Remember when Domantas Sabonis started out the season as one of the best three-point shooters in the league? I don’t pay attention to college basketball so I naively thought he might be able to sustain those unsustainable numbers. Instead, he slammed his face right into the rookie wall, and as he stumbled away from it in a bloody daze, he ending up shooting 1-of-17 from three in February for a notable (in a bad way) 5.9% mark. He’s picked it up a bit since then, but with that extended slump he waved away any chance he might have had at ROTY of the year.
Now we can probably forget about Domantas ever equalling the successes and accolades of his father Arvydas. The one way he was going to be able to do that was to shoot 45% from three as an elite stretch four, kind of a Kevin Garnett with added range. Instead, he might turn out like Ersan Ilyasova or Marvin Williams or something, a good role-player who makes valued contributions to playoff teams but is never a primary option on offense. With the 11th pick you can’t really ask for much more.