Brandon Knight bust potential..?

So if he wasn't 20? If he was 23, what would be the difference? I'm convinced that the best thing about BK7 is that he's 20.

If he was 23 and had shown no growth as a player since he was 19... send him off, I'd agree. If we had drafted Chauncey we would have been yelling for him to be traded after his first year.... give these kids a little time to show what they got. Is he a future hall of famer, Nope... but you don't have 5 Hall of famers on a team. I think he can be a piece to a great team. I'll wait a year or two to see where he fits into this puzzle....

I was a supporter of Stuckey for his first 3 years..... and if you might have noticed I have jumped off that bandwagon, I feel BK deserve the same 3 years to prove himself.

But what happens when that player doesn't prove himself? You're stuck with him. Look Brandon Knight just isn't that good, he's not bad but he's not good either. Guys like Knight can serve us best in a TRADE! 2 or 3 years from now you won't be able to get squat for him. Right now he's a young, unproven commodity that can yield a really good player, this is how you get over on GM's in a trade.

I totally agree. Living out here in Washington, I read quite a bit about Stuckey when he played for Eastern Washington. I was pretty excited when the Pistons drafted him, but by his 3rd rookie season, most of the magic had worn off.

I also watch quite a few of Knight's games in college. I think his rookie (and only) season in college, he looked talented (leading freshman scorer), but extremely raw. He's not sensational yet, but if you doubt that he is making progress, watch one of his UK games from 2 years ago.

So your saying that if there not an ALL Star by year 2... trade them.... you have set the bar pretty dang high.

what would you had said about Ben Wallace in year 2? CB in year 2? AA.... oh wait we did trade him (can we get that trade undone).

Were paying him peanuts.. Its a rookie contract (2.6 million), which means were going to get back peanuts for trading him.... The grass really isn't greener on the otherside of the fence.

Change our starting 2 and 3 and give the PG some finishers before we decide he can't be a PG... We have seen this mess being made for 4-5 years, there is no magic bullet that is going to make us even respectable this year. We all knew it before the season started. So why anybody is suprised at where we are 2 weeks into the season was wearing The Bossmans rose colored glasses :D

I have looked for 2 weeks for a trade that is even going to be looked at by another teams GM, somebody mentioned Prince to SA earlier today and that is as close to one as I've seen or heard.

If GM's are giving you pieces for BK, then you know he is probably worth something. He is young, hardworking, improving all the time. BK is a solid starter on a terrible team. How many assists do you expect him to get on a team that is shooting 35% from the field? Seriously, this attitude just reeks.

And I guess the second part would be, what exactly do you propose trading him for?

Logic is the wrong way round. Rookie contracts are generally hugely outperformed. That makes them a great commodity for a trade. But the only people willing to give up good PG's for a rookie are small market teams. Which small market team has a PG that we would want back, that is possible to get?

You're only stuck with him if he has an unwieldy contract and really sucks. Knight fits neither of those roles.

He's a second-year player. Is he going to be an all-star? Probably not, but maybe - it's too early too tell. But what the odds you can find better than him in the draft, and how many years are you setting yourself back by attempting it?

This makes sense. And, as always, your usual directional concerns make sense when all are playing one-on-one.
Let us think about interlocks, or inter-dispersions, or just plain mixtures of chaos from interactions...those not afraid and not taking the shallow drink from the Pierian spring.
When you are down this deep, it can become a creative joy:
blow it all up.

I'd really like to see him play with a different SG. One who can mentor on things besides collision insurance.

The Nets have Deron Williams on their roster. Do you remember who they gave up to get him? Derrick Favors. Favors is good, but he ain't that good. Think about this, over the summer the T-Wolves traded away Wesley Johnson (the 4th overall pick) in the draft for 2nd rd picks. Knight is not going to be that great of a player and the longer you keep him the less you can get in return for him, by the time wake up (like with Stuckey) to this reality, we'll be lucky to get a late 1st rd pick for him.

The Nets may have Deron Williams, but you aren't getting Deron Williams in exchange for Knight, and you probably wouldn't even get him for Knight and Monroe.

