GT in the NBA Summer League 2023

[forensicbuzz]

He played 4 seasons in the NFL. He's the only GT QB in my lifetime to ever make an NFL roster as a QB and play for multiple seasons.

Justin Thomas played in the NFL as a slot receiver.
Josh Nesbitt played wildcat QB in the preseason before moving to safety during the regular season.
Shawn Jones was moved to DB.
Reggie Ball made the Detroit Lions as a WR.

Those are the only GT QBs that even played in the NFL from my memory. Hamilton is still the only GT QB since 1990 to make an NFL roster at QB.

I think you're probably forgetting Rick Strom.

Edit: Unless you were born after 1987. Then you're a lot younger than I thought you were.

 

[Northeast Stinger]

I know it is a different sport, but how much of a pro talent was Joe Hamilton?

I would argue he would be a pro talent in today’s game. Back in 1990, the NFL still had a bias toward drop back, non-mobile quarterbacks.

 

[Northeast Stinger]

Back to basketball. For 50 points, who is the first person who can satisfactorily answer the question, “If Tech had this much talent, why couldn’t they play better as a team?”

Was it coaching? Team chemistry? What?

 

[yjfan]

Maybe the simplest answer is best- other teams had more talent

 

[forensicbuzz]

Back to basketball. For 50 points, who is the first person who can satisfactorily answer the question, “If Tech had this much talent, why couldn’t they play better as a team?”

Was it coaching? Team chemistry? What?

We had deficiencies on our team that prevented us from scoring in big chunks of time. We'd inexplicably go 4-5 minutes without scoring. That either put the game away from our opponents, allowed them back in, or put us under a burden we couldn't overcome. This might be due to coaching too, I don't know. We were missing serviceable pieces necessary to win in a sustainable way, namely a big inside and a slasher/scorer.

 

[Northeast Stinger]

We had deficiencies on our team that prevented us from scoring in big chunks of time. We'd inexplicably go 4-5 minutes without scoring. That either put the game away from our opponents, allowed them back in, or put us under a burden we couldn't overcome. This might be due to coaching too, I don't know. We were missing serviceable pieces necessary to win in a sustainable way, namely a big inside and a slasher/scorer.

Yeah, it always felt like lack of a big man hurt us. We lost battles inside and our 3 pt shooters often had a defender draped around them because protecting inside was not a concern.

 

[Techster]

I think you're probably forgetting Rick Strom.

Edit: Unless you were born after 1987. Then you're a lot younger than I thought you were.

LOL, I'm probably just as old as you think I am. Got out of GT in 2002. My "life" as a GT fan didn't start until 1990 though.

 

[lv20gt]

Back to basketball. For 50 points, who is the first person who can satisfactorily answer the question, “If Tech had this much talent, why couldn’t they play better as a team?”

Was it coaching? Team chemistry? What?

When we had Jose, Moses, Mike, and Ush we were the third best team in the conference and you could make an argument that by the end of the season we were playing as well as anyone in conference (Beating FSU in the final two matchups and UVA struggled a bit at the end). The year before that We went 11-9 in conference and had we had Ush the entire year and Jose not gotten injured would have likely been better.

But you say if Tech had this much talent like we were particularly noteworthy talentwise. Those 4 all went undrafted. Ush and Mike are playing well in the summer league but haven't played in an NBA game. Moses got 15 minutes and then went over to China last year. Obviously Jose is clearly the most successful but I wouldn't say he was more talented than Moses or Ush. I think his success is more a product of other attributes although that can be debated I'm sure. We had talent. But not so much that it would be successful on its own. We needed to combine it with experience and chemistry and when we did we had a good amount of success as a team. But we lacked both the top end talent to overcome some of the issues the team had against better teams and lacked the depth to withstand a major personnel loss as seen both with Jose's injury and Moses not being available.

There were other issues at play like some weird coaching decisions in terms of how to approach the offense at times, but we haven't had a particularly noteworthy team talentwise since the year Favors was here in my opinion. There were years where the talent level was "good enough" if we also had the other aspects like experience, a well balanced roster, and chemistry, but often lacked one or more of those.

 

[CEB]

Back to basketball. For 50 points, who is the first person who can satisfactorily answer the question, “If Tech had this much talent, why couldn’t they play better as a team?”

Was it coaching? Team chemistry? What?

Hope this guy wins your contest

 

[Peacone36]

I know it is a different sport, but how much of a pro talent was Joe Hamilton?

Apples to watermelons

 

[TampaBuzz]

He played 4 seasons in the NFL. He's the only GT QB in my lifetime to ever make an NFL roster as a QB and play for multiple seasons.

Justin Thomas played in the NFL as a slot receiver.
Josh Nesbitt played wildcat QB in the preseason before moving to safety during the regular season.
Shawn Jones was moved to DB.
Reggie Ball made the Detroit Lions as a WR.

