Dion Waiters (All-Rookie First Team)

[jwalker1399]

What makes people think that Scott is a great scout?
Just because he was a good player doesn't make him a good talent evaluator. Just look at guys like Jordan and Wayne Embry etc. Not every good ex=player is Jerry West.

And by the way, Scott coached Thornton for a total of 9 games while JR Smith's numbers in his first two years with the Jazz are not very inspiring. I just hope JR wasn't handpicked by Scott.

Did i not list some examples? I'll go further, Kyrie Irving and now Dion Waiters.......

You can say Thornton was coached by Scott for 9 games all you want but he was handpicked by Scott and has gone on to be a 20+ point scorer. If you don't think JR Smith would be an elite scorer if his head was on straight, well, you might need your head checked.

[3 Ball...GOT IT]

So Byron Scott is the GM? lol

[The Voice]

I'm looking at Hoopdata and it says NBA league average is 63%? Is this something we should be worried about?

There's not a large enough sample size to accurately depict Waiter's right now in NBA games.

[ACDC_Rocks024]

Our new big three and maybe one day big four? Oh man good stuff here.

Haha, I feel like I'd be exactly like Zeller in that situation...just sit back and laugh with em, not rly much he can say

[Cavatt]

So Scott handpicked all these players?
As for Kyrie, he was the consensus #1 and the jury is still out on Waiters.
Thornton is a no defense gunner who shoots at a very inefficient rate. The same applies to Smith.
And Smith does not have his head on straight, so I fail to see your argument, unless it was just mentioned for the personal jab. Thanks.

Scott's preferences seem to coincide with guys who have talent. All those guys are really talented, but maybe they aren't all able to reach their potential. Scott seems to have an on off switch. He either gets through to guys and they flourish, or he doesn't and they don't.

Scott has some great examples of guys he has picked out. Jordan has Adam Morrison and Kwame Brown. Scott has coached and has success at least getting to the finals. Jordan has only done it as a player. He is still waiting for accolades as a front office guy.

Put it this way, Jordan was more like Kobe than Scott. Scott was pretty good, but it wasn't monomania that propelled him as much as it was thinking through the game and working the system. He would not have been so good if his bball IQ wasn't so high. I would call him cerebral, I am not sure you could say the same about Jordan. No doubt Jordan knows instinctively a ton about basketball, but how well can he communicate that? I have not heard him say almost anything that was thought provoking or insightful about the game maybe ever. Mostly when I hear him talk it seems like he is semi-delusional like Donald Trump or Bono(incredibly successful out of touch people). Scott is cocky as hell too, but he says insightful things and more often than not it is dead on.

Larry Bird is also a guy I would point to as being way closer to Scott in talent evaluation and ability to transmit basketball to the next generation.

Finally, has there ever been anything crazier than Jordan going out there and trying to play baseball when he was the most dominant force in basketball at the time? Have you ever seen Byron Scott wearing a Hitler mustache?

[Len]

I'm happy they went after and stuck to what they wanted to draft:

1: A wing
2: That can create his own shot.
3: Has range out to the 3 point line
4: Can drive to the hoop also.

Now we let it pan out.

[Stephen Docking]

him being able to get to the hole at will is great, him not being able to finish right now is a little concerning.

I'll be honest, his summer league performance made me think he was just like Ramon Sessions. Sessions could get to the hole at will, but couldn't finish effeciently when he got there. He was also a streaky shooter.

Now this is a rookie in summer league being compared to a vet. I'm sure he'll show more as the season goes on because it's summer league, he was injured, and Scott gets the guys tired so I'm not completely worried. I'm just not impressed yet for a 4th pick.

[cusefan79]

Multiple reports said that Jerry west really liked waiters.....

[Lee]

Multiple reports said that Jerry west really liked waiters.....

Multiple reports also say Jerry West is 74 years old and senile.

[BannerYearz]

As for Kyrie, he was the consensus #1

I have never understood the argument that you were "supposed to" get a high no-brainer pick, so it shouldn't count in your favor to get it right. (I see this all the time on the Browns forums, too, that Heckert shouldn't get credit for picking Haden and Richardson because they were supposed to be no-brainers anyway.

People can and do mess up top picks all the time (Olowokandi, Bargniani--even though that draft as a whole was weak, Oden, outside the top spot Bowie, etc. in the NBA, Jamarcus, Tim Couch, etc. in the NFL,) so there is some credit deserved for getting the choice right. (For that matter, some people wanted Derrick Williams, disproving the idea of a "consensus.")

