DuckIII wrote:And Ayo still defers too much in the second half of games, but when he’s looking for his you can see real improvement he’s making in his change of pace, change of direction drives. Quicker and tighter, a little more herky-jerky. A little more like Coby actually.
On a side note, I spent the post-Jordan and pre-Thibs years watching more soccer than hoops. Very similar sports, in many ways. One of the things I learned when watching soccer was that fancy plays like stepovers and nutmegs captured the fans' attention, but what actually beat people in high-level games were hesitations and change of pace. Messi didn't need tricks. He combined extreme body and ball control with constant misdirection. Get the defender slightly off balance and then head the other way. That is how to beat people.
Which is what I noticed when returning to watching hoops. I mean, sure, crossovers are fun and they sometimes work. But Lance Stevenson is not the answer. Luka Doncic is.
Which is the long way of saying that yes, Coby gets it and Ayo is starting to get there, too. So, by the way, does Caitlin Clark. People talk first about her shooting and second about her passing, which are both great, but what they never seem to discuss is how she can beat her mark off the dribble, getting to the hole. It's all about the hesitation. She's constantly threatening the defender by slowing down, thereby suggesting that she will pull up for the midrange. Then the defender also slows and she blows by her mark.
SGA does that too. You need the mid-range threat to pull that off.
