywhere at any time and have instant gratification has boomed with its slow legalization. This sector has a forecasted value of $150 billion with other competitors already having a completed project and vast market share. In 2019, DraftKings ($DKNG) and FanDuel (PDYPY) controlled 83% of the market share.
FuboTV plans to join into this space with its own sportsbook. Their recent acquisition of Balto Sports in December of 2020, whose business was in simulating fantasy sports games, is Fubo’s first step into sports wagering. They plan to create a free-to-play gaming system alongside online sports wagering.
Their next planned acquisition, which was announced in January of 2021, will be to acquire Vigtory, a sports betting and interactive gaming company. According to BusinessWire, they plan to utilize Vigtory’s “sportsbook platform and digital gaming assets, and its consumer-driven betting technology, to develop a frictionless betting experience for fubo’s customers."
These recent acquisitions set Fubo up to create an all-in-one viewing and betting experience, which could add new customers to their subscriber list and seal them into online wagering.
It has been over two years since the Supreme Court has denied the federal ban on sports betting, which would have made online betting illegal in all of the United States. Currently, more than two dozen states have legalized sports betting, but most have only legalized in-person betting. More states may be willing to legalize to take advantage of the increased revenues and taxes associated with gambling and online wagering. As of 2020, six additional states plan to legalize some form of betting, although some are only allowing in-person. There are an additional 14 states that are considering the notion to allow legal gambling, whether in-person, online, or tribal.
Management and Investors
David Gandler - CEO / Director / Co-Founder
Appointed as CEO and director in April of 2020. Prior to Fubo, Gandler had a 15 year career in marketing and advertising in local broadcast and cable TV within both general and Hispanic markets at companies such as Time Warner, Telemundo, and Scripps Networks Interactive.
Alberto Horihuela - CMO / Co-founder
In charge of marketing, Horihuela was head of Latin America for SVOD service DramaFever.
Simone Nardi - CFO
Nardi has worked as SVP and CFO of Scripps Networks Interactive where he was responsible for the finance and strategic planning for the company’s international business. Was also a key player in refinancing TVN S.A.’s billion dollar debt.
Large Investors
Analysts and Estimates
Average analyst ratings put Fubo at a Buy to Strong Buy rating with an average price target of $45.50 with a high of $60 and a low of $30. EPS estimates are estimated to be -5.23 for 2020 and -1.64 for 2021.
Currently has a short float of about 75%, but the short volume has been holding at roughly 15-20% over the last month and has drastically declined from its October short volume of over 50%.
Originally valued at $700 million less than a year ago, a current valuation of $3.19 billion is respectable for this company and is on par for its current performance.
Risks
Final Thoughts / TL;DR
With its drastic growth over the last year (400% in the last 4 months), support from FaceBank and well-known investors, and plans to join the sports betting sector, FuboTV has potential to become a household name and grow well beyond its current valuation by combining both sports broadcasting and online sports betting into one convenient place. Although unlikely to overthrow any of the current forces, it can become the best live sports broadcaster that people can turn to when they cut cable but want to keep live sports. It has many hurdles to overcome (creating their sportsbook, better marketing, increasing subscriber count, etc.) before it is any real competition to its already established competition.
At a $3.19 billion market cap and very high (75%) short interest, it will be very difficult to realize consistent growth, but it is on par for a company with almost $100 million in revenue.
My Position
25 shares at $47.30
​
Edit: edited final thoughts/TL;DR
Please provide feedback! First time actually researching and compiling information for a company and not just reading about them on here. Also, please ask questions to clear up any confusion; it was kinda hard to put everything together neatly, so I might have accidentally left stuff out or oveunder explained some things.
submitted by AlbibiG to stocks [link] [comments]

I bet 1000 on NBA MVP, here is how I see it

No, I didn't bet on one player. That would be crazy, knowing we are in a global pandemic and having a risk of injuries. I will give you my tier system and my picks after that. As you can see below, I bet on 5 players. 1000 total, not 1000 each. Any player winning would give me a nice return.
TIER 1. This tier is for players, who will probably have a great season and their team might be really good. However, I consider that these players will be viewed as a 'failures' by media and fans because of what happened last season.
Back 2 back MVP. Last player to win 3 in a row was Larry Bird. Giannis and Bucks got embarrassed in the playoffs. Bucks can finish as a 1st seed in the East easily, but media and fans won't be impressed with the same old story.
A favorite last year before the season. Just like Giannis, failed in the playoffs. Can finish 1st in the West and there would still be doubt.
TIER 2. This tier is the biggest one. It's for players who were in a MVP conversation last year, but didn't get it and still showed out in playoffs. Media and fans will be on their side, it up to their teams to lock up 1,2,3 or in some cases a 4 seed.
  • LeBron. +900 or 10.
LeBron was 2nd in MVP voting last season. Lakers improved their roster and LeBron himself has a great run in the playoffs and the finals. This season, there is no more conversations is he still the best player in the NBA. We all saw it in the playoffs. With Giannis out of the picture as a TIER 1 'failure', LeBron needs to average at least 24 PPG and his regular 7 and 7 and Lakers to finish 1st. Finishing 2nd might still be good enough.
  • Davis. +900 or 10.
If the Lakers finish 1st, but LeBron opts to rest and the beginning of the season, Davis becomes more realistic candidate to get more votes than James. If AD avoids injuries, plays awesome D like last year and Lebron's media machine pushes his case, Davis might be the winner.
  • Doncic. +450 or 5.5.
A favorite by the media, fans and bookies right now. You have to bet him. My concerns are his team. This bet is a bet on Porzingis health too. I have a hard time seeing Mavs finishing in the top 3 of the western conference, however 4th seed might still be good enough, if Doncic goes crazy and averages 34 PPG or a triple double.
  • Lillard. +4000 or 41 and +2500 or 26.
My favorite bet. Blazers had a GREAT offseason and improved with defensive minded wings. Last season they were killed by injuries and Dame still got some votes for MVP. If they stay healthy, I see them fighting for a 3rd or 4th seed. I got crazy odds, so this was no brainer and Dame is a fan and media darling.
TIER 3. This tier is exclusive for 1 player. It's a major comeback story and it sells very well on TV, sports sites, etc. Yeah, it's KD.
  • Durant. +1800 or 19.
Nets will be a very solid regular season team and playing in the east helps that. I see them finishing in the top 3 of the conference. Durant is already becoming more likeable in the eyes of media and fans, because he plays with Kyrie. It puts him in a better light. I still believe KD can put up 25 PPG in his sleep and a comeback story puts him as a strong candidate to win the MVP.
TIER 4. This tier is for players, who were not in previous MVP conversations. These are young players on a good teams. If these teams somehow finish as a 1st or 2nd seed, they might get some serious consideration. However, players in this tier are NO BET. Well, at least until spring. If you see them going strong in march and their team as a potential 1st or 2nd seed, you can still get a decent odds at that time and hedge your previous bets.
  • Tatum. No bet yet.
  • Mitchell. No bet yet.
  • Embiid. No bet yet.
  • Jokic. No bet yet.
  • Booker. No bet yet.
  • Bam. No bet yet.
EDIT: So the end result looks like this:
  • Lillard - 100 to win 3350
  • Durant - 200 to win 3800
  • Doncic - 350 to win 1950
  • James - 220 to win 2200
  • Davis - 130 to win 1300
submitted by koksvardas to sportsbook [link] [comments]

“FuboTV DD/Analysis” [BULLISH] {FUBO}

"FubuTV DD" [BULLISH] {FUBU}
Introduction
“FuboTV ($FUBO) is an American streaming television service that focuses primarily on channels that distribute live sports, including NFL, MLB, NBA, NHL, MLS and international soccer, plus news, network television series and movies.
Launched on January 1, 2015 as a soccer streaming service, FuboTV changed to an all-sports service in 2017 and then to a virtual multichannel video programming distributor (vMVPD) model. As a vMVPD, FuboTV still calls itself sports-first but its expanded channel lineup targets cord cutters, offering a selection of major cable channels and OTT-originated features that can be streamed through smart TVs, mobile and tablets and the web. The service is available in the United States, Canada and Spain as of 2018."
From their home page:
They are the only competitors in their space of digital sports broadcasting, offer 4K streaming and upscaling of live sports, cloud DVR capability ranging from 250 or 1000 hours on standard plans, and is available on Roku, Apple TV, Amazon Fire TV, Chromecast, Samsung Smart TVs, Xbox One, Android TV, Android Smart TVs, and Android/iOS smartphones and tablets, with plans ranging from $24.99/month to $79.99/month (not including add-ons).
They have also recently acquired one company and have made plans to acquire another to allow for in-house sports betting. They have stated in a press release that they plan to release a sportsbook before the end of the year. This will push them into a broader spectrum outside of only TV and sports streaming, and into the sports betting sector along with DraftKings ($DKNG), FanDuel ($PDYPY), and Penn National Gaming ($PENN).
Plans and Add-ons
FuboTV offers three standardized plans as of February 8, 2021: the Family plan is priced at $64.99/month (normally $75.97/month), Elite at $79.99/month (normally $100.95/month), and Latino Quarterly at $24.99/month, along with offering additional add-ons. Each plan offers a range of channels, cloud DVR capabilities (which allows fast-forwarding through commercials), and casting to multiple devices simultaneously. Only the Elite plan does not offer a 7-day free trial (Channels page).
The Family plan includes 117 channels (mostly news and entertainment with roughly 40 that offer sports, including ESPN), up to 250 hours of DVR space, and casting to 3 devices at once. The quarterly prepaid includes a free upgrade to 1000 hours of DVR space and 5 casting devices at home with 3 on the go (Channels page).
The Elite plan includes 164 channels (includes an additional “47 entertainment channels”), up to 1000 hours of DVR space, and casting to 5 devices at home with 3 on the go. This plan does not offer a quarterly prepaid (Channels page).
The Latino Quarterly plan includes 250 hours of DVR space and can be streamed on up to 3 devices at once, but only has 32 channels. This plan needs to be prepaid every 3 months for a total charge of $74.97 and does not offer a monthly service (Channels page).
Upgrades include additional DVR space--1000 hours for an additional $6.99/month for the Family and Latino Quarterly--and increased device casting--an additional 2 devices at home with 3 on the go for another $9.99/month for the Family and Latino Quarterly plans. You can also add a variety of channels and sports packages (the Latino Quarterly has fewer channel add-ons compared to the Family and Elite plans, which both have the same channel varieties). Sports Plus with NFL RedZone is an additional $10.99/month, but includes all professional and college sports broadcasting services for football, basketball, baseball, hockey, tennis, fighting, etc. (Channels page).
Fubo has recently removed its former Standard plan, which included only 65 channels, up to 2 casting devices, and only 30 hours of DVR support for $60/month.
Financials and Growth
Fubo has yet to file an annual report as they have gone public in October of 2020, but they have filed a 10-Q for Q3 2020. All numbers in thousands.
Assets-
Between December 31, 2019 and September of 2020, assets have increased from $368,225 to $799,313 (a 117% increase) . Total current assets increased from $17,973 to $58,016, but accounts receivable decreased from $8,904 to $6,975--this may be attributed to the increase in prepaid subscriptions which increased from $1,445 to $12,177 which shows strong customer satisfaction and retention.
Liabilities-
Liabilities have increased from $145,049 to $290,376 (a 100% increase). The largest contributors to their liabilities are “Due to related parties” increasing from $665 to $85,847, “Warrant liabilities” increasing from $24 to $28,085, and “Accounts payable” from $36,373 to $61,679. Long-term borrowings have decreased from $43,982 to $25,905.
Revenues-
Subscription revenues increased by $53,433, totaling $92,945 for the year. Total revenues including advertisements and licensing have increased by $61,202, totaling $112,669 for the year and an increase of 47% YOY. Q4 revenue is estimated to be between $94,000 and $98,000 which would be a *77-84% *increase YOY.
Expenses-
Subscriber related expenses total $114,315 for the year. Total expenses have totaled $500,249 for the year.
Subscribers-
Ended Q3 with 455,000 paid subscribers, a YOY increase of 58%, and plans to end 2020 with over 545,000, an increase of 72% YOY.
Competition
Its closest competitors are Hulu + Live TV (owned by Disney ($DIS)), YouTube TV (owned by Alphabet ($GOOG)), and Sling TV (owned by Dish Network ($DISH)).
Hulu + Live TV
YouTube TV
Sling TV Blue
Sling TV Orange
The vMVPD Sector
Cord-cutting has become increasingly popular over the last few years with consumers dropping traditional cable and satellite networks in favor of streaming services--such as Hulu, Netflix, Disney+, etc.--and vMVPD services.
In 2019 alone, 6.3 million people cut their cable connection, totaling 39.3 million. In a survey of what they might miss most from cable networks, 52% said they don’t miss anything, 23% missed live events on TV, 22% missed news, and 19% missed live sports. Although not all of those that miss aspects of cable will pay for another subscription service, the sentiment exists for a sports-focused platform that offers other large networks as well.
Another report by Parks Associates reveals that 17% of vMVPD subscribers switched from traditional TV within the last twelve months. In the same report, a survey conducted on current broadband households determined that 43% were “likely to switch to a… vMVPD within the next 12 months." The potential growth exists for the live digital broadcasting space, although it is slowing down.
With the spread of COVID and quarantines, people have been spending more time at home. When things open and quarantines end, that will be the true test for these providers as people will spend less time watching TV.
The Sports Betting Sector
Legal sports betting has taken a huge leap in recent years with the introduction of online sports betting; the ability to place wagers from anywhere at any time and have instant gratification has boomed with its slow legalization. This sector has a forecasted value of $150 billion with other competitors already having a completed project and vast market share. In 2019, DraftKings ($DKNG) and FanDuel (PDYPY) controlled 83% of the market share.
FuboTV plans to join into this space with its own sportsbook. Their recent acquisition of Balto Sports in December of 2020, whose business was in simulating fantasy sports games, is Fubo’s first step into sports wagering. They plan to create a free-to-play gaming system alongside online sports wagering.
Their next planned acquisition, which was announced in January of 2021, will be to acquire Vigtory, a sports betting and interactive gaming company. According to BusinessWire, they plan to utilize Vigtory’s “sportsbook platform and digital gaming assets, and its consumer-driven betting technology, to develop a frictionless betting experience for fubo’s customers."
These recent acquisitions set Fubo up to create an all-in-one viewing and betting experience, which could add new customers to their subscriber list and seal them into online wagering.
It has been over two years since the Supreme Court has denied the federal ban on sports betting, which would have made online betting illegal in all of the United States. Currently, more than two dozen states have legalized sports betting, but most have only legalized in-person betting. More states may be willing to legalize to take advantage of the increased revenues and taxes associated with gambling and online wagering. As of 2020, six additional states plan to legalize some form of betting, although some are only allowing in-person. There are an additional 14 states that are considering the notion to allow legal gambling, whether in-person, online, or tribal.
Management and Investors
David Gandler - CEO / Director / Co-Founder
Appointed as CEO and director in April of 2020. Prior to Fubo, Gandler had a 15 year career in marketing and advertising in local broadcast and cable TV within both general and Hispanic markets at companies such as Time Warner, Telemundo, and Scripps Networks Interactive.
Alberto Horihuela - CMO / Co-founder
In charge of marketing, Horihuela was head of Latin America for SVOD service DramaFever.
Simone Nardi - CFO
Nardi has worked as SVP and CFO of Scripps Networks Interactive where he was responsible for the finance and strategic planning for the company’s international business. Was also a key player in refinancing TVN S.A.’s billion dollar debt.
Large Investors
Analysts and Estimates
Average analyst ratings put Fubo at a Buy to Strong Buy rating with an average price target of $45.50 with a high of $60 and a low of $30. EPS estimates are estimated to be -5.23 for 2020 and -1.64 for 2021.
Currently has a short float of about 75%, but the short volume has been holding at roughly 15-20% over the last month and has drastically declined from its October short volume of over 50%.
Originally valued at $700 million less than a year ago, a current valuation of $3.19 billion is respectable for this company and is on par for its current performance.
Risks
Final Thoughts / TL;DR
With its drastic growth over the last year (400% in the last 4 months), support from FaceBank and well-known investors, and plans to join the sports betting sector, FuboTV has potential to become a household name and grow well beyond its current valuation by combining both sports broadcasting and online sports betting into one convenient place. Although unlikely to overthrow any of the current forces, it can become the best live sports broadcaster that people can turn to when they cut cable but want to keep live sports. It has many hurdles to overcome (creating their sportsbook, better marketing, increasing subscriber count, etc.) before it is any real competition to its already established competition.
At a $3.19 billion market cap and very high (75%) short interest, it will be very difficult to realize consistent growth, but it is on par for a company with almost $100 million in revenue.
My Position
25 shares at $47.30
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Edit: edited final thoughts/TL;DR
Please provide feedback! First time actually researching and compiling information for a company and not just reading about them on here. Also, please ask questions to clear up any confusion; it was kinda hard to put everything together neatly, so I might have accidentally left stuff out or oveunder explained some things.
submitted by JustOnTheHorizon_ to DueDiligenceArchive [link] [comments]

