Category
🥇
SportsTranscript
00:00 Nick Smith Jr. I'll let you go here.
00:02 Someone we've not really touched on in too much detail.
00:05 I think the last time we did our touch all prospects are kind of
00:09 nine and 45 or whatever it was, nine and 60.
00:12 He wasn't in the rotation at all, but we've been able to see a good
00:16 bit of Nick Smith Jr. here due to injuries.
00:18 What have you made so far of his minutes?
00:20 So to me, I'm obviously overall encouraged just because the context with which he
00:28 is getting these minutes is not the best for a developmental player.
00:32 Like I said, this last year, I'm not a fan of the, you know, Houston
00:36 rockets style of rebuilding or tanking, where you just feed minutes to
00:39 like a lineup full of young players.
00:42 It doesn't necessarily result in the most fruitful style or successful
00:47 style of basketball, which is what we've seen a lot of the times
00:49 with the Hornets this year.
00:51 But Nick Smith has definitely shown some very positive things.
00:55 I think most of all to me, and granted this is on somewhat low volume, but he's
00:59 shooting 51% from three this year.
01:01 Like he has taken 49 of them in 18 games, 227 minutes.
01:07 This is again, not a huge sample size, not great volume, but he's
01:10 shooting enough to where you can believe that, you know, maybe this 51%
01:14 extrapolated over a much larger sample size.
01:18 And when he's a little older and more experienced, maybe he's
01:20 like a 38 to 40% shooter.
01:22 And a lot of these are like pretty difficult shots.
01:24 Like he hit that one.
01:25 I think it was against Denver where he was like, he came off, he came off a handoff
01:30 and was like drifting into the left corner was like extremely off balance, but set
01:35 his feet like just enough and what came when rose up on balance and got it off.
01:39 And it went straight down.
01:41 Like that is a very difficult shot to make, especially for a guy that's like.
01:45 Not really regarded as a three point shooter.
01:47 Like that that's impressive to be able to kind of do that stuff
01:50 just on a whim in the NBA.
01:52 He's not necessarily somebody that gets a ton of stuff ran for him or has like
01:56 the highest usage rate in the world.
01:57 Although he does actually get a pretty good share of like ball
02:00 handler reps when he's in there.
02:02 He's obviously not like somebody that starts or even plays all that much
02:05 when he does get minutes, I think he tops out around like 22 or 24 is probably
02:10 the most he's played in a game, but so far, like as, as he's gotten more playing
02:16 time gradually throughout the year, which sure he's earned it partially, a lot
02:20 of it is because of injury he's continued to prove to Steve Clifford, to the Hornets
02:25 front office, that there are a lot of things to buy into with his skillset.
02:29 He has great touch.
02:30 It's a really good ball handler.
02:31 And most of all, he has shown a ton of effort on the F on defense.
02:35 And that shooting is really coming around so far.
02:38 Like that.
02:39 I, I, I think it's overall, you can be encouraged by him, but you know,
02:42 the, as a rookie will do, he'll pull out, you know, every two or three
02:46 games and just have a pretty rough performance in terms of turnovers or
02:50 on ball defense, or just start missing some shots, but overall very encouraging
02:54 signs from Nick Smith to me.
02:56 What about you, James?
02:57 Yeah.
02:58 I mean, anytime you have a last pick basically in the first round and you're
03:02 able to, to show anything is, is, is a good start.
03:06 So look, the shooting is very real.
03:10 Okay.
03:10 He's not a 51% shooter, but you can tell because like the gradient of
03:14 difficulty on some of these looks is high.
03:16 These are not just, I'm catching the ball and I'm shooting wide open.
03:19 Like some of these are off the dribbles when people going under
03:22 and screens that come in, we're coming off curls, like you say that,
03:25 that one step back to his left.
03:27 I mean, that was a, an extremely hard to find.
03:30 There's not many guys in this roster who'd even attempt that shot.
03:33 Um, and, and his shot making is super impressive.
03:37 I agree with you on the touch.
03:38 He's shown it on the floater as well.
03:40 I don't think he's a good ball handler yet.
03:43 Um, and he probably won't ever be from being honest.
03:45 Like I think it'll be fine ish.
03:48 Um, I will say as impressive as the tough shot making is, and I don't
03:52 want to be negative, but he does really struggle to generate easy
03:56 shots for himself or others.
03:57 Like everything he takes has to be difficult because he
04:01 doesn't have great burst.
04:03 Um, he, like, he's always like, it's always a step back kind of with
04:07 him because that's, and like, if you're good enough to do that all the time,
04:11 like actually that's okay, but it does mean that the level of shooting that
04:15 you have, you have to have is of an extremely high level because if you're
04:19 not putting on any rim pressure and you're not recreating that much for
04:23 others, then you need to be a lights out shooter.
04:26 Now, if you keep shooting it like he is, that isn't a problem, but those
04:30 things will come down to earth at some point, but I still think he needs to
04:34 find a way to get easy shots to get the rim.
04:37 I think he has, what is it?
04:38 His, his, uh, five rim attempts on the season.
04:41 Uh, his foul rate is non-existent.
