Someone sell me on Thomas Robinson

#1
I know were only 10 or so games into his rookie season but I gotta say, I just don't see any above average skills that made him the 5th pick, let alone a guy who can be a contributor in the NBA.

His size is the first thing that grabs my attention. He's supposed to be a PF but he looks more like a SF. His skills don't really fit the role of either a SF or a PF though. Actually I'm not really sure what his skills are. He can sorta shoot, sorta drive and sometimes rebound. The only thing I know for sure is that he can flush down alley oops with the best of them.

Am I getting fooled by his non-role in a Keith Smart system or is he going to forever be a tweener? He was supposed to be THE most NBA ready guy in the draft and he's looking completely lost out there. Add to the fact that he just looks really small down there in the paint and I'm just not seeing what he could bring to the table to make him a productive player. I'm not the type of fan that just writes off rookies early on based on performance, it's just his size that has me concerned. Someone please tell me I'm crazy and that this dude has a ton of potential..
 
#2
I have the same questions. Is it the Kings themselves making him look lost and inept? His energy is great, but you don't draft someone at 5 just because of their 'motor.'
 

Kingster

Hall of Famer
#3
Very quick leaper; very quick first step; high motor; an outside shot that needs work, but that is fixable; great work ethic. I've said from the beginning, he's a project, but that doesn't mean he won't be a fine player down the line. Didn't have much of a post game in college, so I'm mystified why people would think he would miraculously have one in the NBA in his rookie year. Has the chance to be an excellent defender. Right now it would be nice if we could have him do pick and rolls with someone that could get him the ball on the roll, but that seems impossible for some reason. He is very quick on the roll and I have seen him open, but he might as well be invisible. He might be able to be a 3 down the line, but I think that's asking too much of him at this point, unless he's put in some very defined non-creative offensive role. At this point he's more of a project stretch 4. His value will become much more apparent a couple years from now after he employs that great work ethic to become much more of a finished player.
 
#4
I like him.

He's not someone who we "go to" for any sort of offense so generally you don't notice him, and to an extent thats a good thing, he's not making loads and loads of mistakes (some) he's just doing dirty work, grabbing what he can, scoring when he can and putting himself about on D.

has he been exceptional? No but he's got a lot of tools, good ballhandler, good instincts and timing (see his put backs) great hustle.

Obviously needs to improve his mid range game big time and his footwork in the post isn't the greatest. Down the line i'd like to see him getting the ball at the high post and using his explosiveness to get to the rim, similar to how the knicks use Melo at the 4. (no I'm not comparing him to melo, just the size and position and how he could be utilised going forward)
 
#5
Well, I want to say that I've always thought that he sucked, but I also said that Drummond sucked, so that means nothing. Plus, I quit spending time analyzing bball.
 
Last edited:
#6
Very quick leaper; very quick first step; high motor; an outside shot that needs work, but that is fixable; great work ethic. I've said from the beginning, he's a project, but that doesn't mean he won't be a fine player down the line. Didn't have much of a post game in college, so I'm mystified why people would think he would miraculously have one in the NBA in his rookie year. Has the chance to be an excellent defender. Right now it would be nice if we could have him do pick and rolls with someone that could get him the ball on the roll, but that seems impossible for some reason. He is very quick on the roll and I have seen him open, but he might as well be invisible. He might be able to be a 3 down the line, but I think that's asking too much of him at this point, unless he's put in some very defined non-creative offensive role. At this point he's more of a project stretch 4. His value will become much more apparent a couple years from now after he employs that great work ethic to become much more of a finished player.
Ditto. I like his potential.
 