the effect of voter fatigue may be overstated, which leaves the MVP race less crowded than we’d like to admit

introduction: why "voter fatigue" may be a tired narrative
Every year, we try to come up with likely MVP winners and potential darkhorse candidates. It's a fun thought exercise to see the various scenarios that could play out.
But in reality, the field may be a lot narrower than we imagine. After all, there's a stark difference between being in the general MVP discussion and being an actually viable MVP winner. Consider this. A few years ago, Isaiah Thomas garnered a ton of "MVP!" buzz for his season in Boston. He finished 5th, and didn't receive a single first-place vote. Two years ago, Paul George had a career season in Oklahoma City and finished 3rd in MVP. With that, he received a grand total of 0 first-place votes. This past season, Luka Doncic was a huge storyline and earned some MVP buzz. He received a grand total of 0 first-place votes. These guys may have been near the podium, but they weren't close to being in the actual winner's circle. Damian Lillard has never gotten a first-place MVP vote. Nikola Jokic has never gotten a first-place MVP vote. Anthony Davis has never gotten a first-place MVP vote. The point is: it's really friggin' hard to win the MVP trophy.
The hope for a lot of these MVP virgins is the idea of "voter fatigue." Giannis Antetokounmpo won the trophy last year, so media members will likely get bored and not vote for him again. That makes sense, in theory, but ignores the fact that Giannis won it two years ago as well. He was a back-to-back winner, voter fatigue be damned. And Giannis is hardly alone in that. In the 2000s, we've seen several repeat winners. Tim Duncan repeated as MVP. Steve Nash repeated as MVP. Stephen Curry repeated as MVP. LeBron James repeated as MVP -- on two separate occasions. All in all, there have been 6 repeat winners (if we include LeBron twice) in the 2000s, and only 8 MVP winners who did not have a repeat. The best recent argument for "voter fatigue" may have been in 2010-11 when Derrick Rose won over LeBron James (who finished 3rd) and broke LeBron James' MVP streak. Still, Rose led the Bulls to 62 wins and # 1 seed that year, while LeBron James' stacked Miami Heat team only won 58 games. It's understandable how Rose may have won that season based on the typical criteria of the time.
However, we've seen a shift over the last few years in voting, and more attention paid to actual statistics. Advanced statistics. Win shares. VORP. RPM. LMNOP. MVP voters are "smarter" now, and know that they'll be lambasted for voting for narrative over actual production. There are still a few holdovers in that regard, but in general, it's hard to justify picking an inferior candidate these days.
Because of that, the actual MVP field may be quite small. Typically, James Harden's statistical greatness would be a barrier to entry, but there's a chance he's off the reservation this year. Still, Giannis Antetokounmpo should still be poised to put up similar production to the last few years. Let's say -- for the sake of argument -- that Giannis gets 10% worse across the board. Is that likely? No. But hey, players can dip up and down like that from year to year. So if Giannis did get 10% worse for whatever reason, then his averages would fall to... 26.6 points, 12.2 rebounds, and 5.0 assists per game. His team (at 10% worse) would fall all the way down to 50 wins (in a 72 game season.) Even at that reduced pace, that's still an extremely high bar to set. For someone to beat reduced-Giannis, they'd have to surpass him in ONE of those areas. Either their statistical production would have to be better, or their team would have to be better and drive a "narrative" awards campaign.
So who can actually do that? Which players are viable to beat 26-12-5 numbers or have teams that win 50+ games? Here would be my best guesses of the tiers of ACTUAL MVP candidates.
TIER 3: theoretically possible, but very unlikely
Donovan Mitchell (UTA) : The Utah Jazz are a realistic darkhorse candidate for a 1 or 2 seed this year, so star scorer Donovan Mitchell may get swept up in that momentum. Based on his play in the bubble, it's possible to envision him boosting his averages from the 24 point range up towards 28 points per game. Still, expecting him to do that while matching MVP-caliber efficiency is asking a lot. Last season, he scored with a 55.8% true shooting percentage, which is a far cry from the James Hardens' of the world.
Trae Young (ATL): I have a friend who’s betting on Trae Young for MVP based on the idea that he should put up monster stats and the Hawks should be 10+ games better. I don’t know if the team can vault as high as the top 6 out East though myself, which is why I’d put this in the unlikely category.
Zion Williamson (NO) : Don't scoff at this either, because there's a potential lane here for some "Zion MVP!" buzz. As a rookie, he looked like a dominant force around the rim, averaging 29 points per 36 minutes and converting 67% around the rim (with offensive rebounds to boot.) Even more impressive, he may not have been at 100%. If he comes back at a level above his play (pre bubble), then he could be one of the top 10 impact players in the league. If that comes with New Orleans rising up into the top 6 out West, Williamson could crack the top 10 for MVP. Winning it? That seems farfetched.
Jayson Tatum (BOS) and Jimmy Butler (MIA) : Both forwards have a chance to land the 1 or 2 seed in a best case scenario. They may also put up All-NBA level statistics. But can either of them reach Giannis-level stats in terms of efficiency and volume? That's really hard to imagine based on last year. A top 3/top 5 finish is feasible, but an actual MVP win seems very unlikely.
Damian Lillard (POR) : Poor Damian Lillard has been overshadowed by Steph Curry and James Harden for the most part; if not for them, we'd be talking about him as one of the most efficient high-volume scorers of all time. He should have another incredible year, but he'd likely need a lot of team success to register in the top 3 for MVP. The Blazers should be better, but they have a long way to go after being 35-39 last year.
TIER 2: potential candidates, but unlikely winners
Nikola Jokic (DEN) : Nikola Jokic is a good bet to return to the top 5 in voting (he finished # 4 last year) based on his individual efficiency and his team success. Still, I don't see him winning the trophy unless the Nuggets get the # 1 overall seed. That's possible, but not likely. Last season, their point differential and SRS suggested a team that was should have been ranked about 10th or 11th in the NBA.
Joel Embiid (PHI) : Joel Embiid's stats (23-12-3) are close enough to MVP caliber that he could theoretically win if he powers the Sixers to a # 1 overall seed. Still, you'd be banking on him staying healthy for 65+ games, and you'd be banking on all the credit going his way as opposed to Ben Simmons (who may take a huge jump with better spacing around him.)
Anthony Davis (LAL) : Anthony Davis will always be blocked from MVP based on the fact that LeBron James is on his team. That said, if LeBron James did miss time, then AD would become a viable contender. At this point in his career, he's capable of putting up monster 30-15 numbers every night, and the stigma about him not being a winner has vanished.
Kawhi Leonard (LAC) : The Clippers have a better chance at the # 1 seed if they push the pedal to the medal, but I still don't think they'll do that. Given all his injury history, I still expect them to coast and load manage until the playoffs arrive. That strategy may not have worked last year, but at least Leonard made it through the year healthy. I don't anticipate Ty Lue risking his health for an MVP run.
Steph Curry (GS) : Last year, I picked Steph Curry to win MVP. My theory was that he'd have the greenlight to shoot 12+ threes a game, which could vault him to historic numbers. Unfortunately, he couldn't stay healthy. Now at age 32 (turning 33 in March), I'm less bullish on the idea that he can register outputs like that for 65+ games himself.
Kevin Durant (BKN) : Again, the struggle here is health. If you told me that we were getting Kevin Durant back to 100%, then he'd be my pick to win the whole trophy. He'd be able to put up gaudy numbers and vault the Nets into the top 3 of the East. The "narrative" would also be a strong one. Alas, I don't think KD returning to 100% in Year 1 is realistic. More so, the Nets would be foolish to push him too hard. He should be entering the Kawhi Leonard load management program.
TIER 1: true and legitimate candidates
(4) LeBron James (LAL)
For some of these campaigns, we need to stretch our imagination to some degree and project things that haven't been done before. That's not the case here with LeBron James. To win MVP, all he'd need to do is repeat what he did last year (25 points, 10 assists per game, # 1 seed). The voters gave the award to Giannis by a healthy margin, but I suspect they'd lean LeBron James' way if the two repeated identically as a way for a misguided "makeup call" and respect to James' title run this past season.
Given all that, why do I only have "the King" listed at # 4? Because I don't think he'll repeat this past year, nor will he try to. He's 35 and about to turn 36 in a few weeks. He doesn't need to play 67/72 games again, and he doesn't need to play 34.6 minutes a night again. The Lakers should have their swagger on after winning the chip, so they'd feel more comfortable going into cruise control during the regular season. I suspect the additions of Dennis Schroder and Montrezl Harrell were made with that logic in mind; the duo should give the Lakers' stars more time off.
(3) James Harden (HOU)
To say there's "bad buzz" about James Harden right now is an understatement. It's like his MVP candidacy got stung by killer bees.
That said, James Harden is also someone who's proven he's capable of an MVP run; he's already reached that high bar, again and again and again. He should be in contention every single year he's active right now given his incredible workload, volume, and efficiency. Unlike LeBron James, he can't take many nights off here in Houston. The Rockets will need him to be Mega-Harden every night if they want to make the playoffs in the crowded West.
Basically, all Harden has to do to get back into the mix is show up. Play hard. Do your thing. Even with a mediocre supporting cast, he's able to put up ridiculous stats and lead his team to the 45-win range. If he does that again, no one's going to remember this ugly last month.
(2) Luka Doncic (DAL)
According to Vegas, Luka Doncic is far and away the frontrunner for MVP. He's listed at +300 odds (bet $100, win $300 profit). In contrast, Giannis is +650, LeBron James is +900.
No doubt, you can understand why. After taking a leap as a sophomore, the MVP should be in his sights. He averaged 29-8-8 last season and still has room for improvement. In fact, if he can just "up" his three-point shooting to league average, he should threaten 30-10-10. If he does that, all he'd need is for the Mavericks to get into the top 4 range out West to be a winner. This is also a franchise and player that should embrace that push. In the last decade or so, the "MVP chase" has become a young man's game (while older veterans often coast and wait until the playoffs.) Dallas would take huge pride in giving their star that trophy. I wouldn't say it's as good as 3/1 odds, but it's a stark possibility.
(1) Giannis Antetoukoumpo (MIL)
Giannis, again?? After last year?? After another playoff failure??
Yeah, even after last year. As mentioned, someone is going to have to make the argument that they're better than Giannis (either statistically or by team success) to take this trophy away from him. While a few others have the potential to do that, it's still an incredibly high bar to meet.
Let's compare him against Luka Doncic, presuming that'll be his closest competition. Last year, the Bucks were clearly better than the Mavericks in the regular season (winning 56 games compared to 43.) Giannis scored more efficiently than Doncic (61.3% to 58.5% in terms of true shooting.) Giannis is also far superior as a defensive player. If the Greek Freak can sweep Doncic across the board in all those criteria, what argument would a voter have for Luka Doncic? They want something new? Giannis hasn't proven himself in the playoffs? Neither of those are particularly compelling. Doncic looked good last year against the Clippers, but he still hasn't won a playoff series himself so it's hard to use that particular argument right now. As mentioned, voter fatigue may be overrated as a factor as well. Sure, it's happened now and then (Karl Malone over Michael Jordan is one of the better examples) but it's happened less and less often lately as voters are held more accountable.
TL;DR
Overall, there are probably 4-5 likely winners of MVP and maybe 5-6 more that could join them as possible contenders. But among them all, I'd still say that Giannis Antetoukoumpo should have the best odds of winning.
submitted by ZandrickEllison to nba [link] [comments]

