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  1. #151
    Machacarredes Chinook's Avatar
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    Seems that he isn't all too attached to the Spurs. He looks up to Diaw, so I think he'd want to be in SA. But he may also never WANT to make the jump, even though he suggests that's his goal. This should be his year, with him being a free agent. But according to Google, the team hasn't really visited him this season. That's interesting, and it might cool down some of my belief that he is a shoe-in to be over. I still think he'll be on the team, though. His agent should push him to take the team rookie-scale deal, and the team should want a cheap big to develop, especially if he's getting decent at making plays for others.

  2. #152
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    ^ it's a quite good wrap up Chinook tbh... Nevertheless in his interview you feel he is yes attached to the Spurs but he feels Spurs are a bit distant as of right now... He is struggling in French league due to lots of injuries here and there so he is not delusional about his chances to make the team short term. He wants to have his options opened, he is up to grab opportunities even it is to play in D league. Comparaison with Bobo is about playing the 4 rather than 3 and being a good passing big.

  3. #153
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    If interested I can translate later this week the whole stuff but between chinook post and mine you have the general idea. Nothing new about Spurs and professionalism, he liked very much working with Becky and the usual blabla about trying to do what coach is asking. Finally he is saying his knee is 100% healed.

    from that one can say that he is not an option short term for the Spurs... To be reevaluated in 2/3 years unless he takes off really during that span.

  4. #154
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    Thanks all.

    What a nice kid indeed!! Setting aside the basketball aspects, he needs to push to come over if just for the financial aspect. This is possibly life changing money we're talking about. You sort out the rest later!

  5. #155
    Machacarredes Chinook's Avatar
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    ^ it's a quite good wrap up Chinook tbh... Nevertheless in his interview you feel he is yes attached to the Spurs but he feels Spurs are a bit distant as of right now... He is struggling in French league due to lots of injuries here and there so he is not delusional about his chances to make the team short term. He wants to have his options opened, he is up to grab opportunities even it is to play in D league. Comparaison with Bobo is about playing the 4 rather than 3 and being a good passing big.
    The thing is, if LJC is a free agent this summer, he has the unilateral right to claim his contract with the Spurs. I imagine he'd like that $2 Million-plus guaranteed. I would shock me if his agent didn't push him to do that, unless LJC is still not sold on being a Spur long term. It's strange that the team seems to have abandoned him, though. It's at least encouraging that his offense is reported getting better.

  6. #156
    Hope springs eternal. SAGirl's Avatar
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    I caught that although he's been in touch with RC and Spurs staff the interest has lessened bc they haven't been to see him in person like they did last season. He's aware that defensively he did well in SL, but his offensive game still needs to develop in all areas, his all around game.

    He's also still unsure if he's a 3 or a 4 and will do what the coaches tell him..

    Hmmmm if you are 22 and still don't know what you are, what your game is, you are in trouble.

    I think the issue with LJC is that he's athletic enough to be a good even very good defensive 3 or 4, but he has the offensive game of a 4 and maybe not even that if his shot is not good enough. But it did seem like he's still working on it.

    He now seems to me like the kind of guy who will have to make a development leap and make noise in his league to get noticed.

    I don't see him coming over with that indecision... but for sure the agent has to push him along.

    Just the state of mind (correct me on this if wrong Brazil) is not as decisive as Bertans camp which is,making a lot of noise b4 Bertans even played a game this season about him coming to the NBA.

    I am just less high on him after what I caught. He seemed aware that the Spurs are a long shot and his game is not good enough yet for the NBA. Not the same kind of drive and push that one hears from Bertans camp for example.

    This is just my speculation, but it seems the Spurs interest was major when you consider that he could have forced the issue to be signed this last summer but now that they know he didn't make the leap they expected, he's on the same path as all foreign prospects.

  7. #157
    Chunky Brazil's Avatar
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    Livio is a very nice kid, a bit shy and unsure of himself...very coachable to a fault IMO. I agree with SAgirl, he should have an opinion on whether he is a 3 or a 4 and establish himself.

    On a side note, let's not forget that he plays for TP team so it's not like Spurs don't have direct feedback on his progression so I don't think Spurs have abandoned him, that's probably just the way he feels... He really needs to become more confident tbh..