Those are the only GT QBs that even played in the NFL from my memory. Hamilton is still the only GT QB since 1990 to make an NFL roster at QB.

And I hated the Tampa Bay broadcast team for constantly referring to him as "little" Joe Hamilton.

 

[GaTech4ever]

I wish more people here watched the NBA. Tough to talk basketball talent and get invested discussing the current landscape of the sport with people who’s perspective on basketball is 90% through the lens of the GT basketball program.

How do you even know what good ball in 2023 looks like? Memories of Lethal Weapon III? Watching Gonzaga? LeBron highlights? This isn’t even directed at anyone specifically. I just couldn’t imagine being that confident in discussing a talent in a sport when I don’t even watch the sport at its highest level.

 

[Northeast Stinger]

I wish more people here watched the NBA. Tough to talk basketball talent and get invested discussing the current landscape of the sport with people who’s perspective on basketball is 90% through the lens of the GT basketball program.

How do you even know what good ball in 2023 looks like? Memories of Lethal Weapon III? Watching Gonzaga? LeBron highlights? This isn’t even directed at anyone specifically. I just couldn’t imagine being that confident in discussing a talent in a sport when I don’t even watch the sport at its highest level.

Wait…you mean you want sports fans to actually know what they are talking about?

I’m going to have to take some time pondering this one.

 

[ESPNjacket]

He played 4 seasons in the NFL. He's the only GT QB in my lifetime to ever make an NFL roster as a QB and play for multiple seasons.

Justin Thomas played in the NFL as a slot receiver.
Josh Nesbitt played wildcat QB in the preseason before moving to safety during the regular season.
Shawn Jones was moved to DB.
Reggie Ball made the Detroit Lions as a WR.

Those are the only GT QBs that even played in the NFL from my memory. Hamilton is still the only GT QB since 1990 to make an NFL roster at QB.

Neither Justin Thomas nor Reggie Ball played in an NFL game. Neither was on an active roster. I am not sure if Nesbitt played but he was on the active roster for a few games. Shawn Jones played in 1 NFL game. Jones did play QB in the CFL. I think he was Tracy Ham's back up.

To segue back to the point, all of those guys were talented players despite a lack of professional success.

 

[Root4GT]

I know it is a different sport, but how much of a pro talent was Joe Hamilton?

Very different sport. He was a great college player for sure. Guys like that exist in college basketball as well. Take Gonzaga’s Timmie. Great college player but not likely not an NBA contributor. Still teams need NBA level talent or guys like timmie who were College players of the year. Moses was a similar player. If you have 5 guys like that great. One like that and your team will be decent but nothing special.

 

[forensicbuzz]

I wish more people here watched the NBA. Tough to talk basketball talent and get invested discussing the current landscape of the sport with people who’s perspective on basketball is 90% through the lens of the GT basketball program.

How do you even know what good ball in 2023 looks like? Memories of Lethal Weapon III? Watching Gonzaga? LeBron highlights? This isn’t even directed at anyone specifically. I just couldn’t imagine being that confident in discussing a talent in a sport when I don’t even watch the sport at its highest level.

I'd say the key to recognizing talented teams in college is watching and understanding the NCAA Tourney. It's just a different game. The Pros are so good; they're so efficient; they're so quick. It looks like they're not trying. The style of game in the NBA affords itself to a certain type of player. There are many, many college players that are quite good in a college system that just don't fit the athleticism and type of game played in the NBA. Many of these guys play professionally overseas.

 

[forensicbuzz]

Very different sport. He was a great college player for sure. Guys like that exist in college basketball as well. Take Gonzaga’s Timmie. Great college player but not likely not an NBA contributor. Still teams need NBA level talent or guys like timmie who were College players of the year. Moses was a similar player. If you have 5 guys like that great. One like that and your team will be decent but nothing special.

Lammers was pretty successful here. Doesn't have the game for the Pros. (I know we're not comparing apples to apples)

 

[Jack]

I'd say the key to recognizing talented teams in college is watching and understanding the NCAA Tourney. It's just a different game. The Pros are so good; they're so efficient; they're so quick. It looks like they're not trying. The style of game in the NBA affords itself to a certain type of player. There are many, many college players that are quite good in a college system that just don't fit the athleticism and type of game played in the NBA. Many of these guys play professionally overseas.

The NBA is only good when the playoffs begin

 

[forensicbuzz]

The NBA is only good when the playoffs begin

I think it's good before that. It's only interesting after that.

 

[Root4GT]

Lammers was pretty successful here. Doesn't have the game for the Pros. (I know we're not comparing apples to apples)

He was a good to very good college player. With Okogie, an NBA player, we had a pretty good team.

That is the minimum talent level needed to be competitive in the ACC and have a shot at the NCAA Tournament.

The only other year we had that since 2010 was Moses and Jose’s senior year.

Currently high level HS players are at least visiting and are an outside possibility to play for us.

We clearly improved the roster via the Portal. How much is still TBD.

There is hope now though.