On Valanciunas - The blasphemy thread

[lilmamba_]

If Roy Hibbert was an allstar, then JV is a HOF

woah slow down

JV is the type of guy who can be matchup nightmare for opposing team centers, every single time he steps on the court.

If you don't have Lebron-type superstar, then go ahead and build it around JV. I'm not saying that he's going to average 18-10 or anything similar. Just make him comfortable as much as possible. Good things always happen when you have right pieces for your game plan. ( Last year's example: Nuggets. )

imo you build your team around your wing you take a paul george type guy and if you got a Hibbert too then thats great i would rather build this team around our wing guys and jv being there is just an extra. at he end of the day you need to win games and jv is not gonna win games its as simple as that (or atleast untill he can show us more than one or two moves in the post)

[rocwell]

Not right now but in a year or two, I think that is a very neutral prediction; not too optimistic at all in my opinion.

I haven't said he can't put all-star stats. His upside is ridiculous.

I just hate what media is talking about this kid since SL. I know it's all positive, but I think that affected how our fans think. Media knew about flaws in JV's game. There is no question they knew that we have two high scoring wings. They hyped up this kid so much that after bad game our fans are thinking - ' what's wrong with this kid? Where's 15 8 like it was projected?!

[mcHAPPY]

Cliff, you bring up one of the things that spurred my concern.
Here's a guy that has come in and done what he's meant to do, no excuses.
Good smart basketball, marked improvement, and in a tumultuous, unstable enviornment.
Granted, he is two years older, but still.
Would be nice to just see the improvement expected from a Raptor instead of always making excuses.

I guess I'm a little tired of waiting on potential and I just don't have a great feeling about this one.
Drummond, for example, seems to be progressing at the pace one would hope, and he's younger than JV.
His situation is slightly better, but not dramatically so.

I know there are a lot of factors contributing to what I'm seeing on the court, but I don't like it.
I want to see a guy who is confident enough on his own.
I want to see a player smart enough to apply the moves he used over the summer, and beat his man.
I want to see a player who can keep his emotions in check.
Etc., etc.

Basically, it comes down to this:
Sometimes I see him out there, and I can see him thinking rather than reacting.
Rather than just knowing what to do.
It makes him a step slow, and I'm afraid it always will.

Couple of things:

Firstly, Vucevic puts up huge numbers but he is also a huge defensive liability.

Secondly, what you call excuses in my opinion are legitimate reasons.
Look at Vucevic game logs from his first year. Yo-yo'ed and benched in Philly.
Look at his game logs from Orlando in his 2nd year: he played 30+ minutes a game from the beginning and 33 on the year.
JV has been put in a situation where he is not allowed to play through his mistakes with a team that is trying to 'win'.

Thirdly, Vucevic never played with two ISO-centric teams. DD and Gay are taking 37.6 shots per game. JV is not able to get on the offensive glass with such stagnation - granted it has been better of late.

[Shrub]

Couple of things:

Firstly, Vucevic puts up huge numbers but he is also a huge defensive liability.

Secondly, what you call excuses in my opinion are legitimate reasons.

I'm not talking about numbers, I'm talking about the eyeball test.
I don't care about numbers, I care about what I see on the court.
Vucevic shows savvy and employs multiple moves to beat his man.
JV decides what he will do in advance (non-commital-pump-fake-and-drive, the same thing he had did on the last possession) and his defender knows it and is ready.

And in my opinion, those are still excuses.

Also, he is not more of a defensive liability than JV.

[rocwell]

woah slow down

imo you build your team around your wing you take a paul george type guy and if you got a Hibbert too then thats great i would rather build this team around our wing guys and jv being there is just an extra. at he end of the day you need to win games and jv is not gonna win games its as simple as that (or atleast untill he can show us more than one or two moves in the post)

Hibbert is different player. JV can be absolute force offensively, while Hibbert is staying at Indiana because of his defensive expertise.

