The 2018 NBA Manifesto
Taurean Prince
SF – 6’8, 220lbs - 24 years old - 2 years of experience
It looked for a while there as though Prince was going to throw away all the reputation he built as a defender in his rookie season. With the ideal physical profile for the wing in terms of both size and athleticism, Prince played excellent NBA defence as a rookie, and was efficient offensively in limited touches too. And then to start this year, he didn’t, and he wasn’t.
However, he got it back. Or some of it, anyway. A good late flourish to the season saw Prince get himself back into the conversation of being a piece of Atlanta’s future, as he posted slightly better defensive effort and results in an oddly senior role (when so recently prior he had been being bench for apathetic play). And while those improvements were slight – he did not get back to the defence of his rookie season, for whatever reason – what was impressive were his late-season offensive contributions.
A player who previously at no level has been all that focal of a perimeter scorer, Prince assumed some relative importance amid the Hawks’ tank, and poured in some big scoring games to finish the campaign. On a team with basically no senior guards left, he was creating regularly off of the dribble – he was also turning it over regularly with the dribble, and shooting inefficiently, yet his limitations meant only that he was overexposed, and that overexposure was transient and circumstantial. If we operate under no pretences that that would be the right role for him going forward, and instead put him back into the three-and-D, Danny Greenish role he once looked so primed and ready for, we have now seen him achieve in both halves of that role.
Now, we need to see them at the same time.
Player Plan: Two years of rookie scale salary remaining. No reason to move that.
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SF – 6’8, 220lbs - 24 years old - 2 years of experience
It looked for a while there as though Prince was going to throw away all the reputation he built as a defender in his rookie season. With the ideal physical profile for the wing in terms of both size and athleticism, Prince played excellent NBA defence as a rookie, and was efficient offensively in limited touches too. And then to start this year, he didn’t, and he wasn’t.
However, he got it back. Or some of it, anyway. A good late flourish to the season saw Prince get himself back into the conversation of being a piece of Atlanta’s future, as he posted slightly better defensive effort and results in an oddly senior role (when so recently prior he had been being bench for apathetic play). And while those improvements were slight – he did not get back to the defence of his rookie season, for whatever reason – what was impressive were his late-season offensive contributions.
A player who previously at no level has been all that focal of a perimeter scorer, Prince assumed some relative importance amid the Hawks’ tank, and poured in some big scoring games to finish the campaign. On a team with basically no senior guards left, he was creating regularly off of the dribble – he was also turning it over regularly with the dribble, and shooting inefficiently, yet his limitations meant only that he was overexposed, and that overexposure was transient and circumstantial. If we operate under no pretences that that would be the right role for him going forward, and instead put him back into the three-and-D, Danny Greenish role he once looked so primed and ready for, we have now seen him achieve in both halves of that role.
Now, we need to see them at the same time.
Player Plan: Two years of rookie scale salary remaining. No reason to move that.
