07-16-2024, 05:48 PM
(07-16-2024, 04:14 PM)mvossman Wrote: While I recognize that Naji is a better all around offensive player than DJJ, I'm not ready to call him a two way player. I'm not sure he will be any better floor spacer than DJJ. He actually takes less 3s than jones does, and before this last season his career 3 point percentage was under 30. His career average is now sitting at 31 and while I don't think he will regress all the way back to that, there is reason to believe it won't be as good as last season. To continue the comparison, Jones has a better TS% and scores the same per 36.
I am concerned that folks are building him up too much. He is an energy player off the bench that will play good defense and hopefully won't kill you on offense. If he continues the trajectory he started last season he could be more than that, but I don't think its something that should be expected, just hoped for.
I am ready to call him that, which is why I did. Anyone familiar with his game knows he's capable of handling the ball, and he can actually create shots for himself at three levels, though not a star level, obviously. On this team, the list of players who can do that was only Luka, Kyrie, and Hardy. Adding Marshall and Thompson (both can do at least a little of this) to that list and hopefully Washington, if he improves on offense as I hope, is a good thing.
I agree with the concerns about his shooting, but I was far more concerned about that with Jones a year ago, and while that part of his game was never good enough, really, it was way better than I expected. I'm pretty confident that Marshall will shoot at least as well as he did, and I'll be pretty surprised if his threat as a catch and shoot guy (and just the level to which he must be taken seriously by the defense in general) isn't quite a bit better.