I continue to think - based on the way he started & the heights we've seen him hit - market is undervaluing him and a bunch of weird circumstances mostly about Orlando's roster have made him seem worse than he is. Imagine Blake Griffin on the clippers without CP3 and DJ, and instead its Rockets legend Ryan Hollins at C.
He clearly has a lot of raw talent. Maybe it's roster construction, maybe it's his fault for bad decisionmaking and not being a good enough jump shooter. Or maybe some of A, some of B. In any case, I still feel like Orlando should part ways with him and build around Franz, who is the better player of the two IMO.
This is because Paolo is NOT an instinctual playmaker; chucking is his programming. A team where he is the #1 or #1A option isn't a championship contender. Being a #2 behind a great perimeter scorer would work better.
Maybe the market is undervaluing him now. He was an All-Star in his second year in the league. He got a max deal on promise and thoughts of weird circumstances that affect him, but not Franz. He's an elite foul merchant. If the shooting comes, he's great. If not, he's a Brandon Ingram. Not a bad player, but high usage players that aren't among the best of the best end up good enough to get a team on the treadmill of mediocrity, often leading that team to make mistakes by overvaluing them.
It is time to embrace the post bully game and the pivot spin game.......otherwise yeah he is Ingram 2.0. He has the body and the power to do so. Same goes for the ilk of Wemby as well to avoid the perimeter chucking ways.
The magic are a fun team to watch, especially when Franzie comes back. He's one of the most underrated players in the league. The magic just need a clean up with the offense and force the issue with PB and Bane working in tandem. DB plays too indecisively instead of being the bully he was in Memphis . Luckily, they have plenty of bigs and some smalls for teams like the Rockets to consider. I miss the handling of Rafer, so a much older vet like Conley would be great. Just whispers. Same with the Bucks...Giannis may not be traded during the season and they'll develop part of the core. And, the free birds will be sent elsewhere to flourish. Force the issue with Doc (just remembered my joy of seeing his face when the Rox came back and won that series with my buddy J Smoov killing them in game 6) and let him use this season to develop around Turner (terrible signing /contract) Like the Magic with PB, there are so many teams with a conflict of actually deciding the core and franchise players. That's why the Pels are in purgatory with indecision around Zion. Force the vision and free Jose/ free birds. Either way, PB will continue to improve as he recovers and embraces the team as his own. Bane is his robin and FW is his spiderman. Side note: the warriors are about to be busy deciding what to do with the mismatches on their injured team. Now Steph looks injured...the activity by the deadline may be loud. Free Melton? Yes please. And send Pat/Dougie/ Luke and another big...the Rockets will be in good shape either way . Happy Friday. X°
It is Suggs that is the key to their team and he just *can't stay healthy at all* and has been bad since he came back from his latest injury.
And they can't seem to get the right guy, first Caldwell Pope and now Bane.......lol giving up assets at that. They are also not nailing the draft picks after Franz, Paolo, Suggs and Black..... I feel like Franz and Paolo are the worst of the 1a and 1b guys and Bane is definitely a bad 2a guy. With the exception that Franz and Paolo have upside but the clock is ticking on them.
I don't watch Orlando much. Since Space City started selling their channel standalone, it has even been less with dropping TV package. I have noticed an uptick in Paolo's TS% lately. The other night, the Magic were on the TV while eating at a Mexican restaurant. Glanced up for like a couple for a couple of minutes...Paolo got the ball early in the shot clock, dribbled it about 6 times to get a deep two attempt early in the shot clock and missed. I get that I've probably seen a bad collection of Paolo games and this is heavily influenced by confirmation bias, but I just find it funny that it has probably been months since I've seen the Magic and Paolo, and I get my biggest pet peeve about his game in that short amount of viewing.
Rockets should target a buy low opportunity with Paolo this off-season if it presents itself. Jabari + Clint + DFS gets you to his salary. Worst case scenario his massive contract allows him to be placed in the Expansion draft and he 100% would love to to go to Seattle. Spacing would be a mess and defense would be iffy, but it would be an interesting experiment. FVV/KD/Amen/Paolo/Sengun Tari/Reed that's an interesting 7 guys to build a roster around.
His ball handling is pretty amazing for his size. But his shooting is awful. Teams are ignoring him when he spots up outside. Because of that, he has to be the ball dominant guy trying to dribble penetrate every time, or he's kind of useless.
Are you sure that Jabari is worse than Paolo? Jabari plays better D, doesn't ballhog, and is a better shooter. More importantly, no one is deluding themselves into building around Jabari, but the Magic have deluded and wasted their entire rebuild by building around Paolo
