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Anthony Bennett
- Thread starter Spencer Hawes
- Start date
Marbles
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of course he looks good against a 5'-11" white guy
Pioneer10
Come home Sideshow Bob
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Almost everyone in the top 10 of that draft has value. Not stars maybe but guys who are good enough to get minutes in the NBA. Bennett is just awful with regards to that as he almost has negative value due to his contract.
Even a relative disappointment like Potter would have served the Cavs well as a backup to James. Noel would be groomed under AV. What an epic bomb
Kbiz
Situational Showstopper
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Each draft class should produce at least one All-Star caliber player. I'm not talking elite talent but someone who would compete for All NBA teams (1st, 2nd, & 3rd) throughout their career.
That 2013 Draft was historically bad. It fucked as 2X b/c we picked Bennett and it produced Kelly Olynyk.
That 2013 Draft was historically bad. It fucked as 2X b/c we picked Bennett and it produced Kelly Olynyk.
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I am passionate about player development, and I stand by my assessment that Mike Brown and Chris Grant are the reason Anthony Bennett looks the way he does in the NBA, still. I mean, their mismanagement of him was criminal. Close to Jordan and Wiz/Kwame Brown criminal.
It will take a championship culture with strong veteran presence to get him back on track to developing into the player he could be in this NBA.
I do not believe he is to be written off, it just truly depends on the culture and staff he is signed into.
Ironically... one of the best mentors he could have would be Kevin Love. He lacks Loves passing and post game, but he has his face up and long range shooting and more explosiveness.
Its hyperbole to write him off this early. But its pivotal that he be in the absolutely perfect developmental situation after Mike Brown.
IE: Put him on the Spurs and he is the sixth man next season playing DaJuan Blair's old role for a contender. A year of getting beat up by and watching David West would be invaluable for him.
It will take a championship culture with strong veteran presence to get him back on track to developing into the player he could be in this NBA.
I do not believe he is to be written off, it just truly depends on the culture and staff he is signed into.
Ironically... one of the best mentors he could have would be Kevin Love. He lacks Loves passing and post game, but he has his face up and long range shooting and more explosiveness.
Its hyperbole to write him off this early. But its pivotal that he be in the absolutely perfect developmental situation after Mike Brown.
IE: Put him on the Spurs and he is the sixth man next season playing DaJuan Blair's old role for a contender. A year of getting beat up by and watching David West would be invaluable for him.
MD13
Formerly howler1313
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Would it really though? That's a sink or swim environment, and he seems like the type who might fold when David West would get tough on him.
All4One1ForAll
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Bennett is a terrible basketball player. He has no work ethic whatsoever (and a few videos of him playing against his trainers isn't going to change my opinion, just as it didn't with Dion), he gives no effort on the court, he can't keep his weight down, and he's as mentally fragile as they come.
I really don't see why people think the kid still has high potential. He's been in the league 2 years now and he had his chance to prove everyone wrong last year, but still he could barely get minutes on the worst team in the league, which had no depth at his position whatsoever. And even when he did play, he was invisible. For him to ever even become a slightly below-average NBA player, he would have to make one of the biggest turnarounds in NBA history, considering he's been arguably one of the 5 worst players in the league since he entered the NBA, and I simply just don't see that happening with a player as disinterested and unmotivated as he is.
He's too short to play the 4 and not mobile enough/good enough of a shooter to play the 3. He can't defend any position due to his minimal effort, worst-in-the-league-level instincts, and below-average reach. He has only one thing really going for him and that's his athleticism, but he hasn't found a way to utilize it, and that's because he doesn't have any real NBA skills besides being able to occasionally roll to the basket, catch a pass, and jam it.
Mark my words: this guy will be playing overseas sooner than he becomes a decent rotational player on an NBA team.
I really don't see why people think the kid still has high potential. He's been in the league 2 years now and he had his chance to prove everyone wrong last year, but still he could barely get minutes on the worst team in the league, which had no depth at his position whatsoever. And even when he did play, he was invisible. For him to ever even become a slightly below-average NBA player, he would have to make one of the biggest turnarounds in NBA history, considering he's been arguably one of the 5 worst players in the league since he entered the NBA, and I simply just don't see that happening with a player as disinterested and unmotivated as he is.