#7
Very quick leaper; very quick first step; high motor; an outside shot that needs work, but that is fixable; great work ethic. I've said from the beginning, he's a project, but that doesn't mean he won't be a fine player down the line. Didn't have much of a post game in college, so I'm mystified why people would think he would miraculously have one in the NBA in his rookie year. Has the chance to be an excellent defender. Right now it would be nice if we could have him do pick and rolls with someone that could get him the ball on the roll, but that seems impossible for some reason. He is very quick on the roll and I have seen him open, but he might as well be invisible. He might be able to be a 3 down the line, but I think that's asking too much of him at this point, unless he's put in some very defined non-creative offensive role. At this point he's more of a project stretch 4. His value will become much more apparent a couple years from now after he employs that great work ethic to become much more of a finished player.
The problem isn't TRob. The problem is we passed on 2 players that would be starters today instead we get 2 backups. Leonard and Lillard would clearly be the starters right now. Now we have 2 role players with potential.
 

Bricklayer

Don't Make Me Use The Bat
#8
You're talking to the wrong guy to sell you on him.

He's small for a PF, too small to swing to C. And he's about maxed out his body -- he's atheltic, but not massively brute strong like a Boozer or somebody, and so he gets bounced around in there. He doesn't have an NBA level post game. He rarely uses his athelticism to defend the rim. To call up an old name from the Kingdom, there is a little bit of a bigger Anthony Bonner air to him. Bonner too led the NCAA in rebounding, had a chiseled body, great athelte, but too small (don't carry that too far -- TRob is bigger by a critical inch or two and 10-15lbs and has more offensive potential). Anyway. people have become way WAY too fascinated with this "he's a hard worker" thing as we may have blown our last two lottery picks. "Hard workers" sans elite talent are just the midlevel grinds you find in any profession. You can respect them maxing out their abilities without ever being worried they are going to do anything brilliant.

Now if I was going to sell you on anything, its that after an initial burst of trying to prove he was more than he is at the moment, he/we have settled back and you can see his roleplayer potential just based on pure athletcism. Bring him in as a running PF and just throw him alley opps and let him try to explode to the rim for follows and whatnot. He can be efficient doing that. If he can ever develop a consistent jumper, he can be something more than that and maybe be effective on a JT level. That's obviously not enough for a #5 pick of course, but I will vouch for that at least.

What continues to pee me off is after drafting back to back hugley talented young kids with great size and potential for their positions in Reke and Cuz, Petrie then retreated right back to conservative drafting of undersized older rookies with limited upside.
 
Last edited:
#9
Players drafted around the same time like Lillard and Barnes seem to be way ahead of Robinson. He seems to have some mental problems in dealing with the NBA.

It is curious that the Kings are the worst shooting team in the NBA, but rarely go after shooters with the exception of Jimmer. Johnson and Robinson are hardly the type of players to improve team field goal shooting percentages. IT was an afterthought. Brooks can shoot but has some other liabilities.
 
Last edited:

Bricklayer

Don't Make Me Use The Bat
#10
The problem isn't TRob. The problem is we passed on 2 players that would be starters today instead we get 2 backups. Leonard and Lillard would clearly be the starters right now. Now we have 2 role players with potential.

Leonard would be a starter? Miles Leonard? Or do you mean the Kawhi Leonard miss wiht Jimmer?
 
Last edited:
#11
I just can't say I'm sold here.

High motor, good work ethic and leaping abilities aren't what people want to hear when explaining the main positives of a player. Those are complimentary skills. But they don't compliment any real main skills as far as shooting, post play, creating your own shot or creating for others goes.

Offensively I'm not too worried about his post up moves or how his shot looks. Although it's a little worrisome considering he was supposed to be the most NBA ready player in the draft. I think it's just the fact that he's so small out there. He's listed at 6'10" but there's no way he's that tall. He's 6'8" at most. He looks as athletic as any player in the league when going up for lobs but he looks as grounded as Chuck Hayes when he's under the hoop rebounding or defending.

I just don't see it honestly. Then again I'm not the best judge of talent either. I wasn't sure if Cousins could ever average 10reb a game with how low he plays under the hoop, but I was definitely wrong there.
 
#12
Is Robinson a guy who's going to turn around your franchise? No. Is Robinson a reach at #5? Yes. But is he a solid guy who's going to have a long career, a hard worker, and a good person to have in the locker room? Oh yes.