Building this team around our wing guys is a great road to 4-0 defeat in 1st rd. Tim Leiweke said that he's going to change culture and I'm pretty sure he doesn't like our wings. Nobody in NBA likes our wings. They just can't play together. I think they'll be gone by the next season.

Tim is the man of his word. He will change this team's culture.

[Superjudge]

I'm with matt on one thing, Pump fakes are kinda moot if you can't hit a simple baseline or elbow bunny at least 70% of the time. It will come though, I'm not worried about this guy.

[lilmamba_]

Hibbert is different player. JV can be absolute force offensively, while Hibbert is staying at Indiana because of his defensive expertise.

Building this team around our wing guys is a great road to 4-0 defeat in 1st rd. Tim Leiweke said that he's going to change culture and I'm pretty sure he doesn't like our wings. Nobody in NBA likes our wings. They just can't play together. I think they'll be gone by the next season.

Tim is the man of his word. He will change this team's culture.

lool what offensive force ??
what you wanna go wingless , ok they cant play together that doesn't mean both of them should be gone
there are other ways around our wing problems (start ross and have demar off the bench or what ever )

rudy can close games demar cant
rudy doesnt even know what the fuck and assist is
demar is into the passing game (somewhat)
we need are wings and they need to learn how to play together and stop playing selfish ball

forget about Tim right now we got all the pieces they just need to straighten up

[RandomGuy]

Well I gotta agree with Isaac here. I'm not saying JV should stop pump faking tho. He should decide when,where and on who to pump fake. He needs to become less predictable player in the post. It's very important for his success offensively

I just stated that by saying never he was absolutely wrong, as it worked out pretty well numerous times.

[rocwell]

lool what offensive force ??
what you wanna go wingless , ok they cant play together that doesn't mean both of them should be gone
there are other ways around our wing problems (start ross and have demar off the bench or what ever )

rudy can close games demar cant
rudy doesnt even know what the fuck and assist is
demar is into the passing game (somewhat)
we need are wings and they need to learn how to play together and stop playing selfish ball

forget about Tim right now we got all the pieces they just need to straighten up

Are you kidding me?

We are too good to rebuild, but we suck too much to win big. This team is screwed. Whole league is laughing from us. I believe in Tim and Masai. They're smart. They will turn this franchise around. Just wait.

[mcHAPPY]

I'm not talking about numbers, I'm talking about the eyeball test.
I don't care about numbers, I care about what I see on the court.
Vucevic shows savvy and employs multiple moves to beat his man.
JV decides what he will do in advance (non-commital-pump-fake-and-drive, the same thing he had did on the last possession) and his defender knows it and is ready.

And in my opinion, those are still excuses.

Also, he is not more of a defensive liability than JV.

If you want the eye ball test then you should go check Vucevic in international play this summer. It was dreadful.

I find the bold to be a huge cop out. Numbers should backup the eye test otherwise I think we are getting in to confirmation bias. Also JV has the 2nd best defensive rating of the starters.


It is all about CONFIDENCE.
Right now JV has none because he is phased out, subbed out, and called out.
Of course he is thinking about everything right now.


This is a kid who shoots 80% from FT line.
Great mechanics.
He can shoot, he needs to start shooting when open.


Here are the numbers that really matter in the discussion comparing Vucevic and JV:
23 - 21 (age)
33.2 - 23.9 (minutes per game last season)

Orlando was tanking last season and Vucevic got to play through all his boo-boos and they will reap the rewards when games start to matter. It would be great if JV was offered the same courtesy - especially when people choose to compare the two.

[lilmamba_]

Are you kidding me?

