TRADE: Ayton/Camara for Nurkic/Allen/Little/Johnson

[TOO]

Unless that's what your boss wants to do, who is to say Jones wasnt involved? Woj only writes what he's told.

[Superbone]

Yeah, there's no way Ayton could. Completely incapable!



(All plays are from last season.)

Ayton has had more turnovers than assists every season of his career. As with many things in his game, he shows occasional flashes but passing and playmaking is not something that he is consistently good at.

It wasn't his role. He wasn't asked to do it.

And we're talking about a specific role of passing to a cutter.

Here’s the problem Jeremy. There wasn’t a question of whether or not Ayton could do the things his highlights show him doing, it was that he could never be COUNTED ON to do any of it. When you would expect a big game out of him he would put up a stinker, blow a layup that should have been a dunk or stand there and just watch.

In other words, everything Trail Blazers fans are trying to warn us about Nurkic.

For half the price.

[JeremyG]

Ayton has had more turnovers than assists every season of his career. As with many things in his game, he shows occasional flashes but passing and playmaking is not something that he is consistently good at.

It wasn't his role. He wasn't asked to do it.

And we're talking about a specific role of passing to a cutter.

Here’s the problem Jeremy. There wasn’t a question of whether or not Ayton could do the things his highlights show him doing, it was that he could never be COUNTED ON to do any of it. When you would expect a big game out of him he would put up a stinker, blow a layup that should have been a dunk or stand there and just watch.

In other words, everything Trail Blazers fans are trying to warn us about Nurkic.

For half the price.

You're forgetting all the additional stuff: he's also a worse player, injured much of the time, and turning 30 years old next summer and may have begun his decline last season.

[JeremyG]

Nurkic has nearly double the assist rate of Ayton. Yes Ayton still got assists and I don’t think he’s incapable of making passes. Clearly he’s had some nice passes. That’s not what I’m talking about though, it’s the quick processing, especially on the move. Most of the passes in that Ayton clip had Ayton standing and watching cutters. He delivered good passes, but I don’t recall seeing him catch the ball on the move, not break his stride, dribble towards the rim, and then make the read. Nurkic did that regularly.

The clip that was posted in this thread of Nurkic was of him just standing there, receiving the pass, and quickly delivering it to the cutter. There were some of those in the Ayton highlights I posted. But I posted it mainly in response to whether he could makes passes like Porzingis to a cutting Beal.

I think year 2 Ayton(with some improvements) is what we’ll see in Portland…probably 19/11/2…shooting % will drop from the last few years.

That's not even an improvement if we assume he'll play closer to 36 minutes, which I would expect. His second season he averaged 20.1 points, 12.7 rebounds, and 2.1 assists per 36.

I'll stick with what I predicted in another thread: 24-26 ppg and 10-12 rpg. Probably 2-3 assists. Shooting % will be at least close to last season, I'll say 58% or higher.

[Superbone]

It wasn't his role. He wasn't asked to do it.

And we're talking about a specific role of passing to a cutter.

Here’s the problem Jeremy. There wasn’t a question of whether or not Ayton could do the things his highlights show him doing, it was that he could never be COUNTED ON to do any of it. When you would expect a big game out of him he would put up a stinker, blow a layup that should have been a dunk or stand there and just watch.

In other words, everything Trail Blazers fans are trying to warn us about Nurkic.

For half the price.

You're forgetting all the additional stuff: he's also a worse player, injured much of the time, and turning 30 years old next summer and may have begun his decline last season.

And you're forgetting additional stuff like 3 other contracts and flexibility with two of them possibly contributing this season.

[JeremyG]

Here’s the problem Jeremy. There wasn’t a question of whether or not Ayton could do the things his highlights show him doing, it was that he could never be COUNTED ON to do any of it. When you would expect a big game out of him he would put up a stinker, blow a layup that should have been a dunk or stand there and just watch.

In other words, everything Trail Blazers fans are trying to warn us about Nurkic.

For half the price.

You're forgetting all the additional stuff: he's also a worse player, injured much of the time, and turning 30 years old next summer and may have begun his decline last season.

And you're forgetting additional stuff like 3 other contracts and flexibility with two of them possibly contributing this season.

Which was completely unnecessary. Everyone was praising our depth as more than adequate two months ago.

[TOO]

I'll be shocked if Ayton is anywhere near 25ppg because he can't get to the line and doesn't shoot 3s well.

[Split T]

You guys are putting too much weight in an article that was obviously written from the Blazers perspective.