To me, he's basically the second coming of Chris Wilcox (with Drew Gooden being his ceiling if he develops that jumper), with some differences here and there but otherwise they fulfill the similar role of solid big men who does the dirty work, stay out of the way of the stars and can come off the bench or start.

One thing we haven't seen yet is that TRob is very good at rolling to the basket, but obviously he'll need to play with a PG who can PnR, which we don't have. He's also a guy who feeds off of good offensive players, his hustle and energy should (in theory) be infectious, and he does the little things that helps a team wins; he may not be a star but he is the kind of players that every championship team has coming off the bench or in a limited starting role. In other words, put him in the right mix of guys on a winning team and he will really shine. The same cannot be said for many of the Kings' players.
 
#14
You're talking to the wrong guy to sell you on him.

He's small for a PF, too small to swing to C. And he's about maxed out his body -- he's atheltic, but not massively brute strong like a Boozer or somebody, and so he gets bounced around in there. He doesn't have an NBA level post game. He rarely uses his athelticism to defend the rim. To call up an old name from the Kingdom, there is a little bit of a bigger Anthony Bonner air to him. Bonner too led the NCAA in rebounding, had a chiseled body, great athelte, but too small (don't carry that too far -- TRob is bigger by a critical inch or two and 10-15lbs and has more offensive potential). Anyway. people have become way WAY too fascinated with this "he's a hard worker" thing as we may have blown our last two lottery picks. "Hard workers" sans elite talent are just the midlevel grinds you find in any profession. You can respect them maxing out their abilities without ever being worried they are going to do anything brilliant.

Now if I was going to sell you on anything, its that after an initial burst of trying to prove he was more than he is at the moment, he/we have settled back and you can see his roleplayer potential just based on pure athletcism. Bring him in as a running PF and just throw him alley opps and let him try to explode to the rim for follows and whatnot. He can be efficient doing that. If he can ever develop a consistent jumper, he can be something more than that and maybe be effective on a JT level. That's obviously not enough for a #5 pick of course, but I will vouch for that at least.

What continues to pee me off is after drafting back to back hugley talented young kids with great size and potential for their positions in Reke and Cuz, Petrie then retreated right back to conservative drafting of undersized older rookies with limited upside.
I agree with this, with my only difference being that I see more potential in him than you do. Right now though ... who's keeping him over Lillard if we could do back to draft night? Not that Lillard would be a great fit, but we thought we had the PG spot figured out. IT takes a step back, Brooks gives us nothing, and Jimmer isn't going to cut it right now. Put Lillard on this team and we are better.

But I won't fault Petrie for this one. Not at all. The Jimmer draft was a disaster. That trade was just inexcusable, but the Robinson pick was easy to defend. He was sitting there when he shouldn't have been (or maybe he should have been, but leading up to draft night he was projected to go as high as 2). Petrie was really high on Lillard, too, which helps him in this case.

And looking at the guys now ... how many players would you really take over Robinson if we redrafted? My short list is Davis, Lillard, MKG, and possibly / likely Drummond.

Beal, Waiters, and Barnes numbers are a product of their minutes. If Robinson was starting and playing close to 30 minutes a game he'd have better stats. He's shooting a good percentage in his limited role, and I like what he's been able to do when he puts the ball on the floor. If you count Drummond as a better pick than Robinson and we redrafted, Robinson would still be my pick at #5, although it is close.

Robinson can be Paul Millsap, who isn't a player I particularly like, but that's a talent, that's a #5 pick, and that could be trade bait.
 

Kingster

Hall of Famer
#15
The problem isn't TRob. The problem is we passed on 2 players that would be starters today instead we get 2 backups. Leonard and Lillard would clearly be the starters right now. Now we have 2 role players with potential.
I'm not sold on Myers Leonard longer term at all. Yes, we passed on Lillard. And he probably would be starting. And I doubt with Lillard at pg we would have any more wins that we currently do. We would be talking about having about six pgs in the lineup, and we'd be very dissatisfied with the depth at the 4, especially when Cousins decides not to play. With projects like Robinson you really don't know what you've got until two or three years down the line. He certainly has the raw physical ability to be more than just a sub, that's for sure. But if he goes to the Tyreke Evans School of Outside Shooting, yes, it won't be a great pick.
 