He's too short to play the 4 and not mobile enough/good enough of a shooter to play the 3. He can't defend any position due to his minimal effort, worst-in-the-league-level instincts, and below-average reach. He has only one thing really going for him and that's his athleticism, but he hasn't found a way to utilize it, and that's because he doesn't have any real NBA skills besides being able to occasionally roll to the basket, catch a pass, and jam it.
Mark my words: this guy will be playing overseas sooner than he becomes a decent rotational player on an NBA team.
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What Dan Gilbert did was criminal. MB and CG knew AB wasn't ready to play at the start of the season. Had they had their way, the first couple of weeks of the season he wouldn't have played and continued to just practice and work on conditioning. Then he would've played some games in the D-league to get some burn and knock the rust off. Gilbert scoffed at the idea and said he could play his way into shape...the fans needed to see their #1. The start was a disaster, then his physical problem morphed into a major mental one and the rest is history.
Not to mention, if it wasn't for Gilbert, the pick would've been traded. Ugggh...
The always excellent Zach Lowe does a whole article on Bennett:
http://grantland.com/the-triangle/r...uyout-guarantees-his-ignominious-no-1-status/
Pretty negative take overall, but good analysis and it ends on a positive note -- basically he's worth another shot at the minimum salary.
Run’d Out Rebel: Anthony Bennett’s Buyout Guarantees His Ignominious No. 1 Status
SEPTEMBER 23, 2015
by ZACH LOWE
PRINT
Few things in the NBA have been as dispiriting over the past two years as watching Anthony Bennett drift through games like a shadow who may or may not be visible to the other players. The Wolves are in the process of cutting bait on Bennett1 with a $3.6 million buyout, putting in play a scenario in which Bennett ends up the worst no. 1 pick in league history — a status he didn’t ask for and clearly didn’t deserve.
Being the “worst” pick isn’t just about that one player; it’s about the opportunity cost of picking that one player over everyone else, and it’s not as if Bennett’s 2013 draft class has blown the league away. Re-draft today, and it’s plausible — likely, actually — that Giannis Antetokounmpo and Rudy Gobert would be the top two picks in some order. They went at nos. 15 and 27, respectively. Cleveland lost value by reaching for Bennett at no. 1, but it wasn’t an insane pick at the time, and none of the reasonable alternatives are going to inspire “what if?” stories for the next 30 years. This is not LaRue Martin over Bob McAdoo, Greg Oden over Kevin Durant, or Sam Bowie (at no. 2, of course) over the G.O.A.T.
But it still hurts. Bennett was so bad as a rookie, injured and fatigued and out of shape, that he was more a thrown-in to the Kevin Love deal than a second no. 1 blue-chipper to pair with Andrew Wiggins. Maybe there is a world in which Wiggins, Thaddeus Young, and filler are enough to snare Love, and Victor Oladipo is a Cavalier. Flip Saunders might scoff, harrumphing that he’d have driven a harder bargain, but we’ll never know. Love for Wiggins alone is a freaking home run, considering the history of superstar trades and Love’s desire to bolt Minny.
We do know that Bennett is done after an even more miserable sophomore year in Minnesota. The Wolves will shave off some of Bennett’s $5.8 million salary for this season, and they clearly couldn’t give Bennett away. They peddled him everywhere, including to teams with cap space to absorb him in exchange for a token top-55-protected second-round pick Minnesota would never see, per several league sources. No one bit. The Wolves probably could have dumped him on Portland or Philadelphia by attaching a second-round pick, and most second-round picks aren’t worth $5.8 million. But Minnesota’s upcoming second-rounders will be high, and if Glen Taylor is willing to eat most of that $5.8 million to preserve the 37th pick, that’s good for the franchise. Knowing Philly, it’d have demanded more than one second-rounder to get him, anyway. Such a deal would have netted a nice trade exception, but a lot of those expire unused.
