DeMarcus Cousins is being talked about as the best big man in the draft, and one of the reasons is that he has such a polished post game despite only being 19 years old.  Let’s take a look at his post game:

The Seal

The seal might be the most important part of a players post game in my opinion.  You make a good seal, you create a passing lane for your teammate and get the ball in a position to score.  A weak seal, and you don’t get the basketball, or you get it too far to execute your move.

DeMarcus Cousins really uses his body well when he seals off his defender in the post.  The wide base is what makes this a beautiful seal.  With a defender trying to half front him, Cousins gets really wide and puts the defender on his front leg.  If Cousins doesn’t have a wide base, the defender would be able to get his hand in the passing lane.  Instead, there seems to be a clear lane for the passer to get the ball to Cousins when he stretches his hand out.  Now, the pass doesn’t get to him, but that isn’t Cousins fault.

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John Wall is the consensus #1 pick in tomorrow’s draft, and most people think he will be a very good, if not great pro.  However, the opinions of the next-best two perimeter players are up in the air.  Many people are wondering who will be the better pro between Evan Turner and Wesley Johnson.  In my opinion, it all comes down to who will be the better shooter in the pros, and who can effectively take the step back to the NBA three point line, because all other things on the offensive end are relatively equal (Wesley Johnson is a bit more athletic/Evan Turner has a slightly better handle).

Shooting Form

Wesley Johnson

I absolutely love Wesley Johnson’s shooting form.  He is a jump shooter rather than a set shooter, and his fundamentals are really on point, elbows are bent the right way, guide hand is on the side of the ball and it isn’t used during the shot.  My favorite thing about his shot though is how high he keeps the basketball up on his release.  Wesley Johnson is 6’6″ so he is already just as tall as most threes and probably taller than most shooting guards trying to defend him on the outside.  With the way that Johnson keeps the ball up, there is going to be no way his shot gets altered/blocked when shooting from the outside.

Evan Turner

Evan Turner too is a jump shooter rather than a set shooter.  Turner also has solid form when looking at his elbow and guide hand (you can’t see it from here, so you are going to have to take my word for it).  However, what I don’t like in Turner’s form is what I love in Johnson’s, where the basketball is.  Wesley Johnson kept the basketball up ridiculously high, but Evan Turner looks like he is almost resting the ball on his shoulder.  In my opinion, he keeps the basketball too low, but that has never been a problem in college because as M. Haubs of The Painted Area mentioned, he has been going up against smaller defenders most of his college career.

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I don’t put too much Nets stuff on here mainly because they suck, but also because anything Xs and Os related I do about the Nets usually goes up on my Nets’ blog NetsAreScorching (shameless plug I know). I was hoping to get some sort of post up today, but with my schedule that isn’t going to happen.  So I thought the best thing to do was instead of just not having anything go up, I’d post some of the Nets’ related stuff I have done recently that you may not have seen if you don’t check out my Nets site (you probably should though):

Derrick Favors and How He Fits with the Nets:

Before the news that the Nets are leaning towards Wesley Johnson hit today, it seemed like the Nets were deciding between DeMarcus Cousins and Derrick Favors.  I like Derrick Favors, because he fits better with the Nets:

If you were to think of one word that has been associated with Derrick Favors so far, that word would be “raw.”  That is all you hear from some scouts and draft experts.  While he might be raw when it comes to basketball skills (his shooting ability for example), there are two things that catch your eye when you watch Favors play.

The first is his work ethic on the basketball court.  Georgia Tech’s offense was very helter skelter during this past season, and that is putting it nicely.  There would be series of five to ten straight possessions where Derrick Favors wouldn’t even get a touch.  Despite all of that, every time down the court, Favors would get to his spot on the court and post up, just as hard and strong as the last time (even though he didn’t get the basketball).

The second thing you notice is Favors’ basketball IQ.  Despite being “raw,” Favors seems to know what he is doing with the basketball.  In the four or five games I was able to see, Derrick Favors never looked flustered.  He was comfortable with the basketball and always knew where he wanted to go with it.  He also does the little things.  We already talked about Favors putting his hands up when retreating to his man, but he also runs the floor very well, knows how to properly space out the court, and instinctively chins the basketball when grabbing a rebound, getting those elbows out and preventing defenders from reaching in and stealing it.

What The Nets Defense Will Look Like:  Against The Pick & Roll

Avery Johnson, the new Nets coach, mentioned that he is going to bring the same defensive philosophy he used in Dallas to New Jersey.  I took a look at what that might look like:

The Pick And Roll

From what I watched, it seemed that the Mavs had two ways to defend the screen and roll.  They play it one way when the ball handler is a shooting threat and another way when the ball handler isn’t a threat shooting the basketball.
Non-shooter

So Leandro Barbosa is handling the ball and gets a screen from Shawn Marion.  Here, the Mavs don’t consider Barbosa a shooting threat, so they are going to go under the screen.  It isn’t as simple as that though.  To make it easier to get under the screen and to the other side, preventing the penetration, Dirk needs to do some work here.  Dirk takes a few steps back, creating a lane for Devin Harris to bust through.

This frees up the lane for Devin, and he is able to cut off Barbosa’s penetration to the basket.

So check that stuff out, and look for a new post coming tomorrow.

When the Wizards won the first overall pick for the draft that is taking place this Thursday, they were overrun with John Wall mania (as they should be).  Now, John Wall is going to be the number one pick on Thursday, no doubt about it (they didn’t even work out Evan Turner) so the question becomes can the two play together?

I have only seen this really talked about at length in two places.  Kyle Weidie of TruthAboutIt.Net thinks they can play together.  Meanwhile, Matt Moore of Hardwood Paroxysm thinks they can’t.  Me?  Well, I think they can play together and can be very successful doing it.

Before we get down to looking at some game tape, let’s look at some numbers.  82Games.com is a fantastic statistical site, and maybe my favorite aspect of the site is they give you the top 20 most used lineups for whatever team you want.  Looking at the lineups for the Wizards, one lineup in particular caught my eye.  That one was the most successful lineup (in terms of +/-) with Arenas in it:

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