He played 900 minutes in 75 games last year and was a regular rotation/not garbage time player in most of them. The reason why people stopped posting in this thread was because other than the silly 3 point shooting streak early in the season - he simply wasn't very good despite consistently playing other than the occasional hustle play.
Some expert said the other day that he "plays the right way", so he needs some kind of system and structure. The Silas/KPJ offense was just "hooping", "my turn, my turn". He had no chance to excel in that chaos. Alpi, on the other hand, wants to play the right way, but when he realized what was going on, just said, **** it, I'll get mine...sometimes.
He needs to get in better shape... For the type of player he is, he needs to be in ELITE physical condition at all times. Coming into camp all doughy and uncoordinated was super disappointing.
In those 900 minutes he rarely had a real point guard. He was a 41% corner 3 shooter and was an excellent defender at a young age. I can imagine he would improve on those given the chance. I'm not saying he is a done deal to be an all NBA defender, but we had no reason to dump him in the way we did.
He’s a hustle player. Probably will be a solid player with time no question but we need veterans at this time.
The "he never got a chance to play" card is nonsense - he played regular NBA rotation. minutes for a whole season. He couldn't really jump or catch the ball on the roll and other than probably fluky streak of 3 point shooting had no offensive game. That had nothing to do with point guard play. On defense he was unplayable against centers above 6-10, which is most of them. You had a 6-8 defensive c who could not defend real centers or jump. Like i said the occasional hustle play might have impressed Ryan Hollins but otherwise it shouldn't be surprising he waa scrapped.
Garuba won't be in the NBA 2 years from now. Remember Nick Johnson? Mason Jones? Gary Clark? We were "crazy" to let them go, but nobody else wanted them either.
What’s funny is he is most useful on a stacked championship team that just needs a fringe rotation guy to spark energy and do the dirty work while the stars score. His supposed high bbiq was never really apparent to me.
Garuba wasn't a miss, he was crowded out and mismanaged. I wouldn't be surprised if he has a successful NBA career.
It would of been awesome if he played the role of a Mr. Mean Larry Smith or Dennis Rodman....cleaned glass, blocked shots, and kept the ball alive. That would be heaven for Jalen, Jabari, Alpi, etc.
Silas couldn’t even develop Jalen green and Sengun. Of course Garuba would have been better under ime.