J. Kyle Mann

where good players have to be able to live where like, yeah, I might not be the number one on ball option, but I'm going to get reps even with Denny in the game.

And I'm going to have to learn also how to play off the ball and scoot.

You can see him.

Like he kind of is smart about relocating off the ball for threes, like slipping into the corner.

And, and, and if not threes and catch and go drives, I'm like, I feel like it's been out of sight, out of mind.

He's sort of almost pre-labeled a bust, particularly with the Thompson twins and Keontae George behind him.

I don't know what the future holds for him, but four games back has already reminded me, like, this is, you can see what everyone saw in him already.

And I would not write off Scoot by any means.

Yeah.

But again, on a team that's been kind of caught between identities on a team that,

you can focus on his poor jump shooting, which is not great.

It's a team full of poor jump shooters so that when Scoot cracks open an alley, which he can do on his own, that's how explosive he is.

Even if you're trying to go under against him, he will beat you to the spot or he'll fake toward the screen and reject it and he's in the paint.

And guess what?

Everyone else is in the paint, too, because the team doesn't care if Shaden Sharpe shoots threes, if Tamani Kamara shoots threes, if Chris Murray shoots threes, if Donovan Klingin shoots threes.

No one cares.

The Portland is the team that can't shoot straight, and that hurts Scoot, too.

I think it has to be—it has to start with pressuring the basket in transition and in the half court.

And that's where his jump shot makes it a little bit harder for him.

And his lack of finishing, like you say, the word Moutier, and I get scared because Scoot is a 6'3", bully ball kind of guard.