MS wrote:It’s not to early to say at 23 years old the oldest rookie in this year’s class, Obi Toppin is officially a bust.

Had we taken him with the 23rd selection we would all agree he’s not an NBA player right now. Is there a difference between him and Kenny Wooten? I haven’t seen any NBA skill in any of the minutes when he’s on the floor. He’s timid, doesn’t have fire, can’t elevate in the flow of the game, doesn’t have the strength to move people and is now just a glorified top of the key hand off player.
I don’t know how we have managed to draft Frank, Knox and Obi in the lottery and miss so bad, but we managed waste three picks on guys that can’t beat out Elfrid Payton and Taj Gibson for minutes.

I hate to be so harsh, because he’s a nice kid and wanted to be here. But I have yet to see him try to put someone in the rim or exhibit any fire on the court.

We needed a game changer in this year's lottery and we had one, again. Three drafts and three multi time All Stars missed in consecutive years…

Last draft was honestly only fair. I think obi was a fantastic rim running college guy on perhaps the best team last year. But he lacks a great deal of fundamental skill moving to the nba 4 position. I’d like to see more flashes of simple toughness and rebounding. I think it’s important for him to rebound the ball. I don’t think he’s good enough to sit 20 feet f ty I’m the basket. I might even try him as an undersized 5 man

He has a nice shooting form, I just don’t understand why he’s so bad in the post. I thought that was his strong point in college.

Welpee wrote:

MS wrote:It’s not to early to say at 23 years old the oldest rookie in this year’s class, Obi Toppin is officially a bust.

Had we taken him with the 23rd selection we would all agree he’s not an NBA player right now. Is there a difference between him and Kenny Wooten? I haven’t seen any NBA skill in any of the minutes when he’s on the floor. He’s timid, doesn’t have fire, can’t elevate in the flow of the game, doesn’t have the strength to move people and is now just a glorified top of the key hand off player.
I don’t know how we have managed to draft Frank, Knox and Obi in the lottery and miss so bad, but we managed waste three picks on guys that can’t beat out Elfrid Payton and Taj Gibson for minutes.

I hate to be so harsh, because he’s a nice kid and wanted to be here. But I have yet to see him try to put someone in the rim or exhibit any fire on the court.

We needed a game changer in this year's lottery and we had one, again. Three drafts and three multi time All Stars missed in consecutive years…

First off it's hard to take your post seriously when the title itself is inaccurate. And as I pointed out previously:

CJ McCollum
22 year old rookie - 5.3 ppg
24 year old, third year player - 20.8 ppg

And even if you end up being right, you're still wrong. It is too early on 4/1/21. This microwave society gets worse every year.

"Microwave society." Yep. Bolded so true. Those of us who confronted, say, "The Anti-Frank Bias" were not putting him in the HOF which was often the counterattack. Just saying he's a kid, give him a week. You can apply the same to RJ and Randle and other lesser lights on the team. The rush to judgement is uncanny. I suppose fans were bipolar and ADD before there were names for those things but obviously more of a thing in the modern world. See "rookie quarterbacks" for instance.

For the record I preferred Halliburton as the choice and yeah Obi has looked bad.

Jmpasq wrote:

HoustonSprewell84 wrote:I wouldn’t call him a bust yet, I was never expecting a 8th pick to become a superstar.
I would be happy if he becomes a solid rotation player.

He has a nice shooting form, I just don’t understand why he’s so bad in the post. I thought that was his strong point in college.

You mean in the A10 where he was older and bigger than everybody. I would fire the scouts that wanted to pick him.

Also interesting that when Obi faced Kansas with a 6'10" and 7 footer in their starting front court he posted 18 pts, 9 rebs. It's also interesting that when he faced Georgia (SEC), Virginia Tech (ACC) and Kansas (Big 12) in consecutive games and averaged 22 ppg, 7 rebs, 1.3 blocks, shot 70% fg and 55% 3 pts.

Feel free to return to your hyperbole.

Welpee wrote:

Jmpasq wrote:

HoustonSprewell84 wrote:I wouldn’t call him a bust yet, I was never expecting a 8th pick to become a superstar.
I would be happy if he becomes a solid rotation player.

He has a nice shooting form, I just don’t understand why he’s so bad in the post. I thought that was his strong point in college.

You mean in the A10 where he was older and bigger than everybody. I would fire the scouts that wanted to pick him.

Point of clarification, the A-10 is not a one and done league so the narrative you're trying to portray making it seem like he was a 22 year old playing against mostly 17-18 year olds is not accurate.

Also interesting that when Obi faced Kansas with a 6'10" and 7 footer in their starting front court he posted 18 pts, 9 rebs. It's also interesting that when he faced Georgia (SEC), Virginia Tech (ACC) and Kansas (Big 12) in consecutive games and averaged 22 ppg, 7 rebs, 1.3 blocks, shot 70% fg and 55% 3 pts.

Feel free to return to your hyperbole.

Obi should be playing 25+ minutes a game and actually get some plays called for him . He barely touches it on offense... he needs to gain back his killer mentality.

But on the other hand, he was supposed to be a perfectly OK backup player for 20+ minutes and I still believe he can be that. But the problem is both he and Randle are very classic PF and it doesn't suit them to play either SF or C, and Randle plays 37 minutes per game. RJ, KP and Knox played about 30 minutes as rookies, Frank played 20+...and Obi is playing 11. You can hardly become a player like that, and I say again, it's not that he's a 19-year-old kid, so that "there is a lot of time".

ESOMKnicks wrote:Obi was not my preferred pick (I wanted shooters like Vassel, Nesmith or Hali), but I was content that he slipped to us and did not take a trade to move up in the draft. Seemed like a logical choice: the guy was a great offensive talent and athlete, capable of playing above the rim, but also of stepping back to hit a jumper, while the incumbent PF was more of a Spindle than Randle. The biggest knock on Obi was his poor defense. With focus and playing time, I think he would have developed a lot faster, what has prevented this is the emergence of Randle as a superstar in his position and Thib's focus on getting to the playoffs, limiting rookie minutes and leaving zero tolerance for rookie mistakes.
Both Obi's development and tanking for Cade have been sacrificed on the altar of "respectability" this season. A foolish and premature strategy which will bite us in the *** down the line, if you asked me.

Yep the smart strategy was to tank this year. That was never happening with Thibs.