kurupt

Thats the thing with Payne: he isn´t a really young player. 4 years of College is the most experience you will get with a rookie unless you take a guy like Antić from Europe (who still has to adjust to the American game anyway). 24 years isn´t old, for sure. But it´s not like his game will make big leaps forward at that age. He shot poorly in Summer Lague play (37%) and he shoots poorly in Minnesota. 31% from the field as an athletic 6'10 guy is just bad. He is more of a face-up player and his shot just isn´t good enough to do that on the NBA level. Coupled with a putrid FGA to FTA ratio (8:1), his ability to score is just really bad for a PF and he doesn´t add much else except decent rebounding and the occasional block on defense. And there are tons of players that can do that better.

Ehrmegerd! The sky is falling...wait a second! The Hawks didn´t shoot well and lost to a very good team. A team that has probably the best match-ups possible against the Hawks in two big and strong interior players and a great overall defense. That this game was still so close all the way through is a good thing. Silver lining of the last weeks: after starting out 8/40 from 3-point territory from October-December, Schröder has hit 11 of his last 27 3's. I hope and think this trend will continue and make it even harder for defenses to play him.

8 of those were stop the clock fouls at the end and the Hawks just got a lot more to the rim than the Warriors. So no surprise there.

Some GSW fans complainign about 22 FTs more for the Hawks while 8 of them were stop the clock FTs at the end. And the Hawks just got into the paint and to the rim a lot easier and a lot more. GSW was basically shooting jump shots all night (except for fast break layups after TOs in the first half). It was actually pretty funny seeing Horford fouling someone by shooting the ball, while the most obvious flagrant foul by Bogut on Horford was just a normal foul. Also, no Hawk getting any respect at the basket on their drives, just look ad Dennis' layup in the first half, he was raked accross his body/face and no whistle. Should´ve been like a 30 FTs disparity in my opinion...

4am here in Germany, I regret nothing! Great game! Especially because GSW played well, too, but the Hawks had too many answers (or questions in the first place?). Even the lack of any respect by the refs didn´t phase th Hawks. Great win!

Yeeh. That was exactly the kind of game that you should lose at some point: good opponent with their best player on fire, playing with high intensity, two core rotation players out for the Hawks and yet they still win comfortably at the end. Makes you wonder what it will take to beat this team...

Greetings from Germany :)

For my analysis i refer to my SL post about Payne. I haven´t seen him play since, but his FG% looks better at 48% right now. But I don´t think he will improve a lot from here. People treat him like a young, developing player. But he has played four years in College, he will be 24 years old in a month. I think he is what he is as a player.

Schröder can´t buy assists yet again...

A little bit off-topic, but I was checking out Dennis Schröders former running mate from Braunschweig, Daniel Theis, who is playing Summer League for the Wizards this year and was pleased to see how well he has played so far. You might have seen this in the top-10. I was curious how he would hold up vs. Paynes stats so far, because they are of a similar build and age (Payne is a little bit bigger, but also a year older) and I have seen all their games so far. Payne also has a little bit more range, Theis can shoot the European three, but I think thats max-range for him. I was surprised (adjusted to 28 minutes of playing time): Payne: 12.5 ppg, 7.0 rpg, 1.2 apg, 1.0 spg, 0.7 bpg, 3.5 tpg with 0.375 FG% (0.300 3P%) and 0.750 FT% (2.67 attempts per game) Theis: 12.8 ppg, 12.8 rpg, 1.4 apg, 0.9 spg, 3.9 bpg, 4.4 tpg with 0.636 FG% (he has taken no 3pt shots so far) and 0.882 FT% (7.44 attempts per game) Of course Payne is much more of a "focal point" for the Hawks while Theis profits from Glen Rice Jr. and Otto Porter taking a lot of the attention away from him. On the other hand Payne is a 23-year old college "veteran" and a 15th pick while Theis is just showcasing himself for German/European teams and not the NBA. I find it troubling that Payne gets basically no free throws as a big man (he is supposed to play PF and C?!) and takes only long jumpers so far. The video above doesn´t really show good post moves. He powered through a couple of times, but there were not really any go-to moves. So far it looks like 90% of his offensive game is facing the basket, even when he finishes closer to the rim. I think that will be a problem when he gets properly scouted in NBA games. So in order to consistently contribute his outside shot has to get a lot better. It is nice to have a PF/C with his shooting, but only if he has other options to go to and so far he has not - and then you need to be elite in what you can do. P.S.: Some nostalgia, Theis and Dennis on the farm team in Braunschweig when they were 17-20 years old I think Dennis weighs twice as much now

Guees you missed this last season Dennis has decent leap ability, but he never needed to use it in Europe. His speed was enough to get him lots of uncontested layups without having to jump. But I already see him adjusting in his second year in the NBA, he realizes that he has to elevate more in order to finish versus more athletic players. But it will take some time to adjust, it affects a lot of your rhythm going to the basket, especially if you use the Euro-Step like Dennis does quite a lot.