[OC] The Overly-Long and Probably-Wrong list of the Top Draft Prospects

As a basketball fan, it's always fun to speculate on the NBA Draft prospects. That said, I'd stress the speculate part of that statement. As an outsider with no real access to these players, it's hard to be arrogant and steadfast in our opinions. We're working with about 10% as much information as actual NBA teams. If you feel confident in your analysis based on some highlight tapes of James Wiseman dunking on South Carolina State or LaMelo Ball jacking up shots in the Australian League, god bless you. And if you want to read my amateur analysis, god bless you too. But before you do, remember to check your sodium levels and take these picks with a grain of salt.
BEST PROSPECTS in the 2019-20 NBA DRAFT
(1) SG Anthony Edwards, Georgia
Based on pure stats, Anthony Edwards would be one of the least impressive # 1 picks of all time. We're talking about a player who just averaged 19-5-3 on bad shooting splits (40-29-77) on a bad Georgia team. In fact, the Bulldogs didn't even crack .500 (finishing 16-16). All things considered, this isn't the resume of a top overall pick. It's like a kid with a 2.9 GPA applying to Harvard Law.
Still, the "eye test" helps Edwards' case in the same way it helped proud Harvard alum Elle Woods. Edwards has a powerful frame (strong and long with a 6'9" wingspan) and a scorer's mentality. He's going to be a handful for NBA wings to contend with, especially when he's going downhill. And while he hasn't shown to be a knockdown shooter, his form looks better than the results suggest. I'd project that he can become an average (35-36%) three-point shooter in time.
It may be unfair to label Edwards with the "best case scenario" comparison -- Dwyane Wade, for example -- but it may be just as unfair to liken him to "worst case scenario" comps like Dion Waiters as well. One of the reasons that Waiters is such an inefficient scorer in the NBA is that he's allergic to the free-throw line; he averages 3.1 FTA per 36 minutes. Edwards didn't live at the FT line, but he did get there 5.3 times per game. With more encouragement from an analytical front office or coaching staff, Edwards has the potential to get to the line 7-8 times a game and raise his ceiling in terms of efficiency.
The key for Edwards' career is going to be his work ethic and basketball character. As a prospect, he reminds me of Donovan Mitchell; in fact, he's ahead of where Mitchell was at the same age. That said, Mitchell is a natural leader who made a concerted effort to improve his body and his overall game. If Edwards can do the same, he has true All-Star potential. If he walks into the building thinking he's already a superstar, then he may never become one.
best fits
Anthony Edwards has some bust potential, but he also has true star potential. Given that, it'd be great to see him go to a team that's willing to feature him. Chances are he won't last this long, but he'd be a great fit for Charlotte (#3). The Hornets desperately need a signature star, and Edwards has the chance to be a 20 PPG scorer within a year or two.
worst fits
If Edwards falls in the draft, he may end up clashing with the talent on the teams in the 4-5 range. Chicago (#4) already has a scoring guard in Zach LaVine. Meanwhile, Cleveland (#5) has already doubled up on scoring guards with Collin Sexton and Darius Garland. Adding a third would be a potential headache, both offensively and defensively.
(2) C James Wiseman, Memphis
A true center? Gross! What is this, 1970?
Traditional big men tend to get treated that way these days. In some ways, they've become the "running backs" of the NBA. They once ruled the draft, but now they have to scrape and claw to climb into the top 5.
Still, let's no go overboard here. Even if centers aren't as valuable as they used to be, there's still some value here. Some of the best centers in the game (Nikola Jokic, Rudy Gobert, Joel Embiid, etc) have helped make their teams staples in the playoffs. Wiseman can potentially impact a team in the same way, especially on the defensive end. He can get beat on switches now and then, but he's about as agile as you can expect out of a kid who's 7'1" with a 7'6" wingspan. Offensively, he has an improving face-up game in addition to being a devastating lob threat.
Another reason that I'm comfortable with Wiseman in the top 3 is because he appears to be a smart kid with the will to improve his game. He intends to keep stretching out his range towards three point territory. Even if he can be a passable three-point shooter (in the 33% range), that should help make him a consistent 18-12 player and a fringe All-Star. And if not, then he'll still be a viable starting center.
best fits
We mentioned Charlotte (#3) as a great fit for Anthony Edwards, and I'd say the same for Wiseman here. His game complements the more dynamic P.J. Washington well; between the two of them, they'd have the 4-5 spot locked up for years. While Wiseman's best chance to be a star may come in Charlotte, we don't know if he truly has that type of aggressive upside. The more likely scenario is him being a pretty good starting center with an emphasis on defense. In that case, he makes some sense in Golden State (#2) and Atlanta (#6).
worst fits
Apparently James Wiseman doesn't want to go to Minnesota (#1), which makes sense given the presence of Karl-Anthony Towns. If he slips, Chicago (#4) may also be an odd fit. Wiseman is a better prospect than Wendell Carter Jr., but they're not terribly dissimilar. The new Bulls administration didn't select Carter, but it still feels too early to give up on a recent # 7 pick.
(3) PF/C Onyeka Okongwu, USC (HIGHER than most expert rankings)
Another big man? I may be showing my age here.
Still, I'm going to stick to my guns and suggest Onyeka Okongwu is a top 3 prospect in the class for some of the same reasons we ranked James Wiseman so highly. In fact, Okongwu is arguably an even better defensive prospect than Wiseman. While he doesn't have the same size (6'9" with a 7'1" wingspan), he's more switchable. He projects as a prowling, shot-blocking panther, not dissimilar to Bam Adebayo on Miami. Offensively, he flashes some solid skill here and there, although it's unlikely he'd get to Adebayo's level as a playmaker.
Another aspect that should help Okongwu is his selflessness. In high school, he played for Chino Hills alongside stars Lonzo and LaMelo Ball. While there, he blended in and did the dirty work for the LaVar Traveling Circus. It's likely that Okongwu will play a similar role in the NBA, complementing a star perimeter player.
While Okongwu may not have All-Star upside, I don't see much downside here. I'd be surprised if he's not a long-time starter at the center position (with the potential to play some PF if his shooting range improves.)
best fits
The most natural fits for Onyeka Okongwu mirror the best fits for James Wiseman. There’s a chance he may slip further than Wiseman too. Washington (#9) should be salivating if that’s the case.
worst fits
As a low-usage player, there aren't a lot of terrible fits for Okongwu on the board. However, Detroit (#7) already has Blake Griffin on a long-term deal and may re-sign Christian Wood as well. Given that, there wouldn't be much room for Okongwu barring a Griffin trade.
(4) PG LaMelo Ball, U.S./Australia. (LOWER than most expect rankings)
Every draft pick is an inherent gamble, but there's a difference between gambling in blackjack and gambling in Roulette. To me, LaMelo Ball is more of the latter.
No doubt, there's a chance that you may get lucky and "win big" with LaMelo Ball. He has great height for the position at 6'6"/6'7", and he makes some exceptional passes that illustrate a rare court vision. ESPN's Draft Express team ranks him as the # 1 prospect overall, and I take that seriously. Those guys were way ahead of the curve on calling Luka Doncic a transcendent talent at a time when most others were still skeptical.
At the same time, I'd say there is a sizable downside here as well. In fact, I'd estimate that there's a greater than 50/50 chance that Ball is a "bust" based on his current draft status.
LaMelo Ball put up good raw numbers this past season in the NBL -- 17.0 points, 7.6 rebounds, 6.8 assists -- but he was in a situation specifically designed for him to put up good numbers. The efficiency tells a different story, as his shooting splits (38-25-72) look worrisome. Yes, height helps on defense, but it doesn't matter much if you're not locked in on that end. And yes, highlight-reel passes and super-deep threes are fun to watch, but they're not a path to consistency on offense. As Ball makes the jump to the NBA, he may smack hard into a wall and crash into the water like was on Wipeout. There's a chance he'll be among the worst players (from an advanced stats perspective) as a rookie.
So what? We expect most rookies to struggle, right? That's true, but I'd be nervous about how LaMelo Ball and his camp would respond to those initial struggles. Again, I've never met the kid and have no real basis for this, but media interviews make him seem a little immature. That's totally understandable for a 19 year old, but it's not ideal for a 19 year old who's about to get handed the keys to an NBA franchise. If he struggles out of the gates, will he start to lose confidence? Will LaVar Ball start to make waves? Will the media gleefully tear him to shreds? No clue. And if I'm picking in the top 3, I'd prefer to have more confidence than question marks.
best fits
If we treat LaMelo Ball as a developmental project, then I'd prefer he land with a team like Chicago (#4). New coach Billy Donovan is a former PG himself, and spent decades working with young kids at the college level. If they slow play Ball's development, we may see the best of him down the road. Detroit (#7) also makes sense. Coach Dwane Casey has a pretty good reputation in player development himself, and he has a solid bridge PG in Derrick Rose to help buy Ball some time.
worst fits
Cleveland (#5) is an obviously wonky fit based on the current roster. I'd also assert that Charlotte (#3) is a poor fit as well. While the team desperately needs a signature star, they don't have the type of supporting cast that would be conducive to him right now. And if he struggles as a rookie, then coach James Borrego and the whole front office may be cleaned out. If that happens, a new administration would be inheriting a franchise player that they didn't pick in the first place.
(5) SF/PF Deni Avdija, Israel
The NBA tends to be reactionary when it comes to the draft, which can be particularly impactful for international prospects. Their stock tends to swing up and down more violently than a ride at Action Park. There was a ton of skepticism about Euros when Dirk Nowitzki came along. When he hit, the NBA got so excited they drafted Darko Milicic at # 2. Eventually that excitement wore off as the busts started to pile up again. But when Latvian Kristaps Porzingis looked like the real deal, it helped reverse that narrative and helped Dragan Bender go # 4 the following year.
In terms of that up-and-down timing, Deni Avdija stands to benefit. He's coming into the NBA on the heels of an incredible sophomore campaign from Luka Doncic. No one thinks that Avdija can be a superstar like Doncic, but teams aren't as wary of international wings (specifically white wings) these days. Avdija should go somewhere in the top 10 if not the top 5.
In my mind, that's justified. He's 6'9", which should allow him to play either the SF or PF positions. He hasn't shown to be an excellent shooter yet, but he should eventually be solid there. He's better suited as a playmaker and passer, and he can also use his size and skill to convert on slashes around the rim. I've seen some comparisons to Lamar Odom before, although that may be optimistic. More likely, he'll be a 4th or 5th starter. His experience as a pro should help toward that end, as he's used to working hard and fitting in on a team of vets.
best fits
If you project Deni Avdija to just "fit in" and be a solid starter, then he'd make sense on a team like Golden State (#2). He could effectively play the role of Harrison Barnes or old Andre Iguodala for them. If the intention is to make him more of a featured player, then the Knicks (#8) would be interesting. In that market, he has real star potential.
worst fits
I don't love the fit for Avdija in Charlotte (#3), where he may duplicate some of P.J. Washington's talents. Atlanta (#6) and Phoenix (#10) have also invested in young SF-PFs recently, so Avdija may find himself scraping for time there.
(6) SG/SF Devin Vassell, Florida State (HIGHER than most expert rankings)
Every single NBA team needs 3+D wings. They thirst for them like a dying man in the desert. And then, when a legitimate 3+D wing comes along, they often ignore them in favor of splashier players at other positions.
Part of the issue is that low-usage 3+D wings aren't going to put up monster stats. That's certainly true of Devin Vassell, who averaged a modest 12.7 points this past year. Still, you have to go deeper than the pure numbers alone and consider the context. Florida State had a stacked and balanced team. In fact, Vassell's 12.7 PPG was the highest on the roster (and came in only 28.8 minutes.) There's more in the tank here than we've seen so far. He can hit the three (42% and 42% from deep in his two years), and he shows a good feel for the game (2:1 assist/turnover ratio.)
Vassell shows even more potential on the defensive end. He's currently listed at 6'7" with a 6'10" wingspan, but he looks even longer than that to my eye. He's tenacious and disruptive (1.4 steals, 1.0 blocks) without being out of control. Presumably, he should be a good defender at either the SG or SF spot.
In a sense, Vassell's the prototype for a 3+D wing. To be fair, I don't anticipate him being a great shooter at the next level. His FT% was iffy, and he's apparently been tweaking his shot during the draft process. Still, if he can be a viable shooting threat in the way that Josh Richardson is (an inconsistent shooter who averages around 36%), then he should be a solid starter for an NBA team. That may not sound like something worthy of a top 5 pick, but the high "floor" helps him in this case. He also appears to have a strong character and work ethic, making him feel like an even safer bet.
best fits
Devin Vassell's skill set would fit on virtually any NBA roster -- but his perceived lack of upside may keep him from going as high as my personal ranking. If he does, then Cleveland (#5) would be a nice fit given their lack of big wings and their lack of defense. Defensive-challenged Washington (#9) would also make sense; Vassell tends to be listed as a SG but he should have enough size to play the SF for them.
worst fits
You can never have too many 3+D wings, but it may be a duplication to put Devin Vassell on the same team with Mikal Bridges in Phoenix (#10).
(7) PG Tyrese Haliburton, Iowa State
One of the reasons I'd have to be specific about a fit with a player like LaMelo Ball is that he needs the ball in his hands to maximize his potential. That's true for most lead guards.
Given that, it's a nice change of pace to see a prospect like Tyrese Haliburton come along. He's listed as a PG and he can perform those duties. This past season, he averaged 15.2 points and 6.5 assists per game. But he ALSO can operate as an off-the-ball player. As a freshman, he did exactly that, effectively working as a wing player and a glue guy on offense. His three-point shot looks wonky, but he converted 43% as a freshman and 42% as a sophomore. If that translates, he can be an effective spacer as well.
Haliburton's versatility also extends to the defensive end. He's 6'5" with an incredible 7'0" wingspan, allowing him to guard either PG or SGs. Like Devin Vassell, he also puts those tools to good use. Either one is an incredible athlete, but they're disruptive and locked in on that end. I'd expect Haliburton to be one of the better guard defenders in the NBA.
