One Simple Rule for Andray Blatche
by bwoodsxyz on Jul 22, 2009 12:00 PM EDT
in Player Analysis
34 comments
Andray Blatche, aka Bulletproof, aka Dre has perhaps replaced Brendan Haywood as the most divisive player among the Wizards' faithful. As he enters his 5th season, some recent observations on Blatche, combined with the number of comments, fanposts, etc. on him on this site, got my attention. Two big ones were:
From David Thorpe (ESPN)'s TrueHoop Tweets:
From Dan Steinberg talking to an unnamed "league observer" at summer league:
One league observer suggested to me that Blatche needs to figure out the one thing he's really good at, the one talent he can offer the Wizards off the bench, the one thing he can be counted on to deliver.
After looking at 'Dre's numbers, I have a better idea. Blatche needs to realize he is actually aggressively BAD at one thing-a thing he does quite a lot-and STOP DOING IT. Or, really, do less of it anyway.
Asking a player to improve in an area is great, but often doesn't work because a player has already maxed out in that area. Asking a player to do more of something can be good, but may not work because the other team might take that option away or neutralize it, or there might be a problem of diminishing returns (telling many players to shoot more would cause their %s to plummet), or it might turn out to just be a bad fit for the player. But I can't think of any reason why a player shouldn't have control over just not doing something anymore. And I don't mean something simplistic like "stop throwing the ball out of bounds while attempting a cross-court pass on the fast break." That's back to getting better at something--when and where to pass. No, I'm talking about just not doing something.
Andray Blatche would give his already-notable value a significant boost if only he would stop attempting so many jump shots.
Blatche managed a PER of a perfectly league average 15.0 last year, despite his lackluster true shooting percentage of 50.8%. That combination is not easy to pull off and puts him in a very mixed, and arguably elite, company. Here are the players with at least 1,000 minutes who managed a better than 14.5 PER last season while shooting a worse than 52% true shooting percentage:
Anthony Randolph, Tracy McGrady, Louis Williams, Roy Hibbert, Derrick Rose, Allen Iverson, Ron Artest, Russell Westbrook, Andray Blatche, Tayshaun Prince, Rasheed Wallace, Rodney Stuckey, and Luol Deng.
That puts Blatche with an interesting mix of past-their-prime-but-still-effective big names (McGrady, Iverson, Wallace), popular up-and-comers (Randolph, Williams, Rose, Westbrook, Stuckey, Deng), a couple of established do-everything forwards (Artest, Prince) and . . . Roy Hibbert(?). Obviously, to get on this list you must do some important things well to balance your inefficiency scoring. For Blatche, those are rebounding, shot-blocking, and, despite the turnovers, passing.
But, Blatche should be able to get himself off of the that list (in a good way) fairly easily. He could give his shooting percentage a significant boost just by taking fewer jumpshots.
Blatche was one of the worst jumpshooters in the league last year. He managed only 35.6% on his Js.* But that isn't really the problem. No, the problem is that 2-pt jumpshots made up 53% of his field goal attempts. To put this problem in perspective, here are the players who shot under 36% on 2-pt Js while having those Js make up at least half of their shots: Darrell Arthur, Tracy McGrady's bad back, and Tyrus Thomas. That's it. Expanding the list to include guys who shot as well as 37% adds gunners like Monta Ellis, Baron Davis, and Al Thornton, as well as Luol Deng and Tayshawn Prince who made appearances on the earlier list with Dre, and Glen Davis, who could use a jumpshot intervention even more than Dre, having made 59% of his attempts 2-pt jumpers while managing to shoot his PER down to 10.7.