We are too good to rebuild, but we suck too much to win big. This team is screwed. Whole league is laughing from us. I believe in Tim and Masai. They're smart. They will turn this franchise around. Just wait.

ok then who's holding us back from winning big then hun? you tell me. who said we cant win big, the season just started , whats so bad about our franchise that needs turning around?

if there's one guy fucking up right now its jv and his stupid mistakes yah yah sophomore's make mistakes
but one mistake from ross and he's benched for life
im finally happy to see jv getting some minutes off for his stupidness

[mcHAPPY]

It's important to draw a distinction between the guys at the top level of the position in league history and those who are at a lower level, and the difference is the athleticism the former possessed. Age has little or nothing to do with it. If a guy is going to dominate on an athletic basis, he's going to do so almost immediately. Kareem didn't all of a sudden become dominant, he just always was, by nature. Same with Robinson, Olajuwon, Shaq, Wilt et al. Those guys came in and immediately made their teams relevant.

One-in-a-million athletic ability is so rare that those who possess it continuously dominate their rivals over a long period of time. It's not really a mental thing. It's about the bodies they were born with. These guys are like Man o' War. That's a horse so exceptional that, in 1920, he beat the 1919 horse of the year (Sir Barton, which had won the triple crown) in a match race thus described: [MOW] easily drew away in the first furlong and was slowed to win by seven lengths.

Valanciunas doesn't have that kind of athletic ability. The Kareems, Shaqs et al. could explode past double-teams and force the ball into the hoop, and nothing could stop them. Valanciunas isn't that type of athlete. He can't expect to overpower most defenders because his body type is too ectomorphic. One indication of his strength against most opponents is how close to the basket he's able to catch the ball in the post. Not very, in my subjective view. In his young days Shaq, perhaps the strongest player to ever play the game, would get post position so close to the rim he could often dunk the ball after catching it.

He's not ever going to be as good as Tyson Chandler or Ben Wallace defensively, because he's not strong enough, and doesn't have their lateral quickness. He's already orders of magnitude behind Drummond. I expect Joel Embiid to be a better player than Valanciunas from the start.

So, not only does Valanciunas lack the athleticism of the very best players in history, he's also a step below the guys in the next rank. It's a thing easy to check for. If he had these qualities he couldn't hide them. He'd be doing jaw-dropping things all the time -- scoring and blocking shots in seemingly impossible ways. He's not doing that.

What I do like about him is, he defends the pick and roll, he guards the rim, and he's a decent rebounder. He cleans the offensive glass and gets the team easy put-backs. The way the league is now, that's good enough.

Because of his limitations, he's not really worth much forehead-rubbing. He's a nice player to have, but replaceable.

Any comparison to the greatest in the game is, well, stupid. JV is not near that level.

He won't be as good as Chandler defensively or Wallace but he'll be leaps and bounds above them offensively.

In the conversation of potential JV is easily in the conversation of Horford (likely not as polished offensively), Noah (much better offensively), and Hibbert (minus the shot blocking but a much better rebounder).

Wouldn't anyone want Horford, Noah, or Hibbert on their team?
Me too.

[JimiCliff]

Drummond, for example, seems to be progressing at the pace one would hope, and he's younger than JV.

I'd say Drummond's progressing at the pace of a HOF player. His physical dominance reminds me of young Shaq. It's probably in all of our best interests to never, ever compare JV to Drummond again. (Although, to remove some of the salt from that wound: it's looking like Drummond could also end up the league's all-time worst ft shooter, and if the Hack-a-Shaq rules don't change, this will have a huge impact on his effectiveness.)

[mcHAPPY]

ok then who's holding us back from winning big then hun? you tell me. who said we cant win big, the season just started , whats so bad about our franchise that needs turning around?

if there's one guy fucking up right now its jv and his stupid mistakes yah yah sophomore's make mistakes
but one mistake from ross and he's benched for life
im finally happy to see jv getting some minutes off for his stupidness

I am thinking you like athletic wings who dunk and base your like/dislike of that most important criteria.

[JimiCliff]

Also, congratulations to the Republic! It only took one full season plus 12 games, but the JV hating is finally here! I was getting a little worried!