[specialsauce]

I'll be shocked if Ayton is anywhere near 25ppg because he can't get to the line and doesn't shoot 3s well.

That would make him 20th in the league in scoring and the #2 scoring center in the league.

Ain’t happening. It’s just not.

[specialsauce]

Nurkic has nearly double the assist rate of Ayton. Yes Ayton still got assists and I don’t think he’s incapable of making passes. Clearly he’s had some nice passes. That’s not what I’m talking about though, it’s the quick processing, especially on the move. Most of the passes in that Ayton clip had Ayton standing and watching cutters. He delivered good passes, but I don’t recall seeing him catch the ball on the move, not break his stride, dribble towards the rim, and then make the read. Nurkic did that regularly.

The clip that was posted in this thread of Nurkic was of him just standing there, receiving the pass, and quickly delivering it to the cutter. There were some of those in the Ayton highlights I posted. But I posted it mainly in response to whether he could makes passes like Porzingis to a cutting Beal.

I think year 2 Ayton(with some improvements) is what we’ll see in Portland…probably 19/11/2…shooting % will drop from the last few years.

That's not even an improvement if we assume he'll play closer to 36 minutes, which I would expect. His second season he averaged 20.1 points, 12.7 rebounds, and 2.1 assists per 36.

I'll stick with what I predicted in another thread: 24-26 ppg and 10-12 rpg. Probably 2-3 assists. Shooting % will be at least close to last season, I'll say 58% or higher.

He won’t average 36. Never has. Can’t keep his focus up for long enough, doesn’t have the required mental or physical endurance. And if he does average 36, no way he keeps that pace in numbers. You got to stop drinking

[JeremyG]

Nurkic has nearly double the assist rate of Ayton. Yes Ayton still got assists and I don’t think he’s incapable of making passes. Clearly he’s had some nice passes. That’s not what I’m talking about though, it’s the quick processing, especially on the move. Most of the passes in that Ayton clip had Ayton standing and watching cutters. He delivered good passes, but I don’t recall seeing him catch the ball on the move, not break his stride, dribble towards the rim, and then make the read. Nurkic did that regularly.

The clip that was posted in this thread of Nurkic was of him just standing there, receiving the pass, and quickly delivering it to the cutter. There were some of those in the Ayton highlights I posted. But I posted it mainly in response to whether he could makes passes like Porzingis to a cutting Beal.

I think year 2 Ayton(with some improvements) is what we’ll see in Portland…probably 19/11/2…shooting % will drop from the last few years.

That's not even an improvement if we assume he'll play closer to 36 minutes, which I would expect. His second season he averaged 20.1 points, 12.7 rebounds, and 2.1 assists per 36.

I'll stick with what I predicted in another thread: 24-26 ppg and 10-12 rpg. Probably 2-3 assists. Shooting % will be at least close to last season, I'll say 58% or higher.

He won’t average 36. Never has. Can’t keep his focus up for long enough, doesn’t have the required mental or physical endurance. And if he does average 36, no way he keeps that pace in numbers. You got to stop drinking

Do I have to drag up all those stats I posted before, where he outperformed his per 36 averages, when actually playing that many minutes?

[Superbone]

Nurkic has nearly double the assist rate of Ayton. Yes Ayton still got assists and I don’t think he’s incapable of making passes. Clearly he’s had some nice passes. That’s not what I’m talking about though, it’s the quick processing, especially on the move. Most of the passes in that Ayton clip had Ayton standing and watching cutters. He delivered good passes, but I don’t recall seeing him catch the ball on the move, not break his stride, dribble towards the rim, and then make the read. Nurkic did that regularly.

The clip that was posted in this thread of Nurkic was of him just standing there, receiving the pass, and quickly delivering it to the cutter. There were some of those in the Ayton highlights I posted. But I posted it mainly in response to whether he could makes passes like Porzingis to a cutting Beal.

I think year 2 Ayton(with some improvements) is what we’ll see in Portland…probably 19/11/2…shooting % will drop from the last few years.

That's not even an improvement if we assume he'll play closer to 36 minutes, which I would expect. His second season he averaged 20.1 points, 12.7 rebounds, and 2.1 assists per 36.

I'll stick with what I predicted in another thread: 24-26 ppg and 10-12 rpg. Probably 2-3 assists. Shooting % will be at least close to last season, I'll say 58% or higher.

He won’t average 36. Never has. Can’t keep his focus up for long enough, doesn’t have the required mental or physical endurance. And if he does average 36, no way he keeps that pace in numbers. You got to stop drinking

He always has struggled with conditioning in the past. Seemed to get winded easily.

