Author Topic: The 2014 draft class, revisited  (Read 26260 times)

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Re: The 2014 draft class, revisited
« Reply #75 on: January 08, 2014, 04:21:29 PM »

Offline Celtics4ever

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what you can't really teach is the innate footwork and body positioning that makes really monster post players.


You think people are born with innate post play?   That is absurd.   His footwork is a direct copy of the Dream Shake.   Do you know that colleges like Kansas or even smaller colleges will have a dedicated big man coach that work on this stuff?  Good high school programs even have this going for them.

Moses Malone tutored Hakeem on footwork and postplay.  Guy Lewis was his college coach.   Foreigners sometimes have an advantage at  footwork.   Guys like Duncan got Hakeem get this coordination playing soccer something we do not do here in the USA provided you can play one of the big three sports i.e. Football, Basketball and Baseball.

Embiid played Soccer and Volleyball growing up.  There is no innate footwork.   It's all learned.   Physical talent is innate but can be enhanced with  weights to some degree with speed less so.  Foot work is a skill, while it is true some people have better balance and athletic base, no one comes out of the womb doing reverse pivot or posting up. 

How do you explain that people with vastly different athletic abilities  and builds have different post up ability?  McHale was skinny with low arms.   LeBron is built like a tank.  Bird was slow and smart.   Sully is slow and has a big butt.  Kareem had the sky hook.  Yet all these players  developed different ways to succeed at their game.  Do you think Kareem plopped out with the ability to shoot the sky hook?

Re: The 2014 draft class, revisited
« Reply #76 on: January 08, 2014, 04:37:42 PM »

Offline Fafnir

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Dwight Howard has plenty of post moves. They don't look fluid or pretty but they work.

I will have to disagree with you on that one.  He is terrible in the post....
His FG% and PPP both this year after a slow start and over the course of his career on post ups disagrees with you.

His PPP on P&Rs is better of course, but he's still one of the best post big men in the league.

Re: The 2014 draft class, revisited
« Reply #77 on: January 09, 2014, 01:48:13 PM »

Offline Galeto

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Not sure I get all the feting over Embiid.  The comparison to Olajuwon is ridiculous.  Olajuwon was one of the greatest pure athletes in NBA history.  Embiid is nowhere close to that.  He's pretty fluid and coordinated but he's not much of a leaper.  His physical profile is more similar to someone like Michael Olowokandi. 

It looks like Parker's going through a little bit of a cold streak, missing jumpers badly and forcing shots out of the rhythm of Duke's offense.  I still love Parker but one thing that's been overrated about him thus far and this may stem from what a good, character guy he seems to be, is his playmaking ability.  He's been more of a black hole than a guy who was lauded for his floor game.  I find this puzzling.  I saw a few of his games when he was a sophomore in high school and he was pretty much a prodigy of basketball decision making, with the perfect balance of creating for himself and his teammates.  Fast forward to his senior year of high school and then to Duke and he's largely a gunner, an extremely skilled and versatile one but a gunner nevertheless.