calumnus said:
SFCityBear said:
HoopDreams said:
SFCityBear said:
HoopDreams said:
Thanks for the post. Adding a some points:
Agree Kelly needs to be ALLOWED to shoot the 15 footer AND the three. He obviously doesn't have the green light for those shots but he's capable and we need his offense
Brown needs to slow down on offense, by improving his ball handling, and more Hesitation moves. Right now he tries to use his quickness to drive, but he doesn't finish well over rim protectors and ends up with no where to go
Lars needs to strengthen his low body so he can move better. His upside will mainly be his defense and rebounding. We should not try to run the offense through him.
Celestine and Jared need to get healthy
Monty needs to get healthy and be a shooter scorer and defender. Maybe too much to ask but he showed flashes in limited minutes
Foreman is too one dimensional as a 3 point specialist, but his percentages we too low for the number of shots he took. We will have fewer shooters this year, but the number of shots should drop anyway. He needs to be able to score off the bounce to expand too be less one dimensional but given his size he needs to practice his tear drop a hundred shots a day
HearstMining said:
On the Playing Out the String thread, Big C talked about finding some hope and meaning (implicitly, for Cal basketball - I'm sure his life in general is full of both) and I immediately started thinking about adding specific hopes but that wandered from the topic, so I'm starting this new thread. I'm not thinking about the larger picture (recruiting, coaching direction, institutional support, etc), that's too depressing. I'm thinking about players and maybe tactics for the upcoming season. Several Many of you are better analysts than I, so what are your thoughts?
Andre Kelly - Along with improved endurance, I want to see some muscle definition on this guy! The weight room and maybe some plyometrics to improve his vertical and quickness. His jump hook works against guys who are 6'-9" or less, maybe he needs a short turnaround shot to his right as a complement. I think he could step out and hit a 12-15ft jumper, too.
Joel Brown - Free-throw form needs a complete rebuild. Develop a floater to use once he's in the key. Play better defense with his body, he's quick enough to do it.
Lars T - As with Kelly, improve quickness. Maybe more focus on offensive rebounding and less on getting the ball on the block and shooting because he clearly has no idea what to do when he gets that pass down low.
Jalen Celestine - Like the Loch Ness Monster, he appears long enough to get people intrigued then ZIP - he submerges. Based on what we've seen, if he gets stronger, maybe the rest takes care of itself.
Jarred Hyder - He didn't appear to be mentally or physically ready to play PAC12 basketball, so improved mental focus and a stronger upper body should be on his to-do list. Needs to become a more useful passer - it seemed like he either passed as a bail-out when he couldn't get a shot off or just a perimeter pass to another guard that initiated nothing. The team needs him to improve his outside shot (and shot selection) but I don't know if his current form really works. Maybe it can - us old f@rts remember Jamal Wilkes' unorthodox jumper!
Overall - SFCity, if he reads this, will immediately think, "Wait! You didn't mention assists!" Fair enough - I think there will be more assists if the players have additional options on offense. Defenders overplayed the pass like crazy and yet nobody ever went backdoor. Likewise, I hardly saw any off-ball or weak-side screens. Lots of poorly executed ball screens, though!
Defensively, I thought Cal generally played a lousy zone, which should improve with a full practice schedule. I know Cal's 3pt defense was abysmal, was it a problem with scheme or execution?
Mostly all good points. Why would you want Kelly shooting threes? If you throw out his first year where he had only 3 attempts, and last year, where he had none, he has shot threes at only 25%. Kelly is not even a good free throw shooter yet. I don't mind him shooting a 10-15 footer, but it will take him away from the basket, and he is the best rebounder in the rotation so that weakens our rebounding. And if he doesn't make a good percentage away from the basket, no one will come out to guard him, will they? Then you are playing 4 on 5.
As for Foreman, his percentage dropped when he came to Cal. I think he is too short and not skilled enough to score much on the drive. What about having him shoot 12 footers off the glass from behind a double screen, like Jorge, Cobbs, and Crabbe used to do? Maybe a play like that is too complicated for Fox, I don't know, but I think such a play might be made to order for Foreman.
fair point, but I don't know where are scoring will come from, and we lost 2 three point shooters, and gained zero.
If I can learn a floater, Foreman can learn a footer
You are right about the scoring. I think Fox will have to find a way to get the team to play more efficiently with better shot selection. As for three point shooting, last season some players took too many three point attempts, and turned out to be poor or below average shooters. I am thinking of Kuany, Hyder, and Foreman. Some players who shot threes at a higher percentage, but took very few attempts. These are Celestine and Brown. The obvious strategy would be for Kuany, Hyder, and Foreman to limit their three point attempts, cut them down, and have Celestine and Brown (our best returning three-point shooters, percentage-wise) increase their number of attempts. Foreman can make threes, but he needs to be more selective, and take only open ones. Celestine has a shooting percentage double that of Hyder and Kuany, so he should be shooting more threes than either of them, until they prove they can make them. Celestine's attempts will go up naturally, because he will be a starter. Last season, he averaged only 12 minutes. Brown has a very unorthodox stroke, but if he keeps making them at a .387 clip, he needs to increase his attempts. Anticevich shoots threes well enough, but he could increase his attempts by one or two per game.
