I'm still struggling to understand why is Giddens head and his mental inability to deal with the NBA game causing him to attempt to block shots with the wrong hand or to stare at the ball when guarding cuts or to bite fakes by taking his eyes off the opponent belly during D-League games. It's really weird.
Anyway, you're surely entitled to have an opinion, but you either agree with what the flaws are or you actually believe that his defence is NBA ready from a fundamentals perspective.
And everybody agrees that the mental part of the game is very important.
I'm talking about mental mistakes. No, maturity alone isn't going to correct his shotblocking mechanics or his ballwatching tendencies. But players whose minds aren't in the game make more mistakes. If you're thinking about the thousands of fans around you or the fact that you can't feel your legs and not about the man who'd like nothing better than to score in your face, then you're not going to play good defense.
Again. I believe that his defense would be passable, although flawed, in the NBA right now - there are many players in the league who demonstrate the defensive flaws you've mentioned. A player doesn't have to play fundamentally perfect defense to make a defensive impact on the game. At the same time, I don't believe that his mental focus is adequate at this point for him to play as well as he is capable of playing.
As an extension of that - Cordobes, you keep pointing to the errors he makes fundamentally, but nothing in regards to the volume of those erroneous plays relative to the quality plays he makes in the same situations.
You've watched as much D-League footage as anyone if its been 6-7 games, we're all fairly limited to the same sample size. Don't know how much you watched him last year in NM, but I'll assume you did a bit as well.
But within those sample of games he is making all these fundemental errors, he's also made a good many off and on-ball defensive plays as well as making some very good offensive reads playmaking for himself and others.
Now the ratio may not be acceptable by your standards for getting on an NBA court, but the fact that he does make positive plays in his weaker fundamental areas is exactly what makes me believe that getting in an NBA system and having a clear-cut role established for him would enable to increase the ratio of good plays to bad - this is fairly common in player development with all players who are open to coaching and put the time in to improve on their weaknesses.
JR also has a few solid off/def tendencies that would be IDed on an NBA level and applied to his tutelage/usage in an NBA system.
-down screens for FT line extended catch-and-shoot/one-dribble, slash
- off-ball cuts and put-backs
- set 3-point shooting on kick-outs
He needs a lot of time but is substantially better than his 28% overall percentage with feet set and time to shoot - 35% is not adequate for it being a primary shot, but combined with his mid-range catch-and-shoot/slash game it is a decent complementary option to supplement.
He isn't a good enough ball-handler to run pick-and-role with or to put in ISO and I don't expect him to ever be - but shot-fakes on set shots even out to 3-point range, where he can get by a recovering primary defender, put him in space and he is good at getting to the basket or reading the double and finding the open man - he forces some lower percentage passes sometimes, but he makes some very, very good reads at others.
Defensively, he is a capable man defender at times, but does not pay attention to opponents strengths and definitely gets caught daydreaming enough to cause him problems - the focus issues are going to be a major obstacle for him, but as he learns his opponents tendencies he should improve tremendously by simply denying their primary drive side, eliminating separation spacing for shooters, and using his length to challenge pull ups or soft drives that he can shadow.
Off-ball he is great at picking up steals, ala Larry Hughes back in the day - doesn't make him a good defender as he has to know when to range off his assignment or risk getting burned - but its a good thing to have this anticipation ability. He needs to learn when to do it.
When I look at everything he does well and everything he does not do well, most of his flaws in terms of judgement can be improved by being coached to play a certain way in order to fit his skills into a specific role.
Boston had JR's role filled by Tony Allen - someone who is light years ahead in both knowlege of the system and overall experience. But, on another team, Giddens may have had a unique skillset in this regard.
His shooting must improve, but his shot-selection brings down his numbers overall. His actual spot-shooting, catch-and-shoot off screen, and pull-up aren't bad - much better than TA and reliable enough to set up his slashing game.
Picking spots is about learning where those spots are and getting repetition in - The D-League isn't doing this for him to the extent that an NBA team narrowing his focus down to 2-3 specific things would do.
You put him on the court, pump him up and gain his peak attentiveness by keeping him involved, and then break down film with him, get on the practice court and walk-through his spots and reads, and establish goals --- that's how you grow JR Giddens as a player IMO.
He will never learn as quickly without that specific guidance - playing an all-around game as he did in Utah will grow his overall ability, but its too broad in focus to quickly improve the specific skills he would need for a set role on Boston's team.
So, again - summer/TC/Pre will determine his progress on the Celtics as that will be the time he'll have the most exposure to the Celtics system, the most court time, and the most coaching...