The league knew Minnesota had 16 guaranteed contracts, one over the maximum roster ceiling, and that it needed to dump someone. But there was another option: keep Bennett, and cut someone else — likely Croatian sharpshooter Damjan Rudez. The roster is only overstocked because Minnesota felt it needed three hardened vets in Kevin Garnett, Tayshaun Prince, and Prof. Andre Miller, Ph.D. You really need all three of these dudes? I mean, the world needs Prof. Andre Miller throwing lobs and punking fools in the post, but Prince seems like a luxury — even given Minnesota’s need for wing depth.
Bennett has been an abject disaster, but there’s an interesting player somewhere under the rubble. It seems early, given Bennett’s medical history, to write him off as a sunk cost. The Wolves have a glut of bigs in front of Bennett, but minutes would have emerged for him over the 82-game grind. Garnett will start, but he’s a 20-minute player at this point. Nikola Pekovic is always hurt. Nemanja Bjelica has scorched Europe, but the transition to the NBA is tough for almost every international star who comes over mid-career. Adreian Payne is hoppy and rangy, but it’s unclear if he’s an NBA rotation player. Karl-Anthony Towns and Gorgui Dieng are locks to play big minutes, and Saunders told me in July that the team still wanted to carve out time for Shabazz Muhammad to play some small-ball power forward. The minutes crunch was real, but Bennett would have gotten extended looks if he showed up engaged and ready to play with urgency.
Portland and Philly can still claim him off waivers, though doing so would mean eating his salary. That would leave the Sixers with something like $7 million in cap space,2 and that’s not enough to butt in as a salary dumping ground in every big-money trade conversation. Portland can swallow Bennett and maintain something like $15 million in space — most in the league, and enough to snag some assets in exchange for eating more money down the line. Utah has theoretical cap room, but its roster is almost full, and it’s not touching Bennett, per several league sources.
Claiming Bennett would keep him out of free agency, where he would have his pick among more suitors. Most of those suitors could offer only the minimum salary, and Philly or Portland could trump that with deals at $2 million or $3 million for the 2015-16 season. That amounts to at least double Bennett’s minimum salary, but that difference may not be enough for Bennett to sign somewhere he’s not comfortable.
He would probably be comfortable in Portland, since he knows Jay Triano, a Trail Blazers assistant who is Bennett’s head coach during international tournaments with Team Canada. The Blazers are loaded with young bigs who need minutes, plus a wing who can slide to power forward in Al-Farouq Aminu. They also have 13 guaranteed contracts, and at least two players on non-guaranteed deals — Tim Frazier and Luis Montero — they find at least a bit interesting. They could buy out Mike Miller to make room, but it’s not as if Portland’s roster is bare.
Philly has Nerlens Noel and Jahlil Okafor as cornerstone bigs, and all three of Furkan Aldemir, Richaun Holmes, and Jerami Grant figure to see minutes at power forward. Bennett would get a ton of time there, but if Philly doesn’t claim him off waivers, it’s unclear if Bennett wants to dip his toe into the NBA’s most aggressive rebuilding situation.
As a side note, this is an interesting moment for Philly — especially with Portland slotted alongside the Sixers as a competitor for Bennett. Philly mostly sat out free agency again before signing Kendall Marshall to a four-year deal, with the last three seasons non-guaranteed. Classic Philly. The Sixers used most of their cap space to swallow bad contracts from Sacramento, and the Kings paid them handsomely with a future first-rounder and two pick swaps. Those are nice things. But the Sixers have a ton of picks already, and rival executives are curious about why Philly didn’t take a shot on some young players who signed for cheap. Aminu is at the high end of that market, but why not take a minimum-salaried curiosity like, I dunno, John Jenkins, Jeremy Evans, or Justin Holiday, and lavish him with a three-year, $8 million deal as the cap is set to skyrocket? Philly sniffed around offer sheet possibilities for Jimmy Butler and Kawhi Leonard, sources say, but that’s basic due diligence.
