Is Dalen Terry an NBA level player?

[Rose2Boozer]

I think he needs another year playing mostly for the Windy City Bulls. He has to get that shot dropping consistently before I'd trust him filling a role on the main team. As for the remaining SL games, I would like him to play a role closer to what he's going to play with the Chicago Bulls. Pull Darling out of the starting lineup and start that pint sized Brazilian point guard.

[SfBull]

[quote="kulaz3000"]I think people are taking his summer league production (or lack thereof) a little out of hand.

The team has clearly put him in a position to do things he won't be asked to do in the upcoming season. It's to expand his game and to work on reps in situations that he won't be in during the season, but something he can continue to work on, because he aint playing point guard for us.

I'm not down on him because of summer league, and I'm not going to take his play there as some sort of indicator that he is a lost cause. I actually think he is going to play a role this upcoming season, as a defensive high energy player, who will rebound and push the ball, make passes, and hit the occasional layup and 3 pointer.

Now will he become a starter level player? There isn't enough there to suggest he will for a few years, but I think he is versatile enough, where if he is able to get his shot to at least an average level, he does so much else on the floor, he will have a long career.[/quote
Summer League games' production means nothing.We'll know if Terry will evolve into a useful rotational player during the regular season when he'll surely get more playing time .But it's not possible to exclude that he can be another Hutch.

[AshyLarrysDiaper]

I’m pretty confident he’ll round out as an NBA player. He’s too smart, long, and motivated not to. He sure as hell doesn’t have an NBA role yet, though. While I love the energy he brings in his spot minutes, with the holes in his game (handle, shooting) it would be game over the minute he landed on scouting reports, so back to the G-league he goes.

[drosestruts]

at the moment no, but I still think he can be.

I think he was clearly drafted as a project type player, rather than plug and play option.

It seems many on this board lack the patience for a project. I anticipate much more G-league time for Dalen this season. He'll at best be our 10th man, and that's with two players still to be signed who could easily vault in front of him on the depth chart.

I like Dalen's size, speed, athleticism, vision, passing, energy, and effort.

Think he needs to work on his shot, handles, finishing at the rim, and bball iq on when/where to apply that energy and effort to be an impactful player at the NBA level.

He's 20 years old entering the second year of his professional career. His career could go in a hundred different ways from here.

I think calls to trade him for a future 2nd are way too premature.

I think there's room for project players on any NBA roster.

You carry 15 guys, if healthy 10 play any meaningful minutes.

Terry and Phillips are both project players. Ball is injured. The remaining 12 players should be NBA-level players and that would be fine depth.

Terry's readiness in year 2 to contribute is making a mountain out of a mole hill.

I swear some of you probably wanted to cut Butler after his rookie season. Chill out.

[FriedRise]

Maybe. Can't know for sure until he gets regular rotation minutes, but the only way he'd get that is if we're dealing with multiple injuries or if he's developed a killer 3pt shot. Anything less isn't gonna be enough to gain himself some playing time IMO.

We have 9 rotation players with Zach, DeMar, Vooch, Carter, Craig, Coby, Caruso, Pat, and Drummond. Every single one of these players is better than Terry. Then if he returns, Ayo is probably also ahead of him given he's gained Billy's trust. So that leaves Terry and Phillips as the 11th and 12th men in the rotation. Also depends on who we end up signing with the last couple spots - because if they're veteran players, they could easily push Terry back even more.

I could see him bouncing back and forth to the Hoffman Estates again this year.

[dougthonus]

Terry's readiness in year 2 to contribute is making a mountain out of a mole hill.

I swear some of you probably wanted to cut Butler after his rookie season. Chill out.

Butler was ready to contribute immediately, that's a silly comparison.

No idea what Terry is showing at practices, but after a year, if he hasn't made major strides on his shot (the Bulls might know he has even if we didn't see it in summer league) then just cut bait. What's his value proposition? Moderately athletic hustle player? Javonte Green and DJJ might be out there at the minimum to provide what Terry does even better.

If a guy only has role player upside and requires 2+ years to develop and can't meaningfully contribute in the process and costs 2x as much as better guys at the vet min, this is a really poor value proposition for you. What's the hope here? that maybe you get market value out of him in year 3 or 4 in the best case scenario? That maybe he's a fringe rotation player entering year 5 where you can bid market value on him?

Maybe it's fine to do that in a rebuilding phase, but it's not too useful while trying to win now. And in a rebuilding phase, you'd want to have half a dozen guys like this with minutes to burn to see who can actually make it happen on the court. It's really tough to develop a guy like this in only practice and also really tough to justify giving him minutes in our rotation.

