Keyonte George’s Star Ascension

[KqWIN]

Jamal Murray regular season and playoff FTr is about 20% which screams "role player" more than "star player". Key on the other hand was 27.5% on his rookie season and 43.6% this year, which is SGA level FTr.

Lavine on the other hand is a basketball moron (a talented one, but still a moron) who despite his god given gift to score and shoot hasnt figured out how to provide any other value to his team. He is also one of the most stagnant off ball players you will ever see in the NBA. DId you happen to know that Keyonte already has two more 10+ assist games than Zach does in his career?

I get it that you werent making comps, but Keyonte is gonna end up being way better offensively than those two. Way better. But defense I'm not gonna argue at all since he just doesnt play like he cares 100% of the time. Murray also coasts a lot, so I guess its not always a death sentence to a guard, but I do hope he doesnt end up being that guy.

I'm rather surprised if what you say about him and Nurk is true. since it feels like Key plays PnR pretty well these days. I guess I take an L on that one.

I mean….I’m all about FTR but my process is more involved than that. Same goes for assists. I take a more holistic view of these players. Of course Key is better (or worse) than these guys in certain areas. But I’m not cherry-picking one thing or the other when speaking to a player’s overall value. My comparison to Murray, or more accurately Murray’s level, is a more comprehensive process than looking at FTr.

And this kinda just goes back to the spreadsheet criticism. We’re both leaning on stats, just different ones. I don’t think pointing out random stats is a better process than taking everything to account, especially impact numbers. RAPM is spreadsheet, but FTr is also spreadsheet.

Murray represents a borderline elite offense player with bad, but not horrible defense. If you’re putting extra weight on what he’s doing this year, you could argue he’s even higher than that. Lavine represents someone who is very good on offense, but maybe not as elite has the raw numbers suggest and someone who is actually one of the worst on defense. Those are the offensive and defensive ranges I can see Key landing at.

 

[SoUjazzfan]

Small sample size but Key's "clutch" gene seems a lot stronger than Don's. Let's hope that's a trend once we start trying to win in earnest.

 

[KqWIN]

Key with and without Nurk. One of the things that sparked my comparison to Murray is the ability to play with and without ball. There was a narrative out there that Key was dependent on other players, but I don't find that to be true at all. He's just good whoever he plays with.



This is also why I've said that I'm not sure Nurk is as much of an anti-tank commander as people think. It was awesome to see him rack up triple doubles, but take a peak the offensive and team performance with him on the court in those games. I think when we play through Nurk it caters more to him than the other way around.

 

[KqWIN]

One of the areas that I think Keyonte will improve on and could take his game to the next level is taking care of the ball. One of the reasons I like to lean on numbers is because it often illuminates something that is not intuitive or not discussed enough. If we were to compare Keyonte to Maxey, for example, we'd probably talk about their points, assists, and efficiency. That makes total sense as the big ticket items, but we probably wouldn't talk about their impact on turnovers. This is where the biggest difference in offense is. Just from TOV's alone, we can estimate that Maxey is saving ~2.6 points per 100. I don't think Key will catch up to Maxey who is truly elite here, but it's a nice projectable area of growth for Key.