Tristan Thompson

[kidduck]

He'd be a good fit on the Heat.

 

[Spencer Hawes]

Blue, can you just read my posts before you rush in to attack assumptions I didn't even make?

A poster said his biggest concern with TT was his assist rate, which I find weird. There's other young PFs in the league that you yourself would rush in to point out out how great they are, even though they have comparable assist rates to TT. I made no mentions of defensive presence, and I didn't make a single excuse for TT. I made a point about their similar assist rates, and you rush to assume I view Tristan alongside them in overall value. Great stuff Blue, really furthering the discussion on these boards.

I'm not making up any assumptions, you brought up those names. I clearly understood what the original posters intent was. He was saying that TT's low assist ratio may be a cause of him holding onto the ball and trying to pad his stats even though he's getting stuffed and stripped more so often. Again, it was mentioned that JJ said the big shouldn't be concerned with padding their stats and Dion have voiced his displeasures about "buddy ball". Does this correlate to his low assist ratio?

You brought up those Ibaka and Davis who are all-stars and Favors who has finally started consistently this season for the first time and have been playing well and have been a defensive presence. And get this, he's younger than TT. All those guys shoot well over 50% and can finish with authority inside. That could very well be a reason why their assist ratio is low. Stop being so sensitive about TT. He's got more holes in his game that hustle and offensive rebounding alone could hope to fill.

On a side note, if he's at the top of the league in offensive rebounding and he's not even averaging 10 boards a game, is his defensive rebounding below average then? I would like for him to fix his problems but like I said, in today's NBA, he's not that young and he doesn't appear to make any progress this season.

 

[Numbers Guy]

It would make a ton more sense to either move him or let him walk. Zeller or Bennett would be capable of filling Tristan's role. He isn't good enough defensively to look past his offensive negligence.

 

[KyrieIrvingDuke]

Spit out my drink laughing so hard at a $12 million/year contract for TT. Thank christ CG was shown the door or I'd actually be worried we'd give that to him

 

[brownindian]

12 million for TT? Is Jason Lloyd getting a cut of that money?

 

[DELONTEizDad]

Ugh, Carmelo just pushed Tristan's shit in.

Brutal.


(Happened again later also. Jesus.)

 

[KI4MVP]

Lloyd's article didn't make any sense. One the one hand he thinks teams will offer Tristan $12 million+. On the other hand he thinks those same teams wouldn't want to trade for tristan if he has an extension in place in that ball park.

The reason Jack was hard to trade is he has underperformed his contract, not because teams are reluctant to take on salary.

 

[JSS2306]

Yeah, he's not a great finisher. He's an undersized power forward that still plays like a center, he gets a lot of dunks and gets a lot of shots blocked because he's always trying to attack the rim, regardless if that's the right option. He lead the league getting his shot blocked last year.

That's kind of weird generalization of what he's actually doing when he gets blocked most of the time which is gathering himself underneath after a pass or rebound and going back up. I don't know if "attacking the rim" is the way I'd put it since he is most blocked underneath. He's such a nice guy but it's embarrassing. I truly feel bad for him. If he isn't going to be shooter then he damn well better have some explosive ability which he doesn't. With that said, there are times he's impressed me when they give him the ball on the weak side and clear out and let him go to work away from the basket. As mechanically awkward as it looks, those little hooks can and have worked for him. It's just not going to be enough against guys with more talent.

I'd hate to get rid of him because I think he's the perfect guy to have off the bench and in the locker room but not for $12 million.

 

[CosmoKramer]

That's kind of weird generalization of what he's actually doing when he gets blocked most of the time which is gathering himself underneath after a pass or rebound and going back up. I don't know if "attacking the rim" is the way I'd put it since he is most blocked underneath. He's such a nice guy but it's embarrassing. I truly feel bad for him. If he isn't going to be shooter then he damn well better have some explosive ability which he doesn't. With that said, there are times he's impressed me when they give him the ball on the weak side and clear out and let him go to work away from the basket. As mechanically awkward as it looks, those little hooks can and have worked for him. It's just not going to be enough against guys with more talent.