* Notably, his young frontcourt colleague Javale McGee would have been the very worst jumpshooter in the NBA if he had played enough to qualify. Young Mr. McGee managed a truly horrifying 26.4%. Somehow, Vale even managed to get 14% of his Js blocked. Maybe part of why the two don't seem to function together (as per Prada's summer league anlaysis) is that having two 7-footers looking to take jumpshots at a very bad percentage is an excellent way to quickly kill your offense and shoot yourself out of a game. What makes things even worse is that (1) both of these guys sometimes have good form-I mean, they aren't Mike Miller but they also aren't Mike Ruffin-so it isn't clear from appearances that they just can't shoot and (2) they hit just often enough to give themselves, if no one else, hope that the next one will go in. Nevertheless, McGee took 63% of his attempts inside, versus only 43% for Blatche. But we'll save this lecture for McGee if he starts chucking more often from 15 feet.
On the other hand, Blatche managed a solid 63.6% on inside shots. That's on par with guys like Pau Gasol, Paul Millsap, Al Jefferson, Andrew Bogut, and Marcus Spreights, and notably better than guys like Chris Bosh, Lamar Odom, Z Ilgauskas, and Charlie Villaneuva. Moreover, only 54% of those baskets were assisted, making him less reliant on being set up by teammates than some other big men.
So, if Dre would just cut his jumpshot volume from his 53% down to something like Paul Millsap's 36%, his true shooting percentage would leap in the direction of Millsap's very nice 57%. By itself, reducing the Js doesn't quite get him to Millsap's level, because Blatche doesn't get to the free throw line at quite as good a rate. But, they shoot essentially the same percentages both on their jumpshots and on the interior, and their free throw percentages are just about the same even if Millsap is taking a bit more of them. To carry the comparison a bit further, Millsap is a better rebounder (though perhaps not by as much as you think), while Blatche is a better shotblocker. They have nearly identical, good steal rates of over 1 per 36 minutes, and they both average over 2 assists and 2 turnovers per 36. Millsap's PER was, however, 18.6 last season. And he is about to make $32million over the next 4 years. (Compare that to Dre's $9.7million over the next 3.) Oh, and while Blatche does have more time in the league than Millsap, Millsap is on the long list of young studs who are actually older than Dre.
So, bottom line: I'm not saying he needs to improve his jumper. I'm not saying he needs to improve his shot selection. No, he could help himself and the team tremendously if he would just randomly take half of the times he is getting ready to shoot a J and instead take the ball and make a simple pass back out to one of the perimeter players.*
* Oh yes, and incidentally--I consider Dre a multi-talented center; I might be willing to buy him as a multi-talented and very tall power forward; he is not, however, a small forward and no one should let him think he is. For example, those passing numbers that both get him praised (assists) and criticized (turnovers) look very good on a center. They are acceptable on a power forward. They are not so good on a small forward.
Scoring with the improved level of efficiency that would follow from just taking fewer Js would give Blatche a nice boost in value, while also freeing up shot opportunities for a team that could struggle to find enough shots for everyone anyway. So, would it be good if Blatche would develop and step up to take a Haywood-type role on D? Absolutely. Would it be good if he were to stop trying to do too much with the ball in transition? Without a doubt. But at the end of the day, if he'd only take fewer jumpshots and thereby improve his scoring efficiency, he'd make himself a more useful and trustworthy member of this team. And maybe set himself up for a nice payday in 2012.
Interestingly enough, it appears that if there is one area where a young player can clearly improve, it is in his scoring efficiency. Let's look at the table steadyhand created of playing-time-adjusted (per 36 minutes) stats of 15 straight-from-high school players:
First Second Third Fourth Fifth Sixth
Pts 14.8 16.0 15.7 17.5 17.9 18.5
Rbs 7.7 7.7 7.7 7.5 8.1 8.0
Asts 2.6 2.8 2.8 2.8 2.9 2.9
Stls 1.1 1.2 1.1 1.2 1.1 1.1
Blks 1.5 1.6 1.3 1.2 1.3 1.2
TOs 2.8 2.5 2.4 2.4 2.4 2.5
ShEff 44.3% 47.8 46.5 47.1 50.1 51.4
Mins 36.0 36.0 36.0 36.0 36.0 36.0
As steadyhand noted, the consistency in many of these categories is striking. To a large degree, a team already knows what it has in a player's rebounding, passing, steals, and assists essentially as soon as a player sees the court. There is, however, one category with a huge positive trend: shooting efficiency. The progression from 44.3% in a player's first year, to around 47% in his 3rd/4th year is nice. The leap to 50% in the 5th year is huge. And then up to 51.4% in the 6th year is just icing on the cake. Blatche was at 51% in his 4th season last year. Here's hoping he can make a step forward in this, his 5th, year.*
* Disclaimer: while Dre progressed from his first two years to his third, he didn't improve his shooting efficiency from his third year to his fourth. Hopefully, that can be explained by his being given the opportunity to shoot more for a bad team last year. Indeed, his FG attempts went up from 11.5 to 13.6 per 36 minutes while his proportion of jumpshots versus inside shots increased (i.e., got worse).