All in all, you may ask: why isn't this guy ranked HIGHER? The skill set would justify that. At the end of the day I don't see elite upside here (maybe George Hill?) because he may have some trouble getting his shot off in a halfcourt offense. Still, he's one of the safer prospects overall and a kid that you'd feel good betting on.
best fits
The New York Knicks (#8) may bring in a big-name guard like Chris Paul and Russell Westbrook, but if they stick with the rebuild then Tyrese Haliburton makes loads of sense. He can share playmaking duties with R.J. Barrett, and he can help Tom Thibodeau establish a defensive culture. He'd also make sense for Detroit (#7) and even Atlanta (#6). While the Hawks have Trae Young locked in at PG, Haliburton can play enough SG to justify 30+ overall minutes.
worst fits
Obviously any team that doesn't have room for a PG OR SG would be a problem here. Cleveland (#5) and Washington (#9) are the clearest examples of that. While Haliburton could theoretically guard some SFs, it's not the best use of his talent.
(8) PG Killian Hayes, France
If NBA centers are like NFL running backs, then point guards / lead playmakers may be like quarterbacks. There's positive and negatives to that comparison. Obviously, a good lead guard can immediately boost your team. At the same time, you don't really need more than one. And if you're not "the guy," then your impact is going to be limited.
Given that, there's a high bar to being a starting PG in the NBA. You have to be really, really friggin' good. According to many experts, Killian Hayes is exactly that. Physically he's what you want in the position, with a 6'5" frame. He averaged 16.8 points and 7.8 assists per 36 playing in Germany this year for a team that had a few former pros like Zoran Dragic. The Ringer has him # 1 overall.
Personally, I haven't completely bought into that hype yet. I can't claim to have season tickets to Ratiopharm Ulm, but when I watch highlights I don't really see ELITE traits here. He's not incredibly explosive, he's not a great shooter, he's over-reliant on his left hand. I have no doubt that he has the upside to be a good starter, but I don't think we've seen enough (or at least, I haven't) to make me confident in that projection.
best fits
Chicago (#4) and Detroit (#7) appear to be the most obvious fits for a potential star guard like Killian Hayes. And while the Knicks may have been underwhelmed by a French PG before, he would make sense for them at #8 as well.
worst fits
Teams with lead guards locked in -- Golden State (#2), Cleveland (#5), for example -- would be obviously problematic fits for Hayes. While he has the size to play some shooting guard defensively, he has a ways to go before he's a sharpshooting spacer.
(9) SG/SF Aaron Nesmith, Vanderbilt (HIGHER than most expert rankings)
Back when I was single, I dated a girl who presumably viewed me as a "developmental prospect." She'd always tell me how cool I'd look if I got some new jeans. How hot I'd be if I lost some weight. After a while, reality set in. It ain't happening, honey. What you see is what you get. The whole transformation idea may have worked with Chris Pratt, but it's not going to work with schlubby ol' Zandrick Ellison.
Sometimes it feels like NBA teams view prospects in the same delusional way. Josh Jackson can be a superstar -- if he develops his shot! Isaac Okoro can be a great pick -- if he becomes a great shooter! IF IF IF. We tend to forget that it's not that easy for a leopard to change his spots or for a player to suddenly develop a shooting stroke. It may have worked with Kawhi Leonard, but it's not working with most players.
Given that, we should value players who already have developed that skill. Aaron Nesmith is one of the best shooters in the draft -- right here, right now. He shot 52% from three and 83% from the line this past season. There's a sample size issue there (he only played 14 games prior to injury), but his shooting form looks fluid and suggests that he should be a legitimate 38-40% shooter from deep. While Nesmith isn't a great athlete or defender, his 7'0" wingspan should help him hang at either the SG or SF spots. All in all, we're talking about a player who should be a starter, or at the very least a high-level rotational player.
best fits
Aaron Nesmith isn't going to put a team on his back, but he can help carry the load offensively given his shooting ability. That should make him a good fit for a team like New Orleans (#13) as they look to replace J.J. Redick down the road. He'd also be an excellent fit with Orlando (#16) as they eye more shooters/scorers.
worst fits
It's hard to find a bad fit for a good shooting wing, but there are a few teams that may not have starting positions available. Phoenix (#10) already has Devin Booker and a few solid young SFs. Sacramento (#12) already has Buddy Hield and Bogdan Bogdanovic (presuming they retain them.)
(10) PG/SG R.J. Hampton, U.S/N.Z. (HIGHER than most expert rankings)
After that rant about delusions of grandeur with development prospects, let me try and talk you into a raw developmental prospect.
Like LaMelo Ball, R.J. Hampton went to play in the NBL during his gap year after high school. They were both top 10 prospects going in, but their stocks diverged from there. LaMelo Ball put up big numbers and locked himself into top 3 status. Hampton didn't showcase much (8.8 points per game on 41-30-68 shooting splits) and may drop out of the lottery altogether. But again, I'd caution us to consider context here. LaMelo Ball went to a bad team where he could jack up shots. Hampton played on a contending team that didn't spoon-feed him minutes.
Given that limited sample, I'm falling back on the "eye test" here. No doubt, Hampton's shot is a problem. He's a poor shooter now, and it may be 2-3 years before he straightens it out. At the same time, his size and explosion jumps out at you, particularly when he's attacking the basket. He also appears to be a mature and charismatic young man. That combo -- physical talent + basketball character -- tends to be a winning formula. There's some chance Hampton turns out to be a genuine star as a scoring lead guard. There's also a sizable chance he busts. Still, it's the type of gamble that teams in the late lottery should be considering.
best fits
In a PG-rich class, it'd be bold for Detroit (#8) to reach on R.J. Hampton. Still, he would fit there, as the team could groom him behind Derrick Rose for another year or two until he's ready to take over for major minutes. Any team that can afford him the luxury of patience would be a nice landing spot, even if it means going later in the draft to places like Boston (#14, #26) or Utah (#23.)
worst fits
I'd be less bullish on R.J. Hampton in situations where he may have to play early and take his lumps. The N.Y. Knicks (#8) have struggled to develop point guards Frank Ntilkina and Dennis Smith already, and a new coaching staff doesn't make those concerns go away. Hampton would also have lower upside on teams that already have scoring guards locked in, like Sacramento (#12) or Portland (#16).
(11) PF Obi Toppin, Dayton (LOWER than most expert rankings)
When Obi Toppin sees the list of names ahead of him, he should be stewing with rage. He's arguably the most productive player on the entire board. This past season at Dayton, he averaged 20.0 points on 63% shooting from the field. He's a good athlete and dunker, and he even hit 39% of his threes. At 6'9", he's a natural PF but he could theoretically play some SF or C too if need be. What else does a guy need to do to go in the top 5??
But while Toppin checks all the boxes on paper, I'm a little more skeptical. In fact, he reminds me a lot of Arizona PF Derrick Williams, who went # 2 in the 2011 draft. Many pundits thought Williams was the best player in the class, fresh on the heels of an awesome sophomore season that saw him average 19.5 points per game on 60% shooting and 57% (!) from three. The trouble is: Williams benefited from a small sample size from 3 that year (74 total). And while he was athletic in the dunking sense, he didn't have the hip movement to guard 3s or 4s effectively.
We see some of the same traits play out here with Toppin. He dominated this past season as a (22 year old) sophomore. Still, I'm doubtful that his three-point shooting is as good as the numbers suggest. I'm doubtful that his run-and-dunk athleticism translates to the defensive end, where he often looks stiff when changing direction. I can see a scenario where Toppin is a scoring big in the mold of a John Collins, but it's more likely to me that he'll be a scorer off the bench instead.
best fits
While I'm cool on Obi Toppin myself, I fully admit that I could be wrong and he may just end up being Rookie of the Year. That may happen if he plays on a team like Washington (#9) where his guards will be able to take a lot of pressure off and give him good opportunities to score. Cleveland (#5) would also make some sense if they trade Kevin Love.
worst fits
If Toppin's defense is going to be bad, then he'd be a poor fit with Atlanta (#6). I also don't see much of a fit with Sacramento (#12) given the presence of Marvin Bagley III. In the long run, both may end up being smallball 5s.
(12) SF Isaac Okoro, Auburn (LOWER than most expert rankings)
We've all had this experience before. You'll go see a movie that you hear everyone rave about and you come away... underwhelmed. It's fine. It's OK. But you just don't get all the fuss about it.
Right out of that Silver Linings Playbook comes Isaac Okoro. His stats don't jump off the page: 12.9 points, 4.4 rebounds, 0.9 steals, 0.9 blocks. He's allegedly a great defensive player, but his dimensions (6'6" with a 6'8" wingspan) don't suggest "stopper." Worse yet, he's a poor shooter from distance (29% from three, 67% from the line.) The last time I got this sense of "meh-ness" was Jarrett Culver last year. I didn't understand how he went in the top 5, and I'm not going to understand how Okoro goes in the top 10 this year.
To be clear, I don't think Okoro (or Culver) is a BAD prospect, just that they're both overrated by the community. Okoro is definitely a strong kid who is active around the rim. He's a live body. He could theoretically improve his shooting and become a starter. Still, "potential starter" is not something that I want in a top 10 pick.
best fits
While I don't love Isaac Okoro myself, I can see some good fits on the board. Washington (#9) could use some thicker wings who can play solid defense. Portland (#16) is incredibly desperate for capable wings themselves.
worst fits
With Okoro, I don't necessarily think the worst fits are a matter of skill set as much as expectation. If he goes as high as Chicago (#4) or Cleveland (#5), I suspect he'll disappoint in terms of the returns and garner some resentment from the fan base.
(13) SG/SF Josh Green, Arizona
As oddly overrated as Isaac Okoro is (in my mind), Josh Green is oddly underrated. Okoro tends to go about 10 spots higher in mock drafts, but they seem nearly identical in terms of a head-to-head comparison. In fact, I had to go back and forth about which I'd rank higher. They're both good athletes for their position and should be backend starters at the next level. Okoro is thicker and better around the rim, while Green is further along as a shooter. Overall I leaned to Okoro because he had the size to match up with bigger SFs and has a little more of a bullying scorer gene in him, but it was a close race.
In fact, you can argue that Josh Green's selflessness will actually benefit him in the NBA. He's a "team guy," with an underrated passing ability and basketball IQ. The stats don't jump off the pages in that regard (2.6 assists, 1.6 turnovers), but he was also playing with a good college PG in Nico Mannion. As he moves to the NBA, he's unlikely to have the ball much either, but he projects to be an all-around glue guy who can help on both ends.
best fits
As with Isaac Okoro, Portland (#16) could be a nice landing spot for a solid wing player. And while New Orleans (#13) has a lot of athleticism already, it never hurts to have another viable wing. They tended to play small at the SG-SF spot, which hurt their defense overall. Playing Green could help them when they slide Brandon Ingram over to the 4 and Zion Williamson at the 5.
worst fits
I don't see many "bad" fits for Josh Green on the board, but you'd prefer that he went to a team that intended to make him a part of the future. Minnesota (#17) may not be able to do that if they already have Jarrett Culver and Josh Okogie. Brooklyn (#19) may not be looking for long-term projects since they're in a "win now" mode.
(14) PG Tyrell Terry, Stanford
Tyrell Terry is rocketing up draft boards on account of his stellar shooting ability (41% from 3, 89% from the line) and his better-than-expected measurement of 6'3". It's only natural that pundits would start comparing him to stud shooters like Steph Curry.
That said, not every stud shooter is Steph Curry. Some are Seth Curry. Some are Quinn Cook. There's a slight chance Terry breaks out as a good starter, but there's a better than average chance he peaks as a rotational player instead. Still, he should be an asset to a team as a spacer, particularly if they run their offense through a playmaking forward (like a LeBron James).
And in case you're wondering, no he is NOT related to Jason Terry, although some of their skill sets do overlap as scoring guards with deep range.
best fits
If we presume that Tyrell Terry can be a Seth (not Steph) type player, then adding him to Dallas (#18) makes sense. He can develop behind Seth for a year or two as he gains weight, and then help complement Luka Doncic as a spacer after that. Similarly, he makes sense for Philadelphia (#21) as well. We'd still lock Ben Simmons into the starting PG role, but Terry could play alongside him in lineups or be used as a sparkplug off the bench.
worst fits
Teams that may be eyeing Tyrell Terry as a surefire starter will have to be careful. For example, Phoenix (#10) needs an heir apparent for Ricky Rubio, but a Terry + Devin Booker combo may be problematic on the defensive end. Some other teams -- Brooklyn (#19) and Denver (#22) -- already have sharpshooter guards, so they don't have as strong of a need for this type of player.
(15) PF Aleksej Pokusevski, Serbia
We mentioned that LaMelo Ball may be the biggest boom/bust prospect in the class, likening him to gambling on Roulette. Enter Aleksej Pokusevski. "Gambling" may not even be doing it justice. This is like risking your family fortune on a bag of magic beans.
But hey, that worked for Jack, and it could work for an NBA team as well. I have a friend who works in coaching who raved about Pokusevski and considers him a top 10 prospect overall. After all, this is a legit 7'0" player with true perimeter skills. Playing for Olympiacos' development team, he averaged 16.7 points, 12.2 rebounds, 4.8 assists, 2.0 steals, and 2.8 blocks per 36 minutes. He hasn't even turned 19 years old yet, giving him an enormous amount of upside.
Still, he scares the hell out of me. He's listed at 7'0" and 200 pounds, with narrow shoulders that make you doubt how much weight he'll be able to carry in the long term. His body type doesn't remind you of any current NBA forwards; it reminds you of two kids wearing a trenchcoat.
All in all, Pokusevski seems like a great prospect to invest in, presuming you don't have to withdraw from the bank until 2023 or 2024. To that end, teams should only consider them if they feel confident in their long-term job security.
best fits
If the goal is to send Aleksej Pokusevski to a good, stable organization, then you can't do much better than San Antonio (#11). Even if Gregg Popovich retires from coaching, R.C. Buford should be around to help the next coach (Becky Hammon? Will Hardy? R.C.'s son Chase?). And if the goal is to find a good stable GM, Sam Presti and Oklahoma City (#25) would be a great home as they prepare for a long-term rebuild.
worst fits
Orlando (#15) always values length, but they have limited space left in the frontcourt and limited leg room left on that poor charter plane.
I wasn't kidding when I said this post was "overly" long. The rest of the top 20 got cut off because of a length limit. I'll try to include them in the comment section.
submitted by ZandrickEllison to nba [link] [comments]

