Let's start this off by looking at some outstanding defense by last episodes star - Noah Vonleh. Vonleh found himself in the starting unit after Meyers injured his left shoulder Vs the San Antonio Spurs on November 11th. Here we are a few months later and a new year, yet Vonleh still hears his name being called in the starting lineup. He has held on to this almost entirely due to his outstanding defense. While still rough on the offensive end (Scoring, screening) he is quite the opposite on defense. You see players who have a knack for knowing where to be on the court while defending, and Vonleh is this kind of player. This is exemplified in this gif, which showcases his fantastic pick and roll defense on Ibaka and Durant. Again we see another example of Vonlehs excellent court awareness and footwork on the defensive end as he slides to cut off Westbrooks driving lane, and then quickly closes out on Ibaka, forcing the steal with his long arms. It's been great to see how far Vonleh has come since his first game as a Starter, and encouraging to see that he still has room for development. This lets us know that he has yet to scratch the surface of his potential, and I expect him to continue to improve as the season goes on, before making a big leap after he works on things like strength and balance in the offseason. In this clip you see him bullied by Roberson on his screen for CJ. It is to be expected that a guy in Vonlehs situation (Still very young) needs to work on these things. In fact Anthony Davis is a great example of this. You look at Davis in College and Davis today and you can really see how much he has worked on his strength and conditioning since entering the league. I think that might have been the biggest improvement Davis made after his rookie season when he went from good player (Who lets not forget didn't even get a vote over Dame for Rookie of the year) to legitimate MVP candidate. Now I'm not saying we should expect such a drastic leap from Noah, because Davis is the kind of player you see once in a decade. But I do believe that we will see Vonleh improve in these categories. Now we switch our attention to another player who has shown elite defensive capability. Unlike our other elite defender (Vonleh) Crabbe has a sweet touch, and has shown he can score in bunches. But what really stands out is his activity on the defensive end. This was showcased during the Utah game in which Crabbe tallied 3 steals and 2 blocks, and a whole lot more defensive pressure which was not reflected on the stat sheet. Here is an example of such an occasion, where Crabbe gets into the passing lanes and causes a deflection before eventually forcing the turnover. Again we see Crabbe with the defensive awareness which allows him to get into the passing lane and force the turnover. His vision allows and BBIQ allow him to read the offense, and intercept passing lanes. Something that can be more instinctual than habit. Finally of course I had to throw this in. I'm guilty, I've been talking about how badly we could use a post scorer, and here we have currently one of the NBA's best post players on the bench in Kaman. If you need post scoring in a Playoff series you could throw Kaman in there for 3 minutes and abuse a team who is not at all ready to deal with that. And you've got to love that the crowd makes some noise for him. It must have been corporate night in the arena because a lot of players didn't get the applause they should have. As a matter of fact I think it's time for the masses to realize what we've got in this team. Rip City went through a state of Shock when we lost all of our players last year, but now its time for the masses to snap out of it and realize that we've got a real thing going cooking.
I know most people around here don't much care for Vonleh, but his defense gets me excited for his future. That said, I doubt he'll ever be an offensive power-house, but one wonders what he could do if the guards actually fed him the ball once in awhile and he got a chance to build his confidence?
I think this is an accurate assessment. I'm also not sure he will ever be an offensive power-house. But in one sense what Meyers lacks in defense - Vonleh makes up for on defense. What Vonleh lacks in offense - Meyers makes up for on offense. If we are needing scoring at that position to space the floor you see more Meyers minutes, if we are playing a grit and grind Memphis type team you see more Vonleh minutes. It's that kind of versatility that you see on teams that are able to put together deep playoff runs. It's been a while since we've had an elite defensive big like Vonleh, and I'm not sure I worry too much about him scoring. If we were packing the place and going nuts whenever he gets a block or any good defensive play I wonder if he would break out. We would find out if we made the playoffs because the faithful would flock to the place even if we were the 8th seed vs the Warriors. Part of me thinks he would because I think his building confidence is a big reason why he has been able to improve so far this season. I like the fact that Stotts has obviously told him to keep taking these shots, he doesn't seem to hesitate when he takes these open looks. He doesn't seem to hit these shots, but the coaches obviously believe its something he can improve on. If he's able to knock these down even 1/2 the time we would have a much stronger offense because they couldn't afford to leave him open. With this play in particular if Ibaka is not able to help off of Vonleh, Plumlee has the open dunk at the rim.
I think he will be much better next year. This summer he will play again in summer league and he will realize that he's done it all before, he was already the star in summer league,he can play against the best players in the world and he can now show his best stuff in the big league too. I really believe it's a confidence issue with him and most of it (if not all of it) is shown 0n the offensive end, he gets the ball from 15 feet and he's afraid to shoot even if he's wide open and a pretty good midrange shooter.
I'm not sure that afraid is the right way to put it. I think it's probably more of a balance and repetition kind of thing. His forms not bad, he's just got to start getting the hang of it. It really looks like it might be there. You see him show some impressive moves and getting up good shots that just haven't fallen. I think 2-3 seasons from now Vonleh will be knocking down shots at a high enough efficiency that he is on the scouting report and considered a threat. Right here he does a good job of getting position on the post up, and gets a nice fade away that is just off. He's not throwing up ugly looking shots, even when they aren't going down. I'm telling you right now you, you look at what Batum is doing and it's easy to think that the Hornets got the better of this trade. But I have a strong feeling that we will look back at this in 4 years and praise Neil and Paul for making this trade.
On the screen that he was "bullied" on, Roberson shoulders him in the chest illegally. A referee won't usually call that unless the big man is displaced more or falls. Screens should be judged on the result. The result of that screen is that it served its purpose in creating the mismatch with CJ and Serge Ibaka. I thought it was a great screen.
Holy Shit!!! Time to step up your game if your gonna start a new thread cause some of these coming out are over the top. Great job Fonz!
Whenever I start a thread, I just bump one of HCP's game threads first so my thread looks good by comparison.