Plus, its kind of silly to compare the quality of players drafted between Cleveland and Atlanta anyway. They picked 1st and 4th while the Hawks had the 17th and 19th picks in this draft. Quite a difference. And I completely agree, grading later picks of young players after half a season doesn´t make any sense. Players like Nowitzki would have been a bust by that standard and Tony Parker would have been as "bad" as Schröder is supposed to be.

Keep in mind that - Schröder ist the 6th younges player in the NBA right now (Giannis Antetokounmpo, Archie Goodwin, Nerlens Noel (injured), Sergey Karasev, Michael Kidd-Gilchrist (2nd year), Dennis Schröder in that order). - Look up his stats and especially the progress he has made in limited time. After a cold start, he is now shooting a better percentage (41.5%) overall than, for example, Jeff Teague (41.4%), Victor Oladipo (40.3%) or Ben McLemore (36.6%). So why exactly is is shooting supposed to be such a problem? And he has arguably more room to grow than most of them, since he wasn´t a big scorer before. - It seems to me that only the TO are a huge concern. Something that is absolutely normal for a) a rookie that b) plays PG and c) is amongst the youngest players in the entire NBA. His stats for 32 minutes: 9.8 ppg, 2.5 rpg, 5 apg, 1 spg, 3.7 tpg (Schröder) 13.7 ppg, 4.4 rpg, 4.0 apg, 1.6 spg, 3.3 tpg (Oladipo) Clearly Oladipo is way better right now, but its not that far off either. Especially if you look at what roles they play in their respective teams. Schröder plays when the bench gets emptied, Oladipo is basically a starter and one of the top-3 options. It will take some more time to adjust, but the "sky is falling"-attitude of some people towards such a young player who has to adapt to a completely new playing style and a new country is a little bit over the top, I think.

Right. Laughable suspension hat only happens because he is a (rather unknown/unheralded) rookie. He never did anything even remotely close to this in Germany and video doesn´t show anything that could lead you to believe that it was intentional. Its just speculation and no one can know what he was thinking or trying to do but himself. But I think he handled it very smart with his tweet, not trying to fight the league :) Also agree that DMC gets away with a crystal-clear intentional foul without even getting a flagrant 1. After a review...

Not to mention, that the competition in Germany is definetly higher than anything you can face in the NCAA.

Yeah, no sound. Have another URL, but the source seems to be the same.

I am so pumped, 1 hour to go! Game will start 1:30 am here in Germany, but I guess I will have to make it work the next day Coffee be my saviour!

What an insightful assessment of a rookie. Thats the definition of someone who hasn´t played an NBA game, let alone a season...

Reading this thread made me realize just how different the approach to basketball (and maybe sports in general) in the US and Europe is. Over here it is about the end result, the team winning and it doesn´t matter as much who was/is the most important or best player - if you contributed to your team winning in the best way possible, you did everything right. This quote about Ricky Rubio sums it up pretty well: (Schöder said the same thing in an interview after the last game: "I shoot the ball if the team needs me to score. If there are other ways to make us win, Il´ll try those first. I don´t care about how we win.") Not to compare Rubio to Schröder, but I think the situation in Minnesota is very interesting. Even with Rubio being very popular, Kevin Love is seen as (by far) the best player on the team and one of the best in the league. But if you look what the team accomplished with him, the results are pretty terrible. They are a 22-28 win team with Love. They were a .500+ team when Rubio played, regardless of Love playing with him or being injured. Somehow, it doesn´t matter that he shoots poorly. Somehow, him playing makes this team a lot more successful, regardless of the individual stats he puts up. You can see the same if you watched the summer league games so far: the team looks so much more poised and focused when Schröder plays PG than with any other player doing it. Even if he struggles, even if the +/- may be negative: it looks like real basketball and not like typical summer league basketball. And I think that wins you games, because thats the approach the Spurs have taken for years: don´t care how it looks or if it makes you a star, but playing the right way makes you win. And by the way, Teague is haads and shoulders betther than Schröder right now. They way Schröder plays, he won´t be able to play more than 20-25 mpg tops anyway, especially in his first NBA season. It will also be good, if he has to fight for more minutes and doesn´t get a starting job handed to him. It probably benefits both PGs that they are different in their play style and skill-sets.

