Latavious Williams has had a pretty interesting journey on his way to the NBA. Williams was deemed ineligible for college, and instead of taking the Brandon Jennings route Williams chose to enter the D-League. In my opinion, this decision was very smart, and one that could lead to Williams having an impact for the Thunder this year.
So how has the D-League helped Williams? Well, he played for the Tulsa 66ers, who are a direct affiliate for the Thunder, meaning that he already has a year’s experience with the Thunder’s offensive and defensive systems. Even more importantly, Williams was playing in a league that has rules that are exactly the same as the NBA’s rules. Meaning that Williams already has a knowledge of the unique rules in the NBA, the key one being defensive three seconds. During his summer league performance’s Williams, looked very comfortable off the ball, and a lot of it had to do with his knowledge of the defensive three second rule:
D-League Doing A Good Job Of Preparing Latavious Williams
Before we even get to the real defensive play I want to talk about, Williams does a good job of rotating off to the roll man, to make sure he doesn’t get a wide open catch in the paint. Now that he is covering the roll man, Williams is standing in the paint. However, he knows the defensive three second rule and knows that because he is defending someone at arms distance, he can stand in the paint however long he likes. This means he is in perfect position for help defense, and he is able to get the block.
With that buzzer beater, Summer League 2010 finished in thrilling fashion. Over the past 14 days, there were a combined 78 games played in Orlando and Las Vegas. In those 78 games you had rookies trying to prove they belong, second year players trying to take the next step, and undrafted rookies/unsigned free agents trying to earn a contract. All this lead to some great individual performance and some fantastic games.
NBAPlaybook got into Summer League this year by doing 19 posts over the course of 14 days. Just in case you missed any of them, here is every post we did over the past two weeks:
With the departure of Amar’e Stoudemire and Lou Amundson (who is currently an unrestricted free agent) there is a void at the power forward spot that needs to be filled. While it is believed that Hakim Warrick will be the one to replace Amar’e as the Suns’ starter at PF, Earl Clark still has a chance to grab hold of the position, if only his game could take the next step.
Clark’s Summer League performance was average at best with a few great plays sprinkled in, showing flashes of what Suns’ fans hope Earl Clark can become with more playing time. However, for the most part during Summer League, I saw an unwillingness to attack the basket from Clark:
Here Clark grabs the rebound and brings the basketball up the court on his own. Now, this displays the pretty good ball handling ability of a 6’10″ PF, however Clark needs to either try and get to the basket (and take advantage of his ball handling ability) here or get it to a guard and start the offense. Even when Clark wanted to try and drive to the basket, he had a tendency to shy away from contact:
The Suns took Gani Lawal in the second round with the 46th pick in the 2010 NBA Draft. Entering the draft the same year that teammate Derrick Favors did, Lawal was “the other guy” and he saw his stock drop off (mainly because teams thought he was undersized at 6’8″ and 233 lbs). However, he has really impressed while playing for the Suns during the Las Vegas Summer League, proving he has the skills to make it in the NBA.
The Good
Physicality
Despite being undersized (in terms of weight) when going up against opposing power forwards and centers, Gani Lawal shows a physicality that is needed to excel when matching up against bigger opponents. This willingness to bang bodies helps Lawal on both sides of the court:
Here, Lawal gets the ball in the post with a taller defender covering him. Lawal simply drops his shoulder and drives it into the bigger defender, pushing him back a few steps. Lawal gets to where he wants to be on the court and attempts his shot (though he gets fouled).
After a ton of blowouts during the early portion of the Las Vegas Summer League, we are now getting our close games. In addition to the Wizards-Hornets game and the Cavs-Bulls game last night, we saw an overtime between the Wizards and the Knicks today. With just under ten seconds left, Tony Douglas was at the free throw line looking to expand the Knicks’ one point lead. Douglas ended up missed both of him, but he was still able to come away the hero:
Instead of pouting after the miss, Tony Douglas got back on defense and got himself in position to take the offensive foul. Was it a bit of a flop here? Sure, but credit to Douglas for reading Cartier Martin’s move and jumping into position to take the charge. Also, once Martin’s arm swings out when the contact is made, it’s foul no matter what.
Now, Sam Cassell was livid after the play, and it wasn’t with the officiating. According to the announcers calling the game, Cassell was giving it to Lester Hudson for not getting the ball and bringing it up. I get the logic, Martin isn’t a point guard while Hudson is. Hudson probably would have been more comfortable bringing the ball up late (Martin looked a little tentative then picked up the offensive foul). However, the way the situation transpired, Martin was the only option for the Wizards.
Sure, Hudson could have came down and me the ball, but he still would have been double teamed. Good work by the Knicks here, they identified the primary ball handler and made sure they didn’t let him catch the basketball. This is what allowed for Tony Douglas to take the offensive foul.