[TheJordanRule]

Whatever it is, we'll never know if we keep him riding pine at all times. There is no spot for him on our roster barring injuries. Put him on the WCB. Let's find out if he can play against the G-leaguers.

[CROBulls]

When he will be he wont be Bull anymore. Just like majority of Bulls players today on roster. Not his fault. GM's fault for not tanking and drafting greatness and players who can actually contribute. Cant remember when did Bulls drafted greatness from their first NBA game.

But here we talking about just "nba level player" so he has a chance be nba player yet.

[drosestruts]

Terry's readiness in year 2 to contribute is making a mountain out of a mole hill.

I swear some of you probably wanted to cut Butler after his rookie season. Chill out.

Butler was ready to contribute immediately, that's a silly comparison.

No idea what Terry is showing at practices, but after a year, if he hasn't made major strides on his shot (the Bulls might know he has even if we didn't see it in summer league) then just cut bait. What's his value proposition? Moderately athletic hustle player? Javonte Green and DJJ might be out there at the minimum to provide what Terry does even better.

If a guy only has role player upside and requires 2+ years to develop and can't meaningfully contribute in the process and costs 2x as much as better guys at the vet min, this is a really poor value proposition for you. What's the hope here? that maybe you get market value out of him in year 3 or 4 in the best case scenario? That maybe he's a fringe rotation player entering year 5 where you can bid market value on him?

Maybe it's fine to do that in a rebuilding phase, but it's not too useful while trying to win now. And in a rebuilding phase, you'd want to have half a dozen guys like this with minutes to burn to see who can actually make it happen on the court. It's really tough to develop a guy like this in only practice and also really tough to justify giving him minutes in our rotation.

I think this is some pretty big revisionist history on Butler here. Butler's one of my favorite players, I was rooting for Miami throughout the entire playoffs because of him.

But he barely played his rookie season, and it's not like he didn't play early but started earning minutes later. In the last month of his rookie season Bulls had 13 games, he didn't appear at all in 4 of them, played under 2-minutes in 5 others.

He played 4 total minutes in the playoffs that year.

Butler was not in anyway a day-1 contributor


Back to Dalen Terry. I think paying $1.5mm over the vet min on a young player with upside is a worthy gamble. I feel like this logic of "a vet min player can offer more" applies to a shockingly large amount of rookies, but it's an argument I feel you've only ever voiced in regards to Terry.

I think there's also a sense of keeping a happy locker room. Dalen Terry is young and probably more accepting of a more developmental role on a team. I agree DJJ and Green (but especially DJJ who I really like and in my eyes is still plenty young) will be better in 2023-24, but where are their minutes coming from if they signed here? Our top-9 is pretty set

I feel like you're placing undue emphasis and scrutiny on a contract $1.5mm over the vet min, and on a player likely to be 12-15 in the rotation.

I'm not sure what team out there has 15 playable, positive contributing players.

Dalen Terry and his role on the Bulls is simply not unique and worthy of such harsh judgment and standards.

The Nuggets just won an NBA Championship with roster spots for guys like Zeke Nnaji, Jack White, Peyton Watson, Davon Reed, Thomas Bryant, and Vlatko Cancar

It's completely normal to have roster spots for guys like Dalen Terry

[HoopsterJones]

As of right now, he’s an end of bench player at best. Let’s hope he can take a few steps forward and be worthy of cracking the rotation.

[othawhitemeat]

I think he at best could be a Kyle Anderson which is a solid player, but I don't see why we didn't take higher upside last year. I was on the Branham, Liddell, Walker trainwagon. They all at least have more potential.

[Peelboy]

It's all dependent on his shot. He better start living w Patton. But given what we hear about his work ethic, etc that seems fairly doable. So I would expect him to be a solid rotation guy. I will say that if he can't do that in yr 2, then he's got a short rope. A full year with a specific goal and no discernable improvement is a bad sign.

Regardless, to me it's a terrible pick and use of a #20 overall. Unless a kid has star potential, getting nothing from him in the first 1-2 years is ridiculously bad asset management. That said, if (giant if), you can develop a decent 3-point shot from Dalen, his other skills make him a really valuable player. Hopefully that's Patton, because watching development of guys to date under the "new" regime I haven't seen some unique discernable development skill.

[kodo]

Even if he develops his shot, which isn't a huge risk, is he really an elite defender? I'd have to see him against NBA guards and we won't play him to find out. I wonder how he's doing in practice to earn these DNPs.

I think his D will make or break his NBA career, as he's clearly not going to get contracts based on shooting.

[dougthonus]

I think this is some pretty big revisionist history on Butler here. Butler's one of my favorite players, I was rooting for Miami throughout the entire playoffs because of him.