[RedBlackAttack]

The only thing that even remotely concerned me about Waiters in Summer League was that he came in so clearly out-of-shape and overweight. But, hey... What can you do? The guy didn't partake in any individual workouts and has basically been off since the end of Syracuse's season. It wasn't exactly shocking that he got a little fat considering his body type and the situation.

As for his game, some people are making way too much out of it. Summer League is totally unorganized inter-squad scrimmages. There is virtually no coaching and they generally don't even run plays. It is just sort of a "let's throw the ball out there and see what happens" attitude.

All that you really should be looking for, especially in a rookie who hasn't learned our system, is an occasional flash of the kind of talent that warrants the pick... Which I believe we saw, albeit maybe not as often as we would have had he showed up in what could remotely be considered game shape.

He has an undeniable hitch in his jumper which I'm sure will be worked on, but his first step looked explosive even in his condition. He had a few of the prettiest moves to the basket that I saw all Summer League. And, he was being asked to be the primary playmaker most of the time when he was on the floor, which will absolutely not be the case when he is playing with Kyrie.

You always like your rookies to come out in their first bit of competition on the next level and be dominant in all facets, but it wasn't practical in this situation.

[mcfly]

He played a lot of PG with a nagging ankle injury, and still looked decent. Yeah, his shot was not falling and he turned the ball over at a poor rate, but he still displayed that he can beat his man with his first step and get to the rim often. The ankle will heal and his strength/conditioning will improve, which I think should also help his shooting percentages.

[rabman_gold]

Yeah, even with my uncertainty in what Dion will look like at the start of the season, there is just no fucking way he will look like Ramon Sessions. I mean, sure, he will probably be able to drive to the hole like Ramon, but the best thing about Ramon besides his driving ability was his ability to pass to Antawn at the right time.

Unless Dion becomes lazy and never lives up to his potential, I can see a pretty bright future for him. While he was forced to be the point guard, he was clearly self-conscious of hogging the ball and spotlight too much when trying to get involved with others, even though he was in the half-court corner little too much. But he still was able to get pretty nice passes to the guys and also other passes as well that didn't turn out to be assists because of his horribly talented teammates.

I can't wait until he gets into shape.

[RTrees]

The sample size of a few summer league games, considering the circumstances, out of shape, not been working out, attending camps, is almost negligible as far as critiquing shooting abilities in terms of fg%.

What summer league does show is that he didn't come in ready.. for summer league..

Could be argued to be a character flaw or much less serious and he just happens to be starting his NBA career not ready to hit the ground running..

Anybody know how he came into college first practices? Did he go to class? Does he possess those "high character" qualities Cavs management comments about in other acquisitions? Or did his basketball seduce Grant off those lines of thinking? (not sure any of this matters, just curious)

[MRMsix6]

Here are some quotes from David Thorpe on the subject of SL and transitioning from college to NBA

On looking for potential red flags in SL:

There’s not many. The player’s got to be allowed to adjust and grow. In many cases, they’re playing for the coach—and for most teams—for the first time. I have an issue with a low or a slow motor, a low basketball IQ, a lack of understanding the importance of growing game to game. Guys that have been now two or three years to summer league, if they’re the same player, that’s a red flag. They’re about who they are. I wouldn’t ever do that over the course of one summer league, but two or three I would. You’d like to see some growth game to game from some guys. And during this summer league, if you’re not competing, if you think you’re going to compete once the season starts, you’re sadly mistaken. This is your chance to shine. They don’t do it now, they may not play at all in the regular season. That’s a major problem.

On conditioning:

The young guys don’t have any idea how to get in shape. They don’t know how to push themselves to that point. If he comes here a year from now and looks the same, that’s a problem. I almost never put any red flag on a rookie other than you hope that they know how to play hard. If they’re not going to play hard at this point, then they can learn to play harder, but you at least have some kind of baseline level. They don’t have it then, then they rarely get it. They sometimes do, but it doesn’t happen a lot. But yeah, with most rookies, I give them a pass at almost everything. Next year, you start getting more disciplined—”OK we’re not seeing that jump we thought we’d see”—they might not have it.

Here's the whole article where the quotes are pulled from: Is it a Waste of Time to Worry? | Hardwood Paroxysm