Of course Dumars is going to field all calls regarding trades, but it's unlikely anyone's going to give him anything worth it. If the Pistons were tearing down their team right now, that would be one thing; they aren't, though, and they can't just give up on a young guy because he MIGHT not work out.

The strength of Knight's game was supposed to be his shooting, and so far in his career he's been mediocre in that aspect. He doesn't draw contact that much to get to the line (less FTAPG than Luke Ridnour last year) though he did have a respectable amount of attempts at the rim. He has long arms but I haven't seen enough to say he's particularly good on the defensive end. He's still growing into a PG role but that's going to be a working process over the next couple of years.

Being young is only so much of an excuse. When you look at him across the board he's just pretty "meh".

As a rookie last year, Knight was the 11th highest scoring PG in the NBA. No rookies ahead of him at any age.

His 3-point shooting was 14th best, about the same as Chauncey Billups (in his 20 games played). That was higher than Chris Paul, Devin Harris, Jason Kidd, Westbrook, Ellis, etc.

He was 27th in assists per game and 46th (dead last) in ast/tov ratio for qualifying players. Rondo had 620 assists to Knight 221 to put it in perspective.

Knight was also 37th in steals/personal foul ratio. That puts him at the bottom of the list with some pretty suspect company defensively (Jameer Nelson is just behind him).



So, where is he this year on these measures?

Scoring: 29th (regression)
3P%: 18th (stable)
APG: 17th (improvement)
Ast/tov: 30th (improvement) ahead of Deron Williams
stl/PF: 54th (regression)

It's a small set of games so far this season to judge him on. Keep in mind that most have been on the road, we've lost them all, and his SG was shooting below .100 due to some sort of migraine issue.

The steals/PF ratio is a little troubling. He's so fast that you'd think that he could get a few more picks.

It's an experience position and he's still in that period where it's hard to tell if he's going to eventually get it or not. Chauncey and Rondo are two pretty good examples of this.


In summary- we have a guy who was an average scoring threat in his rookie year (mostly from deep), but who was not big league quality in terms of assists or steals/ defense. He's show some signs of improving certain weaknesses so far, but the team hasn't been able to get a W.



Other things I noticed from sorting players:
- Jason Kidd has 14 ast and 1 tov so far and a bunch of steals.
- Lin is ranking way better so far this year in many categories, like ast/tov
- Stuckey is faring much better than in the past on the assist and assist/tov front. Maybe he and Knight need to be evaluated as a combo since they are combo guards.

They ran a promotional ad during last nights game where all the guards are working out doing some drill picking basketballs or weights up and doing defensive slides. Knight looks head and shoulders better than everyone else there. He's bigger, longer, quicker and more agile. He stands out.

It doesn't seem to translate to the games though. I never watch him and think, 'Wow, he's quick' or 'Man he can shoot'. He's just kind of there.

At the very least, he's an upgrade over Stuckey.

Knight is better than Stuckey and better than Bynum. PERIOD. You have to keep a guy like this, Who is a hard worker and a no-trouble guy.

KGREG, I can understand if you don't like his playing style, his dribble... but there is a big leap from not liking a player to saying he is not worth it.

I put all my faith in Knight, Monroe, Drummond, Jerebko and Singler ... We don't have another choice.

When a star becomes available a team usually wants young talent in a trade, for us that player is Brandon Knight. But with every game played the rest of the league continues to see a guy who's "meh". There's no way in the world you could fetch Deron Williams with Favors today.

He just doesn't have it! Kyrie Irving: BALLER! Damian Lilliard: BALLER! Chauncey and Rondo were also ballers, if you look at their respective games at the college level they were EXCELLENT at certain aspects of the game. Knight played on a VERY GOOD Kentucky team and benefited from a weak draft. There was nothing in his game at UK that stood out and there is nothing in his game as a Piston that makes you say, "WOW this kid is going to be a stud!" NOTHING!

Time fly, this is Stuckey's Sixth season with 4 head coaches and was asked to change role this year. I won't blame this tough young guy too much because he's tried to learn to lead on the fly in 4 different systems and hang on there.