So there was a thread yesterday about what Trae Young would look like on the Nuggets. I think Trae and Jokic would be a lot DIFFERENT than Murray and Jokic but not worse offensively.
I think offensively it’s better(not too much better but better) because Trae is much better offensive player, being a wayyy better playmaker and a wayyy more consistent scorer. Now defensively Jamal is solid so it would obviously be considerably worse.
The best guys Trae has had are Dejounte Murray(all star replacement) Clint Capela(on the older side) and good ol’ John Collins who’s shooting regressed from 37-40% to 28% after his finger injury.
Jamal is playing with the best player in the world who might just be a being a top 10-15 player of all time, MPJ who is one of the top 5 shooters in the world, and Aaron Gordon who’s all star caliber, a great defender, lob threat/cutter who can also hit the 3.
For some reason people are acting like Joker has the ball in his hand 24/7 on the Nuggets and Jamal strictly plays off ball when that’s not the case.
Imagine a world where every game the defense has to focus their attention on Jokic and Trae is free to roam around and hit catch and shoot 3s which he’s great at. He just hasn’t had much of a chance to catch and shoot in Atlanta.
Then when Jokic is off the floor, Trae would run the offense 15x better than Jamal ever could. Trae creates the best shot quality for his teammates in the league.
I hate this assumption that guys who are the #1 option wouldn’t adjust their game to play with great player.
I am a Hawks fan but also a Nuggets fan so this was interesting for me. I was downvoted for saying Trae is a top 3 playmaker in the league and for disagreeing with a guy who said Trae is only a little better than Murray. Murray is a great player, around top 25 but he’s not on Traes level at least not yet. He was struggling to consistently put up 20 and be efficient on Denver until his 5th-6th year in the league but of course no on remembers that.
Now Jamal is this flawless player who’s never had bad possessions where he’s dribbled the clock out with Jokic on the floor and MPJ begging for a pass. I watch these guys play. Trae and Jamal both have flaws. One just plays with Jokic and the other plays with Dejounte Murray.
There’s no need to assume what DEN’s team construction philosophy is, their GM just laid it all out.
Size at the position, lack of skill deficiency at the position, no positional overlap.
Trae’s lack of size is a positional deficiency, that would force DEN to acquire overlapping positional support, to cover that size deficiency.
Facts and a very astute observation. Excellent top notch comment!