The Wizards’ buzzer beater against the Hornets wasn’t the only game winning shot of the night. In the other gym, Pooh Jeter and the Cleveland Cavaliers were able to get a game winner of their own. Unlike the Wizards’ winner, the Cavs were able to get their best shooter a wide open look for a game-winning three:
When the ball gets tossed to the trigger man, Pooh Jeter comes down and set a brush screen for Marquis Gilstrap. Gilstrap come out can receives the basketball from the inbounder Aaron Jackson. After the quick screen, Jeter floats out towards the corner.
When the regular season starts, not many people are going to remember the buzzer beater that took place during the Wizards’ game against the Hornets, but that doesn’t mean you can’t learn from it. Lester Hudson’s game winning shot showed how important a second option can be when running set plays late in games. Off the top of my head, I can think of a number of sideline out of bounds plays that fail because their is only one option for the man inbounding the ball, and the result is usually a turnover or a bad shot. Here, with the first option taken away, the Wizards’ simply moved on to option #2 and ended up winning the game:
This play is initially run to either get Cartier Martin an open shot on the curl off of a Javale McGee brush screen (he doesn’t really get set for the screen, they just rub off of each other) or to hit McGee on a backdoor lob.
Despite Jordan Hill’s struggles during his short stint with the Knicks, Jordan Hill came to Houston and played better with the increased amount of minutes. While he didn’t set the world on fire, Hill’s averages of 6.4 points and 5 rebounds a game was a vast improvement over what he did in New York, and Hill is looking to build off that improvement this upcoming season, however, he might not get the minutes to do so. Yao Ming looking to return for training camp and Patrick Patterson (who with Scola returning has a chance at being the first big off of the bench) being drafted Hill is going to have to earn his minutes, and if Summer League is any indication, he might not be seeing the court too much this year.
Jordan Hill’s biggest problem offensively seems to be his inability to get a good look after he receives the ball in the post with his back to the basket. He was so raw offensively coming out of college, and it seems (at least to me) that he still hasn’t done any back to the basket work. Hill doesn’t know how to use his combination of size and strength in the post to his advantage just yet:
Here, Jordan Hill makes the catch in a pretty good spot. Defending him is the Suns’ second round pick, Gani Lawal. Lawal probably is equal to Hill in terms of strength, but when it comes to quickness/athletic ability, that favors Hill. Hill doesn’t exploit this advantage, and instead he tries to improve his position by muscling Lawal with two shots to the body. He doesn’t get anywhere, and instead of trying a spin move to the baseline (which is there, and with Hill’s quickness advantage it would work) he settles for a fall-away hook over his left shoulder. Not a high percentage shot.
Two games in a row, the Milwaukee Bucks’ Summer League team faced similar late game defensive situations. With under a second left, the Bucks’ opponent had the ball on a sideline out of bounds play, and on both occasions the Bucks allowed their opponent to score a game-winning/game-tying bucket (This doesn’t count the basket that Rodrigue Beaubois hit from an ISO set with .7 seconds left to win the Bucks-Mavs game in overtime). Both times, it was due to a defensive blunder, and both times it cost them the game:
Bucks vs. Mavs
With 0.3 seconds left, the Bucks were holding onto a 2 point lead. Here, there is just enough time for a catch and shoot, but more than likely the opposing team would be running a play right at the rim:
As the ball gets to the trigger man, J.R. Giddens gets a staggered double screen set for him from the two Dallas Mavericks’ bigs. These screens are set so Giddens can curl around the screens and get freed up by at least one of the screens.
One thing that a rookie big struggles to pick up when they come from college to the pros is passing. This is because the ways that teams send doubles are different and more complicated, there is more ball pressure, and the defenders are bigger/quicker. However, DeMarcus Cousins looks very comfortable identifying defenses and making the correct pass in the half court. Cousins was only credited with one assist during his debut, but he showed the type of instincts you don’t usually see as a rookie, let alone a 19 year old rookie:
Cousins makes his first catch as a professional just a few steps away from the block. Instead of rushing the move, he lets the play develop and allows for the passer to cut through, clearing out an easy double team. Cousins then takes what I like to call a “bait dribble.” If you watch the video again, you can see the man who eventually doubles kind of floating, and then as soon as Cousins puts the ball on the floor, the double team comes. This is because most NBA teams like to double team on the first dribble the big man takes, and DeMarcus Cousins knows this. The dribble that Cousins takes isn’t to make a move or better his position, it’s to draw the double team so he can kick the ball to an open teammate. It works, as the defense is forced to rotate, but the Kings can’t knock down the open shot. This is really impressive to me because there are bigs that have been in the league for years that struggle with this concept, and here is Cousins getting it right on his first touch in the pros.
