Donovan Mitchell is why you don't pass on Obi Toppin

[NBASupes]

Just now, JayBirdHawk said:

Is there anyone you're nit gonna compare Obi too, lol. We get, you're high on him, others aren't. And that's ok.

Again, I have no issue taking him but please stop talking about him as the next coming of the next great power forward. If he was all that he'd be the consensus #1 pick.

He should be the consensus #1 pick if everything was equal. If he was 19 instead of 22. If everyone had good lead initiators like the Hawks, If we could work him out as could everyone in the NBA but we can't and he's not 19. He's 22 years old. You can't change that. But at the end of the day, he's as good as they come on film as a big. He's as offensively polished as Horford but he can actually score in numerous ways. He doesn't need a PG or a lead initiator and he's not just an elite finisher who's tremendous at movement. 

[thecampster]

53 minutes ago, NBASupes said:

What did you see that made you think this can't be improved on? The only issue is the change of the direction and that's only an issue if you are projecting him to be a wing which I know isn't the case. With his first step, he will be fine in the NBA for face ups. 

We can do this for every player in the draft, if you like. Luka had a shitload of questionable areas. Trae had miles of questionable areas. So what are we trying to do here? What's the purpose of your post? Are you saying, we shouldn't draft a soul due to weaknesses. Damn, let's just pass on LeBron James and Michael Jordan because they have flaws. Sorry but I am not understanding the purpose of this post. Please tell me what can't be improved on, especially as a 4. 

Take the top 10 players likely to be drafted and watch their weaknesses videos. It goes a long way toward deciding how players should be ranked (based on team need). I think we all spend too much time looking at highlight videos. Lowlight videos complete the picture.

[thecampster]

 

 

 

[NBASupes]

28 minutes ago, thecampster said:

I don't know how much more clear I can be when I say "no criticism or praise". 

But since you now asked, there are only 3 weaknesses listed. In some of these videos, I see as many as 8 items listed, so only 3 is a very good sign.

1) Decision making. At the pro level, he will not be expected to be a decision maker most of the time.  The pro game relies much more heavily on Guards and Small Forwards to be decision makers in the offense (the benefit of not playing against the zone).  This "negative" aspect of his game is a very small knock (IMHO).

2) Being stiff - Not much he can do about this and he's only going to get stronger, thicker. This one concerns me a bit if he is expected to be a multi-faceted threat. He'll need to greatly improve his inside game and work with a shooting coach on fluidity (exact opposite issue as what Cam had). This is the greatest concern to me but its very workable in the right system, with the right work. He should never be handling the ball in traffic and should have to snap a wrist rubber band every time he tries to drive at guards.

3) Reluctance to shoot - I didn't see this as a negative at all. If I didn't see this, I'd think he was a right handed Josh Smith clone (think about it, about 70% of his game is Josh Smith). But one of the bigger mistakes players make is forcing things they aren't comfortable doing. I'm okay with this "negative".

1. Decision making is a major strength of Toppin. Even the same guy said this in his offensive strengths video. Just about every scout has said this. Including the draftnik scouts like Vecenie, Schimtz, Aran Smith, the guys from thestepian, Wasserman, O'Connor, NBA.com, shit everybody. Saying he will not be expecteed to be a decision maker most of the time is BS. This is one of my big issues watching the Hawks play is the lack of good decision making skills from the bigs when I was just blessed with Horford or Millsap for damn near 9 years. Decision making is natural. It leads to quality play and winning Basketball. Please don't say this to a NBA coach or GM. Everyone has to be a good decision maker on the court or you have to find ways to hide it otherwise. Why do you think Dallas' offense is so good. They have a shitload of decision makers, same for Golden State. 

2. Being stiff is a major problem if you plan on using him as a wing. That was always Marvin's big issue as a wing and it's why you could never use Amar'e as a wing. As a 4, it's all about athleticism, basic ball-handling, explosiveness, finishing, spacing, touch, shooting, and for some movement. Toppin isn't perfect by any means at these areas but he ranks high for prospects in all of these categories for a PF. 

3. This is more like Al Horford for shooting threes in year 9. This is all about reps. Nothing more, nothing less. The fact that he's at this stage as a big man prospect out of college is pretty good for his development moving forward. Most bigs barely get good reps in college. Very rarely do they translate negatively like the guards or wings. Toppin gives me a lot of hope as I seen him do decent with contested 3 as well which is something year 9 Horford struggled at. 

