mreinman wrote:

Splat wrote:

BRIGGS wrote:

Splat wrote:

BRIGGS wrote:

Splat wrote:I liked what I saw of Early. He looked like a confident shooter, he has an excellent stride that covers ground fast on defense and should make him a good fast break finisher and he was actually working on defense.

Some of the judgments rendered on him in sparse minutes were woefully disparaging which made little sense. Coming back now during a crap season is perfect as there should be more minutes for him to get comfy. Hope he works out for this team's sake.

The problem with Early is he played 4 in college and has no handle. He can shoot but he needs extensive time in the D league when healthy. Just throwing a rookie out there in the NBA after knee surgery is sure to rip his confidence down another 5 pegs.

In your obvious quest to read all available sources, I think sometimes you are so dependent on other people's opinions you recite their take on the players and forget to actually watch the player themselves. At least, that seems to be the case with Early, since the standard rap against him was he has no handle. Yet, I saw him take it to the hole and dribble through traffic a number of times. Considering how little he has played, neither of our takes have much weight, but I'm certainly going to go by what I've seen far more than some report based on his play 6-12 months ago in college.

Say he has no handle and I say we'll see if he does or not.

I only repeat what I see myself. He played 4 in college--he was the 4 man. Wichita State plays a 3 guard set and their other bigs were young 4's who they swapped around into the SL all year. Great great team. But the truth is he did not play with a handle much in college and he did not show any handle in the SL action he had.

And he did play here. SL is no more a measuring stick for him than it is for Thanasis. I saw signs of more dexterity than you are accounting for in his limited minutes THIS SEASON, which is what I was speaking of. Players are not always the same in the pros, so Wichita Schmita as far as I'm concerned. We need to see him in action in the pros more, then we can pass such judgments more authoritatively. That's why scouting matters. If everything went according to consensus opinion, no team would ever outfox other teams in the draft. We were considered very lucky he dropped to us, so we'll see how that plays out. He's athletic, but mostly I saw he had good footwork for a rookie and he moved well. If he has good footwork, his handle may not be far behind. We'll see.

I only watched him in the tourny but from what I saw, I was thrilled that he dropped to us.

Then, in his limited minutes I saw a lot of the fundamentals that is so sorely lacking on the knicks.

Again, I like players that play with brains, which again we have very little of.

Fisher gave him zero rope for mistakes yet he lets the idiots hang themselves. Maybe IT IS INTENTIONAL!

mreinman wrote:

Splat wrote:

BRIGGS wrote:

Splat wrote:

BRIGGS wrote:

Splat wrote:I liked what I saw of Early. He looked like a confident shooter, he has an excellent stride that covers ground fast on defense and should make him a good fast break finisher and he was actually working on defense.

Some of the judgments rendered on him in sparse minutes were woefully disparaging which made little sense. Coming back now during a crap season is perfect as there should be more minutes for him to get comfy. Hope he works out for this team's sake.

The problem with Early is he played 4 in college and has no handle. He can shoot but he needs extensive time in the D league when healthy. Just throwing a rookie out there in the NBA after knee surgery is sure to rip his confidence down another 5 pegs.

In your obvious quest to read all available sources, I think sometimes you are so dependent on other people's opinions you recite their take on the players and forget to actually watch the player themselves. At least, that seems to be the case with Early, since the standard rap against him was he has no handle. Yet, I saw him take it to the hole and dribble through traffic a number of times. Considering how little he has played, neither of our takes have much weight, but I'm certainly going to go by what I've seen far more than some report based on his play 6-12 months ago in college.

Say he has no handle and I say we'll see if he does or not.

I only repeat what I see myself. He played 4 in college--he was the 4 man. Wichita State plays a 3 guard set and their other bigs were young 4's who they swapped around into the SL all year. Great great team. But the truth is he did not play with a handle much in college and he did not show any handle in the SL action he had.

