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2019 Draft, Pick #30 - Kevin Porter Jr., USC

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Not criticizing his shot selection in this case...the discussion above was about his ability to shoot step-back jumpers, so I made a post above commenting on that. What I'm criticizing about their preseason game performance is that, at the end of the day, Sexton and Garland accounted for just 11 of 89 shot attempts, and just 2 of 27 assists. I hope that when real games start, guys like KPJ, Clarkson, Cedi, TT, and Nance are willing to defer to those two when it comes to creating offense.

Kpj seemed to resist his worst impulses and had really good shot selection. His worst shot was driving into traffic from the corner where he got an and 1.

Garland made some nice passes. Guys missed a couple and at least 2 great hockey assists.
 
Not criticizing his shot selection in this case...the discussion above was about his ability to shoot step-back jumpers, so I made a post above commenting on that. What I'm criticizing about their preseason game performance is that, at the end of the day, Sexton and Garland accounted for just 11 of 89 shot attempts, and just 2 of 27 assists. I hope that when real games start, guys like KPJ, Clarkson, Cedi, TT, and Nance are willing to defer to those two when it comes to creating offense.
Personally more than fine with KPJ taking more shots than Sexton when the real stuff begins if they’re going to be dunks, lay ups and corner 3’s.. but the step backs and long 2’s are something both he and Sexton need to limit which so far looks like it is a fairly easy thing to coach out of a player (Sexton doesn’t attempt them much anymore and KPJ didn’t attempt a single one in his first 15mins)
 
Kpj seemed to resist his worst impulses and had really good shot selection. His worst shot was driving into traffic from the corner where he got an and 1.

Garland made some nice passes. Guys missed a couple and at least 2 great hockey assists.

Personally more than fine with KPJ taking more shots than Sexton when the real stuff begins if they’re going to be dunks, lay ups and corner 3’s.. but the step backs and long 2’s are something both he and Sexton need to limit which so far looks like it is a fairly easy thing to coach out of a player (Sexton doesn’t attempt them much anymore and KPJ didn’t attempt a single one in his first 15mins)

Sure, but it's easy to have good shot selection against that level of competition. Hopefully when KPJ can't get to the rim at will he'll do the smart thing and pass the ball, but I'm not convinced that he will.

As for Garland's passing, that's exactly what people said about Sexton last year in summer league/preseason action. Not a lot of assists, but some really good passes where guys missed the shot, some hockey assists. If we really want one of these guys to develop into our PG of the future, we need to give them the reins to the offense for extended stretches, not have a crazy free-for-all where 7 guys take turns creating offense.
 
Sure, but it's easy to have good shot selection against that level of competition. Hopefully when KPJ can't get to the rim at will he'll do the smart thing and pass the ball, but I'm not convinced that he will.

As for Garland's passing, that's exactly what people said about Sexton last year in summer league/preseason action. Not a lot of assists, but some really good passes where guys missed the shot, some hockey assists. If we really want one of these guys to develop into our PG of the future, we need to give them the reins to the offense for extended stretches, not have a crazy free-for-all where 7 guys take turns creating offense.

Well it was just one preseason game thats true, but the passes Garland makes and attempts are legit PG passes. He has the vision it is very apparent straight away. He can improve and will need to eliminate the risky/forced ones but I dont think its fair to compare him to Sexton in that regard.
 
Well it was just one preseason game thats true, but the passes Garland makes and attempts are legit PG passes. He has the vision it is very apparent straight away. He can improve and will need to eliminate the risky/forced ones but I dont think its fair to compare him to Sexton in that regard.

Again, people said the same thing about Sexton last summer/fall. Then in the regular season he ended up deferring a lot to veterans and didn't really develop his point guard skills at all last year. I think we need to be more intentional about developing Garland's point guard skills. The guy hasn't had 5 assists in a game since high school, and he's always going to be a low-assists guy until we actually commit to making him the lead ballhandler when he's on the court. That means guys like KPJ and Cedi will have to adjust to more off-ball roles. It's not ideal, but that's the price we pay for collecting a bunch of young guys who all love having the ball in their hands.
 
Again, people said the same thing about Sexton last summer/fall. Then in the regular season he ended up deferring a lot to veterans and didn't really develop his point guard skills at all last year. I think we need to be more intentional about developing Garland's point guard skills. The guy hasn't had 5 assists in a game since high school, and he's always going to be a low-assists guy until we actually commit to making him the lead ballhandler when he's on the court. That means guys like KPJ and Cedi will have to adjust to more off-ball roles. It's not ideal, but that's the price we pay for collecting a bunch of young guys who all love having the ball in their hands.

Why do you say he is always going to be a low assist guy? That sounds somewhat ignorant. His college sample size was tiny.
 
Again, people said the same thing about Sexton last summer/fall. Then in the regular season he ended up deferring a lot to veterans and didn't really develop his point guard skills at all last year. I think we need to be more intentional about developing Garland's point guard skills. The guy hasn't had 5 assists in a game since high school, and he's always going to be a low-assists guy until we actually commit to making him the lead ballhandler when he's on the court. That means guys like KPJ and Cedi will have to adjust to more off-ball roles. It's not ideal, but that's the price we pay for collecting a bunch of young guys who all love having the ball in their hands.

Sure, I agree to an extent.

But you gotta realise that Garland is much more natural with the ball and it will come naturally for him playing with much higher caliber players around him. With Sexton otoh, we really needed to actively try to make him the facilitator by putting the ball in his hands more.

