FanPost

A fitting cog? Nick Calathes notepadding

With my internet down for the weekend I had nothing much else to do than watch the recording of a Gators game. With "Similarities: Shaun Livingston" on his draft profile at ESPN I was intrigued. Does this cog fit our machine and if so, is his quality high enough or should we look for someone better that fits less?

First of all, I'm not at home right now so I'm not really sure anymore what game it was but I think it was against "Vanderbilt".

What do I think we need? If I'd make a job application for it, it would read "We're searching for a PG, ability to play SG is a very big plus". I don't want us to go with a SG who has some PG skills because of this:

If Telfair goes down we don't want Foye or any other "SG with PG skills" to play our point for 30 minutes. I want to see 30+ minutes of a point and max 15 minutes of a "SG with PG skills", like Foye. If Telfair goes down we need to have someone that can play the point for 30 minutes without a problem.

If you turn it around, if Foye would go down it's no problem to fill the missing 2-guard minutes with Brewer sliding down from 3 to 2 and Gomes spending more minutes at the 3 ...

So when I'm talking about that it "fits", I'm talking about this.

Here's what I wrote down:

 

Excellent court vision especially in traffic, knows where everyone is. Ballhandling is also very good, looks like he's going at 110% speed but manages to keep complete control. -> Trademarks of a true point.

6'5" is very good size, is that accurate? He looks big but I wouldn't say 6'5"?

Seems much quicker than I anticipated. I had the notion he wasn't pegged as a good defender but he looks fine imo? Knows where he needs to be, quick enough and doesn't sleep on any plays.

Had some nice passes that I tought looked kinda goofy,  it was like a lob pass inside but with the speed of a regular pass. The guy that got it missed it but I'm sure our Jefferson would have made that one.

He did make some decision mistakes.

Strokes the 3ball very nicely, reminds me a bit of a Dereck Fisher.

Not really explosive, he's fast but the explosion isn't there.

Seems like a good chemistry guy, always tapping teammates and looked like a leader out on the court.

All in all, I still have some doubt it his overall skill is high enough. He totally totally fits on our team but he still has a ways to go until he's a Livingston and probably hasn't got the same ceiling. Either way, if we drop out of the top 10, my favourites for the 1, 3 and 5 are respectively Calathes, Clark and Thabeet. Though I'm not sure the 1 and 3 position guys are the starters we need (while at the 5 we only need a backup).

Especially with Calathes being on the first round bubble he's an excellent candidate for our 2nd or 3rd first round pick.

As a side note, I also watched Willie Warren, Greg Monroe and Blake Griffin. Blake looked polished, but that won't surprise anyone. I was really not impressed at all with both Warren and Monroe. Warren doesn't fit, Monroe doesn't either but I don't know, he felt "unspecial".