But he barely played his rookie season, and it's not like he didn't play early but started earning minutes later. In the last month of his rookie season Bulls had 13 games, he didn't appear at all in 4 of them, played under 2-minutes in 5 others.

He played 4 total minutes in the playoffs that year.

Butler was not in anyway a day-1 contributor

Fair enough, I was thinking of Butler's 2nd year in my head and not his 1st year.

Back to Dalen Terry. I think paying $1.5mm over the vet min on a young player with upside is a worthy gamble. I feel like this logic of "a vet min player can offer more" applies to a shockingly large amount of rookies, but it's an argument I feel you've only ever voiced in regards to Terry.

That is probably true and is more reflective of my pre-draft opinion of Terry being a terrible selection and nothing occurring in the past year to shift my view on it.

I think there's also a sense of keeping a happy locker room. Dalen Terry is young and probably more accepting of a more developmental role on a team. I agree DJJ and Green (but especially DJJ who I really like and in my eyes is still plenty young) will be better in 2023-24, but where are their minutes coming from if they signed here? Our top-9 is pretty set

Injuries happen, you should definitely look to go deeper than 9 deep. At the minimum, people are often looking to stay in the league as much as get minutes, but you will definitely get better minimum players with minutes to offer, so a DJJ/Javonte may not come without a defined role, that said, I think our PFs are Pat/Craig, and there is definitely an opportunity to beat out Craig at PF.

I feel like you're placing undue emphasis and scrutiny on a contract $1.5mm over the vet min, and on a player likely to be 12-15 in the rotation.

I'm not sure what team out there has 15 playable, positive contributing players.

Dalen Terry and his role on the Bulls is simply not unique and worthy of such harsh judgment and standards.

My problem is really not the contract, my problem is that I don't perceive any upside in Terry actually working out into a meaningful player ever. Ultimately, I guess it really just comes down to the fact that I would not have drafted him. Maybe this take will look ridiculously dumb in 2 years though.

Like a guy who was uber athletic but could do nothing right now or a guy with uber size but could do nothing right now or a guy who had a unique skill that maybe you want to utilize occasionally and see how you can hide his flaws (typically elite shooters) all have obvious paths to me to become useful players.

My perception is that Terry's path to me to become a useful player is that after putting in 4 years you have the next Javonte Green or Shaq Harrison, whom you can have right now in a better developed state on a cheaper contract anyway.

He isn't the archtype of a good player, this is why I started with "if his shooting hasn't improved" and that the Bulls may know more about this. If he's never going to be a shooter, he's never going to be more than a vet min player, and given he's had a year to work on shooting, and it's a skill that doesn't require a lot of minutes, I would like to have seen very serious development along those lines to feel confident that he will make the necessary improvements to be better than Javonte Green one day.

But I think you are right that I'm overly harsh due to my pre-draft level of enthusiasm for the pick and what we have seen to date.

[TheJordanRule]

Doug, you think our starting PF is gonna be either Craig or PAW? What is that based on, two years of the team completely ignoring the issue, or is there something more?

[CobysHairpick]

Dalen should study and model his game after Delon Wright.

[Dan Z]

When the Bulls picked Terry I knew he'd be a prospect that needed time to develop. My hope was(is) that he'd be similar to Anfernee Simons on Portland (not in playing style, but development).

Portland picked Simons at #24 in 2018. In his first year he played 20 games at 7.1 minutes per game. Year two it was 70 games at 20.7 minutes. Year three he showed improvement, but played less (64 games at 17.3 minutes per game). Year 4 is when he broke out.

Can Terry do that? With the way the roster is currently I doubt he'll get much playing time, but that doesn't mean he can't continue to develop. Maybe in the G League? At some point I hope he shows what he can do on the NBA level, but I wouldn't be surprised if we had to wait another year for that.

[drosestruts]

Back to Dalen Terry. I think paying $1.5mm over the vet min on a young player with upside is a worthy gamble. I feel like this logic of "a vet min player can offer more" applies to a shockingly large amount of rookies, but it's an argument I feel you've only ever voiced in regards to Terry.

That is probably true and is more reflective of my pre-draft opinion of Terry being a terrible selection and nothing occurring in the past year to shift my view on it.

My problem is really not the contract, my problem is that I don't perceive any upside in Terry actually working out into a meaningful player ever. Ultimately, I guess it really just comes down to the fact that I would not have drafted him. Maybe this take will look ridiculously dumb in 2 years though.

Like a guy who was uber athletic but could do nothing right now or a guy with uber size but could do nothing right now or a guy who had a unique skill that maybe you want to utilize occasionally and see how you can hide his flaws (typically elite shooters) all have obvious paths to me to become useful players.