Marshall is a smart signing, and he potentially handed his entire prime to the Sixers on a cheapo four-year deal. But if the Sixers bent a little bit more from their standard non-guaranteed, long-term contracts, they could have outbid the market on some interesting fliers. Bennett represents another chance to do that.
He may hit the minimum market, and if he gets there, watch out for Toronto. Bennett is Canadian, and the Raptors have both a potential roster spot and room for a flier at power forward. All four of Patrick Patterson, Luis Scola, James Johnson, and DeMarre Carroll will see time there, but it someone gets hurt, the Raps could toss a guy like Bennett onto the floor.
Bennett has only one even semi-proven NBA skill: rolling to the basket hard, catching the ball, and doing something productive close to the rim. That’s not always an easy skill when a guy is too short to play center or protect the rim on defense. Any team playing Bennett will need another big to do those things alongside him, and if that big can’t space the floor, Bennett will just run right into him on his cuts to the hoop. A pairing of Bennett and Jonas Valanciunas would cramp spacing.
Two interior-oriented bigs can thrive in tight spacing if they are smart and skilled enough to work the ball through tiny corridors. Bennett has shown no such skill. He has 65 assists in two seasons, and though he improved his passing in Minnesota, he’s a hog when he catches the ball in the paint. He’s an explosive hog, but still a hog. He’ll catch in a crowd, take one dribble, pump fake, pivot, fake again, and toss up something even as shooters stand open around him. Sometimes that something is a lefty dunk that makes you say, “Holy shit, now that looked like a no. 1 pick!” but sometimes it’s a hopeless fling.
Those hopeless flings close to the basket are better than the hopeless flings Bennett lets fly from 20 feet on pick-and-pops. Boil Bennett’s career into one clip, and it would be him screening, lazily fading to the dead zone just inside the 3-point arc, catching a pass, hoisting a moon-shot jumper, and jogging back on defense after it misses. Two minutes later, he’d be jogging back to the bench, another aimless shift in the books. When his trigger finger gets itchy, Bennett looks like the rightful heir to Byron Mullens as the player who goes into his shooting motion most quickly upon catching the ball. It doesn’t matter if there are 15 seconds left on the shot clock and an easy ball reversal is staring him in the face. If Bennett wants to shoot, that baby is going up almost before he even catches the pass. He has a pump-and-drive game in his bag, but he doesn’t use it enough. He cannot resist the lure of a midrange J.
It got worse last season, when an ungodly 47 percent of his shots were long 2s. He hit 33 percent of them and all that chucking kept him away from contact and off the foul line. It was hideous.
He doesn’t have a bad stroke and he showed theoretical 3-point range in college at UNLV. That hasn’t translated to the NBA and an alarming number of Bennett’s quick-release 3s drew air.
Bennett’s defense has been a horror show of mistakes, miscommunications, and shoddy effort. He lives in no-man’s-land. He arrives too late, or too soon, calls out screens as they’re already happening, and can’t sort through all the decisions he has to make in a few seconds.
At times defending the paint, he has looked tentative, and almost sad. He has long arms and some bounce, but he just hasn’t been up for the fight down there consistently enough. He has the mobility to give you a good first effort, but when the scrum starts to boil, Bennett sometimes just wants out. Every advanced metric on his defense, both public and private, is beyond awful, and that matches the eye test.
That’s the first thing Bennett has to change: try hard, every goddamned possession. Watch film of the guys who do that, and get in the required physical condition. This guy is fast, he does have long arms, and he can jump. Those things are interesting. He occasionally switched onto ball handlers on the pick-and-roll, and held his own shadowing those little guys. He’s fast enough to leap out on point guards, and then recover onto Dirk Nowitzki types before they can unleash their own pick-and-pop jumpers. Those things are interesting, too.
And again: He averaged two assists per 36 minutes last season, a huge improvement over his time in Cleveland. He started to learn where his teammates were and where they would be in his next mental snapshot. An Anthony Bennett who rolls like a madman, mixes in more passes, and works on his defense is worth a look as a high-energy rotation reserve — and that’s before factoring in any resurgence in his jump shot.