Edited August 31, 2020 by NBASupes

[thecampster]

2 minutes ago, NBASupes said:

1. Decision making is a major strength of Toppin. Even the same guy said this in his offensive strengths video. Just about every scout has said this. Including the draftnik scouts like Vecenie, Schimtz, Aran Smith, the guys from thestepian, Wasserman, O'Connor, NBA.com, shit everybody. Saying he will not be expecteed to be a decision maker most of the time is BS. This is one of my big issues watching the Hawks play is the lack of good decision making skills from the bigs when I was just blessed with Horford or Millsap for damn near 9 years. Decision making is natural. It leads to quality play and winning Basketball. Please don't say this to a NBA coach or GM. Everyone has to be a good decision maker on the court or you have to find ways to hide it otherwise. Why do you think Dallas' offense is so good. They have a shitload of decision makers, same for Golden State. 

2. Being stiff is a major problem if you plan on using him as a wing. That was always Marvin's big issue as a wing and it's why you could never use Amar'e as a wing. As a 4, it's all about athleticism, basic ball-handling, explosiveness, finishing, spacing, touch, shooting, and for some movement. Toppin isn't perfect by any means at these areas but he ranks high for prospects in all of these categories for a PF. 

3. This is more like Al Horford in year 1 of shooting threes in year 9. This is all about reps. Nothing more, nothing less. The fact that he's at this stage as a big man prospect out of college is pretty good for his development moving forward. 

To be fair on 2 - I don't see him as stiff when defending or rebounding. I only see it when he's handling the ball and as a jump shooter. 

[NBASupes]

Just now, thecampster said:

To be fair on 2 - I don't see him as stiff when defending or rebounding. I only see it when he's handling the ball and as a jump shooter. 

That's a sign that you are NOT a wing. Wings can't be stiff. Some wings are sniff defensively like Luka but not stiff on offense like Luka. 

[thecampster]

6 minutes ago, NBASupes said:

1. Decision making is a major strength of Toppin. Even the same guy said this in his offensive strengths video. Just about every scout has said this. Including the draftnik scouts like Vecenie, Schimtz, Aran Smith, the guys from thestepian, Wasserman, O'Connor, NBA.com, shit everybody. Saying he will not be expecteed to be a decision maker most of the time is BS. This is one of my big issues watching the Hawks play is the lack of good decision making skills from the bigs when I was just blessed with Horford or Millsap for damn near 9 years. Decision making is natural. It leads to quality play and winning Basketball. Please don't say this to a NBA coach or GM. Everyone has to be a good decision maker on the court or you have to find ways to hide it otherwise. Why do you think Dallas' offense is so good. They have a shitload of decision makers, same for Golden State. 

2. Being stiff is a major problem if you plan on using him as a wing. That was always Marvin's big issue as a wing and it's why you could never use Amar'e as a wing. As a 4, it's all about athleticism, basic ball-handling, explosiveness, finishing, spacing, touch, shooting, and for some movement. Toppin isn't perfect by any means at these areas but he ranks high for prospects in all of these categories for a PF. 

3. This is more like Al Horford in year 1 of shooting threes in year 9. This is all about reps. Nothing more, nothing less. The fact that he's at this stage as a big man prospect out of college is pretty good for his development moving forward. 

and if you want a reason for concern video, you watch the Anthony Edwards video. With a shot as consistent as his, he should not be missing that bad. The decision making is a concern because its an unknown. Do you blame it on his teammates lake of talent or the system.

 

Edited August 31, 2020 by thecampster

[kg01]

1 hour ago, NBASupes said:

@kg01, honestly, I don't see this shit the way you do and I can't understand how you see this shit the way you do. It's like trying to figure out why someone would say 2+2=8

When you bring up Bagley, please bring up Reddish, Zion, Doncic, etc. Dont bring up the bad without bringing up the good and Bagley is not bad either. He just has been unfortunate with injuries. 

Hey, I've given my final thoughts on this dude.  Suggesting guaranteed greatness at this point is the epitome of 2+2=8 thinking, by the way.  You're not even leaving the possibility that it may not turn out that way.  That's the essence of what I find objectionable about all this.

I think if you said "Toppin could be elite offensively" as opposed to saying "Toppin will be elite offensively", I wouldn't even bat an eye at your opinion.

[NBASupes]

9 minutes ago, thecampster said:

and if you want a reason for concern video, you watch the Anthony Edwards video. With a shot as consistent as his, he should not be missing that bad. The decision making is a concern because its an unknown. Do you blame it on his teammates lake of talent or the system.