My perception is that Terry's path to me to become a useful player is that after putting in 4 years you have the next Javonte Green or Shaq Harrison, whom you can have right now in a better developed state on a cheaper contract anyway.

He isn't the archtype of a good player, this is why I started with "if his shooting hasn't improved" and that the Bulls may know more about this. If he's never going to be a shooter, he's never going to be more than a vet min player, and given he's had a year to work on shooting, and it's a skill that doesn't require a lot of minutes, I would like to have seen very serious development along those lines to feel confident that he will make the necessary improvements to be better than Javonte Green one day.

But I think you are right that I'm overly harsh due to my pre-draft level of enthusiasm for the pick and what we have seen to date.

When we drafted Terry my primary reaction was "who?" So I don't disagree or take any umbrage with your lack of enthusiasm about Terry as the pick.

In terms of his archetype I agree Terry has the energy/hustle player aesthetic associated with guys like Green and Harrison. I think those comparisons do miss what make Terry a little unique and different though and that is his vision/passing.

And while a dreadful shooting performance has been the primary takeaway from summer league so far, Terry for as much as he's been handling the ball is doing very well limiting the turnover. He had 0 turnovers in the second game vs Memphis in 30 minutes of playing time. Game 1 vs Toronto he had that highlight more than half court pass for an assist. This is the uniqueness in Terry.

He has that energy archetype like a Harrison or Green but with strong natural vision/passing skills. If he improves his handle and shot and can limit those turnover, I think you have a pretty unique player. One I think would be more accurate to compare to a George Hill, Delon Wright, or do I dare say Lonzo Ball, in terms of ceiling.

Maybe that makes you look at Terry differently, maybe it makes you roll your eyes.

Injuries happen, you should definitely look to go deeper than 9 deep. At the minimum, people are often looking to stay in the league as much as get minutes, but you will definitely get better minimum players with minutes to offer, so a DJJ/Javonte may not come without a defined role, that said, I think our PFs are Pat/Craig, and there is definitely an opportunity to beat out Craig at PF.

To be clear I was trying to say we currently have 9 players capable of positively contributing.

We have 2 projects in Terry and Phillps

We have Carlik Jones who the front office either believes in or still plans to cut, I honestly don't know

One injured player in Lonzo

And two roster spots yet to be filled. Both of whom I'm expecting to be players that can contribute and have on-court impact this season, which would move us to 11 deep (12 if we also replace Carlik).

So agreed we should build for deeper than 9 players, and I think we will, as we're clearly not done yet.

[Kurt Heimlich]

He's brutal offensively and doesn't have any particular traits that scream "give him time" developmentally. But that seems to be AKMEs drafting profile, a lanky build with no particularly great previous production and questionable at best projectability. My money is on him being another example of the craptacular roster building abilities of AKME.

[dougthonus]

When we drafted Terry my primary reaction was "who?" So I don't disagree or take any umbrage with your lack of enthusiasm about Terry as the pick.

In terms of his archetype I agree Terry has the energy/hustle player aesthetic associated with guys like Green and Harrison. I think those comparisons do miss what make Terry a little unique and different though and that is his vision/passing.

And while a dreadful shooting performance has been the primary takeaway from summer league so far, Terry for as much as he's been handling the ball is doing very well limiting the turnover. He had 0 turnovers in the second game vs Memphis in 30 minutes of playing time. Game 1 vs Toronto he had that highlight more than half court pass for an assist. This is the uniqueness in Terry.

He has that energy archetype like a Harrison or Green but with strong natural vision/passing skills. If he improves his handle and shot and can limit those turnover, I think you have a pretty unique player. One I think would be more accurate to compare to a George Hill, Delon Wright, or do I dare say Lonzo Ball, in terms of ceiling.

Maybe that makes you look at Terry differently, maybe it makes you roll your eyes.

Hill and Lonzo can shoot though, which is why I put the emphasis on shooting. If anything, Lonzo has proven anyone can learn how to shoot if they put in the time/work/focus, but someone should have already been drilling in his head that he needs to do that, but that gets back to a different hot topic point of mine is that literally every player in the league should spend 2 hours a day just practicing threes with a focus on only release speed and accuracy. I think probably anyone in the world could be a solid NBA shooter if you put up 1000 shots a day with that focus.

I'm not sure how valuable a non-PG hustle player that can also pass really is though. It probably helps some, but it's just not that meaningful a skill to add if you never have to defend the guy at the three point line and he's certainly no where near a PG caliber ball handler/passer.

It's like a nice to have, it's just so far down the list of nice to haves that it isn't super useful unless the shooting or dribble-drive game also comes with it, but there's really no evidence of that, and while I agree on paper he seems like a better passer than a typical 3&D player, it just isn't a stud level ability there.