Deandre Ayton Discussion: This Is A Platform I Can't Run From

Deandre Ayton Surprised Rui Hachimura Was Taken Out Of Game 4, Talks Player Option

 

Too much on/off for a championship team.
Don't think he has the mindset to be a positive impact backup

He's the biggest question mark of this offseason for me, honestly don't know what will happen to him, how much we want to pay him, how much he wants to get paid, etc

Jason from Hoops Tonight podcast is adamant we need to upgrade center as the priority. He makes a good case for it. In short, he thinks Smart is a better placeholder for a future wing upgrade than Ayton is one for a future center upgrade. It does make sense although I think we need Smart AND another perimeter defended to be more competitive.
Saw someone mention Chicago as a potential team that might pay him as they don't have a center and may not be able to use a their cap space. He does fit there

Personally, I'm ready to move on but if we find better upgrades elsewhere it's not the end of the world if he opts in and he is the starting center. We can always try to find a trade midseason and he is fine in the regular season

 

I like Ayton, but ready to move on to someone else.

 

don't love that he's still just openly saying that he doesn't want to just defend and rebound. i've said it before, but just look at your counterpart in this series: he just sets screens, defends and rebounds and occasionally drops in a floater. he makes 30 million. you make 8 and might actually make less if you opt out. not sure what it's going to take for you to accept the role, but it's clear that you don't, because as you're spending the bulk of that 5 minutes saying you have, you couldn't resist telling the truth in there.

zero reason ayton can't be hartenstein. all mentality. and i'm not fooled. he's way better than what we should have had at center but still not what we really need.

 

So much effort has to go in just to hype him up to stay engaged. Only for him to be unplayable at our biggest stage.

I'd rather JJ and the players efforts go towards something more productive.

I'd be fine with him as a backup, but don't think he's mentally capable of handling that role. He can take the lion shirt and his Space Jam sippy cup and go play somewhere else.

 

not to beat it into the ground, but he's just center dlo. exactly. talented? yes. better than most vet mins (or, like, westbrook)? yes. the answer for a team wanting to contend? nope.

 

Yeah that comp is spot on and absolutely agree with previous posts. It's all mental and pretty hard to improve there.

It's really a shame and when he's on he is an elite rebounder, he has this unique skill of tipping the ball over opponents that is quite valuable.
Rebounding was the most important and most mentioned part of the game this year in the league, more than shooting. He could make so much money lol d******

 

He totally shut down Houston’s offensive rebounding by himself in the last 3 games of that first series. And then successfully offensive rebounded against them.

He also has the talent and ability to be a 20 pt highly efficient scorer. He just isn’t a great fit next to Luke, culturally he is a bit odd as well.