#16
I did not want TRob coming into the draft, and all that talk of him being the #2 pick was pure speculation from draft sites and from TRob himself (who said he should be the #1 pick. LOL). No one was going to pick him in the top 8 aside from our GM. If me and millions of fans who saw TRob played and wondered how an undersized dude with limited offense can transition to the NBA, how can paid professions in the NBA not have that doubt themselves? The problem is that TRob is exactly the type of blue-collar big men that Petrie is infatuated since he was a GM at Portland, and when TRob name was still on the board, GP just couldn't help himself.

I'd have love to have Drummond, Barnes or Myers Leonard instead of TRob right now.

Regarding Lillard, I'm curious how many people actually saw him played in college. I didn't and I think most people didn't and were just going by scouting reports when they say he is going to be a bust.
 
#17
I'm not sold on Myers Leonard longer term at all. Yes, we passed on Lillard. And he probably would be starting. And I doubt with Lillard at pg we would have any more wins that we currently do. We would be talking about having about six pgs in the lineup, and we'd be very dissatisfied with the depth at the 4, especially when Cousins decides not to play. With projects like Robinson you really don't know what you've got until two or three years down the line. He certainly has the raw physical ability to be more than just a sub, that's for sure. But if he goes to the Tyreke Evans School of Outside Shooting, yes, it won't be a great pick.
He means Kawhi Leonard from the previous draft. And if we had drafted along those lines in the last two drafts they would be starters.
 
#18
He means Kawhi Leonard from the previous draft. And if we had drafted along those lines in the last two drafts they would be starters.
The Kawhi Leonard fascination just has to stop. When Leonard was drafted, he was a hustle guy with an effective shooting range of however far he could dunk the ball. He goes to Popovich's system, and Pop tells him to do nothing but defend the wing and develop a corner three. Leonard, given a limited task, does very well at it. Surprise surprise. It also helps that he gets to play with the third-best PG in the game and the all-time greatest power forward. Lots of attention drawn away from Leonard to quietly play an efficient role in the system.

Had Leonard come to Sacramento, he would never have been given that narrowly defined role, and very well may have turned into another James Johnson who can defend very well, but struggles in an offense where he is allowed/expected to do too much. The fantasy of a solid roleplaying Kawhi Leonard assumes that the Popovich-coached Leonard is the same Leonard we would have had here. Put any one of our players into SA's system, and they would look miles better than they do here.
 
#19
I think that we should keep in mind that the kid has played a grand total of 7 NBA games.

If you go to the draft express website, he measured in at 6 foot 7.75 inches. To give some context, Blake Griffin measured in at 6 foot 8.5 inches, Al Horford 6 foot 8.75 inches, Kevin Love at 6 foot 7.75 inches, Kenneth Faried at 6 foot 6 inches, Tyrus Thomas 6 foot 7.25 inches and Paul Millsap at 6 foot 6.25 inches.

Sure - kid might not have the absolute length of a Griffin, but 3/4 of an inch isn't going to hurt someone with a 36 inch vertical.

I say wait at least 2 years to judge his long-term potential. He may not have the post moxy of DMC, but he's a great athlete. Who knows what will happen with a few years of seasoning.
 
Last edited:
#20
While he doesn't have great size, I wouldn't call him undersized. He just doesn't play up to his size and athleticism. He has the length to be very disruptive on D but for whatever reason has not shown it.

You put him next to Josh Smith or Blake Griffin and he compares very well, and he comes into the league with more experience too. Unfortunately he has Smith's offense and Griffin's defense.

He can definitely still improve on offense, and I still have hope that he can make his vertical talents show up on D.
 

Kingster

Hall of Famer
#21
He means Kawhi Leonard from the previous draft. And if we had drafted along those lines in the last two drafts they would be starters.
But as you know, Kawhi Leonard has nothing to do with the Robinson pick.

