A couple things I agree and disagree with from Locke's podcast today:
Agree
- The no workout/agent stuff shouldn't matter much. Maybe it solidifies some concerns you already had for him, but if he was your guy before, I think he should still be your guy now.
- Ace has low bust potential, there are just so many avenues for him to potentially help a team it's unlikely he's so bad he's out of the league. You have to suck really bad to not be in the NBA with his tools
Disagree
- Locke is very forgiving of players for having weaknesses related to youth. I think that's fine, but he goes to far. He often says something like "they all do this or they all don't do that". That's just not true. Some guys are ahead of others despite sharing youth. That doesn't mean someone like Ace can't close the gap or exceed them in the future, but you shouldn't discredit another player for being more mature and chances are if a player is ahead/behind now they stay that way. Not a guarantee, but it's a trend.
- "Ace can shoot".....well maybe. I think he is better than the percentages say, but at the end of the day he has mediocre 3FG%, bad FT%, and lowish volume. The indicators are what they are.
- "At worst he's a Jabari Smith". This is just a flaw in ceiling/floor talk. I get why people reference Jabari Smith as a bad outcome, but it's also possible for Ace to be a worse version of Jabari Smith. Tunneling on Jabari as a worst case scenario outcome is allowing comparisons to do too much heavy lifting.