Here’s Portland Trail Blazers general manager Joe Cronin breaking down Deandre Ayton’s progression as the season went on at exit interviews last month (averaged 19.5 PPG/11.3 RPG/1.7 APG/0.9 SPG/0.8 BPG/58.2% FG/86.0% FT during his last 31 games).
(via Portland Trail Blazers):
Reporter: “We have to ask you about Ayton, he killed it the last six weeks. The last time we talked to you publicly was at the trade deadline where he was kinda struggling, what do you make of what he was able to do and do you expect that guy to show up day one next year?”
Cronin: “I do. Deandre, he’s made such steps this year. He obviously came in, we all know that Deandre is extremely talented, but it was really encouraging to see the way he navigated this season. He started with us right when training camp started, so didn’t get time to acclimate. You saw early on it was a little shaky, and I wouldn’t even say it’s his fault, it was just us learning how to utilize him and his teammates learning how to find him in the right spots and then also him just acclimating and adjusting to this system. By the time January, February hit, you could see D.A. was a different player in his mentality. I think a lot of that was he became comfortable and he began trusting us and his happiness was increasing by the day. You could see the relationship between he and his coach, and he and his teammates was just getting better by the day. By the end of the year, it became pretty fluid and common where he was putting together these big nights. None of them were really fluky, this was just D.A. getting an opportunity and D.A. doing his thing. I couldn’t be prouder of him, he’s in a great place right now. There’s a lot of growth moving forward, Deandre’s still a very young big man in our league who’s about as talented as they come. That’s our challenge, to maximize Deandre Ayton, and I’m really excited to see what that looks like.”
