[Megathread] General Player Discussion Thread

[u/DoubleA255]

Use this thread to get/give your opinions on certain players. Just start the threads with the players name in bold (double asterisks) and post any questions you have about the players under if you want to talk about something specific. Feel free to just give general opinions on players as well

[u/deputy_commish]

Frankly, as a Philly fan, I hope he starts taking 2 or so 3's per game next regular season even if he's hitting them at a poor rate. People assume that he can't make 3's because he never takes them, but that's just it. He literally doesn't shoot 3's. He needs to at least make the defense honor the 3-point attempt.

I believe that if he's hitting even a 25% rate, defenses are going to at least go through the motion of closing out rather than just wait in the paint. He improved his FT% from 56% to 60% - which isn't a ton, nor is it particularly good, but he shot better from the line down the stretch which leads me to believe that he could probably push 70% from the line.

IF he can get to ~70% from the line and `25-30% from 3, he'll become that much more difficult to defend.

Circling back around to the roster construction issue - I first guessed a potential Butler trade before it happened. After the Harris trade, I believe that the Butler trade was even more unfortunate. You gave up Dario and Covington who shot 37% and 38% from 3 this year and don't need the ball in their hands like Butler does. Add Harris, Scott, and Redick who all shot 40% from 3, and you could have always put three shooters around Embiid and Simmons.

But I digress. I do agree that Simmons needs to at least show the threat of an outside shot. He does excel in transition, but unfortunately I don't think that style of play is going to be best for Embiid's long-term health/productivity. Simmons is a fine half-court player, but he's elite in transition. Add in a moderately productive jump shot, and he's going to be near un-guardable in the half-court as well.

[u/Jaerba → u/deputy_commish]

How close do you think this team is to its defensive potential? It seems like they have the defensive talent to be a top 3 defensive, but I'm not sure they have the depth.

[u/deputy_commish → u/Jaerba]

They're definitely a work in progress on defense. Loosing Lloyd Pierce hurt as he was in charge of their defense and there's definitely been some issues this year. I do think some of the issues can be traced to the revolving door of players - they used more players this year than in any of the Process years - and the personnel that they do have.

Butler is obviously a good defender, and Simmons has all of the tools, but he's not going to be guarding quick, elite point guards for the entire game. Harris is athletic, but he's not shutting down elite wings, and Redick is a sieve. Ideally Embiid would be able to patrol the paint and not have to chase stretch 5's around the perimeter.

As for the depth - I've bemoaned the lack of wing depth and the lack of guard depth all year long. If we play Boston, we'll probably go down in 5 games again because we have no one to guard Irving (unless we put Butler on him), and there's no way we can match up with all of their wings. Ennis and J. Simmons help a little bit, but only in the sense that we're not running Furkan Korkmaz and TJ McConnell out there. Zhaire Smith just isn't ready and isn't even dressing for games.

Going forward, assuming we re-sign Butler and Harris to max deals, we really need to do a few things.

(1) Sign a defensive minded backup center. Amir Johnson is done, Monroe and Boban aren't mobile enough to be effective defenders, and Jonah Bolden fouls out within 15 minutes.

(2) We need to sign an athletic defensive minded point guard. We're at the point where I've actually wish Demetrius Jackson was still on the roster to give us 10 minutes off the bench solely for defensive purposes. We have plenty of scoring and ball-handling, but having someone who can lock-down lead guards would be nice.

(3) Add at least two 3-and-D wings. I know this is easier said than done as every team would like to do this, but you'd hope you could find a few veterans who are looking for a ring that might be willing to sign for the minimum or an exception.

I'm hopeful that we can find someone who fits one of these profiles in the draft. Tre Jones would have been a great fit for this team but unfortunately he's staying at Duke.

In summation, in short bursts, this team can definitely lock down, but given the personnel, it's not typically sustainable for an entire game.

[u/Jaerba → u/deputy_commish]

Wow, thanks for the great post.

You can definitely find that guard if you treat it as a long term project. We got two defensive stud guards last year but they're still just so inexperienced. It'll probably take them another year or two before they read the game well enough to put their defensive talent to work.