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

He's just a losing player. There are players who are good talent but they don't have a winning skillset or mentality to fit championship teams. Guys like Cousins, Beal, and I think you're going to see that with Banchero as well. Good numbers, lovely stats, but aren't capable of winning at a high level.

Sad to say because I had high hopes for him and still think he can be a good player but his mentality is way off.

I don't even think he's frustrated about them losing but is just upset he will probably be a $5-10 million dollar center in the offseason and won't get the deal he thought he would.

Simple fact is, Ayton's efficiency is because teams ignore him and he gets a wide open basket. If he has to make something work offensively, he either fumbles the ball or gets trapped and has no clue what to do with it. His pace is horrible. Sometimes he'll go for a crazy lob and look amazingly athletic, some other times he doesn't even jump to fight for a rebound.

Like dude, you are 7 ft tall with one of the longest wingspans in the league. You should be grabbing 15 boards and blocking 3 shots per game if all you're expected to do on a team with Luka, LeBron, and Reaves is to provide toughness and defense.

I think he's on a fast-track to being out of the league. Teams already know what they're going to get from him and you can't really build on him. Unfortunately, he's still worth $5-10 million but teams don't want to deal with his shenanigans and whining so he'll likely be out of the league within 3 seasons.

I mean, here he is crying about the amount of touches he has but all he has in his arsenal is a floater or wide open layup... If he wanted more touches, maybe he should have worked on his 3 PT shot and try to space the floor or something.

 

I also want to push back on this idea that he is some great talent that just has problems between the ears. Sure he's got nice touch around the rim. But if you look back at his time in Phoenix, I think he's lost a good bit of athleticism. Not nearly as explosive. He looks like he'd be fairly strong but never plays like it. I don't know that his defensive instincts and timing were ever great, I think he just used to be a better athlete.

I kind of like the Dwight comparison because I don't think he's this terrible malcontent in the locker room like a Cousins. I think its more so that he's just...annoying.

 

Why the Lakers' success depends on Deandre Ayton -- and vice versa - ESPN


Don't think "DA's Crunk Juice -- Drink this to unleash the beast" is working guys!

 

he's exactly who most of us expected him to be. lazy, unmotivated, zero drive

i never thought i'd see a big man who couldn't find chemistry with luka, but here we are. it's quite remarkable

 

So is this guy going to opt-out now?

 

Lmfao the former suns exec:

 

Amazing.

 

I was trying to tell y’all the same thing when we signed him.
The same thing.

 

it's becoming an interesting question. i'm actually thinking he'll opt in at this point. it's not a tremendous issue if he opts in (i think he'll just be traded), but it might be easier if he didn't, considering we'll be looking for another center in any case.

 

All they need to do is tell him he won’t be getting more than 10 minutes a game if he returns- that will make him leave.

 

i'm not sure. he's probably watched what happened to dlo after he left here and knows that nobody is going to sign him anyway. quite possible he opts in and tries to force a buyout.

there may be a situation where he takes a buyout that cuts his salary and then we stretch-waive it to open up space. in this case, his salary is 8 million. if he'll accept 3 off (which he'll get--someone will give him a vet min at least), we can stretch the remaining 5 over 3 years. this would open up about 6 million in space, which equals one laravia.

 

No one will want to sign him IMO but I’m also not entirely sure we can trade him since we have had difficulty moving other expiring deals. We will see. I expect him back with us next year but hopefully coming off the bench.

 

i think once we've made our FA moves, we'll probably be open to taking on longer-term salary, which might make some move in which say, ayton and vando are packaged for a player who's better but overpaid over a longer period of time or something like that.

i don't think we're going to let contract length hem us in after this summer. but maybe i'm wrong.