We can all agree Tristan gets his shot blocked too much, I don't know whether it happens more on his drives or after gathering himself underneath the basket. I was making a generalization about his offensive game as a whole, he'd be well served to work on his jumper again this offseason to regain any semblance of confidence in it. He was taking 18 footers in the season opener, and now I can't even remember the last time he even attempted a 15 footer.

I'd hate to get rid of him because I think he's the perfect guy to have off the bench and in the locker room but not for $12 million.

Yeah... 12 million is a lot for Tristan. That'd be the worst-case scenario of letting him test free agency, and after next season we'll have a much better idea of whether or not he's going to be worth a 10+ million a year contract.

 

[CornerThree]

Now that Grant is gone, I'm not as scared about the dramatic TT overpay. Grant always seemed to be about establishing how he was the only one right about anything, at least to some degree. It's how we ended up with TT and Waiters, for example. I was just figuring we'd see some crazy TT extension this summer and then Grant would be a man alone on the podium talking up TT and comparing him to the other players who got similar dollar amounts in an extension. And then the cavalcade of fan boys and "double double machine" and "but he switched shooting hands!" people would start talking about how compared to players like Taj Gibson and Larry Sanders, only paying TT 10.6m/season is a steal. Thank god this appears like it won't be happening now.

Just for example if TT and KI were actually as good of players as they are labeled, we'd be a lot closer to .500 this year. Paying TT a cent over 7 million in a long term deal would be a travesty. I see his ceiling on a good team as being like a 3rd or 4th big because he is not competent offensively enough to play the modern starting 4.

 

[chrisrich91]

All the positive arguments for Tristan consist purely of: carefully selected statistics, mention of his age, and mention of his handedness switch.

It's like these people aren't watching the kid. His movements have been awkward and robotic throughout his career. Has nothing to do with age. His basketball IQ is incredibly average. Anthony Bennett has shown far more BBIQ in his catastrophic rookie year than TT has in 3...and that's not a put down Tristan/prop up Bennett thing. It just proves how quickly a young player can display their IQ on the court. Tristan clearly doesn't have a mental advantage out there.

Then there's his skillset. He's an offensive liability. He may improve with that right hand, but his body does not move fluidly no matter what he is doing. That is a horrible sign for anyone banking on this guy magically developing into a consistent offensive option. His defense? Awesomely average. He's slightly above average due to the fact that he's got good lateral quickness, but he's pretty average in his rotations and very below average in his rim protection.

Sure, he could be a starter for many teams. Even some playoff teams if you want to start throwing names like Amir Johnson and Josh McRoberts around (aka you're desperate to argue). But not every starter in the NBA is that good a player. Tristan is a JAG. If I had to put money on it, I'd bet that he'll always be a JAG. Thankfully we have a PF prospect on the roster that I really like in Bennett, because Tristan is not the future. At least Bennett's skillset is that of a star PF if he gets his head and body right.

 

[Stitches]

Wouldn't hand switching be a negative argument? I mean, someone who is switching hands at this point in his career is obviously not doing it because his shot was awesome.

 

[chrisrich91]

Wouldn't hand switching be a negative argument? I mean, someone who is switching hands at this point in his career is obviously not doing it because his shot was awesome.

His defenders use the hand switch combined with his age to suggest that he has a higher ceiling now.

"Yeah he's been a hot turd, but he just switched his shooting hand. You can't expect it to work right away!!"

 

[CosmoKramer]

All the positive arguments for Tristan consist purely of: carefully selected statistics, mention of his age, and mention of his handedness switch..

1. Any and all stats for Tristan are disregarded around here. You bring up his per-game numbers, they're only because he plays a lot of minutes. Bring up his offensive rebounding stats, and they're only because he's standing by the basket clogging the lane. You can't bring up any per possession stats that paint him in a positive light, the only advanced stats that have any merit around here when discussing TT are the ones showing how inefficient he is.

2. Now we can't mention his age? Seriously? He just turned 23. He's still the fourth youngest starting PF in the entire NBA behind Anthony Davis, Tobias Harris (spent first 2 years as a SF, more of a small-ball PF) and Terrence Jones. TT entered the league as an extremely raw player, to act like bringing up his age is an invalid excuse is just absolutely ridiculous. Dion isn't even a full year younger than Tristan, why don't you hop on over to that thread and see how often his age is brought up.

