Here’s the thing: if Toronto intends to hang on to DeRozan, then Kidd-Gilchrist is a much more sensible match on the perimeter. That’s mostly because if DeRozan isn’t scoring then he isn’t doing much of anything at the NBA level.
Kidd-Gilchrist fills in all of the gaps on any team he plays for; he rebounds, he defends all three backcourt positions, he’s got great passing acumen, he attacks the basket on offense and he oozes leadership in a way that no current Raptor does. He exemplifies the kind of basketball that Casey wants the Raptors to play and if he could shoot he’d be a no-brainer number two pick.
The problem is that he isn’t much of a shooter and with DeRozan’s range maxing out at about 16-feet that would make it hard for Toronto to open up the midrange for Bargnani and Valanciunas to operate in. In fact, to compensate the team would have Bargnani setting up from the perimeter too often, and the team’s offense really should be operating around him, not him being shuffled around to compensate for the weaknesses of others.
Comment