And he did play here. SL is no more a measuring stick for him than it is for Thanasis. I saw signs of more dexterity than you are accounting for in his limited minutes THIS SEASON, which is what I was speaking of. Players are not always the same in the pros, so Wichita Schmita as far as I'm concerned. We need to see him in action in the pros more, then we can pass such judgments more authoritatively. That's why scouting matters. If everything went according to consensus opinion, no team would ever outfox other teams in the draft. We were considered very lucky he dropped to us, so we'll see how that plays out. He's athletic, but mostly I saw he had good footwork for a rookie and he moved well. If he has good footwork, his handle may not be far behind. We'll see.

I only watched him in the tourny but from what I saw, I was thrilled that he dropped to us.

Then, in his limited minutes I saw a lot of the fundamentals that is so sorely lacking on the knicks.

Again, I like players that play with brains, which again we have very little of.

Fisher gave him zero rope for mistakes yet he lets the idiots hang themselves. Maybe IT IS INTENTIONAL!

Exactly. I don't believe fisher really knows how to coach. He killed a lot of the young boys' confidence by yanking them off the court after a silly mistake.

TPercy wrote:

Splat wrote:

TPercy wrote:I like him, has a nice catch and shoot game the same she showed in college although based on the games he has played played so FAR ive seen inconsistencies but its too small to judge. I think that he can do well however this dude CANNOT play as a 4 in the NBA. he is not long enough and plus he is too undersized and can get easily bullied by pfs in this NBA.

Yeah, he needs to be mostly a finesse player. Quick release refined to include drives to keep defenders on their heels. He could still board well using agility and anticipation. If he can penetrate and get a few assists, he can do well.

Yep and he can drive to the basket too, in college he loved absorbing contact;I did research on him and he had 30 and ones last season which was pretty impressive and shows he is not afraid to penetrate, go coast to coast and take it to the rim.

You see? It is interesting to get additional feedback on players like that. I wasn't trying to say Briggs was wrong, but he seems so driven to amass this huge dossier of information on so many players I felt maybe his impression of Early was heavily weighted by other than what we actually saw in his limited minutes this season.

I don't watch college ball and only read about Early after he was drafted. But what I saw here on the court did not fully jive with the reports. My primary impression was the guy has some real gazelle in him. I saw a guy with a very smooth gait and stride who could cover a lot of ground fast. What does that tell us?

Well, unless he is a total bumbler with zero handle, if he makes quick reads from the top of the key he has the capacity to blow by guys to the rim.

By contrast, Shump was never decisive and is known for his inability to finish consistently. Early at first glimpse looked to me like a finisher and a decisive offensive player. His trigger was quick enough and his shot looked pretty damn good.

So I think it will come down to two things for Early on offense: Shot selection and Passing, both without hesitation. If he can do both, then he could be very good.

On D, he's promising as well. His footwork seemed pretty clean for a rookie and I think he could average 6 boards if he were a starting SF.

That's the kind of tenacity and bball intelligence (cause face it when you lack innate physicality you must outsmart some of your opponents and/or anticipate how a defense is going to zero in on your lack of physical ability abd turn that against you and thus you must use your brain to use that thinking against them). Anyway, what I mean is this kid is smart, determined, and im sure becoming a solid pro is festering in his mind each and every day and he will work until he either makes it or he breaks down or it doesn't happen.

Dunno maybe I'm spinning a yarn and all this is all malarkey and in my head but this article was really great and it gave me hope and also made me a fan of this kid who I had never heard of prior.

I'm thinking a James posey type. A "3 and D" wing who could also drive and midrange would be a dream.

Splat wrote:

Nalod wrote:He'll suck. He'll have to prove his meddle in practice (Limited in the pro's) so maybe we should send him to westchester and let him get his legs. I hope we have the patience to develop him.

Fans will Hype him but he has to gain the trust of this coaches and team first. Fans will call that were holding him back. Really, if he succeeds its the process that will propel him if he has the talent to begin with.

Hopefully in time he is one of those special late bloomers.

FYI, its mettle

Meddle is another word, i.e. to tamper with

as in

I just meddled with your post

heavy mettle
heavy meddle

both are worthy