  8. #158
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    I'm less concerned about the 3 v 4 issue in this NBA. To the contrary that flexibility is huge these days. The shooting is encouraging.

    Also, SAGirl, I don't think the leverage issue has gone away.

  9. #159
    Mr. Dignity Solid D's Avatar
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    It would have been nice to see higher production out of him. Asvel isn't a juggernaut team. The fact that injuries have inhibited him is understandable, but you'd hope to see better from a Round 1 pick. As of now, he's no better a pick than James Anderson was. Hopefully, he can get better player development help than he has been getting.

  10. #160
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    JCL last two games in french league :

    10 pts 4/4 2pts 2/2 ft 4 rebounds(3 offensive) 1 steal 1 assist 1 to in 16 minutes

    9 pts 3/4 2pts 1/1 3pts 7 rebounds( 4 offensive) 1 steal 2 assists in 21 minutes

    He looks better this year

  11. #161
    foaming at the nostrils raybies's Avatar
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    Solid defender, has potential to be Serge Ibaka lite if he can consistently hit the mid-range j. Might be a better on ball defender but less of a blocker. But I like that he's already playing a role he would play if he joined us next year.

  12. #162
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    I think Aminu is a pretty good comparison for him. He has almost the same build as Livio and plays the same high energy, hustle type of game. The defensive versatility is another thing they have in common. Aminu was a terrible shooter at the start of his career but he has become serviceable enough to become a really nice player. Let's hope that Livio can do the same.

  13. #163
    Hope springs eternal. SAGirl's Avatar
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    Frankly considering our situation, needing young athletic bigs, Chinook has convinced me we need to bring this guy over this season. If we want a young athlete who is going to dedicate himself to defense he's the one. Raw and all, also a rookie, he could just be developing this next season and maybe situational here and there but we need youth and if we have the same old farts coming back then at least we need to bring him over. Pop: bring over this dude.

  14. #164
    Machacarredes Chinook's Avatar
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    Livio is also 22. He'd've been a senior in college. It's possible that the Spurs draft someone older than him come June. It's a perfect time to bring him over and have him compete for the fourth-big spot. He's a better offensive player than people consider him to be, although he's not a good scorer. He sets screens, rolls hard and makes good passes. Team just needs to commit to him.

  15. #165
    Machacarredes Chinook's Avatar
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    Had the team brought him over last year like I expected, I think he would have played quite a few minutes with the big club. But they had Bonner.

  16. #166
    Hope springs eternal. SAGirl's Avatar
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    Had the team brought him over last year like I expected, I think he would have played quite a few minutes with the big club. But they had Bonner.
    Agreed it's frustrating. He looked very raw in SL, but out of all the bigs I saw him compete against he was the superior athlete, clearly. Just his shot was terrible. It looks like he's worked on that. It does irk me when people slam young projects who could even be entering the draft this season (not only LJC, but KA too), then go crazy over guys who are even older than they are and competing against inferior athletes and very young kids in the NCAA. At least LJC was not competing on what in reality is a juvenile amateur league in the NCAA and KA was in the NBA!!! Jeshhhh!

    I will be upset if he's not brought over and we do pick up Bonner again (well for a shooter if we are honest it should be Bertans, bid Bonner adieu) but the Kmarts, A.Miller, and Rasual Butler's of the league.

    I am starting to doubt Pop even wants to really develop a real supporting cast for Kawhi and LMA, if they keep bringing old farts and not developing the younger guys. That should be a priority. In fact if Manu and TD return it should be mostly for mentoring and leadership of youngsters at this stage, not for us to have the oldest team in the NBA to ever make the playoffs, surrounding LMA and Kawhi with the aged big 3 + all the old farts we can pick up in FA.

    I know you are not a fan of Simmons, but I do like him bc him and KA play very well together. I felt we would probably have been better served not picking up Kmart at all and just spent all those Kmart minutes on Simmons. He could have improved in those 200 minutes or whatever Kmart consumed, or he could have shown that he wasn't going to stick around the league, but at least you find out something. It's not time wasted. Either way it was a worthy investment of time. There were games Simmons flat out looked better than Kmart. If neither of the two was going to make a difference this season why waste all that time with Kmart? I felt in fact he made us worse.