One final thought. If I had to pick a recent/current NBA player as the example for the path Blatche should be on, it wouldn't be Odom, anyone with the last name Thomas, or Josh Smith. No, it would be Jermaine O'Neal. I'm not saying Blatche really needs to play more like O'Neal, but O'Neal is one of the best examples of a young player who improved his value by improving his TS% (while playing increased minutes), and some of the similarity of their circumstances is hard to miss when you start putting them side by side. This could turn into the subject of a separate post. But, let's hope that, unlike Jermaine O'Neal, Andray Blatche doesn't end up leaving his first NBA team before realizing his apparent potential.
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Well said
I really think that is the problem. Blatche does not need to be chucking up a million jumpers. He need to play inside. If he can play with McGee more and learn to play together, we could have a good to great front line. One that could be good for years.
by Unkle Wheez on Jul 22, 2009 12:29 PM EDT via mobile reply actions 0 recs
Very insightful
write up. The O’Neal comparison is a good one. Both are long players who are not particularly athletic, but possess decent (Blatche) to good (O’Neal) post moves. Obvisouly O’Neal is a lot stronger, but it’s manufactured strength. He was as skinny as Andray when he came to the league.
The other thing Blatche needs to quit doing is trying to run the fast break. It’s nice that, at 6’11, he can handle the ball. But that doesn’t mean he should be bringing the ball up the court.
by CJHutch on Jul 22, 2009 1:35 PM EDT reply actions 0 recs
Can we send this to Blatche?
He really needs to read this. I am not sure I have ever seen simpler advice that would make such a huge impact.
by Blatche4MVP on Jul 22, 2009 2:13 PM EDT reply actions 0 recs
Something to send to Blatche
Here are some quick back of the envelope calculations. Sorry if they’re poor assumptions or incorrect math.
Let’s say Blatche starts REALLY doing some weight training. Three hours a day in the offseason, five days a week. Plus about 5 hours a week during the season. (I have no idea if those numbers are realistic, maybe somebody can weigh in on that.) That’s about 440 hours a year. I think that would make a pretty drastic change in his ability to hold his position, back defenders down etc and would make him a much better player. If he did that for the next 3 years, when his contract expires that would mean about 1320 hours. I’m going to conservatively guess that a buffed 28 year old Blatche would command at LEAST 1.5 million a year more on his next contract than a skinny 28 year old Blatche. Let’s say that contract is 4 years. That’s an extra 6 million dollars. That is $4545 PER HOUR that he could earn for all that weight training.
by MR on Jul 23, 2009 12:31 PM EDT up reply actions 0 recs
A thought
One problem with telling Blatche to shoot more “inside” is he gets stuffed a lot. 12% of his shots were sent back at him this year, I believe.
Ultimately, the definition of “inside” is what’s interesting here. Knowing that Blatche doesn’t finish well underneath the hoop, I’d like to see him develop a better turnaround (not fadeaway) jumper and hook shot, as well as a nice spin move/drop step to the turnaround. Those shots are technically “inside” shots, but they aren’t layups.
