Are we grading Jan Vesely on a curve? Comparing Jan vs. Othyus.
by DavidDunn on Jan 29, 2012 9:26 AM EST
Email
PrintJan Vesely is playing reasonably and showing signs of improvement. He is continuing to demonstrate a high basketball IQ, a willingness to play team ball, active hands, intensity and hustle. He is playing well rounded, with similar scoring, rebounding and assist numbers. He is doing all of the little things right.
Every winning basketball team needs that type of player, starting or off the bench. They tend to have good NBA careers. I actually love that type of player and they tend to become fan favorites.
But let’s be clear. We had that player on our team late last year as well. And he wasn’t the sixth pick in the draft.
His name was Othyus Jeffers.
If you look at advanced stats, one could actually argue that Jeffers' played better based on almost all categories in less min/game.
(Please note, this graphic includes his 2010 Utah numbers, but that is due to a quirk at Basketball-Reference. If you only look at his numbers while in Washington, they are even better)
This isn’t to say Jan can’t get better. I expect him to. But we need to be careful to not grade Jan on the Wizard’s curve. Just because no one else seems to get the basics, doesn’t mean Jan is an absolute rock star yet. It doesn’t even mean he is coming close to justifying his draft position.
My point is we have the equivalent of Othyus Jeffers starting on our team. This says more about the team than Jan.
Ladies and Gentlemen, your 2011-2012 Washington Wizards.
What are your expectations of Vesely in the short term and long term? What criteria are you using to evaluate Jan Vesely?
This represents the view of the user who wrote the FanPost, and not the entire Bullets Forever community. We're a place of many opinions, not just one.
34 comments
|
0 recs |
Do you like this story?
Comments
I see him as trade bait
The Wiz are going to need to trade several players to get one quality starter. The other two quality starters will have to come from the draft and the FA pool. The three newcomers have to be selected to complement Wall and McGee’s skills and weaknesses.
there's no way Vesely will be traded.
he’s the most popular player on the team and a guy Ernie claims to have wanted for 2yrs….Jan is here to stay for sure imo
by DCrez on Jan 29, 2012 11:33 AM EST up reply actions 1 recs
He is much more fun to watch than Blatche
he’s got great intangibles but i cringe everytime he tries to make a lay up or shoot a free throw !
dont be surprised if Jan ends up at C when/if Javale leaves
and then we can go through 3yrs of waiting for him to hopefully get strong enough, just like we waited with Mcgee. I dont think they know what to do with Jan at the moment, but it appears he wont be playing SF.
Vesely would struggle chasing SFs around screens.
If he was going to be used as a SF, it would have to be in a zone or some other system with lots of defensive switching. With the messed up off-season, my guess is that they didn’t have time to work on anything besides the basic man-to-man defensive schemes. It’s still an open question whether or not he can play SF.
Barring injury, Vesely could turn out to be anything from Varejao to Kirilenko, which would make him a solid to excellent sixth pick.
by yop32 on Jan 29, 2012 11:56 AM EST up reply actions 1 recs
After following him for 2 yrs?!
I seriously don’t know whát Ernie was thinking with this pick. We will love him for his hustle and energy but he ain’t a building block.
Who won? Who lost? Who cares?! The NBA is Back! - David Aldridge
What seems to be the officer, problem? - Randy Marsh
by Dutch Hoopfan on Jan 30, 2012 8:39 AM EST up reply actions
The difference is that Jeffers is 6'4" and approaching 30. Jan is 6'11" and could be in college.
He went 6th in the draft because of his upside. There’s probably a lot of high profile rookies this year that are averaging the same statistics of random journeymen in the league.
"Blake Griffin is the American Jan Vesely" - Jan Vesely
Seems like a fair point...but it actually raises more questions...
First of all, Jeffers is 25, not 30. He is actually younger than Nick Young.
Second, at 6’ 11", should he be ahead in at least rebounds?
Third, using your criteria, I looked up other upside rookies, drafted in Jan’s area of the draft. I eliminated Irving, Knight, and Williams, because we weren’t going to draft a PG, and Williams wasn’t an upside guy. I would have gone further, but it only accepts 6 players.
So if you take Jeffers out of the equation and only look at lottery rookies with upside, the comparison still stands true.
Which leads me to ask again…are we unintentionally grading on a curve? What criteria should we use as the basis for evaluation?