    I thought when Kmart came in was really when the team started to get in disarray. Pop got into some terrible lineups and experiments that altered chemistry and I don't think the bench really ever clicked in the last part of the season. He wasn't worth it! We were playing tremendously well then Kmart comes in and the bench played the worst they had played all season plus they were terrible in the playofffs. Their chemistry was altered with all those Kmart minutes. Pop should have just committed to KA with them, coached them up in aggressiveness, add a full dose of Simmons for all those Kmart minutes and call it a season.

    I eased up on being critical of Kmart in the main boards bc ppl assume everything I write is on KA behalf (heh a lot is, but not all) when in reality I think we should have just continued developing Simmons and leave it at that. Kmart never convinced me he was even better than Simmons and he didn't convince Pop either. A lot of fans were hoping he would edge out KA from the rotation but he wasn't good enough for that. I think he wouldn't have even edged Simmons out.

    /sigh huge rant I know. sorry. Bottom line I do agree LJC needs to come over and Pop has to make some space for developing within the win now at all costs mentality for the big 3. The two things need to be reconciled. We could be a better team in the short and long run if he committed to developing at least one you g player with potential each season... (I could go on a rant about the pick ups of Days Nd Ayers too, which I guess you would equal to low ceiling pick ups of much older players like JSimms. I hope JSimms doesn't turn out like them, but yeah 27 yrs old next season, meAntime there are young guards in this draft we could be taking.... but nooooo! Draft and stash per par, + a bunch of old dudes)

  17. #167
    Machacarredes Chinook's Avatar
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    Agreed it's frustrating. He looked very raw in SL, but out of all the bigs I saw him compete against he was the superior athlete, clearly. Just his shot was terrible. It looks like he's worked on that. It does irk me when people slam young projects who could even be entering the draft this season (not only LJC, but KA too), then go crazy over guys who are even older than they are and competing against inferior athletes and very young kids in the NCAA. At least LJC was not competing on what in reality is a juvenile amateur league in the NCAA and KA was in the NBA!!! Jeshhhh!

    I will be upset if he's not brought over and we do pick up Bonner again (well for a shooter if we are honest it should be Bertans, bid Bonner adieu) but the Kmarts, A.Miller, and Rasual Butler's of the league.

    I am starting to doubt Pop even wants to really develop a real supporting cast for Kawhi and LMA, if they keep bringing old farts and not developing the younger guys. That should be a priority. In fact if Manu and TD return it should be mostly for mentoring and leadership of youngsters at this stage, not for us to have the oldest team in the NBA to ever make the playoffs, surrounding LMA and Kawhi with the aged big 3 + all the old farts we can pick up in FA.

    I know you are not a fan of Simmons, but I do like him bc him and KA play very well together. I felt we would probably have been better served not picking up Kmart at all and just spent all those Kmart minutes on Simmons. He could have improved in those 200 minutes or whatever Kmart consumed, or he could have shown that he wasn't going to stick around the league, but at least you find out something. It's not time wasted. Either way it was a worthy investment of time. There were games Simmons flat out looked better than Kmart. If neither of the two was going to make a difference this season why waste all that time with Kmart? I felt in fact he made us worse.

    I thought when Kmart came in was really when the team started to get in disarray. Pop got into some terrible lineups and experiments that altered chemistry and I don't think the bench really ever clicked in the last part of the season. He wasn't worth it! We were playing tremendously well then Kmart comes in and the bench played the worst they had played all season plus they were terrible in the playofffs. Their chemistry was altered with all those Kmart minutes. Pop should have just committed to KA with them, coached them up in aggressiveness, add a full dose of Simmons for all those Kmart minutes and call it a season.

    I eased up on being critical of Kmart in the main boards bc ppl assume everything I write is on KA behalf (heh a lot is, but not all) when in reality I think we should have just continued developing Simmons and leave it at that. Kmart never convinced me he was even better than Simmons and he didn't convince Pop either. A lot of fans were hoping he would edge out KA from the rotation but he wasn't good enough for that. I think he wouldn't have even edged Simmons out.