You know you'll get devoured by Cheaney, Wallace, and Juwan Howard.
by Mike Prada on Jul 22, 2009 4:49 PM EDT reply actions 0 recs
I wonder what a big man coach would say
If it were legal to give practice incentives and I were coach, I would like to have McGee and Blatche spend some time doing nothing but playing high-stakes games of one on one where the only shot allowed is a hook shot (either hand). Not only should that be an automatic option for each of them, but also defending it might help them understand and better get in the habit of establishing and defending position both on O and D.
His blocked rate the previous year (07-08) was actually a HUGE improvement over the prior year, when he was getting it sent back about as much as any big man in the league. I noticed early in the year that he was moving a lot of his inside shots much more direct to the rim. But man does he like that underhanded flip at the rim. And not in a good AJ sort of way. I’m not going to sit here and say he should be throwing those down—few people can and I’m not sure he has the explosiveness to be one of them—but taking the shot more quickly like AJ does would help.
If he can just maintain the rate he had this year I wouldn’t worry too much about his blocked rate. It was the same as Chris Bosh, and better than Tim Duncan and Carmelo Anthony.
by bwoodsxyz on Jul 22, 2009 5:24 PM EDT up reply actions 0 recs
I think
he gets blocked a lot because he pump fakes too much. Everyone knows he not a great leaper, and the pump fake takes away your initial explosion. But he does have some pretty decent moves down there. And he could be very efficient if he adds and improves on them. Kevin McHale was one of the best low post players ever, and he rarely left his feet. Zach Randolph is similar today.
by CJHutch on Jul 22, 2009 6:44 PM EDT up reply actions 0 recs
Effect, meet Cause
Blatches jump shots are the result of his lack of strength. Until Blatche overcomes his fear of weightrooms and works with a bigs coach to develop his post moves, he will not be able to finish well inside. If he can’t finish inside, but loves to get involved in the offense (including occassional stretches at point guard), then he’s going to chuck up jump shots.
by morethesamewiz on Jul 22, 2009 8:45 PM EDT via mobile up reply actions 0 recs
and yet...
the stats indicate his shooting percentage is a very respectable 63.6% from inside and only assisted on 54% on those baskets (I’m assuming this is 54% on all his inside baskets made, not all shots?).
Is there any way to break down the stats to show his rejection rate on J’s vs inside? I’m just wondering whether his relatively high rejection rate could be a reflection that the Wiz hasn’t had anyone who drives to the basket (since Gil has been injured ) and draws the double team or at least the D’s attention, which then allows our big men to get better positioning or easier looks from inside.
Of course, if the stats show that Blatche is getting rejected at a relatively high rate on his Js, then this only strengthens your argument further.
by sweet_as on Jul 23, 2009 11:20 AM EDT up reply actions 0 recs
oops
Meant to say that 08-09 was a big improvement over 07-08, when he got blocked a lot.
by bwoodsxyz on Jul 22, 2009 5:25 PM EDT reply actions 0 recs
Also on the subject of getting shots blocked
Randy Foye had the highest percentage of “inside” shots blocked of any player last year. Hopefully Arenas can show him a trick or two (though he gets his share blocked even when healthy). Nevertheless, you can be a good player despite getting your shots blocked—Paul Pierce was second to Foye.
by bwoodsxyz on Jul 22, 2009 5:36 PM EDT reply actions 0 recs
This is a really smart post
I’ve been thinking about commenting on the “league observer” quoted by Steinberg, because that person is wrong. Some players have one exceptional skill, but other players, like Blatche, just are good at doing a lot of things. If Blatche focused only on rebounding every time he came in, he’d be out of the league soon because he is not an exceptional rebounder. Perhaps he would be a better rebounder if that’s all he focused on, but that makes as much sense as telling Gilbert to be only a passer, or only a scorer.
Plus, when the player in question is a young player who shows the capacity to develop a variety of skills, you don’t tell him to focus on one skill and stop developing the others. You let him develop, even if the growing process is occasionally hard to watch (yes, I’m talking to you, CJHutch. Yes, Andray running the break shouldn’t be a staple of his game, but he’s got the skill to do it, and has done it effectively. I recall specifically a play this past season when he set up McGee beautifully on a fast break. Let him keep learning, within reason, of course.)
