https://youtu.be/CzktRRPe4vk
Ever since Steph Curry emerged as one of the league’s best players (that emergence was a long time ago now, but I don’t like to think about it that way because it reminds me of the passage of time), the Warriors’ role-players have occupied a weird space in my mind. It’s almost like I don’t consider them to be real players. They’re just props that exist to fill out the team while the core of dynasty players (Curry/Thompson/Green/optionally Durant) does the bulk of the work. And I never am quite able to figure out if those role-players are actually good at basketball, or if they’re only made to look good because of their All Star teammates, or if I’m being tricked into thinking they’re good by Warriors fans who extol their every virtue. Usually I don’t consider myself to be susceptible to the deceptions of other NBA fans, but I can’t know for sure. If their trickery really did work, I wouldn’t know about it, otherwise it wouldn’t be high-quality trickery.
Take, for example, Juan Toscano-Anderson. Is he good at basketball? Probably, but it’s hard to tell HOW good. Warriors fans will tell you he’s a total beast because they’re undiscerning and they have an obsessive need to prove that their knowledge of the roster extends beyond the big names, lest they be accused of being a bandwagon fan. The real litmus test is having him be on a team that isn’t the Warriors to see how he does. That actually did sort of happen last year when the Warriors were missing their entire big three and had to roll out lineups of Andrew Wiggins + Dragan Bender + scrubs. JTA looked decent in those games, and he’s looking decent this year as well. So I guess the verdict is that JTA is decent. Meanwhile, some Warriors scrubs of the past have had little to no success outside of the Warriors organization, like Jordan Bell or Quinn Cook.
JTA is also old for a second-year player (he just turned 28), so he’s unlikely to have a whole lot of development left in him. If he’s decent now, his ceiling is probably “slightly better than decent”. I wish I had a better adjective to use, but I don’t. The adjective well has run dry. I do want to say, as I wind down this description, that JTA’s family sounds like it makes some absolutely baller Mexican food, and it also sort of sounds like it makes baller Italian food as well, and you know they wouldn’t say no to a good old-fashioned American BBQ either. I would love to be a part of that family. Those are three of my favorite genres of food.