Vesely is being outperformed by many players in his draft class
but he’s just starting to get real burn, so he should do some catching up now if he has the talent. My worry is that he was a terrible rebounder in Europe and currently is worse than Seraphin was last year in that dept…..that makes it really tough to play him at PF given our roster
Bingo!
He can’t play PF in the NBA. He loses his height advantage there and while he has a quickness advantage, he will just get overpowered by dudes. On top of that, he is a terrible rebounder for his size, indeed.
Bassically the only thing he can do is being disruptive on defense and finish at the rim on offense (sporadically). It’s not enough to be a starting SF or PF and unless he developes his ball handling, a jump shot, gains 25pounds of sollid mussle ánd learns how to rebound (boy, that’s a depressive list of things to learn for a top 10 pick…) I don’t see him becoming a starter.
Who won? Who lost? Who cares?! The NBA is Back! - David Aldridge
What seems to be the officer, problem? - Randy Marsh
by Dutch Hoopfan on Jan 30, 2012 8:54 AM EST up reply actions
No good stats for some of the things that Vesely does for us
He’s an excellent defender when his man sets a pick. Does a really nice job of showing and then recovering to his man. By far the best on our team.
He boxes out. That improves the team’s rebounding, but our guys who aren’t as fundamentally sound end up getting the benefit in their stat lines instead of Jan.
His steals are better than many other players’ steals, because his steals come as a consequence of active hands and good court awareness, not from gambling in the passing lanes.
Not a great stat, but Vesely’s on/off +/- is much better than any of the other rookies you list above.
of the 35 rookies that qualify, Jan's PER is 34th at 7.66
again, doesnt matter right now as he just started playing, but if he is as good as people think the time will come soon when concrete production starts happening
well he could get his PER up
by taking a lot of shots, don’t even need to make that many to get positive PER from it…
he looked like he doesnt belong in the nba last night.
if he doesnt start looking for his shot soon they aren’t going to be able to play him very much.
Plenty of guys stick in the NBA without an outside shot
Vesely makes good cuts, sets good screens, and is a solid passer. Combine that with his effectiveness at defending the PnR and his overall defensive awareness, and he’s already set to have a long career, even if he never develops any new skills at all.
Like I said before, at a minimum, I think he can become the next Varejao. He would need to add strength (which would also improve his rebounding), but that’s the easiest problem for a young player to address.
I think we’re going to try to develop him into a bigger Kirilenko, but even if that fails, he can always sacrifice some mobility and focus on getting stronger to become the next Varejao.
Jared Jefferies 2.0
that’s whom he looks most like right now. AK-47 had nba SF skills the day he arrived in the league, could shoot and handles. By the looks of it Jan has no faith in his shot or his handle- he is 7’ tall afterall, imo it’s almost unfair to expect him to be a productive SF.
Varejo’s DRR his rookie year was 20, Jan’s is currently 10 which is worse than Seraphin last year.
So while I agree Vesely MIGHT become this or that, what he ACTUALLY is right now points directly to Jared Jefferies who indeed is enjoying a very long career.
Vesely is already a much better offensive player than Jeffries
Soft hands on the catch, soft touch around the basket. Unlike Jeffries, Vesely is a reliable finisher. around the rim. Huge difference.
their rookie year stats are virtually identical
what soft hands? Jan has the highest TO rate of all rookies who qualify according to Hollinger. Touch around the basket? He is scoring 2pts/game.
I’m not trying to put a limit on what type of player he could theoretically be one day, but imo Jared Jefferies is the closest legitimate comparison given players like AK and Varejo exhibited different skillsets in their rookie years
and i should say "closest current comparison"
as Ves has yet to play much, he still could have a breakout stretch at some point in the near future where he establishes a higher level for himself
Rookie year stats
Are you also assuming that Vesely will soon blow out his knee, just like Jeffries did a decade ago?
You seem to want to ignore it, but we have more data than the handful of NBA games Vesely has played in. Coming into the league, Vesely proved to be an excellent finisher:
Vesely’s athleticism shines through with the way he was able to convert opportunities around the basket, shooting 74% from the field in these situations, first in this group.
Not surprisingly, Vesely ranks amongst the most effective finishers off cuts (3rd), offensive rebounds (2nd), post-ups (3rd) and in transition (6th).
http://www.draftexpress.com/profile/Jan-Vesely-1402/
It would appear you are choosing to ignore the data in your own link for purposes
of making AK and Varejo comparisons that just dont hold water when subjected to facts.