Getting him on the minimum would be a nice win for someone.
http://grantland.com/the-triangle/r...uyout-guarantees-his-ignominious-no-1-status/
Pretty negative take overall, but good analysis and it ends on a positive note -- basically he's worth another shot at the minimum salary.
Run’d Out Rebel: Anthony Bennett’s Buyout Guarantees His Ignominious No. 1 Status
SEPTEMBER 23, 2015
by ZACH LOWE
Few things in the NBA have been as dispiriting over the past two years as watching Anthony Bennett drift through games like a shadow who may or may not be visible to the other players. The Wolves are in the process of cutting bait on Bennett1 with a $3.6 million buyout, putting in play a scenario in which Bennett ends up the worst no. 1 pick in league history — a status he didn’t ask for and clearly didn’t deserve.
Being the “worst” pick isn’t just about that one player; it’s about the opportunity cost of picking that one player over everyone else, and it’s not as if Bennett’s 2013 draft class has blown the league away. Re-draft today, and it’s plausible — likely, actually — that Giannis Antetokounmpo and Rudy Gobert would be the top two picks in some order. They went at nos. 15 and 27, respectively. Cleveland lost value by reaching for Bennett at no. 1, but it wasn’t an insane pick at the time, and none of the reasonable alternatives are going to inspire “what if?” stories for the next 30 years. This is not LaRue Martin over Bob McAdoo, Greg Oden over Kevin Durant, or Sam Bowie (at no. 2, of course) over the G.O.A.T.
But it still hurts. Bennett was so bad as a rookie, injured and fatigued and out of shape, that he was more a thrown-in to the Kevin Love deal than a second no. 1 blue-chipper to pair with Andrew Wiggins. Maybe there is a world in which Wiggins, Thaddeus Young, and filler are enough to snare Love, and Victor Oladipo is a Cavalier. Flip Saunders might scoff, harrumphing that he’d have driven a harder bargain, but we’ll never know. Love for Wiggins alone is a freaking home run, considering the history of superstar trades and Love’s desire to bolt Minny.
We do know that Bennett is done after an even more miserable sophomore year in Minnesota. The Wolves will shave off some of Bennett’s $5.8 million salary for this season, and they clearly couldn’t give Bennett away. They peddled him everywhere, including to teams with cap space to absorb him in exchange for a token top-55-protected second-round pick Minnesota would never see, per several league sources. No one bit. The Wolves probably could have dumped him on Portland or Philadelphia by attaching a second-round pick, and most second-round picks aren’t worth $5.8 million. But Minnesota’s upcoming second-rounders will be high, and if Glen Taylor is willing to eat most of that $5.8 million to preserve the 37th pick, that’s good for the franchise. Knowing Philly, it’d have demanded more than one second-rounder to get him, anyway. Such a deal would have netted a nice trade exception, but a lot of those expire unused.
The league knew Minnesota had 16 guaranteed contracts, one over the maximum roster ceiling, and that it needed to dump someone. But there was another option: keep Bennett, and cut someone else — likely Croatian sharpshooter Damjan Rudez. The roster is only overstocked because Minnesota felt it needed three hardened vets in Kevin Garnett, Tayshaun Prince, and Prof. Andre Miller, Ph.D. You really need all three of these dudes? I mean, the world needs Prof. Andre Miller throwing lobs and punking fools in the post, but Prince seems like a luxury — even given Minnesota’s need for wing depth.
Bennett has been an abject disaster, but there’s an interesting player somewhere under the rubble. It seems early, given Bennett’s medical history, to write him off as a sunk cost. The Wolves have a glut of bigs in front of Bennett, but minutes would have emerged for him over the 82-game grind. Garnett will start, but he’s a 20-minute player at this point. Nikola Pekovic is always hurt. Nemanja Bjelica has scorched Europe, but the transition to the NBA is tough for almost every international star who comes over mid-career. Adreian Payne is hoppy and rangy, but it’s unclear if he’s an NBA rotation player. Karl-Anthony Towns and Gorgui Dieng are locks to play big minutes, and Saunders told me in July that the team still wanted to carve out time for Shabazz Muhammad to play some small-ball power forward. The minutes crunch was real, but Bennett would have gotten extended looks if he showed up engaged and ready to play with urgency.