So, the advice to just work on taking away one of his chief negatives is good advice. Problem is, his role models on the team — Jamison, Butler and Gilbert — loooooove outside jumpers.
by disgrunted on Jul 22, 2009 5:37 PM EDT reply actions 0 recs
Problem is, his role models on the team — Jamison, Butler and Gilbert — loooooove outside jumpers.
Maybe, but they’re good at them. Blatche isn’t.
You know you'll get devoured by Cheaney, Wallace, and Juwan Howard.
by Mike Prada on Jul 22, 2009 6:59 PM EDT up reply actions 0 recs
Caron is a good jump shooter?
71% of his shots are jumpers, with an eFG% of 41.8%
by disgrunted on Jul 22, 2009 10:01 PM EDT up reply actions 0 recs
Good is relative
But I agree with your sentiment – our big 3 definitely love jumpers, and they need to stop settling with those jumpers. Happens way to often.
Gil has shown he can take it to the rack and draw fouls. Caron has been settling more often, it seems, and Jamison jacks up too many 3s.
by se7en on Jul 23, 2009 3:25 AM EDT up reply actions 0 recs
Good news
Jamaal Magloire signed by the Heat. That’s one less token big we can throw the league min at in order to pretend like we’ve filled out our frontcourt.
Long live the Fabricio!
by morethesamewiz on Jul 22, 2009 8:56 PM EDT via mobile reply actions 0 recs
But, but…what about his “versatility?”
by Fundefined on Jul 22, 2009 11:02 PM EDT reply actions 0 recs
This is a common refrain
We hear frequently about big men that should go inside and stop taking jumpers. Webber and Wallace for example.
Without disagreeing with your overall point, I think this is a case where reading the numbers too religiously can miss important real world information. Blatche wants to play like a guard, not a center. He wants to face the basket and drive, not post up and run his offense from there. So using the jump shot or threat of the jump shot is how he sets his defender up for the drive to the hoop, which along with putbacks and passes he receives are how he gets most of his inside shots.
Take away his jumper and his ability to drive to the basket will be even further hampered. Now this may be a good thing. But it’s not as simple as just passing the ball instead of taking a J. If he were to never take jump shots then his whole offensive game would suffer because defenders would lay off him even more. Sure, that might lead him to change his game, learn how to play with his back to the basket, strengthen etc. But that is a process. It wouldn’t come from just stopping with the jump shots.
by MR on Jul 23, 2009 8:45 AM EDT reply actions 0 recs
I don't think bwoods is saying to never shoot jumpers
He’s saying to take fewer of them.
You know you'll get devoured by Cheaney, Wallace, and Juwan Howard.
by Mike Prada on Jul 23, 2009 12:26 PM EDT up reply actions 0 recs
Actually he's saying take half as many
Which I think would significantly change his offensive strategy as well as the defensive strategies used against him. Actually I think it WOULD improve his game, but it would mean that he’d have to find different ways to get his shots. That would be a learning/coaching/training process a lot more involved than just passing instead of jumpshooting half the time.
If a football team doesn’t run the ball well it still is a good strategy to run the ball in order to keep the defense honest. Run half as much and other teams will just play nickel on you all the time and reduce the effectiveness of your passing game.
I’m not disagreeing with the concept that Blatche takes too many jumpers, but with the idea that adjusting numbers on a spreadsheet will translate in the real world. I love bwoods posts because he thinks creatively, but I find his devotion to statistics to be excessive (and amusing, since he acknowledges their limitations).
by MR on Jul 23, 2009 12:41 PM EDT up reply actions 0 recs
Not so much
“Take away his jumper and his ability to drive to the basket will be even further hampered.”
