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:

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.

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Ever since he was sent down to the D-League, Hasheem Thabeet became the butt of many jokes (fair or not).  I thought it would be interesting to take a look at him and his game.  We are going to look at two plays from the Dakota Wizards’ (Thabeet’s team) 104-102 win against the LA Defenders (A game where Thabeet put up 14 and 8 – but with 4 fouls).

I think that the Wizards have done a pretty good job of getting the ball to Thabeet where he can just catch and go up with it.  Everyone knows that Thabeet is raw, so if he can get the ball right at the basket, he can use his size advantage to finish at the rim:

On this play, the Wizards are working in transition, with Thabeet getting out in front of everyone.

The Wizards’ point guard does a great job of lobbing it in to Thabeet, allowing him to use his size to make the catch and finish at the rim.

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