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By the way, since Tyus went down and Deni had to take on more PG duties, he has averaged:

19.7 points, 9.4 rebounds, 4.8 assists, and a .612 TS% in 12 games.

The most pleasant thing for me other than the stats Nate33 is showing is his ball handling.

I'm taking a very close look on his ball handling the entire season, and while I didn't expect him to reach the ultimate level this season, what I hoped to see is at least some flashes of someone who it is possible for him to turn to be a primary ball handler/creator. I feel he has shown those flashes.

Example from the last game against the Bulls:

https://thehighlow.io/video/ids?ids=24bOXm

Yep, this play ended with a turn over, but take a close look at the 0:02 mark, the behind the back dribble here is as tighten as I've ever seen from him. He looks totally in control, while in the past when he dribbled like that behind the back you got the feeling it doesn't look natural at all. Small step in the right direction.

How much we've been talking about using a body hesitation then going left? LeBron made it a signature move of him. Here is Deni listening and implementing:

https://thehighlow.io/video/ids?ids=24Ri1Z

Ball handling in traffic:

He still tends to dribble too high usually, but he has shown a few flashes of dribbling low like you seeing from natural primary ball handlers:

https://thehighlow.io/video/ids?ids=241oju

There is a correlation between his skill improvement and his stats improvement.

And he can still improve on a lot of stuff, skill wise and mentality wise.

Bill Simmons had Deni as his 2nd most improved player on his ballot after Coby White.

Kanyewest wrote:Bill Simmons had Deni as his 2nd most improved player on his ballot after Coby White.

I'm glad he is getting the recognition he deserves. Avdija's improvement over the 2nd half of the year is honestly worthy of being 1st in MIP, but over the first half of the year, his improvement was more modest, so I don't begrudge Coby White ahead of him.

How has Coby White improved this year?

Yes, he's scored 4.5 more points per 40 minutes -- but at a lower efg% & TS% as compared to '22-23.
Yes, his assists are up, but so are his turnovers. & his steals are down.

Overall, his numbers are no better than the previous year, maybe a little worse if anything..... Has he become a better defender?

Deni has improved substantially. He's a great candidate for MIP -- though, in fairness, there are probably other candidates I'm not aware of.

payitforward wrote:How has Coby White improved this year?

Yes, he's scored 4.5 more points per 40 minutes -- but at a lower efg% & TS% as compared to '22-23.
Yes, his assists are up, but so are his turnovers. & his steals are down.

Overall, his numbers are no better than the previous year, maybe a little worse if anything..... Has he become a better defender?

Deni has improved substantially. He's a great candidate for MIP -- though, in fairness, there are probably other candidates I'm not aware of.

He made a pretty massive jump in usage from 17.9% as a bench guy to 22.7% as a starter, and did so with no drop-off in efficiency. His TS% is basically the same (.572 to .570) and his ORtg improved incrementally (113 to 115). Yeah, his turnovers are up, but so are his assists.

But I think one of the biggest differences is that he is doing it against starting caliber competition and is closing out games as a primary option scorer.

payitforward wrote:How has Coby White improved this year?

Yes, he's scored 4.5 more points per 40 minutes -- but at a lower efg% & TS% as compared to '22-23.
Yes, his assists are up, but so are his turnovers. & his steals are down.

Overall, his numbers are no better than the previous year, maybe a little worse if anything..... Has he become a better defender?

Deni has improved substantially. He's a great candidate for MIP -- though, in fairness, there are probably other candidates I'm not aware of.

Yes he has improved a lot if you watch the games. He just had a very good game in the play in. Unfortunately Deni may never participate in the play in or playoffs in a wizard uniform.

payitforward wrote:How has Coby White improved this year?

Yes, he's scored 4.5 more points per 40 minutes -- but at a lower efg% & TS% as compared to '22-23.
Yes, his assists are up, but so are his turnovers. & his steals are down.

Overall, his numbers are no better than the previous year, maybe a little worse if anything..... Has he become a better defender?

Deni has improved substantially. He's a great candidate for MIP -- though, in fairness, there are probably other candidates I'm not aware of.

Ryen Russillo brought this up as a potential argument for Colby White for MIP on the Bill Simmons podcast- although he had Maxey as number 1 IIRC. He was wondering why Simmons was using that argument against Maxey and not White on his ballot.

Deni finished 6th in MIP voting (1 * 1st + 5 * 2nd + 4 * 3rd = 24 points, just 1 point from top-5)

doclinkin wrote:

Watch on YouTube

Man, that guy sounds like he must be a frequent visitor to this message board. He nailed all the things we have said about Deni for the past two months. He really hit hard in the last 2 minutes of the video pointing out how much better and more efficient Deni is than Kuzma and Poole; and that it's inexplicable that the Wizards haven't found a way to distribute more possessions to Deni.

It's interesting that he tied the jump in Deni's production to the departure of Gafford. Chronologically, that may be accurate on a per game basis, but I don't really think there's much of a cause-effect relationship. In reality his jump in production started much earlier - on December 29th to be exact. Prior to December 29th, he was averaging 11.0 points, 5.5 boards and 3.8 assists at a .578 TS% in 26.8 minutes. But then a switch turned on and he just figured things out. For the next 20 games, his production jumped to 14.8 points, 7.2 boards and 3.8 assists at a .619 TS% despite only increasing his minutes to 28.0. Finally, starting February 9th, in Keefe's 8th game as a coach, they made the decision to boost his minutes. For the rest of the season, he averaged 18.9 points, 9.3 rebounds and 3.8 assists at a .597 TS% in 35.6 minutes a night. But that's really just the same production as in January, but with more minutes.