I really think that with Garland, his gravity and shiftiness will allow him to have much more options as far as passing opportunities go, so it will happen with far less plays as opposed to Sexton. With a simple PnR with Darius as the BH he is either going to get a good shot off, or he is going to get trapped or he will have an open teammate either rolling or in the corner. With Sexton it just didn't happen very often and when it did he failed to realise it in time.

I think with Garland we need to do something else. We need to tell him to shoot a lot. I have ridiculous amount of faith in his shot, and we need to tell him to shoot on a high volume in different shot types; off screens ala Curry, off the dribble @ PnR, off the dribble in iso...I also wanna see a lot of floaters.

I do agree that putting the ball in the hands of Garland more is always better. It's just not totally comparable to Sexton. One of them is going to get the shorter end of the stick in that regard, and if we want to maximize both of them we need to actually put the ball in Sexton;s hands more and let him learn how to run some proper PnR action and have Garland come off screens like Curry in his rookie season.

Though, speaking long term i'm not sure that this duo can co-exist to it's maximum potential as Garland needs to have the ball in his hands aaaalot to be the most successful.
 
Why do you say he is always going to be a low assist guy? That sounds somewhat ignorant. His college sample size was tiny.

I'm saying IF he shares offensive creation responsibilities with Sexton, Cedi, Love, Nance, KPJ, Clarkson, and God forbid Tristan and Knight, then we're going to have a situation where 5 different guys including Garland all average 2-4 assists per game. That may result in a fun and interesting offense in the short run, but it's not going to help Garland take his game to the next level as a point guard.
 
I'm saying IF he shares offensive creation responsibilities with Sexton, Cedi, Love, Nance, KPJ, Clarkson, and God forbid Tristan and Knight, then we're going to have a situation where 5 different guys including Garland all average 2-4 assists per game. That may result in a fun and interesting offense in the short run, but it's not going to help Garland take his game to the next level as a point guard.

I can agree with this to a point. But it also potentially puts him into better positions which can lead to a better overall understanding/instincts in the long run. Plus he won't have the burden of primary or sole creation like some of the other rookies guards.

I'm not sure which approach is better but our staff'a preference is clear. Let's see how it works out.
 
I can agree with this to a point. But it also potentially puts him into better positions which can lead to a better overall understanding/instincts in the long run. Plus he won't have the burden of primary or sole creation like some of the other rookies guards.

I'm not sure which approach is better but our staff'a preference is clear. Let's see how it works out.

Possibly...but assuming he's healthy, I don't know why we wouldn't want him as our primary creator this season. He's a very simple player in that it's absolutely obvious how he's going to add value on the court: by creating offense. To maximize his chances of success, let him do what he does best. And maximizing Garland's chances of success should probably be the Cavs' #1 priority this season.
 
Possibly...but assuming he's healthy, I don't know why we wouldn't want him as our primary creator this season. He's a very simple player in that it's absolutely obvious how he's going to add value on the court: by creating offense. To maximize his chances of success, let him do what he does best. And maximizing Garland's chances of success should probably be the Cavs' #1 priority this season.

Over Sexton's too?
 
Over Sexton's too?

I don't have a strong opinion about who's the better prospect between Garland and Sexton. But if we're still focused on building around Sexton as our franchise player, then drafting Garland really made no sense at all, and I'd be convinced that our front office has no clue what it's doing. So hopefully we're focused on building around Garland now, and hopefully he can live up to the hype.
 
I don't have a strong opinion about who's the better prospect between Garland and Sexton. But if we're still focused on building around Sexton as our franchise player, then drafting Garland really made no sense at all, and I'd be convinced that our front office has no clue what it's doing. So hopefully we're focused on building around Garland now, and hopefully he can live up to the hype.

Garland's the better prospect, but giving him the reigns completely as a rookie and relegating Sexton to being mostly off the ball might stagnate Sexton's development more than what it would do to Garland if he played more off the ball.
Let's go by the assumption that the Cavs made a great choice with Garland and he is a future all-star. What does that mean for Sexton? what would you do if you knew that in regards to the roles and the development for this season -- In that scenario Sexton is still an unknown as far as his future outlook is concerned.
 
Garland's the better prospect, but giving him the reigns completely as a rookie and relegating Sexton to being mostly off the ball might stagnate Sexton's development more than what it would do to Garland if he played more off the ball.
Let's go by the assumption that the Cavs made a great choice with Garland and he is a future all-star. What does that mean for Sexton? what would you do if you knew that in regards to the roles and the development for this season -- In that scenario Sexton is still an unknown as far as his future outlook is concerned.

If I know for a fact that Garland is a future All-Star, then I'm immediately looking to trade Sexton. He's a square peg in a round hole next to Garland...trying to make him into something he's not (a defensive bulldog SG) is a fool's errand. I would start Garland/Delly/Cedi/Love/Nance, a lineup in which Garland is the clear primary creator, but has plenty of high-IQ secondary ballhandlers around him. I think that environment gives him the best possible chance to rapidly develop into an NBA PG.
 
If I know for a fact that Garland is a future All-Star, then I'm immediately looking to trade Sexton. He's a square peg in a round hole next to Garland...trying to make him into something he's not (a defensive bulldog SG) is a fool's errand. I would start Garland/Delly/Cedi/Love/Nance, a lineup in which Garland is the clear primary creator, but has plenty of high-IQ secondary ballhandlers around him. I think that environment gives him the best possible chance to rapidly develop into an NBA PG.

Okay. Then how do you do that while maximising Sexton's value before you trade him?

You will be selling at a loss right now.
 

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