Portland and Philly can still claim him off waivers, though doing so would mean eating his salary. That would leave the Sixers with something like $7 million in cap space,2 and that’s not enough to butt in as a salary dumping ground in every big-money trade conversation. Portland can swallow Bennett and maintain something like $15 million in space — most in the league, and enough to snag some assets in exchange for eating more money down the line. Utah has theoretical cap room, but its roster is almost full, and it’s not touching Bennett, per several league sources.
Claiming Bennett would keep him out of free agency, where he would have his pick among more suitors. Most of those suitors could offer only the minimum salary, and Philly or Portland could trump that with deals at $2 million or $3 million for the 2015-16 season. That amounts to at least double Bennett’s minimum salary, but that difference may not be enough for Bennett to sign somewhere he’s not comfortable.
He would probably be comfortable in Portland, since he knows Jay Triano, a Trail Blazers assistant who is Bennett’s head coach during international tournaments with Team Canada. The Blazers are loaded with young bigs who need minutes, plus a wing who can slide to power forward in Al-Farouq Aminu. They also have 13 guaranteed contracts, and at least two players on non-guaranteed deals — Tim Frazier and Luis Montero — they find at least a bit interesting. They could buy out Mike Miller to make room, but it’s not as if Portland’s roster is bare.
Philly has Nerlens Noel and Jahlil Okafor as cornerstone bigs, and all three of Furkan Aldemir, Richaun Holmes, and Jerami Grant figure to see minutes at power forward. Bennett would get a ton of time there, but if Philly doesn’t claim him off waivers, it’s unclear if Bennett wants to dip his toe into the NBA’s most aggressive rebuilding situation.
As a side note, this is an interesting moment for Philly — especially with Portland slotted alongside the Sixers as a competitor for Bennett. Philly mostly sat out free agency again before signing Kendall Marshall to a four-year deal, with the last three seasons non-guaranteed. Classic Philly. The Sixers used most of their cap space to swallow bad contracts from Sacramento, and the Kings paid them handsomely with a future first-rounder and two pick swaps. Those are nice things. But the Sixers have a ton of picks already, and rival executives are curious about why Philly didn’t take a shot on some young players who signed for cheap. Aminu is at the high end of that market, but why not take a minimum-salaried curiosity like, I dunno, John Jenkins, Jeremy Evans, or Justin Holiday, and lavish him with a three-year, $8 million deal as the cap is set to skyrocket? Philly sniffed around offer sheet possibilities for Jimmy Butler and Kawhi Leonard, sources say, but that’s basic due diligence.
Marshall is a smart signing, and he potentially handed his entire prime to the Sixers on a cheapo four-year deal. But if the Sixers bent a little bit more from their standard non-guaranteed, long-term contracts, they could have outbid the market on some interesting fliers. Bennett represents another chance to do that.
He may hit the minimum market, and if he gets there, watch out for Toronto. Bennett is Canadian, and the Raptors have both a potential roster spot and room for a flier at power forward. All four of Patrick Patterson, Luis Scola, James Johnson, and DeMarre Carroll will see time there, but it someone gets hurt, the Raps could toss a guy like Bennett onto the floor.
Bennett has only one even semi-proven NBA skill: rolling to the basket hard, catching the ball, and doing something productive close to the rim. That’s not always an easy skill when a guy is too short to play center or protect the rim on defense. Any team playing Bennett will need another big to do those things alongside him, and if that big can’t space the floor, Bennett will just run right into him on his cuts to the hoop. A pairing of Bennett and Jonas Valanciunas would cramp spacing.