3. TT haters bring up his hand switch more than anyone now, it's become a running joke. Not many people were expecting him to start hitting mid-range jumpers with ease after attempting the switch, I find it impressive he's actually continued his slow, steady improvement from the free throw line this year. He's at 67% for the season, I don't think it was reasonable to expect this so soon when he entered the league. He didn't break 50% from the line in college (48.7%), yet he's sniffing 70% this year.

It's like these people aren't watching the kid. His movements have been awkward and robotic throughout his career. Has nothing to do with age. His basketball IQ is incredibly average. Anthony Bennett has shown far more BBIQ in his catastrophic rookie year than TT has in 3...and that's not a put down Tristan/prop up Bennett thing. It just proves how quickly a young player can display their IQ on the court. Tristan clearly doesn't have a mental advantage out there.

To anyone watching AB play this year and coming away at allimpressed by his BBIQ, you're fooling yourself.

When you bring up BBIQ that extends to all phases of the game, and AB's lack of any defensive awareness completely erases any feel he has for the offensive side of the ball. As soon as TT stepped on the court he was a capable defender, that speaks volumes for his BBIQ. You can actually go back earlier in this thread (Douglar, page 9) and pull up praise for his high BBIQ for a rookie-

Scott, veterans Antawn Jamison and ex-Raptor Anthony Parker all noted Thompson’s feel for the game and ability to pick up instructions quickly.

“He’s a sponge,” Jamison said.

“He is a young man who has a very good basketball IQ and he has a will. He wants to be good and is willing to work at it,” added Scott.

http://www.torontosun.com/2011/12/19/cavs-basketball-gods-in-thompsons-court


Can you do that with AB? I'll wait.

Then there's his skillset. He's an offensive liability. He may improve with that right hand, but his body does not move fluidly no matter what he is doing. That is a horrible sign for anyone banking on this guy magically developing into a consistent offensive option. His defense? Awesomely average. He's slightly above average due to the fact that he's got good lateral quickness, but he's pretty average in his rotations and very below average in his rim protection.

So, you've never seen Tristan throw down a dunk? Looks pretty fluid and strong to me. Pretty big stretch to say he doesn't look fluid no matter what he's doing, especially when he gets in the open court. He's one of the faster bigs in the league when he gets out in transition.

Sure, he could be a starter for many teams. Even some playoff teams if you want to start throwing names like Amir Johnson and Josh McRoberts around (aka you're desperate to argue). But not every starter in the NBA is that good a player. Tristan is a JAG. If I had to put money on it, I'd bet that he'll always be a JAG. Thankfully we have a PF prospect on the roster that I really like in Bennett, because Tristan is not the future. At least Bennett's skillset is that of a star PF if he gets his head and body right.

That was in response to another poster saying they question whether TT could ever be a starter on a playoff team, which is nonsense.

I get that AB has a higher ceiling than TT, but I think most would agree after watching AB this year he also has a much lower floor. Getting that head and body right is no small task, there's really no guarantee he reaches the lofty standards we all had for him. On the flip side, I don't think TT is ever going to be a great player. But IMO there's a good chance he ends up being a very good one. Next year is really going to be huge for both players; AB needs to erase the stink of his rookie year and TT needs to show if he's worth the massive extension getting talked about.

 

[kovanovich]

On a side note, if he's at the top of the league in offensive rebounding and he's not even averaging 10 boards a game, is his defensive rebounding below average then? I would like for him to fix his problems but like I said, in today's NBA, he's not that young and he doesn't appear to make any progress this season.

Thompson's rebounding numbers this year per 48 minutes:

DRB: 8.9
ORB: 4.9
Total Rebounds: 13.7

Average PF:

DRB: 8.2
ORB: 3.5
Total: 11.6

So, no, he is a slightly above average defensive rebounder, and a very good offensive rebounder, though his offensive rebounding numbers are down this year compared to last year. Maybe because he has played alongside Varejao more. Both his defensive and offensive rebounding rates are solid too (21.3 and 11.1, respectively).