Zerol
Active Member
For those of you wondering...
For Derrick Favors: Paul Millsap
Millsap turned an overweight body in college into a long and lean one in the NBA, and became much more athletic because of it. He also retained all of the nuanced craft that enabled him to be such a good player to begin with -- fakes, extension finishes and now an excellent perimeter shot that he employs with discipline.
Favors, who is more athletic than most players in the league, can learn a lot from his new teammate about how to use his physical abilities along with a more crafty game. He does not need to learn everything at once, so starting out with his post game is step one.
For Gordon Hayward: Arron Afflalo
We all know Afflalo is now considered to be both a top-flight wing defender and an excellent 3-point shooter. He has also added assertiveness to his mix and become better all-around because of it. But do you remember what he was like as a rookie after two years of college? In his first season, he made just 10 3-pointers and had a player efficiency rating of 10.07 and a true shooting percentage below 50.
Considering that Hayward has already made 19 3s, makes more than 40 percent of his 3s and has a PER of 8.44 (close to Afflalo's 8.95 PER in his second season), it's not a leap to think that Hayward can become an Afflalo-type player. He has the agility and length to be an excellent wing defender, once he grows into his body and adds strength.
He shouldn't focus on playing up to his lofty draft spot but rather on becoming the best player he can be. Afflalo was a bad player for his first two seasons, but if we did a redraft of the 2007 class, he'd be a surefire lottery pick.