Two interior-oriented bigs can thrive in tight spacing if they are smart and skilled enough to work the ball through tiny corridors. Bennett has shown no such skill. He has 65 assists in two seasons, and though he improved his passing in Minnesota, he’s a hog when he catches the ball in the paint. He’s an explosive hog, but still a hog. He’ll catch in a crowd, take one dribble, pump fake, pivot, fake again, and toss up something even as shooters stand open around him. Sometimes that something is a lefty dunk that makes you say, “Holy shit, now that looked like a no. 1 pick!” but sometimes it’s a hopeless fling.
Those hopeless flings close to the basket are better than the hopeless flings Bennett lets fly from 20 feet on pick-and-pops. Boil Bennett’s career into one clip, and it would be him screening, lazily fading to the dead zone just inside the 3-point arc, catching a pass, hoisting a moon-shot jumper, and jogging back on defense after it misses. Two minutes later, he’d be jogging back to the bench, another aimless shift in the books. When his trigger finger gets itchy, Bennett looks like the rightful heir to Byron Mullens as the player who goes into his shooting motion most quickly upon catching the ball. It doesn’t matter if there are 15 seconds left on the shot clock and an easy ball reversal is staring him in the face. If Bennett wants to shoot, that baby is going up almost before he even catches the pass. He has a pump-and-drive game in his bag, but he doesn’t use it enough. He cannot resist the lure of a midrange J.
It got worse last season, when an ungodly 47 percent of his shots were long 2s. He hit 33 percent of them and all that chucking kept him away from contact and off the foul line. It was hideous.
He doesn’t have a bad stroke and he showed theoretical 3-point range in college at UNLV. That hasn’t translated to the NBA and an alarming number of Bennett’s quick-release 3s drew air.
Bennett’s defense has been a horror show of mistakes, miscommunications, and shoddy effort. He lives in no-man’s-land. He arrives too late, or too soon, calls out screens as they’re already happening, and can’t sort through all the decisions he has to make in a few seconds.
At times defending the paint, he has looked tentative, and almost sad. He has long arms and some bounce, but he just hasn’t been up for the fight down there consistently enough. He has the mobility to give you a good first effort, but when the scrum starts to boil, Bennett sometimes just wants out. Every advanced metric on his defense, both public and private, is beyond awful, and that matches the eye test.
That’s the first thing Bennett has to change: try hard, every goddamned possession. Watch film of the guys who do that, and get in the required physical condition. This guy is fast, he does have long arms, and he can jump. Those things are interesting. He occasionally switched onto ball handlers on the pick-and-roll, and held his own shadowing those little guys. He’s fast enough to leap out on point guards, and then recover onto Dirk Nowitzki types before they can unleash their own pick-and-pop jumpers. Those things are interesting, too.
And again: He averaged two assists per 36 minutes last season, a huge improvement over his time in Cleveland. He started to learn where his teammates were and where they would be in his next mental snapshot. An Anthony Bennett who rolls like a madman, mixes in more passes, and works on his defense is worth a look as a high-energy rotation reserve — and that’s before factoring in any resurgence in his jump shot.
Getting him on the minimum would be a nice win for someone.
spydy13
NBA Starter
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View: https://twitter.com/ESPNSteinLine/status/647523021612183552
Hopefully going to a team that actually wants him and cares about his development will be just what he needs.
Not sure how much playing time he gets, but he could certainly develop into a second Patrick Patterson for them.
Hopefully going to a team that actually wants him and cares about his development will be just what he needs.
Not sure how much playing time he gets, but he could certainly develop into a second Patrick Patterson for them.
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Hard for me to muster any hope or sympathy for a guy who doesn't try.
Sports are a zero sum game. Some fringe player - inevitably harder working than Bennett, will lose out on a roster spot because Bennett is getting another chance.
I hope Bennett realizes how fortunate he is.
Sports are a zero sum game. Some fringe player - inevitably harder working than Bennett, will lose out on a roster spot because Bennett is getting another chance.
I hope Bennett realizes how fortunate he is.
Rich
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- Points
- 148
I'm with you, Q-Tip. Bennett is only getting a chance solely because of his perceived potential. He has been one of the very worst players in the league in his first two seasons. And he doesn't play hard. This will be it. If he can't find minutes in Toronto and show he's got something, he'll be out of the league after this year.