I really did search and couldn't find this posted anywhere in the sub (even though it's 2 days old now.)
In his Draft Winners and Losers article, Kevin O'Conner lists one of the losers as "My [his own initial] Take on Donovan Clingan to Portland."
https://x.com/KevinOConnorNBA/status/1806128472525582566
He then goes on to retract that statement:
"I regret it. Let me try again after having time to marinate on the pick:
"A frontcourt with Clingan and Deandre Ayton is absolutely worth trying on offense. We know who Clingan is. At a minimum, he’s an excellent at-rim finisher who can catch lobs and score in the post. Plus, he can facilitate."
Seems like a fairly well thought out take overall.
by bakerzdosen
7 Comments
Full “saved you a click” section:
>I regret it. Let me try again after having time to marinate on the pick:
>A frontcourt with Clingan and Deandre Ayton is absolutely worth trying on offense. We know who Clingan is. At a minimum, he’s an excellent at-rim finisher who can catch lobs and score in the post. Plus, he can facilitate.
>But this is more about Ayton. The main reason he averaged over 20 points over the final month of last season was because of a dramatic change in his usage. In Ayton’s last 15 games he took more shots outside of the paint (119) than he did in his first 40 games (115). For the first time in his career, a coach let him launch jumpers. Ayton primarily took deep midrange shots, usually off the catch but sometimes off the dribble. And he flourished. For the season, he made 48.8 percent of his attempts. And he made over 80 percent of his free throws for the first time (up from 75.5 percent in his Suns career). Ayton has always fancied himself as a shooter. What if, at age 26 next season, he’s finally cracked the code on the jumper? Ayton was a knockdown midrange guy for a full year. What if he comes back shooting 3s at a reliable clip?
>All of that is to say, rather than making a trade now, the Trail Blazers would be better off waiting. If Ayton starts shooting 3s, then it would be a game-changing development for him since it’d minimize the need for Clingan to ever do it. And on defense, they could be twin towers with Clingan primarily defending the rim and Ayton thriving as a roamer.
>I really did search and couldn’t find this posted anywhere in the sub (even though it’s 2 days old now.)
Here you go lol
https://www.reddit.com/r/ripcity/s/gXsCbLfxvJ
But will he be as good as Killian Hayes?
Count me mostly out on Kevin O’Cannabis’ draft takes.
He’s been pretty off, by and large.
We can’t expect Timelord to play any consistent minutes so I don’t get why anyone would be up in arms that we would pick up a backup center with the 7th pick in a weak draft.
I’ve stopped listening to anything The Ringer says. KOC has had the most ??? takes lately and Bill Simmons only JUST sobered up from his post-Celtics-championship bender. I heard him on a pod the other day he gave me the impression that he had been doing ketamine and ayahuasca in a cave with Aaron Rodgers for the past 18 months and only just now sat down to figure out what else has been happening in the NBA.
I’m a little skeptical of the Clingan-Ayton combo working, but it’s definitely worth trying. We are not going to be very good next season anyway.