04:44 I think it's like 0.1% free throws per game.
04:47 Um, he's actually done a good job not turning the ball over as
04:51 much as he did in summer league.
04:52 He's not been given like the ball as much he was in Greensboro or in some leagues.
04:57 So he's been able to play more as a wing than the lead guard, which he was doing
05:01 in those development settings, which I still think is good for him because if
05:04 he can give you on-ball reps, that just adds another tool to his arsenal.
05:08 But I mean, Steve Clifford even said in a pregame the other day that he's a wing.
05:12 Like we don't even view him as a guard.
05:14 He's a wing.
05:14 Um, and that's just because of his, how he works at the minute.
05:18 Like he is an off ball shooting guard and that's great, but he has to find more
05:23 things to add to his, you know, his, his skillset and that will come like for him
05:27 to show this level of shooting at this stage in this rookie season, that's
05:32 enough to go, there's something here, but we have to create the complete picture of
05:36 a player for him to be an every night rotation player.
05:39 You know, when that shooting regresses, if you go zero for five, how else is Nick
05:44 Smith Jr.
05:44 Impacting the game?
05:45 At the minute?
05:47 Probably not.
05:48 Okay.
05:49 Maybe, maybe a hustle play here and there, but that's, that's what he needs to work
05:53 on, um, while also trying to keep up this, the shooting level, but I'd say he's
05:58 similar, I get excited when he comes to the game.
06:00 I think fans do too.
06:01 They like seeing him.
06:02 It feels like every shot he takes is going to go in.
06:04 And even though he takes these hard shots, I didn't feel like they're bad
06:10 shots because a lot of the time he kind of will take those shots when he feels
06:14 the team needs it, when the ball isn't moving, when the second unit is struggling.
06:17 He doesn't like wave people off and take them.
06:20 He just kind of like, seems to sense the moment at the right times, which
06:24 is quite a mature thing to say.
06:25 Yeah.
06:27 He's very good at deferring at the right times.
06:30 He doesn't like chuck up shots.
06:32 You, you would not complain about his shot selection really at all.
06:35 So far, I don't think he just tends to miss or have tough shots.
06:38 And like you said, cause he can't necessarily create the space or absorb
06:42 contact in a way that allows him to have easier looks, which to me, like him
06:47 getting stronger is going to be imperative because that will solve a lot of the
06:51 things that you just talked about, like the rim pressure and the ability to
06:54 actually get to the rim and make plays for others, if he can't do that with his
06:58 ball handling, which I think I'm probably a little bit higher on than you are by
07:02 the sound of it, but even if that, that doesn't come around and he just remains
07:05 like a decent ball handler for his position, if he's strong enough to like
07:09 move defenders off of their spot on his way into the paint, he's going to
07:12 create space for himself.
07:13 He's going to force play.
07:14 Yeah, exactly.
07:16 Oh, not, not at all right now.
07:18 Oh yes.
07:19 And that is a huge thing as to why he does only get those like off balance
07:24 shots or extremely contested looks in the paints, cause he's not moving.
07:28 Anybody.
07:28 In fact, most of the time, he is the one that gets moved around when in taking any
07:33 sort of contact on the way to the rim.
07:35 But if he could either become like a very good ball handler and expand even further
07:41 on his court vision, which seems pretty decent so far, he makes a lot of pretty
07:44 good, like kick out passes and swing passes and stuff like that, but he's got
07:48 to do that or become a lot stronger.
07:50 So he can move guys around a little bit and create space for himself because.
07:54 Like you said, the tough shots, they don't look bad, like to the eye or they don't
07:59 come like out of the flow of the offense, but they're just tough shots.
08:02 Like you're not going to shoot an extremely high percentage on them forever.
08:06 Like in college, he did take a pretty decent amount of off the dribble jumpers
08:10 shot 36.4% of that on them in the NBA.
08:13 Right now he is seven for 14 on pull-up threes.
08:16 Like the 51, 50% shooting on catch and shoot and pull-ups is not sustainable.
08:21 It's probably going to fall a little bit closer to his college numbers.
08:24 And in college, he struggled to, you know, create rim pressure, make
08:27 place for teammates, affect the game when he wasn't making shots.
08:31 So these are the same things that he struggles with now.
08:33 So I think that's a positive sign, at least that he's struggling with similar
08:36 things, so you know what you need to target and work on going forward, but.
08:40 Definitely a couple of things that have stood out so far, but I am still
08:45 encouraged it's a positive sign to get anything like this in the 27th.
08:48 Like you said, it's hard not to find his style of game exciting.
08:53 Right.
08:53 But equally, I just think we should safeguard against it in the disappointment
08:59 that this Hornets season has been, it's easy to latch onto anything positive
09:02 and like over-inflate it.
09:04 And I just want people to understand that this isn't just, we need to play Nick
09:12 Smith, junior 25 minutes per night.
09:14 And he's like, you know, there are still a lot of things that he
09:17 needs to add to his toolbox.
09:18 And that he is a little bit one dimensional right now.
09:22 So there is definitely stuff that Nick needs to continue to build on.
09:26 But it's been an encouraging start.