In the K Leonard draft I wanted Kemba Walker, and very close behind him I wanted Brandon Knight; didn't see Leonard in college. Just like most on this board, I was very dissapointed in the Jimmer/Salmons draft and trade.
I
 
#23
He was a player drafted on his potential to get his team numbers but he was drafted to a team where he'll never get a chance to play enough to produce those numbers.
 
#25
even Kemba Walker instead of Jimmer would have made this team leaps and bounds better.


but to answer the OP's question. i think T-Rob is falling victim to lack of roles like every other player on this team
 

Bricklayer

Don't Make Me Use The Bat
#26
even Kemba Walker instead of Jimmer would have made this team leaps and bounds better.


but to answer the OP's question. i think T-Rob is falling victim to lack of roles like every other player on this team

I think he's actually one of the few guys who has found a role.

In the summer league/preseason/first few games he was falling victim to lack of roles, and lack of non-roleplayer skills. Once he settled back into a role he's been solid enough. In the preseason he shot 16-42 .381 trying to do too much. Trying to create on his own. Over the last 6 games as he has settled back to run' n jump roleplayer taking catches and trying to finish them around the rim, he's shot 16-29 .552. We're not getting consistent rebounding or defense from him yet, but offensively he has quit hurting us and is sticking to the things his athleticism allows him to do. i..e he's doing a pretty good imiation of a roleplayer.

Really I think that's why our frontcourt is a lot closer to being solid than our little guys. Up front we have one Cousisn, and now 3 guys who are playing their roles pretty well in JT, Hayes and TRob. Put that together and its solid. We need to swap one of those guys for a shotblocker, but at least it makes sense basketballwise. The problem is at the little people spots where Petrie has accumualted, and Smart has coached at least 7 different guys who fight the roleplayer designation, and only 2 largely scrubs at this point who fit it (Cisco and Outlaw).
 
Last edited:
#27
he may have found a roll but i think if this team were to ever get a coach who can figure out how to manage rolls/rotations, so that the rest of the team has rolls, T-Rob would be much better off. players who are used to playing with him would be setting him up for ally oops all the time and also if the team could start getting out and running more he will benefit
 

hrdboild

Hall of Famer
#28
The criticism of Thomas Robinson at the time of the draft was that he was a little bit undersized for a PF (but hopefully would make up for it with athleticism) and didn't have any elite skills (aside from rebounding which doesn't always translate to the NBA). It's too early to say but at this point he hasn't been able to adjust to how physical the NBA game is in the paint. He's not establishing position down low so other people are just going around him to get the rebounds. But it's rare for someone to step in and dominate from day one like Blake Griffin did a couple years ago. Next to Cousins, I can see him being a weapon off of pick and rolls eventually because he's so mobile -- the same role that Amare performed with great success in Phoenix.

I never thought of him as an elite player in the NBA. His ceiling is solid starter at PF. The results so far are not encouraging, but I think he has the physical attributes to play the position. It's been trending smaller for the last 10 years anyway. Someone is going to have to chase K. Love and Melo all over the floor and he's the type of guy who can do that. I think he's really going to have to focus on his help defense though because he's way out of position most of the time right now and that's where he could have the most impact right away with, ahem, better coaching. :(
 
#29
I can see him being a weapon off of pick and rolls eventually because he's so mobile
this is very true, only problem is for that to happen we would need a coach that actually runs any type of offense at all. there are more Pick N Rolls performed at pick up games during lunch break at a middle school
 

Capt. Factorial

trifolium contra tempestatem subrigere certum est
Staff member
#30
The criticism of Thomas Robinson at the time of the draft was that he was a little bit undersized for a PF (but hopefully would make up for it with athleticism) and didn't have any elite skills (aside from rebounding which doesn't always translate to the NBA).
I don't know what makes you think that. Rebounding almost always translates to the NBA. Good college rebounders turn into good pro rebounders, and poor college rebounders turn into poor pro rebounders. To my understanding it is the single most translatable stat.