They do, but they also have more drug testing and (especially) more severe punishments for failing them. (this is part serious, part exaggeration )

40% from 3pt-range on 3+ attempts per game last season. (Going up from 25% -> 30% the years before) /thread 1. He clearly has to work on his finish at/around the rim (lay the ball up on the glass faster to force goaltends, jump higher and develope a floater) - this will take time, but it will happen, because he has a good feeling for the ball. 2. Adjust to the NBA-3pt range. This will happen/has already happened. He will never be Ray Allen, but he´ll lnock down open 3's at a 35+% clip (potentially better), which is more than enough to keep defenses honest and a lot better than a lot of the top PGs currently playing. 3. He has to get better off the dribble, both with his mid-range and 3-pt shooting. This is the only area that needs so much work, that it might be something that he never gets "good enough" or "good" at. Also: he is not a scoring PG, but a "leader". He only scores if there is no better option for his team at that moment, much like Chris Paul, who has some offense tools, but doesn´t use them as often as he could.

12:13 pm here in Germany, I am so pumped up for a Summer League game. What is happening :D

First something about the general play over here in Europe/Germany: The game is a lot slower and more organized, a lot of half-court offense, a lot of set-plays and pick&rolls. This is in part due to the less athletic/talented players, but most of it is the 3-pt line being a bit shorter, which equals less room to guard and zone defenses being allowed/no 3-second rule on defense. That means that big men are always guarding the basket and defenses collapse much quicker than in the NBA (less room to cover and you don´t have to keep out of the lane when leaving your man). So there is a big emphasis on team defense and p&r defense, while good 1on1 defense is more of a bonus. The best thing about Dennis ist that he really is competetive. We say that about most athletes, but it really applies to him. He enjoys playing defense and he really sees it as a personal challenge. He doesn´t just want to "do his job" defensively, he wants to dominate his opponent and force him into making bad plays. This video is really good and covers his defense after the 7:20 minute mark. He moves very well and has really quick feet, allowing him to go over screens a lot of times without losing his man. He stays in front of his man or at least very close. He is able to slide in every direction at high speed while still being able to keep his arms up/out or poke at the ball, which can disrupt the ball handler quite a lot. Since he can recover well, he is also able to gamble a little bit and pressure his man over the whole court, because he can usually recover in time even if his man gets past him once. Now, NBA players will be better than the competition he faced here in Germany, but I think the dedication and talent is there. Physical guards that can post up will be a big challenge since he just isn´t very strong yet. That wasn´t an issue over here in Germany because a) most PGs aren´t as athletic as in the NBA and b) its much harder to isolate matchups. I think coming over from Europe will help him in terms of understanding the new defense concepts he will have to learn. He already had two professional coaches along with his "mentor" and coach of the farm team in the 3rd division and played well defensively for all of them. Defensively he is a lot like a taller version of Noris Cole in Miami, I think.

Some insight into Dennis Schröder from Germany: 1. He is improving by the day. His 3pt% went up from 25%, to 30% to 40% over the last two years and he shot quite a lot of threes (more than 3 per game in 25 mpg). He is no Steph Curry and never will be, but he is able to knock down open 3's which some elite PGs in the NBA cannot (Westbrook, Rondo, Wall for example). He has a good touch, which not only means he will get better as a ranged shooter, but will also develope his floater and his mid-range game more. Finishing at and around the rim will be a problem, but thats to be expected by every rookie PG in his first year, whose name isn´t Rose. Look at Westbrook, Wall, Walker or Teague all shooting hardly 40% in their first season. As he gets used to playing in the NBA and also gets stronger, this will be less of an issue. 2. He made the leap from basically not playing (because the coach wouldn´t let him, despite dominating the lower-league competition at will) in 2011/12 to being the starting PG and most important player with the most minutes in 2012/13. Now, the German league isn´t the NBA, but it is better than NCAA level and he played against veterans there. Not only holding his own but carrying his team, becoming the youngest German ever All-Star. It doesn´t look like he is anywhere near his ceiling yet. 3. At the Nike Hoop Summit he showed that he is not only lightning-quick compared to European competition, but also way too quick for the most athletic and promising talents from all over the world and the US. The two US PGs defending him fouled out of the game. He dominated and impressed in every pratice and the actual game, in which he looked like a man amongst boys in terms of understanding and controlling the flow and speed of the game. Again, he is a lot more experienced playing against men than any other 19-year old in this draft. 4. He is very good out of the pick&roll and an excelles as the passing man in alley-hoop plays. The NBA athletes and playstyle will really bring out the best in him in that regard. European basketball is slow, very organized and not very athletic which is basically the worst environment for such a young player - and he still left his mark. Overall his quickness and unbelievable fleet feet/lateral movement are assets that will translate very well to the NBA. Even if he doesn´t improve anything else, he will be a bigger version of Darren Collison or Norris Cole, which is good value for a 17th pick. And if he improves, which I strongly believe if he gets some playing time to adjust to the NBA, he will be a lot better. If anyone has any questions about him, feel free to ask. P.S.: I am not a homer, not really an avid fan of the basketball teams here, but I played against a lot of the German players from this city when I was young (Dennis is too young, though) and have been watching the two teams (1st and 3rd division (=farm team)) for about 15 years.