The Case AGAINST A Harden Trade

Warning: This is a long post. TLDR at the end.
Or, more accurately, the case against trading Jaylen Brown for James Harden. Lets say the Celtics were to complete a trade for Harden involving Brown, the fundamental tension in that deal is you are trading future value for current value. Brown is 24, Harden is 31, the bet you are making is that by acquiring Harden you are getting good enough in the immediate future to win it all thus negating the likely surplus value in Brown will have over Harden in future years given his age, contract, ect. So any discussion of the deal has to start with Harden's contract situation and age.
Harden is under contract for 2 years with a player option. If he plays at his elite level the next two years at ages 31 and 32 then he's opting out an getting a new contract at age 33 where he'll be eligible for a 5 year max starting at 35% of the cap. A massive deal for his year 33-37. That is almost guaranteed to instantly be one of the worst contracts in the NBA upon signing, even if he's still very good the he's unlikely to be 45+ million dollars good even in the first year of that contract. And if he opts into the third year, it's because something went wrong in the first two (injury, decline, ect) which is not ideal. So really with Harden you're looking at a two year window after which age related decline, burdensome contract, or just plain leaving via free agency decrease his expected value significantly. Whereas after those two or three years Brown will be hitting his prime, likely still be paid less, and have several years where he will likely outperform Harden on the back end.
Now if you can win it all the next two years that might be worth it, but can you? A major factor lost in all this is it will be extremely difficult to build the team year one into a contender. You'll be acquiring Harden during the season where there will be NO practice time due to the game load. Chances to build chemistry off the court will be limited. But also the Celtics are hard-capped. A straight trade of Brown for Harden pushed you VERY close to that hard cap and into the tax. Of course it wont be a straight trade, but every asset you give up in addition to Brown hurts your ability to construct your team. If Marcus Smart is in it you lose a second starter, if he's not then one of Theis/Thompson almost has to go to make the money work (because Harden makes 18 million more than Brown), and you're likely stacking young guys + draft picks. Every player you include opens up room under the hard cap, but not that much because most those guys are making no more than 3 million and you have to replace those guys on the roster in the middle of the season which is REALLY hard to do. You may have the TPE, but again because of the hard-cap you wont have a lot of room to use it and you'll be out assets from the Harden trade making it hard to use effectively anyway. All of this is a long winded way of saying if you think the Celtics bench is bad now its gonna absolutely blow after a Harden trade.
So okay, your bench sucks. Then other problem is as good as Harden is you still arent going to have the best player is a Durant/Nets series (if he looks like he has so far this year), or a Giannis/Bucks series, or a Lakers/Lebron series, or a Clippers/Kawhi series. An you likely have to get through 3 of those 4 to win it all. "Okay, but Jaylen doesn't help you with that either!" you may say. Sure, but a Jaylen for Harden trade is shifting value to now, and the bottom line is given your bench and Hardens inherent shortcomings (i.e he is bad defensively) you arent likely good enough year one. Maybe you are if Kemba is totally healthy, but thats a BIG bet to make. And even if he is there are inherent fit issues with having three ball dominant guys on offense and a defensive backcourt of Kemba/Harden. You're probably best off trying to flip Kemba for pieces, but again that SO hard mid season.
So really your bet is that with a full offseason Ainge can build a championship bench and NEXT year is your year. Of course the team is now VERY expensive with Harden, Tatum (hopefully at the 30 percent max) and Kemba, making it hard to fill out roster (You won't have the full MLE for example). You don't know if Kemba will be healthy. Tatum will be 24 by NEXT years playoffs, so he should be hitting his stride by then but you'll also have a complete CIRCUS all year with Harden facing free agency. The last time the Celtics faced that it... didn't end well. One injury to Tatum/Harden and its complete disaster. Game over.
So what if you don't win the next two years and Harden does leave? We've certainly seen guys leave here a lot the last few years. And its not like Harden would be sticking around for Boston's superior gentlemen's clubs. Well now you have pretty much just Tatum, you've stripped at minimum a fair amount of assets off the team, and thing could get very dark. Like Tatum asking for a trade dark because the roster is now barren.
If all that is too much for you think about it this way, the best chance of winning a title is to have as many elite players peaking at their primes at the same time. The reason Tatum/Harden dont make all that much sense is an eight year difference in age all but assures that wont happen. By the time Tatum is in his prime Harden is well into decline. Tatum may not be good enough the next two years to push Harden over the top while Harden is still in his. The DREAM is to have two high level wing players in their primes at the same time. Teams will draft top 10 for a decade and never even find ONE. It seems kind of silly to me to blow up the Celtics timeline for a guy who doesn't fit it at all.
Now for a Jaylen Brown note. Its been two games, but WHAT IF Brown is closer to the guy he's been in those two games then the guy he was last year? A 6'6 freak athlete who can get his own shot at all three levels, defend 1-5, AND play-make for others. He's been their best player. He's running pick and rolls smoothly, making skip passes to the corner, and juking guys out of their shoes. If he plays at that level he's not only an all star, he'll make multiple All NBA Teams in his career. If Brown's upside in now High Level On Ball Creator and not just a Secondary Complementary Star then honestly, I think it might be crazy to trade him for a 31 year old. We dont know he's that, it's only been two games, but man thats a tantalizing possibility. It closes the gap between Brown and Harden's value in the near term, while further widening it in the longer term making the deal harder to justify.
Now all of this is just basketball reasoning, I think you also have to seriously consider the "intangibles." Harden by all accounts seems like a guy players dont really like playing with all that much. He hasn't exactly showed himself in a good light the last few weeks. Stevens didn't exactly demonstrate an ability to manage guys like that with Kyrie. What if Tatum just hates him, or doesn't like the reduced usage that comes with playing with him? Do we think Harden is truly committed to winning? If we did resign him do we think he will age well given his lifestyle of partying? Remember, we are trading an ELITE character guy for Harden, a guy who gets better every year. And just as importantly a guy we actually like as a human being. Harden can be...hard to root for.
TLDR version: I dont think Harden makes you good enough in the short term to sacrifice the longer term value of Jaylen Brown given factors such as his age, team construction, competition ect. I think there's some chance Jaylen is about to explode this year and become a true On Ball Playmaker which would close the short term value gap. And I think the intangibles make Harden a less than ideal player to make a big bet on. I'd pass.
submitted by keevsnick to bostonceltics [link] [comments]