    /sigh huge rant I know. sorry. Bottom line I do agree LJC needs to come over and Pop has to make some space for developing within the win now at all costs mentality for the big 3. The two things need to be reconciled. We could be a better team in the short and long run if he committed to developing at least one you g player with potential each season... (I could go on a rant about the pick ups of Days Nd Ayers too, which I guess you would equal to low ceiling pick ups of much older players like JSimms. I hope JSimms doesn't turn out like them, but yeah 27 yrs old next season, meAntime there are young guards in this draft we could be taking.... but nooooo! Draft and stash per par, + a bunch of old dudes)
    I really hope you didn't plunk that whole thing out on your phone.

    But yes, I agree. I think Pop's been in reloading-not-rebuilding mode since Duncan arrived. Really, besides Parker and Leonard, he hasn't developed players like he should have. He's only had a handful of years where he even had a rookie first-rounder on his team -- especially one draft that same year. Off the top of my head, I think it's been Parker, Beno, Hill, Anderson (the King James version), Kawhi/Cory then Kyle. At least that's since 2001, so we are talking about six years in 15. Even if you add high-second-rounder Blair, that's only seven.

    The team's lack of young developing players has hit them a couple of times during my fandom. The first was 2008-2009 when they really didn't have hope for internal improvement (which led to the Jefferson trade), and the second time was this season. That former drought was broken by Hill getting into the rotation eventually to be replaced by Green, Leonard and Mills as well as Splitter coming over in 2010.

    There isn't a Splitter or Hill coming to save the team this year. Prospects like Tiago are rare, and they are becoming less likely to drop. The closest one who's overseas now is Saric, and look where he went. I'm of fan of Lvio, but he's not on that list. Neither is Bertans or Milutinov. And Anderson is the closest thing to Hill the Spurs have, but he still have a way to go. The Spurs will likely not be able to use him to swing another Leonard trade.

    Pop's gonna have to grind. The team can't go into the year with 15 guaranteed roster spots again. They'll have to be flexible and potentially willing to bring guys up from the d-league or from overseas mid-season. The amount of young talent acquired from late 2011 to early 2013 (Green, Leonard, Joseph, Diaw, Patty and Baynes) was unreal. That can't be expected to happen again But some at least half as good needs to occur or else the team is just going to be spinning its wheels for a while.

  18. #168
    Hope springs eternal. SAGirl's Avatar
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    ^^^ tablet, still letting it all out took time.. sigh of relief!!!!
    I think they only added Cory bc RC knew him personally since he played in college with his son. If you think about it, he barely played his first two seasons, he was in the team when Pop had a glut of guards and took a long time to flourish. They were really patient with Cory.

    I was commenting to someone else that we shouldn't even feel bad Pop passed on Jimmy Butler for Cojo, bc had RC not had an eye on Cojo to begin with, we probably don't pick up anyone to bring over anyway. That pick instead of Cojo could have turned to a draft and stash. At least we had Cojo 2 good years.

    Yup the well has run dry. I have my own hopes with KA, but he's limited by athleticism. I think he will have to improve his shooting, the path KLove took, a guy who is very unathletic and who, if it wasn't for his shooting would be a blip on the radar. Shooting was not ever Kyle's thing though, so it takes time. He's going to have to make a development leap offensively, frankly maybe even next season if Pop sticks with Manu and doesn't bring a FA for the bench.

    Manu just can't carry the bench. Not to irk any Manu fans out there but he was in deferral mode for much of the latter part of the season. It really has to be on someone younger in that bench. I think Pop had his eye on Patty, but Patty is a bad choice bc he's so small he can't get passes cleanly at times, or get his own shot cleanly despite a quick release bc he's that small. He's better being a pressure relief valve for someone else.

    When the Spurs put the burden on Kawhi he was already formidable in some ways, but he struggled initially as the guy last season, with ball handling, double teams, decision making, passing, shooting, etc. He was inconsistent and had some ugly games. Our offense was even clunkier than this season. Pop just had to live with that and let Kawhi learn. I bring this up not to on Kawhi (his development has been amazing), but to bring up the fact that it's also going to take KA his own struggling growth to turn into the guy. Kyle seemed like he was scared to piss off the old Pop forcing issues bc it wasn't his role. It really, really wasn't his role this season, that's also something others don't understand. I think he had to prove to Pop he was an NBA player to begin with (makes perfect sense) and that he wasn't going to be lazy on defense, that he would compete b4 Pop committed to him.