As a matter of common sense/observation, I really disagree with this. Think about it, do you recall defenses doing much (or really anything) to discourage Blatche from taking a 12 or 15-ft-er? It seems to me that teams have sagged off him quite a bit when he catches the ball outside of the post, which makes driving considerably more difficult. How often did Dre have to put the ball on the deck and take his first dribble before reaching his man, rather than being able to get around the guy while initiating his move/dribble? He might FEEL that he is setting up his man by having the “threat” of a J, but do you really think he is effectively?
Heck, it wouldn’t surprise me if teams accounting for Dre in a scouting report would say to actively encourage the J and take away the post. Last year, Dre taking a J was one of the best outcomes an opposing defense could get from a Wizards possession. It is just not as if teams will suddenly START playing off of him because he isn’t shooting (and missing) as many Js.
I guess the secondary argument is that he is “comfortable” with the face-up game and would be “uncomfortable” working from the post. Perhaps so. But I’m not saying he should initiate from the post more often—only that he should use possessions from mid/outside less frequently. Also, while I think it was great that the team has made NY start to get comfortable with Reggie/Rip-esque screen game in summer league, they should have been doing something similar with Blatche and the post. I recognize, of course, the reality that it would probably be a more difficult sell (not that selling it to NY has apparently been all that easy).
“different ways to get his shots”—Ideally he wouldn’t replace those shots. He’d just drop back to the shooting frequency he had the two prior years, with the reduction coming out of his Js, not his other stuff.
by bwoodsxyz on Jul 23, 2009 1:09 PM EDT up reply actions 0 recs
do you recall defenses doing much (or really anything) to discourage Blatche from taking a 12 or 15-ft-er?
Yes. The defender isn’t up on him like say Rodger Mason at 15 feet, but they aren’t sagging off him like say Etan Thomas either.
with the reduction coming out of his Js, not his other stuff
I guess my point is that without at least the threat of shooting from outside, his only other stuff will be putbacks and dunks off dimes. That may not be a bad thing. But he’ll lose any offense he initiates. Again, my point is not to make a judgment on Blatche, but rather to point out that changes made in the real world don’t occur in a vacuum the way they do in a statistical world.
by MR on Jul 23, 2009 1:29 PM EDT up reply actions 0 recs
one other way that stats are useful
They can be funny.
Etan shot 23% on his Js his last healthy season. But he wasn’t worst on the team. No, that distinction went to Ruffin, who made 0% of his Js.
Ok, it was only 2 attempts, but still.
by bwoodsxyz on Jul 23, 2009 1:37 PM EDT up reply actions 0 recs
0% stats are one of my favorite things in the world. They are hilarious. Zero. ZERO! Even when we’re exaggerating in common conversation we say “only 1%” or “99%”. But zero, who has the guts to say that? Not me. Only Michael Ruffin could master 0%. And Pech last year until he stupidly passed the ball to someone in position to score.
by MR on Jul 23, 2009 1:42 PM EDT up reply actions 0 recs
How much of a reduction
Also, yes, the “no more Js” was hyperbole. But, I could have also been clearer that “half” was more meant to be illustrative. No, I don’t really expect he could instantly transform to Millsap’s shot distribution. But, since (1) they are fairly similar in terms of PER outside of scoring, and (2) aside from shot distribution they actually convert similar shots at similar frequencies, it seemed a good example.
And thanks for acknowledging that I don’t take #s as the be-all-end-all. To sum up my view: I find statistics interesting, but not a substitute for detailed observation. They can be useful when they either (1) confirm what we think we see, (2) cause us look at something in a different way, or (3) reconsider our assumptions.