One interesting factoid in that video: Deni apparently has shot 48% from the corner 3 this year. I didn't know that.

nate33 wrote:

doclinkin wrote:

Watch on YouTube

Man, that guy sounds like he must be a frequent visitor to this message board. He nailed all the things we have said about Deni for the past two months. He really hit hard in the last 2 minutes of the video pointing out how much better and more efficient Deni is than Kuzma and Poole; and that it's inexplicable that the Wizards haven't found a way to distribute more possessions to Deni.

It's interesting that he tied the jump in Deni's production to the departure of Gafford. Chronologically, that may be accurate on a per game basis, but I don't really think there's much of a cause-effect relationship. In reality his jump in production started much earlier - on December 29th to be exact. Prior to December 29th, he was averaging 11.0 points, 5.5 boards and 3.8 assists at a .578 TS% in 26.8 minutes. But then a switch turned on and he just figured things out. For the next 20 games, his production jumped to 14.8 points, 7.2 boards and 3.8 assists at a .619 TS% despite only increasing his minutes to 28.0. Finally, starting February 9th, in Keefe's 8th game as a coach, they made the decision to boost his minutes. For the rest of the season, he averaged 18.9 points, 9.3 rebounds and 3.8 assists at a .597 TS% in 35.6 minutes a night. But that's really just the same production as in January, but with more minutes.

One interesting factoid in that video: Deni apparently has shot 48% from the corner 3 this year. I didn't know that.

Regarding corner threes, that was another thing at times of the season where he would be parked in the corner to let Kuzma and Poole do their thing, and they'd still refuse to pass him the ball when he often would have likely had really good looks.

But yeah, his three really improved this season, he used to be terrible at corner threes if you look at his first three years compared to the rest of the league. His three percentage came down toward the end of the year when he looked like he was starting to experiment with taking a lot more off the dribble, that were well defended, and taking step backs. He didn't make many if memory serves, but I was okay with him working on the facet of this his game given the timing in the season.

Mechanics and confidence on it just looked so much better. Less slumping after a miss I think was key, all about mentality with him.

The "Most Worsened Player" award goes to Jordan Poole.

Edited to add: Actually, overall JP was pretty consistent statistically to previous seasons, but his horrific start was embarrassing.

CntOutSmrtCrazy wrote:

nate33 wrote:

doclinkin wrote:

Watch on YouTube

Man, that guy sounds like he must be a frequent visitor to this message board. He nailed all the things we have said about Deni for the past two months. He really hit hard in the last 2 minutes of the video pointing out how much better and more efficient Deni is than Kuzma and Poole; and that it's inexplicable that the Wizards haven't found a way to distribute more possessions to Deni.

It's interesting that he tied the jump in Deni's production to the departure of Gafford. Chronologically, that may be accurate on a per game basis, but I don't really think there's much of a cause-effect relationship. In reality his jump in production started much earlier - on December 29th to be exact. Prior to December 29th, he was averaging 11.0 points, 5.5 boards and 3.8 assists at a .578 TS% in 26.8 minutes. But then a switch turned on and he just figured things out. For the next 20 games, his production jumped to 14.8 points, 7.2 boards and 3.8 assists at a .619 TS% despite only increasing his minutes to 28.0. Finally, starting February 9th, in Keefe's 8th game as a coach, they made the decision to boost his minutes. For the rest of the season, he averaged 18.9 points, 9.3 rebounds and 3.8 assists at a .597 TS% in 35.6 minutes a night. But that's really just the same production as in January, but with more minutes.

One interesting factoid in that video: Deni apparently has shot 48% from the corner 3 this year. I didn't know that.

Regarding corner threes, that was another thing at times of the season where he would be parked in the corner to let Kuzma and Poole do their thing, and they'd still refuse to pass him the ball when he often would have likely had really good looks.

But yeah, his three really improved this season, he used to be terrible at corner threes if you look at his first three years compared to the rest of the league. His three percentage came down toward the end of the year when he looked like he was starting to experiment with taking a lot more off the dribble, that were well defended, and taking step backs. He didn't make many if memory serves, but I was okay with him working on the facet of this his game given the timing in the season.

Mechanics and confidence on it just looked so much better. Less slumping after a miss I think was key, all about mentality with him.

Yep. Previous year he hit not great 33.9% on corner 3, and year before... 26.6% which was really bad. This year 48.4% (all on quite similar volume)

By the way I wouldn't say that Deni "didn't make many". In 32 games under Keefe he took 45 pull-ups 3PA, and connected on 15 - 33.3 % is not really that horrible...

CntOutSmrtCrazy wrote:His three percentage came down toward the end of the year when he looked like he was starting to experiment with taking a lot more off the dribble, that were well defended, and taking step backs. He didn't make many if memory serves, but I was okay with him working on the facet of this his game given the timing in the season.

I'm very much in favor of him working on the step-back 3. Given his slashing ability, the step-back is the perfect setup-move for him. If defenders are forced to guard him close to challenge the step-back, they won't be able to stop his drive. It could realistically make him a primary offensive threat, or at least a #2 option.