Orlando's an interesting young team -- they've already got a lot of good pieces in place, but IMO if they're going to get better they need two things. One is obvious; they need to get at least one real consistent knock-down shooter in the backcourt to take some pressure off of Banchero and Franz Wagner. The other is, they need to figure out who their center is going to be and if he's currently even on their roster. My opinion is that he's probably not; all three of the ones they have either have serious holes in their games or, in Wendell Carter Jr.'s case, is just kind of middling as a player.
Yeah I'd agree, the center thing is a little bit of an underrated storyline. Carter is good! But center is absurdly deep in the NBA today, and he's a below-average starting center somehow.
I'd love to see him up his shooting frequency from deep, where he's been legitimately good this season, but I'm not sure if he's wired to do that yet. Defenses still don't really care if he's shooting from outside even if he's doing it well.
Out of the three centers they have, Carter's certainly the best all-around, but as you say with what the center position looks like in the league right now he's below-average for a starter. He'd make a hell of a backup, though, and if they can they should certainly keep him around over either Goga Bitadze or Mo Wagner. Both of those guys basically are only real good on one side of the ball (Bitadze on defense and Mo on offense).
Orlando's an interesting young team -- they've already got a lot of good pieces in place, but IMO if they're going to get better they need two things. One is obvious; they need to get at least one real consistent knock-down shooter in the backcourt to take some pressure off of Banchero and Franz Wagner. The other is, they need to figure out who their center is going to be and if he's currently even on their roster. My opinion is that he's probably not; all three of the ones they have either have serious holes in their games or, in Wendell Carter Jr.'s case, is just kind of middling as a player.
Yeah I'd agree, the center thing is a little bit of an underrated storyline. Carter is good! But center is absurdly deep in the NBA today, and he's a below-average starting center somehow.
I'd love to see him up his shooting frequency from deep, where he's been legitimately good this season, but I'm not sure if he's wired to do that yet. Defenses still don't really care if he's shooting from outside even if he's doing it well.
Out of the three centers they have, Carter's certainly the best all-around, but as you say with what the center position looks like in the league right now he's below-average for a starter. He'd make a hell of a backup, though, and if they can they should certainly keep him around over either Goga Bitadze or Mo Wagner. Both of those guys basically are only real good on one side of the ball (Bitadze on defense and Mo on offense).