He rarely, if ever, was asked to go out and create his own shot on his own, seeing just 2.8% of his offense in isolation situations, which ranks 15th of the 18 players in this study, ahead of Malcolm Thomas and Matthew Bryan-Amaning, but nevertheless ranked as the 5th most turnover prone, coughing the ball up on 15% of his possessions.
By contrast, 25% of his possessions came in spot-up situations, which puts him near the top in this category after Robin Benzing (39%), Chandler Parsons (26.2%) and Justin Harper (25.5%).
He was not terribly effective as a jump-shooter, though, garnering .78 points per shot he attempted, 5th worst in this group—almost all of which in catch and shoot situations.
The previous article from 1/11 on the same page also cites lack of ball handling ability and being a very poor rebounder.
His ball-handling skills remain mediocre at best. Watching him handle the ball in the open floor is definitely not a pretty sight.
Even with his prodigious athleticism, Vesely still isn’t much of a presence on the glass. He grabs just one defensive rebound for every 10 ½ minutes he’s on the court, which is a very poor rate.
So on the contrary, I’m not ignoring the previous data, it confirms exactly what I am trying to explain to you and appears to have been a very good predictor of how he’d play in the nba initially.
I'm trying to discuss what Vesely can become.
You’re stuck on what he is now.
Sure, Vesely’s body and stats look a lot like rookie Jeffries. But Vesely is only just starting to settle in. He’s a better finisher and plays with more energy. He has shown a better feel for the game. He has a better frame to add weight if that’s the route they decide to follow. He also hasn’t been hit by any injuries yet. (Knock on wood.)
OK, so someday he might be just like Jared Jeffries, but a better finisher, big enough to defend some centers, with more energy and a better feel for the game. Sounds like Varejao to me.
That's his floor
And here’s the list of sixth picks since 2000:
http://bkref.com/tiny/wGRbd
Not exactly a murder’s row.
That's because teams picking 6-8 draft on potential
And end up with guys like…Vesely.
I’m still hopeful and I like his mental makeup, but I didn’t want Vesely at #6 then, and I’m still not seeing him as a top-10-pick-worthy player.
Jon Leuer was the 40th pick in the draft and he's outperforming Jan on all levels.
at the risk of injecting facts into the discussion, Vesely’s DRR is currently lower than Rubio’s…I can’t buy the Varejo comparison til we get a few games where he is cleaning the glass and successfully defending in the post.
I’m not suggesting it isnt going to happen, just saying I have yet to see those skills demonstrated.
Still way early though, no big deal obviously
Small sample size, but
Over the last four games, Vesely is averaging 6 defensive rebounds per 36 minutes.
Vesely is fascinating to watch.
He gets muscled in a one-on-one, back to the basket scenario. However, in open space, he clearly knows how to leverage his body and wreak havoc on the opposing offense. His screen-setting is blatantly illegal (go ask Ray Allen). I can’t believe he gets away with that “stick out the knee at the last second” thing. Not sure how long that will continue.
I love the way he crashes the offensive glass! That’s a unique skill that few possess. Interestingly, I seem to recall that Jeffers did that too. That’s nice to see out of a 2-guard but I think Vesely will find a lot more success with it.
I don’t think he’ll ever be a great shooter but I could see him developing a Tyrus Thomas-like jumper— 60% bricks, 40% swishes. Combine that with a bunch of put-backs and alley-oops and his offensive game should be good enough.
If he proves durable (and he did miss the first 5 games or so), I think he’ll be legit.
BTW, is there any reason we can’t bring Jeffers back after he fully heals?
Bullets fan stuck in CO.
Comments For This Post Are Closed
Secondary Sidebar
User Tools
NBA Playoffs Content Module
Related FanPosts on Bullets Forever
FanPosts
Community blog posts and discussion.
Recommended FanPosts
Recent FanPosts
In Association With
Ball Don't Lie - NBA - Yahoo! Sport
- David West hilariously denies each and every one of his young fans a high-five (VIDEO)
- Behind the Box Score, where the Miami Heat are moving on to the conference finals
- Kevin Durant is tired of hearing about the Spurs
- The 10-man rotation, starring your Indiana Pacers
- Blake Griffin highlights, ‘NBA Jam’-style (VIDEO)