    Maybe we should have just spent the last 20 games of the season having him force up the issue at times, even if it was ugly. But since we were not going to play off him this season Pop only did that in a couple or so games. One he was terrible, the Denver game, one he was fine, Dallas. It will happen. The last 20 games didn't matter record wise and Pop could have gotten a more aggressive young player out of that + develop Simmons, but instead we got a bunch of Kmart.

  19. #169
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    Agreed it's frustrating. He looked very raw in SL,
    That's an understatement. He was hot garbage.

  20. #170
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    LJC had moments that he flashed especially defensively that he looked like man vs boys out there being only 21 years old last summer. He still has a lot of room to improve on the offensive end, and don't think he has a bad shooting form, his defense/athleticism alone is worthy to be in the NBA. They need to bring him over plain and simple as a 4th/5th possibly developmental talent in Austin at least. I don't think the Spurs have to give him the rookie scale contract either so I don't see why he wouldn't come over.

  21. #171
    Machacarredes Chinook's Avatar
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    LJC had moments that he flashed especially defensively that he looked like man vs boys out there being only 21 years old last summer. He still has a lot of room to improve on the offensive end, and don't think he has a bad shooting form, his defense/athleticism alone is worthy to be in the NBA. They need to bring him over plain and simple as a 4th/5th possibly developmental talent in Austin at least. I don't think the Spurs have to give him the rookie scale contract either so I don't see why he wouldn't come over.
    They have to give him at least a three-year deal starting at at least the rookie scale.

  22. #172
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    I've watched a couple of his Eurocup games recently and he ranged from unremarkable to terrible. Maybe the last one I watched was the worst game of the season, but it would have been harder to be worse, easily the worst player on the court.

    He just isn't THAT great an athlete to overcome some severe lack of skills in the games I've watched. Small sample size, but he looks way, way behind the other kept draft & washers. Maybe he was still recovering from his injury, but his physical tools aren't that impressive.

    He was getting wrecked on the glass against euro 4s, bad screens, turning down 3s, zero handle, ineffective footwork, turnovers, bad passes, bad drives, not strong enough or leveraged enough to defend bigs ...

    I'll watch more games. But in all the euro picks that I was able to watch games over the years, LJC had the worst single game of all (Sanikidze, Mahinmi, De Colo, Hanga, Bertans, Javtokas, Milutinov, Dangubic, splitter, Scola).

    Milutinov by contrast looks like he could play minutes right now, rotation minutes.

  23. #173
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    That's good to hear about mulitunov. We need an athletic big.

  24. #174
    Hope springs eternal. SAGirl's Avatar
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    I looked up LJC in Asvel's youtube channel a little bit. They have some highlights of recent games. Livio is # 8.



    He is played as a 4 by ASVEL and he mostly sets screens and rolls. He's definitely not a wing offensively, but he could defend wings, that's probably his best asset, but he doesn't have the offensive game to go with it. In some of the highlights (they are general team highlights) one can see that he has nice lateral feet movement on defense and rolls with quickness to the basket.

    He is a nice interior passer, passing to the team's center in a couple of the highlights. He made a 3 but he has a weird shot form, it doesn't look like a repeatable shot and he's only shooting 12.5% on the 3.

    He averages 21 minutes for ASVEL and they obviously use him in ways that suit that team. He hasn't seemed insistent enough on coming over to the NBA, and without reliable shooting he's just J.Ayers' like (athletic big, size of a 4 but with no shooting, the game of a 5). It's noteworthy that he has a different game from the one I have seen from Cady, who in highlights looks like he shoots way more jumpshots (plenty of 3s though only at 33%), and has a crafty post up game. Cady is a more versatile offensive player than LJC, but he's less nimble of feet. That's the bottom line comparison between the two.

    I don't think he's picked up by Spurs unless his agent applies pressure, and he would be bound for the dleague, but if only he added shooting...
    Last edited by Chinook; 07-26-2016 at 03:34 PM.

  25. #175
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    There's full games of ASVEL in the Eurocup on YouTube to really get a handle on how he plays.

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