Genuinely torn on whether to hope for this team to tank or to try and compete.

I apologize in advance as I honestly didn't mean for this post to be as long as it wound up being. I got a bit high tonight and some thoughts just came to mind about the team this year. I've been kind of conflicted rooting in both of the Charlotte games. Once the games begin I become fully invested in wanting the team to win, but during the hours in between games whenever I think about the team I start to wonder if this really is the year that the Raps should be tanking. I wonder if the short term moral victories of these few early season wins are ultimately worth it or if they are, in fact, not in the best long term interest of the club.
The Season Thus Far
This team, in an overall sense, has been about as bad as it can reasonably be through twelve games and they have a 4-8 record. Certainly, it could be worse and they have had a few breaks (good and bad), but this is definitely in the lower range of expected outcomes from this group. Few of us fans went into the season thinking that this team had any prayer of competing for a championship. I think that most of us expected somewhere between the third and sixth seed in the Eastern Conference. Most probably fifth or sixth. That's where I had them, personally.
Overall, the most disappointing performance to this point has been Baynes. I didn't expect him to be a proper replacement to Serge or Marc, but I did think that he'd wind up being at least an average NBA center who could give the team thirty or so decent minutes per night. To this point I don't think he's played that many quality minutes over the course of twelve games, but perhaps I am being too harsh.
At any rate, if that doesn't turn around to some meaningful degree or the team is unable to find someone to give them good center minutes outside of when the team has Boucher on the floor in that spot then we're stuck playing OG or Stanley at the five way too much for comfort. They and Boucher also represent the power forward depth behind Pascal and the majority of the minutes at small forward to boot (sometimes Nurse goes with a three guard lineup). That is a lot of minutes to put on those guys and it's an approach that is going to have some pretty disastrous results against certain teams and can absolutely be abused in the postseason (if the team gets there).
I don't honestly know who the team should pursue to fill this glaring roster hole at this point, but if there's a way to swing a trade involving Norm or perhaps second round picks packaged with their two new free agent centers (purely as salary filler) for somebody who is even serviceable then it should be considered. Obviously it depends who that guy is, but given that Baynes and Len have team options on the second year of these contracts they are actually pretty tradeable if someone just wants to dump an excess big man they have to pick up some extra future 2nds. It would take an incredibly impactful player to justify giving up any amount of future firsts to try and upgrade this roster as it presently stands.
Reasonable Expectations If The Center Situation is Addressed, As I See Them
This team with league average center production from a true big man is pretty good. If they were able to add someone like that then my sense is that this team is likely to go about 7-5 (on average) in each of the remaining five twelve-game "sets" in this seventy-two game season. That would make them a 39-33 team on the season. They might win a few less or a few more than that, but that's roughly the range I'd put them at.
But to get to that point you either have to make a move that will cost you something else or you have to hope that Baynes and/or Len turn it around and provide decent production going forward. That might be hard to manage and in order to reach even that modest win total I'm proposing it would need to happen SOON. If you wait another ten or twenty games to make a trade and enough positive things haven't happened with the guys who are presently on the team then there's a good chance that it's already too late for the team to bounce back and have a decent season.
Is it really worth making that kind of move right now though? Like, if this team goes 4-8 in the next twelve games then (barring an absolute miracle) any hope of a decent record will be gone anyway and the team and its fans will have already endured a lot of losing. It usually takes time to get a good deal done. Rushing to make this kind of acquisition is exactly how front offices make mistakes they come to regret. Is the season really worth salvaging? Do we think that the chances of a new big man being a massive improvement over what Baynes/Len will give the team going forward (not what they have done to this point) is high enough to make that kind of change?
Where That Leaves Us
Since before the season started I've been kind of torn on what the right course of action is. This organization has spent years trying to earn some level of respectability within the league and build a winning culture. They have a bunch of underappreciated/underdrafted guys who have become really quality NBA players over the past few seasons. Several of them have gotten paid. The team now has a well-earned reputation as a player development machine.
I am also not of the mind that it is worth giving up before the season starts on every year where you don't think you will win a championship. There is value in seeing quality basketball even in a non-contending season and in the players on your team getting to play with pride and develop/maintain winning habits. I don't feel like this should be a controversial opinion, but my sense is that many people disagree and feel that every team who isn't in contention should be eyeing any possible route to the lottery that they can.
Perhaps I am painting with too broad a brush here, but I suspect that many of those "rings or bust" people are the same folks who will turn the games off during seasons when the team isn't contending. There's nothing inherently wrong with that, but I'm not one of those people. I watch every game that I can regardless of how good the team is because it's just fun to watch basketball and have a rooting interest. This naturally is going to give me a different perspective.
On the other hand they are definitely another star player (and some additional roster tweaking to find that aforementioned big man) from being a true contender. They need an elite player. I believe in this team's ability to turn many fringy NBA guys into useful players, but it's pretty difficult to manufacture a superstar talent. Getting a guy like that outside of the lottery does happen (look at Kawhi or Jimmy Butler, for example), but it tends to involve a lot of luck. Most teams who get a guy like that when questioned will say something to the effect of "Well, we liked him a lot and thought he would improve, but we honestly didn't realize he could be THIS good."
I don't think the book is completely closed on Pascal being a really excellent All-NBA or near All-NBA talent for quite a few years to come, but even as a big believer in him I still think that we need another guy who is at least as good as him. Even I don't think that he's such a transcendent star that we can win a title with him as the best player on this team. He's got a ton of virtues as a defender and his playmaking really does seem much improved this year, but he's just not a dynamic enough scorer to be a star on a championship level team without a really gifted go-to scorer at his side. When he isn't the focus of the other team's defence then the things that he does well on offence are given room to shine. When a quality defensive team keys in on him as the Raptors' primary scorer he hasn't demonstrated enough versatility as an offensive player to carry his team on that end. Again, he may yet, but he hasn't to this point.
The Path Forward
So how does this team give themselves the best chance at acquiring a superstar? Giannis was worth a shot, but that ship has sailed. The best thing to do now is to try and get lottery picks in this and next years' drafts. Both years are going to be absolutely loaded with high ceiling prospects. The future of the league, four or five years from now, might well be decided in these next two drafts.
I believe that this team can draft well and develop players well so two lottery picks in the next two years combined with some good roster tweaks and the decent core of "young vets" on this team could make them contenders again sooner than we think. Intellectually, this feels like the right way to go. You communicate with Lowry and get his honest feelings about being traded. You try to work out a deal that sends him to a contender for salary filler and a first round pick in 2022 or 2023. You don't want that pick this coming season because whatever team Kyle goes to is probably going to be pretty great already and he'll only make them better.
The problem is that even without Kyle I have a weird gut feeling that the Raps would rise to the occasion and be just good enough to wind up in the play-in tournament or lower down in the lottery in terms of odds at a high pick. They have some glaring holes, but they also have more "good" players than many other teams out there and some continuity and good coaching. It's hard to see, barring injury, this team being a total lost cause.
So what do you do if you're the front office? Do you trade Lowry basically for future assets or bet on the team finding their form or a good big at a price you can stomach?
It honestly seems like a hard decision to me and that makes it hard as a fan to know what to hope for. Maybe the right solution is what I'm already doing: rooting for the Raps during the games and then rationalizing the losses as a good thing for the long term future of the team.
What do you guys think (aside from this post was way longer than it needed to be)?
TL;DR It's hard to know what to do with this club. They may be too good to really tank in a real sense and wind up with a top five pick, but they're also clearly deficient in some important areas and would likely be well-served by getting a couple of lottery picks the next two years. I also watch every game that I can regardless of how good the team is so I still see value in getting to watch good basketball with a rooting interest in a non-contending year.
One other thing I didn't consider until just now is the notion that if the team trades Lowry then I could assume a temporary fandom of whatever team he is on for this season. Similar to what some Grizzlies fans did with Gasol after he was traded to the Raps two years ago. Maybe that is a silver lining in what would be a hard trade to make.
submitted by nicktherogue to torontoraptors [link] [comments]

Jaren Jackson Jr.'s Potential: Future Bust or MVP?