I’d say my goal for this one was a combination of (1) and (2). I think everyone here would say without looking at a stat sheet that Dre isn’t a good jumpshooter. But because he has frequently sound shooting form, maybe we tend to look past just how ineffective a shooter he really is. Quantifying just how bad he’s been and how very frequently he tries it might put a different spin on what kind of player he is. He doesn’t need to improve his J to be an above-average nba player on O. (There’s no knowing for sure whether he can get better at it no matter how much he tries.) He just needs to cut back on a bad habit.
by bwoodsxyz on Jul 23, 2009 1:30 PM EDT up reply actions 0 recs
I'd be curious to know
how well he shoots on open, balanced, feet under him, actual jump shots. That’s as opposed to his attempts to make a different type of move that the defender doesn’t bite on with the result being an off balance shot, fade-away, heave, or other poor shot. Are those two categories lumped together in your stat? Because if they are then we have a different issue. Take away the bad shots (ie pass back to the teammate) and leave him the “make the defender pay for sagging” open jump shots and we might see a dramatic leap forward in Blatche as we know him.
by MR on Jul 23, 2009 1:50 PM EDT up reply actions 0 recs
I actually saw that last point as a secondary implication of this post
Shooting less would improve shooting efficiency because it would eliminate the bad shots.
I’m hoping someone in the Wizards organization is tracking the different type of shots Blatche takes, because I agree that he shoots way better standing still than off the dribble. Maybe I myself will track it one game.
You know you'll get devoured by Cheaney, Wallace, and Juwan Howard.
by Mike Prada on Jul 23, 2009 2:08 PM EDT up reply actions 0 recs
Maybe I myself will track it one game.
I would be very interested in that, although I think one game is too small a sample, especially for Blatche.
Shooting less would improve shooting efficiency because it would eliminate the bad shots.
I thought the point of the post was not improving his selection, but just cutting half of his outside shots:
randomly take half of the times he is getting ready to shoot a J and instead take the ball and make a simple pass back out to one of the perimeter players
I think we need to leave him with the green light to shoot when his defender is sagging off him. But as far as I’m concerned if he never takes another fall away it’ll be too soon. I saw JVM doing some of that in Summer League too.
by MR on Jul 23, 2009 2:18 PM EDT up reply actions 0 recs
I thought the point of the post was not improving his selection, but just cutting half of his outside shots:
Again, I think implicit in cutting the frequency of outside shots is improving shot selection. They’re pretty close to synonymous.
You know you'll get devoured by Cheaney, Wallace, and Juwan Howard.
by Mike Prada on Jul 23, 2009 2:20 PM EDT up reply actions 0 recs
Well it's an unimportant point so y'know...whatever
but since we’re discussing it, the post did specificly say
I’m not saying he needs to improve his jumper. I’m not saying he needs to improve his shot selection.
by MR on Jul 23, 2009 2:41 PM EDT up reply actions 0 recs
Randomness
The randomness aspect was just to show how big an impact it would have even if his make rate didn’t actually improve. Obviously, if he cut out BAD Js and improved his %, the impact would be even bigger than assumed above.
by bwoodsxyz on Jul 23, 2009 2:23 PM EDT up reply actions 0 recs
On another front
I was thinking about your Jermaine O’Neal target, knowing well that you aren’t talking about playing style comparisons, but it got me thinking…
I think Blatche should start out trying to emulate Dale Davis. That means going inside, staying inside, rebounding, blocking shots, and the occasional outside jumper to keep them honest. It also means not trying to handle the ball in the open court, not trying to dribble outside… We’ve had guys that can get an offensive rebound or receive a pass inside, but what many of them could not do (Ruffin, Thomas, Wallace etc) is reliably finish when they are in the paint and their defender is out of position. If Blatche could do that simple thing instead of trying to complicate his game with spin moves into fade away jumpers, the world would be a much better place.
by MR on Jul 23, 2009 2:51 PM EDT reply actions 0 recs
Draft Express has a nice write up
of Andray and Nick Young at summer league. Put them both on first team for vets, along with Anthony Randolph, Serge Ibaka, and Anthony Morrow.
http://www.draftexpress.com/article/NBA-Vegas-Summer-League-Player-Reports-Part-One—3295
I’m surprised Johnny Flynn was not on their first, second or third team for rookies.
by Siis on Jul 23, 2009 4:50 PM EDT reply actions 0 recs
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