 

Edwards has a shot fluidity issue like Cam that you mentioned about Cam. While Cam also has to clean-up his form, Ant makes really bad decisions on shot selection like Dion Waiters. Ant also has the same issue as Cam where they have added all of these shots to their repertoire but aren't exact good at shooting any of them. This is usually easy to fix, getting good reps and an asst coach focusing on shooting. This is easily fixable. We seen Cam fix a lot of this as a rookie. It takes time and patience. 

 

UGA had talent but their BBIQ and feel the game was equally as low as Edwards. That team was just too raw outside of Edwards. If anything, I felt he improved more than expected playing for Crean. I was impressed with Edwards development. At the end of the day, a 7 offensively is nothing to laugh at as a rookie NBA prospect. Now a 5 on defense is. LOL! He's going to be fine in the NBA. It's going to be much easier than college for him. Especially coming off the bench. 

Edited August 31, 2020 by NBASupes

[NBASupes]

8 minutes ago, kg01 said:

Hey, I've given my final thoughts on this dude.  Suggesting guaranteed greatness at this point is the epitome of 2+2=8 thinking, by the way.  You're not even leaving the possibility that it may not turn out that way.  That's the essence of what I find objectionable about all this.

I think if you said "Toppin could be elite offensively" as opposed to saying "Toppin will be elite offensively", I wouldn't even bat an eye at your opinion.

For the Hawks, he will be great. I am guaranteeing it. For others, it depends, I still expect him to be excellent on offense regardless of the team. 

[marco102]

1 hour ago, thecampster said:

To be fair on 2 - I don't see him as stiff when defending or rebounding. I only see it when he's handling the ball and as a jump shooter. 

I see it when he's defending in space. It's awful and that's my biggest concern with him.  He'll get roasted in pick and roll coverage.

[marco102]

Here's a thorough breakdown of OBI Toppin's offense and defense.  Enjoy. 

I'm fully on the Kilian Hayes train weaknesses and all.

 

[NBASupes]

4 minutes ago, marco102 said:

I see it when he's defending in space. It's awful and that's my biggest concern with him.  He'll get roasted in pick and roll coverage.

He will get roasted in year 1. After that, he will make adjustments but yeah, he will be bad. I know he's been spending a lot of time working on it during the break but it's a tough transition regardless. The PnR is where a lot of rookies get cooked on for PFs, I clearly don't expect him to differ. You gotta be a tremendous switch defender like Hunter. Otherwise, you will struggle at it. That's why with us, he would be coming off the bench. 

He has shown times when he isn't stiff defensively in space which gives you hope but when he doesn't get down, man, it's rough. 

[terrell]

4 hours ago, bleachkit said:

Toppin is very good at tip dunks. Those always bring a lot of excitement in game. He's a very quick and explosive leaper. 

Kenyon Martin?

[AHF]

55 minutes ago, terrell said:

Kenyon Martin?

Nowhere near as good on D as Martin and a stronger and more diverse tool kit on offense.

[kg01]

His defensive limitations are due to physical limitations that aren't gonna change, btw.

[NBASupes]

4 minutes ago, kg01 said:

His defensive limitations are due to physical limitations that aren't gonna change, btw.

For someone with a hard on against hard stances, you seem to be all-in if the opinion is carried by your viewpoint. What are his defensive limitations to you? 

[NBASupes]

57 minutes ago, AHF said:

Nowhere near as good on D as Martin and a stronger and more diverse tool kit on offense.

And Martin and is nowhere near as good offensively and I like Martin but these two are just vastly different offensively. Martin is like bizarro-JC. Where JC is efficient, scoring minded movement specialist and rebounder, who's a below average defender. Martin is a very good defender but a below average offensive player who's best skill is finishing and screen setting. His movement is decent but lacking compared to Amar'e and not close to the league of JC. JC and Kenyon Martin is literally a fun comparison. Both players are similar but the polar opposites. Martin was such a good defender for a PF. Man, I miss K-Mart. 

Offensively, Amar'e is the clear comparison for Toppin but he does more for winning ball than Amar'e does. 

Edited August 31, 2020 by NBASupes

[kg01]

12 minutes ago, NBASupes said:

For someone with a hard on against hard stances, you seem to be all-in if the opinion is carried by your viewpoint. What are his defensive limitations to you? 

Stiff hips, slow feet, high center of gravity.  Not to mention awareness issues.  Can't get into defensive stance.  Has to load to jump which negates his leaping ability on the defensive end (no timing).

On the positive side, awareness issues can be fixed.  See, I'm not all negative.

[RedDawg#8]

So wait.... Mitchell, Tatum, now Vince..... just tell us, what position does Toppin actually play? And can you explain who's game do you think currently best illustrates his future fit on this team?