Recently there was a post in the Grizzlies subreddit asking if anyone was concerned with Jaren Jackson Jr.
As a Jare Bear (yeah, I'm sticking with it) stan, I vented my rage and ample quarantine time into researching and writing this manifesto.
Enjoy my ramblings.
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Jaren Jackson Jr. A young, ‘unicorn’ big man who’s floor stretching ability and defensive potential combine to make him one of the more tantalizing prospects in the NBA. Though a bit overshadowed by his electric teammate, Ja Morant, and his draft class contemporaries Luka Doncic, and Trae Young, I personally find him to be one of the most, if not THE most intriguing young player in the league. Having just turned 21, Jaren only has the briefest of exposures to the NBA. His unique skill set flashes the potential of a long, great career, a path that he was set on from an early age.
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Pre NBA Life
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Son of a former NBA Champion shooting guard, a young Jaren spent his early basketball life learning how to play like a guard; shooting from the perimeter and handling the ball, things that Sr had experience leveraging into a successful NBA career. This skill set combined with a late growth spurt in high school from 6’5 to 6’10 quickly turned Jaren into a top 10 national prospect. Leading his team to 2 Indiana state tournament wins led him to continuing his career as a 17 year old freshman at Michigan State.
Playing with an upperclassmen laden front court meant Jaren didn’t get starter level minutes in college, but he made the most of his 22 minutes per game putting up an impressively efficient 11 points on 65% True Shooting, making a little over 1 three a game at nearly 40% from 3, and adding 6 rebounds and an absurd 3 blocks on top of that. It wasn’t all perfect though, as another factor of his limited minutes was his issues with fouling, something that has followed him into his current NBA career.
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Coming to the Grizzlies
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After a depressing season lost to injury in 2017-18, the Grizzlies silver lining was the opportunity to draft in the top 5 of a draft class that might go down as one of the greatest in NBA history when all is said and done. Looking to reload for one last run, the Grizzlies took a bit of a bet on Jaren’s defensive upside and potential floor stretching ability, something they felt would pair nicely alongside Mike Conley and Marc Gasol. There was some grumbling among Grizz fans at going with what appeared to be a higher risk player that had rumors of not wanting to work out with Memphis.
Jaren debuted in a Grizzlies jersey against the Hawks in a Summer League game where in just 23 minutes he put up 29 points. He made more 3’s in a single game than any player in a Grizzly uniform since Mike Miller in the 2007/08 season. As a fanbase desperate for a shooting, Jackson became an overnight sensation.
The optimism was a bit premature, and things would again not go the Grizzlies way in the regular season. After a less than promising start to the season, ownership felt it was finally time to move on from the last traces of the ‘Grit and Grind’ Grizzlies that had dominated Memphis sports culture for nearly a decade. Jaren made the most of his time under Mike and Marc until around the all star break, when Gasol left for the Raptors and Jaren went down with an injury that held him out for the remainder of the season. Prior to his injury, Jaren had established himself as a promising young talent that blended a good sense on defense, with an offense that did indeed include 3 point shooting potential. Due to youth, inexperience, and continued foul trouble woes from his college days, Jaren averaged just 26.1 minutes per game despite starting in 56 of the 58 games played that year.
Similar to his freshman college experience, Jaren made good use of his rather limited play time to contribute efficiently on both ends of the floor, posting nearly 14 points on 59.1% TS, while adding around 5 rebounds, an assist, a steal, and a block and half per game. He flashed pretty much everything that was hoped at the time of the draft; a solid, mobile front court defender, with the ability to chip in a made 3 a game. He was a member of the rookie first team, the rising stars challenge, and outside of a disappointing final team record, had a rather successful rookie season.
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Grizz Next Gen
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Everything changed when the 2019 offseason attacked. One draft lottery miracle, one 30 year old first time GM, one trade of a decade long franchise cornerstone, and one 36 year old first time head coach later, though Jaren would still be the youngest player on his team coming into the 2019-20 season, quite literally everything else about his situation had changed. At just 20 years old Jaren was the second longest tenured member of the Grizzlies roster, behind Grizzlies 2018 2nd round draft pick Dillon Brooks who missed the majority of Jaren’s rookie season with an early season ending injury.
In a flurry of free agency moves and draft signings, the Grizzlies entered the 2019-20 season with 3rd youngest roster in the league, and optimistically curious fans that were interested to see whether or not their new star point guard was the real deal, and if Ja and Jaren together could be the next great chapter in Memphis basketball.
It took just 3 games for Ja Morant to make his mark on the league, Putting up 30 points and 9 assists with the buzzer beating block on Kyrie and the overtime buzzer beating assist to Jae Crowder for his first ever NBA win. Over the course of the season Ja continued to prove himself as the leader of a young Grizzlies team, and surprised the league by almost bringing them to the playoffs in just his rookie season. Though incredibly talented and able to drag the Grizzlies to some wins single handedly, Ja alone was not enough to get the Grizzlies into the first round after Jaren suffered an injury early on in the bubble. This isn’t a knock against Ja of course, but it does lead one to ask what exactly Jaren brings to the table as a 2nd option next to Ja and what the future might hold for them together as teammates.
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Jaren's 2nd Season
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Unlike his rookie teammate, Jaren’s 2019-20 season was fairly under the radar. As a small market that was a bubble playoff team, it's understandable that not a ton of media time got spent covering the Grizzlies, and if it was it was usually focused on Ja’s incredible highlights. As a result, not many outside of the Grizzlies fan base are aware of just how unique his recent season was, or how it compares to some players you might not have considered.
Jaren Jackson Jr. didn’t just have a good season shooting the 3 ball compared to other bigs, he had a good season compared to ALL 3 point shooters in the league, and did it at a younger age than anyone in NBA history when looking at both his volume and efficiency.
This past season at just 20 years old, Jaren Jackson Jr. scored 17.4 points on 59.3% true shooting, to go along with 4.6 boards, 1.4 assists, 0.7 steals, and 1.6 blocks in 28.5 minutes per game. Despite it being his second season in the league, he is still the youngest player in NBA history to play at least 1000 minutes in a season and score at least 17 points per game on 59% true shooting or better. This is largely a result of the extreme shift his offense has seen since his rookie season.
In Jaren’s rookie season, his shot selection was fairly typical of a modern big that will step out to the three point line on occasion. For the season he took roughly 75% of his shots from 2, and 25% of his shots from 3. Breaking down his 2 point field goals further, he took around a third of his total shots right at the rim, and a third of his shots in the rest of the paint, with only 10% of his shots coming from the midrange.
Things changed drastically for JJJ’s offense in 2019. A new analytically minded front office and a young head coach willing to try new things looked at Jaren’s shot chart from his rookie year, and trimmed all the fat. They saw a player with legitimate volume 3 point shooting and decided to run with it.
Going from a roughly 75/25 split in the previous season, in 2019-20 the breakdown was almost even split, with 368 of his 753 shot attempts coming from behind the 3 point line. Overall, Jaren took a little less than a quarter of his shots within 3 feet of the basket, a similar amount from 3 to 10 feet, just 4% of his shots in the midrange, and everything else from 3. From 0.9 made 3’s on 2.4 attempts his rookie season (35.9%), his volume shot up to 2.5 made 3’s on 6.5 attempts his 2nd year (39.4%).
As with his overall scoring and efficiency, Jaren is record setting in his youth combined with his 3 point shooting and efficiency. Only 2 players in NBA history have averaged 2.5 made 3’s a game at 20 years old or younger. Luka Doncic this same season scored 2.8 3’s on 8.9 attempts per game. Like fellow draft class player Trae Young, he has taken the ‘James Harden’ approach to 3 point shooting where instead of having elite efficiency, he instead ‘brute forces’ 3 point attempts, taking them often in isolation off of dribble moves and from extreme range, resulting in him only shooting 31.6% from 3. Though making a slightly lower, 2.5 3’s a game, Jaren’s 39.4% efficiency dwarfs Luka’s.
Only 6 players 20 years old or younger have made at least 100 3’s in a season at 39% or better:
Jayson Tatum, Mike Miller, Bradley Beal, Kyrie Irving, Collin Sexton, and Jaren Jackson Jr. who leads the group in 3 point attempts per game.
You would think that for a 7 ft power forward to shoot with that kind of efficiency they would need to be mostly catch and shoot open 3’s, or maybe mostly at the shorter corner spots, but no, like his elite 3 point shooting guard and small forward contemporaries, Jaren is simply good at shooting in a variety of ways under all sorts of pressure.
Spot ups, off the dribble, from all spots around the arc, from absurd range, in isolation, heavily contested, there isn’t a shot that Jaren is afraid of taking. Jaren has put up great efficiency shooting in all sorts of scenarios this past season. His greatest strength and one he utilizes often is his ability to shoot coming around screens.
A little over half his 3 point makes (74/145) involved Jaren moving prior to the shot, in the form of coming off or around screens, trailing in the half court, dribble moves in isolation, or step backs. He can get his feet set and has a lightning quick release, so even though the release is low he is incredibly effective at getting his shot off.
Simply put, it is arguable Jaren Jackson Jr. has been better at 3 point shooting at a younger age than any other player in NBA history. I don’t think he’ll ever attempt 15 3’s a game like Steph Curry, just that through this point of his career Jaren has displayed a talent never before seen in the history of the league from someone so young. And that’s without considering the fact he is nearly 7 feet tall barefoot.
This elite shooting has defenses scrambling when it comes to guarding Jaren. He utilizes the threat of his elite shooting to blow by overreaching defenders, taking advantage of his rare height and athleticism combination to get past defenders and get good shots in the paint or free throws from a defender that collapses too late.
His age does tend to show here, and he will sometimes seem to hesitate or make the wrong move and end up in no man’s land a bit too far from the basket where his efficiency drops significantly. Shooting roughly a quarter of his shots from within 3 feet, he connects on a highly efficient 70.8% of his shots. But outside that in the 3-10 ft. range, another area where he shoots from about 25% of the time, his efficiency plummets to 40.6%.
Though this does bring his overall 2 point field goal percentage down to 54%, the silver lining is that it shows that there’s room for growth, and that Jaren can potentially improve his already incredible efficiency just through natural growth and experience. If he can avoid foul trouble and increase both his minutes and usage, Jaren may actually have the potential to be an elite volume scoring player that can lead a playoff team in points.
I feel this idea was mostly strongly supported by Jaren’s brief run in the bubble, where in all 3 games he showed notable growth over the player he was 4 months prior at the start of Covid. With 8 games and playoff aspirations on the line, the Grizzlies shifted into a more playoff style rotation, and with Jaren’s fouling toned down a little bit he managed to average 37 minutes per game compared to his sub 30 minute average for the season.
In those 37 minutes Jaren saw a bump in both his attempts and his efficiency, upping his shot attempts from 13.2 to 17.3. Continuing to optimize his offense, the majority of his additional 4.1 field goal attempts went to his 3 point shooting, where he upped his attempts from 6.5 to 9.3 per game, a rate that would tie him with Devonte Graham at 7th most 3 pointers attempted per game this season.
This is obviously a small sample size, and his 3 point efficiency did drop to 35.7% over the 3 games, but it was also a ‘proof of concept:’ Jaren’s increased 3 point attempts pulled defenders even further out of the paint than they might have ventured during the season, which a slightly bigger and more experienced Jaren Jackson Jr took advantage of with great results.
Though only increasing his 2 point field goal attempts from 6.8 to 8.0 per game in an additional 8.5 minutes of play time, his improved ability and easier time getting to the rim meant that his efficiency jumped from just 54% to 62.5%, increasing his points per game by 2.6 with just 1.2 more shot attempts. Combine that fact with unprepared defenses sending Jaren to the line more than twice as often (3.3 FTA season average vs. 6.7 FTA bubble average), over the 3 games Jaren averaged 25.3 points on 62.5% true shooting.
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Jaren’s Potential
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Unfortunately a small meniscus tear took him down before we got the chance to see if the trend would continue. But with the timetable for his return to health likely lining up with the start of next season in December, we may finally get to see if Bubble Jaren’s offense is the real deal or not.
Coach Taylor Jenkins is from the BudenholzePopovich coaching tree, and as a result tends to keep his rotations deep and the minutes spread, so it’s unlikely Jaren will see 37 minutes a game in the regular season. But if he can limit some of his fouling issues and increase his play time up to about 33 minutes, hopefully he could split the difference a bit and increase his overall volume and free throw attempts, improve his 2 point percentage, without such a large drop in his 3 point percentage.
Predicting the future of a player is hard, especially a player who’s statistical accomplishments are so unprecedented. A large part of orchestrating an NBA offense is deciding how many shots each player on the floor is going to get. Coaches want the most efficient players to get the most shots, and as a result usually give a majority of the shots to older more established players that have more efficient offensive games.
Of all 529 NBA players in the 2019-20 season, only 70 were able to get at least 10 shots a game on above 55% true shooting average while playing half at least 41 games. This group of 70 essentially makes up every key player in the NBA. If you normally follow 1 specific team for a majority of the season, these might be all the players from other teams you could name off the top of your head.
As you would imagine, the majority of these players are in their ‘prime’ years, with about 70% of them between the ages of 23 and 30. A player being 20 or younger in this category is rare, with their only being 3 such players this season: Luka Doncic, Ja Morant, and Jaren Jackson Jr. In fact, a player 20 years old or younger has met these benchmarks only 24 times since the NBA added the 3 point line.
(20 Year Old Key Player List by fga/poss)
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Player FGA per 100 Poss. Age MPG FGA FTA TS% 3PA 3P%
Luka Doncic 29.6 20 33.6 20.6 9.2 58.5 8.9 31.6
Kyrie Irving 27.2 20 34.7 18.1 4.9 55.3 4.7 39.1
LeBron James 26.6 20 42.4 21.1 8.0 55.4 3.9 35.1
Kyrie Irving 25.2 19 30.5 14.6 3.8 56.6 3.6 39.9
Kevin Durant 24.7 20 39.0 18.8 7.1 57.7 3.1 42.2
Anthony Davis 22.2 20 35.2 15.0 6.6 58.2 0.1 22.2
Karl-Anthony Towns 22.1 20 32.0 14.1 3.4 59.0 1.1 34.1
Jaren Jackson Jr. 21.7 20 28.5 13.2 3.3 59.3 6.5 39.4
Shaquille O'Neal 21.2 20 37.9 16.1 8.9 58.4 0.0 0.0
Ja Morant 21.1 20 31.0 14.0 4.6 55.6 2.7 33.5
Marvin Bagley 21.0 19 25.3 11.4 4.2 56.2 1.5 31.3
Lauri Markkanen 20.8 20 29.7 12.7 2.4 55.2 5.9 36.2
Chris Webber 20.6 20 32.1 13.6 4.7 55.9 0.2 0.0
Jamal Murray 20.5 20 31.7 13.1 3.1 57.6 5.4 37.8
Tyler Herro 20.4 20 27.4 11.5 1.8 55.0 5.4 38.9
Anthony Davis 19.9 19 28.8 10.6 3.5 55.9 0.1 0.0
Jaren Jackson Jr. 19.3 19 26.1 10.2 3.4 59.1 2.4 35.9
Deandre Ayton 19.0 20 30.7 12.3 2.7 60.8 0.1 0.0
Brook Lopez 18.0 20 30.5 10.3 2.6 56.8 0.0 0.0
Eric Gordon 17.5 20 34.3 11.6 4.5 59.3 4.3 38.9
Jayson Tatum 17.1 19 30.5 10.4 3.2 58.6 3.0 43.4
Myles Turner 17.1 20 31.4 10.7 3.7 58.5 1.4 34.8
Dwight Howard 15.9 20 36.8 10.7 7.3 56.5 0.0 0.0
Magic Johnson 15.7 20 36.3 12.3 6.0 60.2 0.4 22.6
Compared to the others on this list, Jaren is just the 3rd to have his name appear twice, joining Anthony Davis and Kyrie Irving as the only 2 players to be highly efficient ‘key’ offensive players in both their age 19 and age 20 seasons. Of the 24 seasons that fit the criteria, Jaren’s 2019-20 Season ranks 12th in points per game at 17.4, while being tied for 3rd overall in efficiency at 59.3% true shooting. His 6.5 3PA per game is 2nd overall, and his 39.4 3P% is 4th overall, while averaging 4th fewest minutes amongst players listed.
For the purpose of predicting Jaren’s growth as an offensive player, these are essentially his peers. By looking at players that took a similar number of shot attempts per 100 possessions at his same age on a similar efficiency, we can see what type of increase in offensive load they saw going into their age 21 season. If we apply a similar increase to Jaren’s shot attempts while also increasing his minutes per game, we can get a rough idea of how many shots Jaren might take in an average game next season.
The players shooting at a similar rate to Jaren saw roughly a 10% increase in both their shots per possession, and free throws per possession. If Jaren see’s similar growth to the other players around him on this list, and is able to increase his minutes to about 33 per game by improving his conditioning and reducing his fouls, he should be able to get up to around 17 field goal attempts per game next year, and 4.2 free throw attempts.
If like this season he has about a 50/50 split between his 2 point and 3 point attempts, and if he shoots at his career averages from each area on the floor and free throws, that would have him scoring 22.3 points per game on 59.2% true shooting. If he were to reach those marks he would likely be in elite company, with only 10 players this past season scoring at least 22 points on 59% true shooting or better while playing in a majority of games.
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Player Age MPG PPG TS%
Damian Lillard 29 37.5 30.0 62.7
James Harden 30 36.5 34.3 62.6
Devin Booker 23 35.9 26.6 61.8
Trae Young 21 35.3 29.6 59.5
Anthony Davis 26 34.4 26.1 61.0
DeMar DeRozan 30 34.1 22.1 60.3
Karl-Anthony Towns 24 33.9 26.5 64.2
Kyrie Irving 27 32.9 27.4 59.5
Giannis Antetokounmpo 25 30.4 29.5 61.3
Joel Embiid 25 29.5 23.0 59.0
Though I feel my methodology is sound, it still feels like it might be an optimistic expectation when compared to history. Only 6 players have ever scored so much, so efficiently, over the course of a season at the age of 21. Trae Young this past season, Karl Anthony Towns in 16-17, Anthony Davis in 14-15, Kevin Durant in 08-09, Shaq in 93-94, and rookie Michael Jordan. If Jaren does manage to reach this list next season, it may all but confirm his potential to become one of the most offensively dominant players in NBA history.
However, all 6 of those players have completely different styles of offense, so it’s a bit hard to determine if Jaren’s offense has the same kind of potential. It's also far removed from the expectations he had coming into the league, when he was mostly valued for his defense and was viewed as having a Chris Bosh type offense.
So to try and find players with play styles similar to Jaren’s, I narrowed some of the search filters on to players above 6’10, and lowered the efficiency benchmark to just 50% TS to hopefully get as many players in league history that have played like Jaren, even if they weren’t as efficient at it due to old offenses not driven by analytics.
I know volume 3 point shooting is a recent trend, especially for big men in particular, so I also set a filter for players that attempted at least 1 3 a game, on at least 35.8% (current league average) 3 point shooting. They might not shoot as many 3’s as Jaren, but I assumed traditional NBA offenses would have their bigs shooting more mid range shots, and if they at least attempted a 3 every game it would imply they shoot a significant number of shots close to the 3 point line.
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Player Age MPG PPG FGA TS% 3PA 3P%
Jaren Jackson Jr. 19 26.1 13.8 10.2 59.1 2.4 35.9
Jaren Jackson Jr. 20 28.5 17.4 13.2 59.3 6.5 39.4
Lauri Markkanen 20 29.7 15.2 12.7 55.2 5.9 36.2
Lamar Odom 20 36.4 16.6 13.5 52.1 2.2 36.0
Kevin Durant 20 39.0 25.3 18.8 57.7 3.1 42.2
Lauri Markkanen 21 32.3 18.7 15.3 55.3 6.4 36.1
Danilo Gallinari 21 33.9 15.1 11.4 57.5 6.0 38.1
Dirk Nowitzki 21 35.8 17.5 13.6 56.4 3.7 37.9
Karl-Anthony Towns 21 37.0 25.1 18.0 61.8 3.4 36.7
Dario Saric 21 29.6 14.6 11.4 58.2 5.1 39.3
A fairly interesting mix of players, with one you might not have expected in Lamar Odom, a few solid modern forward bigs in Saric, Gallinari, and Markkanen, a modern center that has had a great start to his career in Towns, and some all time great forwards in Dirk Nowitzki and Kevin Durant.
A positive sign, Jaren is notably the youngest player on this list (tied with Durant at 20 as well as the only player to do it at age 19 his rookie year), and though in the lower middle of the pack in terms of field goal attempts per game (6th), he is 2nd in TS% at 59.3%, 2nd in 3P% at 39.4% (Kevin Durant had his career best mark his 2nd year), and 1st in 3PA/G at 6.5, all while playing the fewest minutes per game.
A side note here. I know Jaren’s rebounding is a fairly big concern of a lot of fans. If you look at all of these players who Jaren has a lot in common with, you will notice that rebounding rate appears pretty consistent depending on which position the player gets most of their minutes at. Dirk, Danillo, Dario, Durant, and Jaren all hover around a 10% total rebound rate through their first couple seasons. Embiid and KAT who both play center full time are up near 20%. Dirk improved his total rebound rate in the 3rd year of his career when he started playing more minutes at center and had filled out a bit more, and I expect Jaren to do the same.
Overall, when compared to players that match him in play style and when comparing him to players that match him in efficiency, Jaren shines amongst his peers at a very young age.
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Super Saiyan Jaren Jackson Jr. aka SSMVPJAREN
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For fun, I wanted to try and imagine what Jaren might look like at his peak. His numbers seem to line up well with Kevin Durant and Dirk Nowitzki, who also happen to be 2 players with a ton of playoff runs to pick from, as well as plenty of time playing next to elite point guards.
In 2011 Dirk proved doubters wrong by leading the Mavericks to a championship, paving the way with his 27.7 points on 18.9 shots and 8.9 free throw attempts for an incredibly efficient (relative to league play) 60.9% TS in the playoffs.
In 2017, Kevin Durant made the most of his super team upgrade by scoring 28.5 points on just 17.9 shots and 6.9 free throw attempts, an absolutely absurd 68.3% TS, one of the 6 most efficient volume scoring playoff runs of all time, and the only player of those 6 to play past the first round.
So that’s about 18.5 shots and 7.9 free throws a game for future Prime Jaren to work with, assuming he takes a similar offensive load. If Jaren does grow into the same type of elite volume shooter, with his current shooting breakdown and a league that’s constantly trying to optimize, at this point in his career Jaren might still be shooting a little over half his attempts from 3, while an increase in size and skill means he gets to the rim on 30% of his attempts, while the remaining 20% come from the rest of the paint.
If he plays some of the best basketball of his career like other all time greats in their best runs, maybe he’s hitting 75% on his shots at the rim, 50% in the rest of the paint, and 42% from 3, with 80% free throw shooting.
That volume, shot breakdown, and volume would result in Jaren scoring exactly 30 points a game on a scorching 68.3% TS, while potentially being the anchor small ball center of one of the top defenses in the league.
Of course, this is by far the most optimistic outlook on Jaren’s future in the league. Plenty of players fail to meet expectations they set early on, and many more get injured and never get the opportunity to even try. Some players get stuck in less than ideal situations with bad teammates or coaches. There’s so much that could go wrong, that statistically it’s very likely Jaren doesn’t reach these lofty heights.
But through this point in his career, I would argue that the league has never seen a player quite like Jaren, and there’s never been one set up quite as well going forward. An equally gifted teammate who’s playstyle and skill will maximize Jaren’s potential, a data driven management that will work to put Jaren in the best situations possible on the court, and all the time, athleticism, opportunity and skill in the world needed to be a star in the league... maybe even an MVP.
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If you read all of that, please comment below if you want to discuss further or want to ask about any of the math/research I did. Let's go Grizzlies!
submitted by MaverickXV2 to nba [link] [comments]

