Dark Horse? My pick is Matthew "The Mayor" Mayer. 6'9, 225 player who can come off the bench and shoot the hell out of the ball. I love this kid! Also, he plays scrappy defense. He probably start the season inbthr G-League but Im thinking around Christmas or sometime afterwards he's called up. Would do you all think?
I think it will be the headless chicken. At least, that's how I viewed him in the little I saw him play. I'm speaking of none other than Nate Hinton.
I know he shot well in summer league, but he shot less than 34% from 3 in College. And in his senior year in high school, he averaged 9.8 points and 5 rebounds. I'm just not getting why people are excited about this kid.
Who is going to be THE train camp? I personally think JaeSean Tate has the most qualities of a good locomotive engineer.
I'd love for this to happen, but I don't think they're similar players. In college, Reaves was a much better scorer, ball handler, and passer. He was pretty much Harden/Luka for Oklahoma. Mayer was a 3-D wing. With a suspect jumper at that. He does have a good motor and defensive instincts though.
If by "dark horse," we just mean guys who may surprise enough to warrant some minutes as the 10th or 11th guy off the bench, I like Jermaine Samuels. He was an older rookie in the G-League last season after 5 years at Villanova, and he's 24. But I really liked his game in the Summer League. No obvious weaknesses and just always seemed to be in the right place at the right time; has real "glue guy" potential and he put up solid G League numbers last year (18/9/3/1/1 with 46% on low-volume 3-point shooting). His size (6'7", 230) helps, but it also might hurt him on this roster since Houston has so many 3-4 types between Bari, Brooks, Tari, Cam, Green, etc. I just think there's always a place on a roster for a guy like him and given how young the team is, his more mature game for a 2nd year player might help him keep a spot. I could also see Ime being a fan of guys like that. Do I expect he'll be a key rotational contributor? No. But if I had to pick out of the unknown guys who I think has the best chance to contribute, I like him the most.
Uhh austin reaves was way better than he was in college and much more versatile. He was going to get drafted but turned it down so the nba did think he was good enough. He has 0 to do with reaves and isn’t even comparable outside of their skin color. Reaves was going to get drafted in the 2nd round. Just bc you knew nothing about him doesn’t apply to everyone else