[Split T]

I will say that Portland currently doesn’t have another center on the roster that has played a single minute in the nba. I think Ayton might play a lot. Playing for the Bahamas this summer also probably helped with conditioning.

I don’t think he’ll play 36 minutes…only 10 players did last year and none of them were centers. Bam, Embiid, and Sabonis led all centers at 34.6 minutes. Jokic was 33.7

[specialsauce]

Nurkic has nearly double the assist rate of Ayton. Yes Ayton still got assists and I don’t think he’s incapable of making passes. Clearly he’s had some nice passes. That’s not what I’m talking about though, it’s the quick processing, especially on the move. Most of the passes in that Ayton clip had Ayton standing and watching cutters. He delivered good passes, but I don’t recall seeing him catch the ball on the move, not break his stride, dribble towards the rim, and then make the read. Nurkic did that regularly.

The clip that was posted in this thread of Nurkic was of him just standing there, receiving the pass, and quickly delivering it to the cutter. There were some of those in the Ayton highlights I posted. But I posted it mainly in response to whether he could makes passes like Porzingis to a cutting Beal.

I think year 2 Ayton(with some improvements) is what we’ll see in Portland…probably 19/11/2…shooting % will drop from the last few years.

That's not even an improvement if we assume he'll play closer to 36 minutes, which I would expect. His second season he averaged 20.1 points, 12.7 rebounds, and 2.1 assists per 36.

I'll stick with what I predicted in another thread: 24-26 ppg and 10-12 rpg. Probably 2-3 assists. Shooting % will be at least close to last season, I'll say 58% or higher.

He won’t average 36. Never has. Can’t keep his focus up for long enough, doesn’t have the required mental or physical endurance. And if he does average 36, no way he keeps that pace in numbers. You got to stop drinking

Do I have to drag up all those stats I posted before, where he outperformed his per 36 averages, when actually playing that many minutes?

Oh you mean those games few and far in between?

Yes, outliers are a great measure. He would certainly keep that up over an 82 game span.

[Superbone]

[Mori Chu]

I think Ayton will up his numbers in Portland. My random prediction: 21 ppg, 12 rpg, 2 assists. Shooting% numbers slightly down from this season. I bet overall Portland will be happy with Ayton, though he probably won't be an All-Star for them because they won't win enough games.

[Superbone]

Yep, pretty close to what I’m thinking. I’ll go 22/11/2 with 3.2 FTs per game and 29 wins.

[Flagrant Fowl]

Piecing together the timeline and it's pretty clear to me that Ayton's fate with the Suns was sealed after the Beal trade was completed. Probably even before given how the season ended and needing to move Chris Paul. Everyone talked about how restricted the Suns would be with the four "max" contracts and Ayton was obviously the only way to improve their flexibility. A priority for the Suns was to break his contract into more manageable pieces, and the whole NBA knew it. That's not getting played, that's everyone else understanding their own leverage. If someone wants to say they screwed up by making the Beal trade and it pigeonholed themselves into a bad deal for Ayton, then I don't know what to say to that. Beal is so much better than Ayton that choosing shouldn't even be a dilemma.

They understood the positional talent downgrade from Ayton was likely inevitable if the Suns were to achieve their first priority, so I imagine they put together a list of contract and player values they'd target in the whole package. Remember that the only other rumored Ayton trade was a pu pu platter from Dallas? That somewhat indicated how the rest of the league views Ayton's value. I'm sure he was offered to both Brooklyn and Washington, and both of those teams decided to stick with their own young bigs (Claxton, Gafford) instead of taking on Ayton and his inflated salary. As much as I enjoyed 'bazz list of Ayton packages, I can't really imagine most of those teams thinking differently than the Nets or Wiz.

Once the Suns had the framework of the deal with Portland, they were satisfied in meeting their objective. There aren't many Centers that fit this deal as well as Nurkic and that certainly helped facilitate his arrival, but Nurkic specifically was never the priority in this trade. I think it'll ultimately work out because of how much more depth was added to the rotation. There will be really good players on the Suns who don't play a minute in some games this season and that should result in a lot of wins.

[Cap]

There will be really good players on the Suns who don't play a minute in some games this season and that should result in a lot of wins.

How does having a good player at #10 who doesn’t get off the bench help win?

[Flagrant Fowl]

There will be really good players on the Suns who don't play a minute in some games this season and that should result in a lot of wins.

How does having a good player at #10 who doesn’t get off the bench help win?

It's a long season and players get injured. All of these new rotation guys are better than Shamet, Warren, Ross, etc..