Jaren Jackson Jr. Future MVP

Recently there was a post in the Grizzlies subreddit asking if anyone was concerned with Jaren Jackson Jr.
As a Jare Bear (yeah, I'm sticking with it) stan, I vented my rage and ample quarantine time into researching and writing this manifesto.
Enjoy my ramblings.
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Jaren Jackson Jr. A young, ‘unicorn’ big man who’s floor stretching ability and defensive potential combine to make him one of the more tantalizing prospects in the NBA. Though a bit overshadowed by his electric teammate, Ja Morant, and his draft class contemporaries Luka Doncic, and Trae Young, I personally find him to be one of the most, if not THE most intriguing young player in the league. Having just turned 21, Jaren only has the briefest of exposures to the NBA. His unique skill set flashes the potential of a long, great career, a path that he was set on from an early age.
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Pre NBA Life
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Son of a former NBA Champion shooting guard, a young Jaren spent his early basketball life learning how to play like a guard; shooting from the perimeter and handling the ball, things that Sr had experience leveraging into a successful NBA career. This skill set combined with a late growth spurt in high school from 6’5 to 6’10 quickly turned Jaren into a top 10 national prospect. Leading his team to 2 Indiana state tournament wins led him to continuing his career as a 17 year old freshman at Michigan State.
Playing with an upperclassmen laden front court meant Jaren didn’t get starter level minutes in college, but he made the most of his 22 minutes per game putting up an impressively efficient 11 points on 65% True Shooting, making a little over 1 three a game at nearly 40% from 3, and adding 6 rebounds and an absurd 3 blocks on top of that. It wasn’t all perfect though, as another factor of his limited minutes was his issues with fouling, something that has followed him into his current NBA career.
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Coming to the Grizzlies
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After a depressing season lost to injury in 2017-18, the Grizzlies silver lining was the opportunity to draft in the top 5 of a draft class that might go down as one of the greatest in NBA history when all is said and done. Looking to reload for one last run, the Grizzlies took a bit of a bet on Jaren’s defensive upside and potential floor stretching ability, something they felt would pair nicely alongside Mike Conley and Marc Gasol. There was some grumbling among Grizz fans at going with what appeared to be a higher risk player that had rumors of not wanting to work out with Memphis.
Jaren debuted in a Grizzlies jersey against the Hawks in a Summer League game where in just 23 minutes he put up 29 points. He made more 3’s in a single game than any player in a Grizzly uniform since Mike Miller in the 2007/08 season. As a fanbase desperate for a shooting, Jackson became an overnight sensation.
The optimism was a bit premature, and things would again not go the Grizzlies way in the regular season. After a less than promising start to the season, ownership felt it was finally time to move on from the last traces of the ‘Grit and Grind’ Grizzlies that had dominated Memphis sports culture for nearly a decade. Jaren made the most of his time under Mike and Marc until around the all star break, when Gasol left for the Raptors and Jaren went down with an injury that held him out for the remainder of the season. Prior to his injury, Jaren had established himself as a promising young talent that blended a good sense on defense, with an offense that did indeed include 3 point shooting potential. Due to youth, inexperience, and continued foul trouble woes from his college days, Jaren averaged just 26.1 minutes per game despite starting in 56 of the 58 games played that year.
Similar to his freshman college experience, Jaren made good use of his rather limited play time to contribute efficiently on both ends of the floor, posting nearly 14 points on 59.1% TS, while adding around 5 rebounds, an assist, a steal, and a block and half per game. He flashed pretty much everything that was hoped at the time of the draft; a solid, mobile front court defender, with the ability to chip in a made 3 a game. He was a member of the rookie first team, the rising stars challenge, and outside of a disappointing final team record, had a rather successful rookie season.
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Grizz Next Gen
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Everything changed when the 2019 offseason attacked. One draft lottery miracle, one 30 year old first time GM, one trade of a decade long franchise cornerstone, and one 36 year old first time head coach later, though Jaren would still be the youngest player on his team coming into the 2019-20 season, quite literally everything else about his situation had changed. At just 20 years old Jaren was the second longest tenured member of the Grizzlies roster, behind Grizzlies 2018 2nd round draft pick Dillon Brooks who missed the majority of Jaren’s rookie season with an early season ending injury.
In a flurry of free agency moves and draft signings, the Grizzlies entered the 2019-20 season with 3rd youngest roster in the league, and optimistically curious fans that were interested to see whether or not their new star point guard was the real deal, and if Ja and Jaren together could be the next great chapter in Memphis basketball.
It took just 3 games for Ja Morant to make his mark on the league, Putting up 30 points and 9 assists with the buzzer beating block on Kyrie and the overtime buzzer beating assist to Jae Crowder for his first ever NBA win. Over the course of the season Ja continued to prove himself as the leader of a young Grizzlies team, and surprised the league by almost bringing them to the playoffs in just his rookie season. Though incredibly talented and able to drag the Grizzlies to some wins single handedly, Ja alone was not enough to get the Grizzlies into the first round after Jaren suffered an injury early on in the bubble. This isn’t a knock against Ja of course, but it does lead one to ask what exactly Jaren brings to the table as a 2nd option next to Ja and what the future might hold for them together as teammates.
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Jaren's 2nd Season
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Unlike his rookie teammate, Jaren’s 2019-20 season was fairly under the radar. As a small market that was a bubble playoff team, it's understandable that not a ton of media time got spent covering the Grizzlies, and if it was it was usually focused on Ja’s incredible highlights. As a result, not many outside of the Grizzlies fan base are aware of just how unique his recent season was, or how it compares to some players you might not have considered.
Jaren Jackson Jr. didn’t just have a good season shooting the 3 ball compared to other bigs, he had a good season compared to ALL 3 point shooters in the league, and did it at a younger age than anyone in NBA history when looking at both his volume and efficiency.
This past season at just 20 years old, Jaren Jackson Jr. scored 17.4 points on 59.3% true shooting, to go along with 4.6 boards, 1.4 assists, 0.7 steals, and 1.6 blocks in 28.5 minutes per game. Despite it being his second season in the league, he is still the youngest player in NBA history to play at least 1000 minutes in a season and score at least 17 points per game on 59% true shooting or better. This is largely a result of the extreme shift his offense has seen since his rookie season.
In Jaren’s rookie season, his shot selection was fairly typical of a modern big that will step out to the three point line on occasion. For the season he took roughly 75% of his shots from 2, and 25% of his shots from 3. Breaking down his 2 point field goals further, he took around a third of his total shots right at the rim, and a third of his shots in the rest of the paint, with only 10% of his shots coming from the midrange.
Things changed drastically for JJJ’s offense in 2019. A new analytically minded front office and a young head coach willing to try new things looked at Jaren’s shot chart from his rookie year, and trimmed all the fat. They saw a player with legitimate volume 3 point shooting and decided to run with it.
Going from a roughly 75/25 split in the previous season, in 2019-20 the breakdown was almost even split, with 368 of his 753 shot attempts coming from behind the 3 point line. Overall, Jaren took a little less than a quarter of his shots within 3 feet of the basket, a similar amount from 3 to 10 feet, just 4% of his shots in the midrange, and everything else from 3. From 0.9 made 3’s on 2.4 attempts his rookie season (35.9%), his volume shot up to 2.5 made 3’s on 6.5 attempts his 2nd year (39.4%).
As with his overall scoring and efficiency, Jaren is record setting in his youth combined with his 3 point shooting and efficiency. Only 2 players in NBA history have averaged 2.5 made 3’s a game at 20 years old or younger. Luka Doncic this same season scored 2.8 3’s on 8.9 attempts per game. Like fellow draft class player Trae Young, he has taken the ‘James Harden’ approach to 3 point shooting where instead of having elite efficiency, he instead ‘brute forces’ 3 point attempts, taking them often in isolation off of dribble moves and from extreme range, resulting in him only shooting 31.6% from 3. Though making a slightly lower, 2.5 3’s a game, Jaren’s 39.4% efficiency dwarfs Luka’s.
Only 6 players 20 years old or younger have made at least 100 3’s in a season at 39% or better:
Jayson Tatum, Mike Miller, Bradley Beal, Kyrie Irving, Collin Sexton, and Jaren Jackson Jr. who leads the group in 3 point attempts per game.
You would think that for a 7 ft power forward to shoot with that kind of efficiency they would need to be mostly catch and shoot open 3’s, or maybe mostly at the shorter corner spots, but no, like his elite 3 point shooting guard and small forward contemporaries, Jaren is simply good at shooting in a variety of ways under all sorts of pressure.
Spot ups, off the dribble, from all spots around the arc, from absurd range, in isolation, heavily contested, there isn’t a shot that Jaren is afraid of taking. Jaren has put up great efficiency shooting in all sorts of scenarios this past season. His greatest strength and one he utilizes often is his ability to shoot coming around screens.
A little over half his 3 point makes (74/145) involved Jaren moving prior to the shot, in the form of coming off or around screens, trailing in the half court, dribble moves in isolation, or step backs. He can get his feet set and has a lightning quick release, so even though the release is low he is incredibly effective at getting his shot off.
Simply put, it is arguable Jaren Jackson Jr. has been better at 3 point shooting at a younger age than any other player in NBA history. I don’t think he’ll ever attempt 15 3’s a game like Steph Curry, just that through this point of his career Jaren has displayed a talent never before seen in the history of the league from someone so young. And that’s without considering the fact he is nearly 7 feet tall barefoot.
This elite shooting has defenses scrambling when it comes to guarding Jaren. He utilizes the threat of his elite shooting to blow by overreaching defenders, taking advantage of his rare height and athleticism combination to get past defenders and get good shots in the paint or free throws from a defender that collapses too late.
His age does tend to show here, and he will sometimes seem to hesitate or make the wrong move and end up in no man’s land a bit too far from the basket where his efficiency drops significantly. Shooting roughly a quarter of his shots from within 3 feet, he connects on a highly efficient 70.8% of his shots. But outside that in the 3-10 ft. range, another area where he shoots from about 25% of the time, his efficiency plummets to 40.6%.
Though this does bring his overall 2 point field goal percentage down to 54%, the silver lining is that it shows that there’s room for growth, and that Jaren can potentially improve his already incredible efficiency just through natural growth and experience. If he can avoid foul trouble and increase both his minutes and usage, Jaren may actually have the potential to be an elite volume scoring player that can lead a playoff team in points.
I feel this idea was mostly strongly supported by Jaren’s brief run in the bubble, where in all 3 games he showed notable growth over the player he was 4 months prior at the start of Covid. With 8 games and playoff aspirations on the line, the Grizzlies shifted into a more playoff style rotation, and with Jaren’s fouling toned down a little bit he managed to average 37 minutes per game compared to his sub 30 minute average for the season.
In those 37 minutes Jaren saw a bump in both his attempts and his efficiency, upping his shot attempts from 13.2 to 17.3. Continuing to optimize his offense, the majority of his additional 4.1 field goal attempts went to his 3 point shooting, where he upped his attempts from 6.5 to 9.3 per game, a rate that would tie him with Devonte Graham at 7th most 3 pointers attempted per game this season.
This is obviously a small sample size, and his 3 point efficiency did drop to 35.7% over the 3 games, but it was also a ‘proof of concept:’ Jaren’s increased 3 point attempts pulled defenders even further out of the paint than they might have ventured during the season, which a slightly bigger and more experienced Jaren Jackson Jr took advantage of with great results.
Though only increasing his 2 point field goal attempts from 6.8 to 8.0 per game in an additional 8.5 minutes of play time, his improved ability and easier time getting to the rim meant that his efficiency jumped from just 54% to 62.5%, increasing his points per game by 2.6 with just 1.2 more shot attempts. Combine that fact with unprepared defenses sending Jaren to the line more than twice as often (3.3 FTA season average vs. 6.7 FTA bubble average), over the 3 games Jaren averaged 25.3 points on 62.5% true shooting.
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Jaren’s Potential
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Unfortunately a small meniscus tear took him down before we got the chance to see if the trend would continue. But with the timetable for his return to health likely lining up with the start of next season in December, we may finally get to see if Bubble Jaren’s offense is the real deal or not.
Coach Taylor Jenkins is from the BudenholzePopovich coaching tree, and as a result tends to keep his rotations deep and the minutes spread, so it’s unlikely Jaren will see 37 minutes a game in the regular season. But if he can limit some of his fouling issues and increase his play time up to about 33 minutes, hopefully he could split the difference a bit and increase his overall volume and free throw attempts, improve his 2 point percentage, without such a large drop in his 3 point percentage.
Predicting the future of a player is hard, especially a player who’s statistical accomplishments are so unprecedented. A large part of orchestrating an NBA offense is deciding how many shots each player on the floor is going to get. Coaches want the most efficient players to get the most shots, and as a result usually give a majority of the shots to older more established players that have more efficient offensive games.
Of all 529 NBA players in the 2019-20 season, only 70 were able to get at least 10 shots a game on above 55% true shooting average while playing half at least 41 games. This group of 70 essentially makes up every key player in the NBA. If you normally follow 1 specific team for a majority of the season, these might be all the players from other teams you could name off the top of your head.
As you would imagine, the majority of these players are in their ‘prime’ years, with about 70% of them between the ages of 23 and 30. A player being 20 or younger in this category is rare, with their only being 3 such players this season: Luka Doncic, Ja Morant, and Jaren Jackson Jr. In fact, a player 20 years old or younger has met these benchmarks only 24 times since the NBA added the 3 point line.
(20 Year Old Key Player List by fga/poss)
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Player FGA per 100 Poss. Age MPG FGA FTA TS% 3PA 3P%
Luka Doncic 29.6 20 33.6 20.6 9.2 58.5 8.9 31.6
Kyrie Irving 27.2 20 34.7 18.1 4.9 55.3 4.7 39.1
LeBron James 26.6 20 42.4 21.1 8.0 55.4 3.9 35.1
Kyrie Irving 25.2 19 30.5 14.6 3.8 56.6 3.6 39.9
Kevin Durant 24.7 20 39.0 18.8 7.1 57.7 3.1 42.2
Anthony Davis 22.2 20 35.2 15.0 6.6 58.2 0.1 22.2
Karl-Anthony Towns 22.1 20 32.0 14.1 3.4 59.0 1.1 34.1
Jaren Jackson Jr. 21.7 20 28.5 13.2 3.3 59.3 6.5 39.4
Shaquille O'Neal 21.2 20 37.9 16.1 8.9 58.4 0.0 0.0
Ja Morant 21.1 20 31.0 14.0 4.6 55.6 2.7 33.5
Marvin Bagley 21.0 19 25.3 11.4 4.2 56.2 1.5 31.3
Lauri Markkanen 20.8 20 29.7 12.7 2.4 55.2 5.9 36.2
Chris Webber 20.6 20 32.1 13.6 4.7 55.9 0.2 0.0
Jamal Murray 20.5 20 31.7 13.1 3.1 57.6 5.4 37.8
Tyler Herro 20.4 20 27.4 11.5 1.8 55.0 5.4 38.9
Anthony Davis 19.9 19 28.8 10.6 3.5 55.9 0.1 0.0
Jaren Jackson Jr. 19.3 19 26.1 10.2 3.4 59.1 2.4 35.9
Deandre Ayton 19.0 20 30.7 12.3 2.7 60.8 0.1 0.0
Brook Lopez 18.0 20 30.5 10.3 2.6 56.8 0.0 0.0
Eric Gordon 17.5 20 34.3 11.6 4.5 59.3 4.3 38.9
Jayson Tatum 17.1 19 30.5 10.4 3.2 58.6 3.0 43.4
Myles Turner 17.1 20 31.4 10.7 3.7 58.5 1.4 34.8
Dwight Howard 15.9 20 36.8 10.7 7.3 56.5 0.0 0.0
Magic Johnson 15.7 20 36.3 12.3 6.0 60.2 0.4 22.6
Compared to the others on this list, Jaren is just the 3rd to have his name appear twice, joining Anthony Davis and Kyrie Irving as the only 2 players to be highly efficient ‘key’ offensive players in both their age 19 and age 20 seasons. Of the 24 seasons that fit the criteria, Jaren’s 2019-20 Season ranks 12th in points per game at 17.4, while being tied for 3rd overall in efficiency at 59.3% true shooting. His 6.5 3PA per game is 2nd overall, and his 39.4 3P% is 4th overall, while averaging 4th fewest minutes amongst players listed.
For the purpose of predicting Jaren’s growth as an offensive player, these are essentially his peers. By looking at players that took a similar number of shot attempts per 100 possessions at his same age on a similar efficiency, we can see what type of increase in offensive load they saw going into their age 21 season. If we apply a similar increase to Jaren’s shot attempts while also increasing his minutes per game, we can get a rough idea of how many shots Jaren might take in an average game next season.
The players shooting at a similar rate to Jaren saw roughly a 10% increase in both their shots per possession, and free throws per possession. If Jaren see’s similar growth to the other players around him on this list, and is able to increase his minutes to about 33 per game by improving his conditioning and reducing his fouls, he should be able to get up to around 17 field goal attempts per game next year, and 4.2 free throw attempts.
If like this season he has about a 50/50 split between his 2 point and 3 point attempts, and if he shoots at his career averages from each area on the floor and free throws, that would have him scoring 22.3 points per game on 59.2% true shooting. If he were to reach those marks he would likely be in elite company, with only 10 players this past season scoring at least 22 points on 59% true shooting or better while playing in a majority of games.
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Player Age MPG PPG TS%
Damian Lillard 29 37.5 30.0 62.7
James Harden 30 36.5 34.3 62.6
Devin Booker 23 35.9 26.6 61.8
Trae Young 21 35.3 29.6 59.5
Anthony Davis 26 34.4 26.1 61.0
DeMar DeRozan 30 34.1 22.1 60.3
Karl-Anthony Towns 24 33.9 26.5 64.2
Kyrie Irving 27 32.9 27.4 59.5
Giannis Antetokounmpo 25 30.4 29.5 61.3
Joel Embiid 25 29.5 23.0 59.0
Though I feel my methodology is sound, it still feels like it might be an optimistic expectation when compared to history. Only 6 players have ever scored so much, so efficiently, over the course of a season at the age of 21. Trae Young this past season, Karl Anthony Towns in 16-17, Anthony Davis in 14-15, Kevin Durant in 08-09, Shaq in 93-94, and rookie Michael Jordan. If Jaren does manage to reach this list next season, it may all but confirm his potential to become one of the most offensively dominant players in NBA history.
However, all 6 of those players have completely different styles of offense, so it’s a bit hard to determine if Jaren’s offense has the same kind of potential. It's also far removed from the expectations he had coming into the league, when he was mostly valued for his defense and was viewed as having a Chris Bosh type offense.
So to try and find players with play styles similar to Jaren’s, I narrowed some of the search filters on to players above 6’10, and lowered the efficiency benchmark to just 50% TS to hopefully get as many players in league history that have played like Jaren, even if they weren’t as efficient at it due to old offenses not driven by analytics.
I know volume 3 point shooting is a recent trend, especially for big men in particular, so I also set a filter for players that attempted at least 1 3 a game, on at least 35.8% (current league average) 3 point shooting. They might not shoot as many 3’s as Jaren, but I assumed traditional NBA offenses would have their bigs shooting more mid range shots, and if they at least attempted a 3 every game it would imply they shoot a significant number of shots close to the 3 point line.
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Player Age MPG PPG FGA TS% 3PA 3P%
Jaren Jackson Jr. 19 26.1 13.8 10.2 59.1 2.4 35.9
Jaren Jackson Jr. 20 28.5 17.4 13.2 59.3 6.5 39.4
Lauri Markkanen 20 29.7 15.2 12.7 55.2 5.9 36.2
Lamar Odom 20 36.4 16.6 13.5 52.1 2.2 36.0
Kevin Durant 20 39.0 25.3 18.8 57.7 3.1 42.2
Lauri Markkanen 21 32.3 18.7 15.3 55.3 6.4 36.1
Danilo Gallinari 21 33.9 15.1 11.4 57.5 6.0 38.1
Dirk Nowitzki 21 35.8 17.5 13.6 56.4 3.7 37.9
Karl-Anthony Towns 21 37.0 25.1 18.0 61.8 3.4 36.7
Dario Saric 21 29.6 14.6 11.4 58.2 5.1 39.3
A fairly interesting mix of players, with one you might not have expected in Lamar Odom, a few solid modern forward bigs in Saric, Gallinari, and Markkanen, a modern center that has had a great start to his career in Towns, and some all time great forwards in Dirk Nowitzki and Kevin Durant.
A positive sign, Jaren is notably the youngest player on this list (tied with Durant at 20 as well as the only player to do it at age 19 his rookie year), and though in the lower middle of the pack in terms of field goal attempts per game (6th), he is 2nd in TS% at 59.3%, 2nd in 3P% at 39.4% (Kevin Durant had his career best mark his 2nd year), and 1st in 3PA/G at 6.5, all while playing the fewest minutes per game.
A side note here. I know Jaren’s rebounding is a fairly big concern of a lot of fans. If you look at all of these players who Jaren has a lot in common with, you will notice that rebounding rate appears pretty consistent depending on which position the player gets most of their minutes at. Dirk, Danillo, Dario, Durant, and Jaren all hover around a 10% total rebound rate through their first couple seasons. Embiid and KAT who both play center full time are up near 20%. Dirk improved his total rebound rate in the 3rd year of his career when he started playing more minutes at center and had filled out a bit more, and I expect Jaren to do the same.
Overall, when compared to players that match him in play style and when comparing him to players that match him in efficiency, Jaren shines amongst his peers at a very young age.
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Super Saiyin Jaren Jackson Jr. aka SSJJJMVP
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For fun, I wanted to try and imagine what Jaren might look like at his peak. His numbers seem to line up well with Kevin Durant and Dirk Nowitzki, who also happen to be 2 players with a ton of playoff runs to pick from, as well as plenty of time playing next to elite point guards.
In 2011 Dirk proved doubters wrong by leading the Mavericks to a championship, paving the way with his 27.7 points on 18.9 shots and 8.9 free throw attempts for an incredibly efficient (relative to league play) 60.9% TS in the playoffs.
In 2017, Kevin Durant made the most of his super team upgrade by scoring 28.5 points on just 17.9 shots and 6.9 free throw attempts, an absolutely absurd 68.3% TS, one of the 6 most efficient volume scoring playoff runs of all time, and the only player of those 6 to play past the first round.
So that’s about 18.5 shots and 7.9 free throws a game for future Prime Jaren to work with, assuming he takes a similar offensive load. If Jaren does grow into the same type of elite volume shooter, with his current shooting breakdown and a league that’s constantly trying to optimize, at this point in his career Jaren might still be shooting a little over half his attempts from 3, while an increase in size and skill means he gets to the rim on 30% of his attempts, while the remaining 20% come from the rest of the paint.
If he plays some of the best basketball of his career like other all time greats in their best runs, maybe he’s hitting 75% on his shots at the rim, 50% in the rest of the paint, and 42% from 3, with 80% free throw shooting.
That volume, shot breakdown, and volume would result in Jaren scoring exactly 30 points a game on a scorching 68.3% TS, while potentially being the anchor small ball center of one of the top defenses in the league.
Of course, this is by far the most optimistic outlook on Jaren’s future in the league. Plenty of players fail to meet expectations they set early on, and many more get injured and never get the opportunity to even try. Some players get stuck in less than ideal situations with bad teammates or coaches. There’s so much that could go wrong, that statistically it’s very likely Jaren doesn’t reach these lofty heights.
But through this point in his career, I would argue that the league has never seen a player quite like Jaren, and there’s never been one set up quite as well going forward. An equally gifted teammate who’s playstyle and skill will maximize Jaren’s potential, a data driven management that will work to put Jaren in the best situations possible on the court, and all the time, athleticism, opportunity and skill in the world needed to be a star in the league... maybe even an MVP.
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If you read all of that, please comment below if you want to discuss further or want to ask about any of the math/research I did. Let's go Grizzlies!
submitted by MaverickXV2 to memphisgrizzlies [link] [comments]

best nba season win total bets video

Best NBA Win Total Bets for the 2020-2021 season: For the first time since the lock-out shortened 2011-2012 season, the NBA's season-long win totals are adjusted for a year with fewer than 82 games.This forces us to adjust our strategy to predict NBA team win totals. The 2020-2021 season is based on a 72-game schedule. Six favorite O/U bets for the 2020-21 NBA season. The NBA regular season is less than a week away, and teams are ready to kick things into high gear come Christmas time (what a strange 2020). The Best NBA Win Total Bets You Can Make For The 2020-21 Season. by: Brad Rowland Twitter December 15, 2020. Facebook Twitter Flipboard uproxx.it. While a handful of teams haven’t taken the ... PointsBet has released its opening win totals for the upcoming season and the Milwaukee Bucks are once again at the top of the list. Oddsmakers have the Bucks listed at 49 wins, with the reigning champion Los Angeles Lakers sitting one spot behind at 48 wins. For context, the Bucks opened with a 55.5 win total last season, which translates to a .676 winning percentage over a 82 games. 2020-21 NBA win totals, odds, predictions, best bets: Proven NBA expert picks over 51 wins for Milwaukee Bucks Mike Barner, who returned a stunning $3,864 on his NBA picks last season, reveals his ... The NBA regular season might be over, but the drama for recreational bettor's NBA futures bets are not. If you have a losing win total ticket in your pocket congrats, you lost nothing. However, if you had a winning ticket, you are absolutely sick. All bets are void. Which teams present the best win total over/under bets? See some of our best bets below; The 2020-21 NBA season gets underway on Tuesday, December 22nd. After the shortest offseason in league history, the NBA is back, and it’s back for a season that is littered with uncertainty beyond the reigning champion Los Angeles Lakers. So many contenders, owning high NBA win totals, face substantial ... With the 2019-20 NBA regular season about to get underway, we've sifted through all of the regular season win totals. Here are the best bets on the board. For the 2020-21 regular season, all teams must play 72 regular season games for the NBA Win Total wagers to be considered live wagers or what's known in the industry as "Action." The NBA Win Totals Odds set do not include postseason games. Unfortunately due to the Coronavirus pandemic, bettors with active Win Total wagers could see their bets refunded since the regular season may not return or ... Best NBA Win Total Bets for the 2020-2021 season: For the first time since the lock-out shortened 2011-2012 season, the NBA’s season-long win totals are adjusted for a year with fewer than 82 games.This forces us to adjust our strategy to predict NBA team win totals. The 2020-2021 season is based on a 72-game schedule.

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