The other point is we need better scoring from the mid-range and inside, to where we don't need to fill the air with three point shots. This means more playmaking, and I don't know if Fox or the team is up to the task. I think Grant needs to take the 12-15 footer, and he needs to develop an aggressive and effective drive. He doesn't take the ball to the basket. We need to feature Kelly in deep more, and Lars and Thorpe will need to develop some scoring ability. Shepherd seems to be able to score without making threes. We don't know what Bowser can do. They are listing Roberson as a Shooting Guard, so presumably he can shoot a bit. Alajiki's tape showed an ability to do lots of things, so he may be able to add some scoring. Don't know about Anyanwu. but I'd guess he would be a better scorer inside than Lars, Thorpe, and maybe Kuany.
As for Kuany, and for everyone really, this will be the first full summer that Fox and his staff have had to work the players hard in between seasons. And Fox has said that is the most important time for coaches to teach and give players the work to improve. For most players, the 3rd and 4th year is when players make a jump in their progress, but that is usually three full summers of work, and for many of these players it will be their first and only full season of summer work with the team. I hope Fox was right, and I hope he has some success this summer and this season, and can get the boo-birds off his back for a while. On the minus side, shooting is a tough thing to teach. Only a few players can learn to shoot when they are adults or almost adults. Good shooters are usually born not made. That is why the rest of the game, the playmaking, the defense, the rebounding is so important when you don't have great shooters. Open shots make for more scoring.
Kuany was 3 of 15 from three which is bad, but the year before he was 5 of 14 which is pretty good. The bottom line is 15 shots over 29 games is not a lot of shots. Even good shooters like to get in rhythm, so it is tough to conclude he is good or bad. Not sure he will play more as the guys that played ahead of him are all back, plus we add Anywanu. I'm not sure Fox would consider Kuany for the 3, he tends to follow convention.
The vast number of threes taken last year were by Betley and Bradley, who are of course gone. Someone will have to shoot in their place. Celestine is obvious. Who else remains a mystery, but this year I'd like to see the guys that are making a good percentage take more shots and the guys who aren't stop shooting so much.
I don't follow the logic. You say that Kuany does not have much of a sample with only 29 three point attempts in his career, and that is to small to judge whether he can shoot well enough. But then you say that it is obvious that Celestine can shoot threes well enough, but he has had the same career sample size as Kuany, 29 attempts. Celestine could just as easily come out this season and shoot .200, so we really don't know for sure about either player's ability yet. And it is true that shooters like to get in rhythm, but it is also true that good shooters are the ones who are ALLOWED to get in rhythm. If you are key starter playing 35 minutes like Bradley, you will get 6-9 attempts maybe, and will have a good chance to get in rhythm. Part-time players like Kuany, off the bench, will come in cold and if they miss one or two threes, they will usually get pulled from the game, unless they are needed more for other purposes.
I came off the bench most of my high school career. I was not a good athlete. I realized that if I got into a game, I would need to do something good or special to warrant the coach leaving me in the game. I could do one thing well, and that was shooting long range bombs. In those days, nobody guarded anyone beyond the perimeter, because even at 30 feet, it was still only a two-point shot. I practiced thousands of those shots. I was determined to make my first shot count, and most of the time I did, and I kept getting more playing time, until I was made a starter. I was scoring enough, that I started getting fouled a lot, so I also worked hard to make my free throws, and I shot those at over 90%. I rarely had no more than one or two FTAs in a game, so no chance to get in rhythm. What I am saying is that it is not as much a matter of getting in rhythm, it is more a matter of thousands of practice shots, leading to the confidence that you can make that first shot, and if you can make that first one, you can make more of them. For me it was desperation, because if I didn't make that first shot, I might not see the court again for days or weeks.
I like Celestine and Kuany shooting the three. Celestine, however, is a complete basketball player with lots of court experience, while Kuany is still a raw talent learning the game. As I remember, Kuany seemed to take most of his attempts from the corners. That is a more difficult shot than taking it from top of the key and left or right side. In the corner you need better vision or better concentration, because you don't have the backboard in your field of view. There may be fans on the far side moving in your line of sight to distract you. It is still a very makeable shot, but needs more game experience to perfect it.
Are you saying that Anyanwu is a three point shooter? If so, he might help, but bear in mind he won't be making as many buckets at Cal as he did in high school. He averaged 16 points last season. Jaylen Brown averaged 28 in high school, 14 at Cal. Ivan Rabb, 24 in high school, 12 at Cal. The D1 game is faster, played against better defenders, and better athletes than they played against in high school.
When you say Betley and Bradley "took the vast number of threes" you keep leaving Foreman out of the conversation. On a per 40 minute basis, Foreman was Cal's Champion Chucker, with 9.3 three point attempts, followed by Betley at 8.0 and Bradley way behind at 6.6. The only reason Betley had more total attempts than Foreman was that he played 200 more minutes than Foreman. Bradley played only 65 more minutes than Foreman.
SFCityBear
