You've been hired by Billy Donovan

[Ontario]

Hypothetical situation:

You've been hired as an assistant coach for the team and put in charge of a single project.... How to maximize Enes Kanter's talents, (He does have them).

We all know the contract sucks, we all know the defense sucks we all sort of know that off-loading Enes is the next logical step for the team to move forward.... but lets put all of that aside and for the time that he actually is a Thunder player figure out what we can do to make him a net positive asset for the team. (Any minutes that net something positive from Enes is gravy in terms of winning and actually lifting his market value off the ground gets him that much faster out the door).

Your ideas... Go.

[oken]

Find a psychologist and try to make him understand that defense is a necessary "thing".
If that's not successful then I would secretly try to hypnotize him to make him think he is the second coming of David Robinson.
The third option is to ask his spiritual mentor Gulen to personally attend his games and scold him if he doesn't defend properly.

[spearsy23]

Give him minutes with Russ and shooters. Spam pick and roll.

[Kizz Fastfists]

Treat him like the kids in the movie Hoosiers. Nothing but running and defensive drills. No shooting, no scrimmaging and no touching a basketball. If he doesn't give effort on defense he doesn't get in a game for a week and that whole week he gets 3 hours of running and defensive drills a day. If there is a road trip he doesn't get to do. You might tank his trade value, but when he realizes that you are telling every team he is so bad he isn't worth traveling with the team he'll see his future money going away and suddenly become the best possible player he can be.

[spearsy23]

Effort isnt his problem.

[Pillendreher]

Effort isnt his problem.

His problem is avoiding contact. He's actively going out of his way to not defend properly.

[retrobro90]

Effort isnt his problem.

His problem is avoiding contact. He's actively going out of his way to not defend properly.

I actually think Kanter doesn't mind the physicality part. I think he plays with a lot of nervous adrenaline but it actually makes him better guarding, rebounding, and scoring in traffic. His problem seems to just be that he's

1. Not quick enough to contain on the PnR/perimeter.

2. Not explosive enough to protect the rim.

And

3. Not smart enough to know where to be in space.

[hardenASG13]

Play him in offensive lineups. He has heavy feet defensively , but wb/abrines/george/patterson and kanter would kill offensively, and the other team would have to have a big out there to guard kanter. He would feast on dump offs and offensive rebounds with that lineup.

Even russ/roberson/george/patterson and kanter could be great in spurts, as Roberson PG and patterson, combined with a hopefully improved on defense (he needs to) Westbrook could all be active off traps or switches and provide lots of versatility.

He should almost always be in with either Russ or George, so as he isn't the go to option. He's very good as a second, and could be a monster as a third.

Strategy wise, try to hide him in a zone, or blitz pnr and rely on guys like Roberson, george, westbrook, grant, and patterson to scramble when the ball is passed out of the trap. Hopefully a few other minor pieces will be added as well.

[Pillendreher]

Play him in offensive lineups.

This is actually a decent idea. Just maximize what he does best and run with it. The same thing we should be doing with DMD imo.

[Ontario]

I went back over Kanter's history with the team and he was a beast for us the rest of the year after he was first acquired, I bet he can do that again. At the time Ibaka and Kevin were starting with him so he had a phenomenal defensive 4 and lots of big man length defensively from his SF, I feel we can kind of recreate that if we let Kanter start with Adams at the 4 initially.

I can hear shouts about spacing already

If we went with Westbrook/Roberson/George/Adams/Kanter we could focus on getting Kanter off to a good start with some much easier offense then posting up against a double team every time.

Then we could do a quick sub half way through the first to bring Patterson and his floor spacing out for the starters.

Kanter could then also anchor the bench offensively in a stretch system Felton/Abrines/McDermott/Patterson/Kanter... I feel Felton already will be a key to having a much more fluid bench offense this year.

Anyways Kanter is likely going to be our third leading scorer this year, something like this could move his minutes up from the 21 he averaged last year to the 28 or so range and get him more involved and possibly a higher profile around the league.

I feel we could make playing big a thing again, so much of the league is going small and fielding Kanter and Adams on the floor together terrible against Houston and Golden State,(whom we can game plan for accordingly), but that's only 1/10th of the regular season the 8 games we will play against those guys.

Westbrook and George will get theirs either way... if something like this could bring Enes back to a 20/10 guy night in and night out I think we would become really scary.

[RalphSampsonJr]

Play him in offensive lineups. He has heavy feet defensively , but wb/abrines/george/patterson and kanter would kill offensively, and the other team would have to have a big out there to guard kanter. He would feast on dump offs and offensive rebounds with that lineup.

Even russ/roberson/george/patterson and kanter could be great in spurts, as Roberson PG and patterson, combined with a hopefully improved on defense (he needs to) Westbrook could all be active off traps or switches and provide lots of versatility.

He should almost always be in with either Russ or George, so as he isn't the go to option. He's very good as a second, and could be a monster as a third.

Strategy wise, try to hide him in a zone, or blitz pnr and rely on guys like Roberson, george, westbrook, grant, and patterson to scramble when the ball is passed out of the trap. Hopefully a few other minor pieces will be added as well.

Hiding him is nearly impossible against certain teams. Pick and roll is pretty much the center of every teams offense these days so they will just force switches and take him to the rim.
I like the idea of just using him in a lineup that will just try match offense with offense though. He can really dominate down there when he has a miss match so why not take advantage.
If you put him next to Grant you might be able to get away with it with certain teams as Grant has the ability to come over to help with those crazy swats he does.
For someone with amazing footwork on offense it's hard to see why he is so bad at moving his feet on D.
Sadly he will never be able to be hidden on offense against elite teams

[RalphSampsonJr]

Hidden on defense I mean

[ThunderBolt]

The problem with putting Kanter in an all offensive lineup is his weak passing skills. If he could ever learn to pass out of a double team then I could see the justification for him at times. As it stands he can rebound well but his only move is to go to work when he gets the ball.

[Ontario]

The problem with putting Kanter in an all offensive lineup is his weak passing skills. If he could ever learn to pass out of a double team then I could see the justification for him at times. As it stands he can rebound well but his only move is to go to work when he gets the ball.

I'd wager that has more to do right now with coaching, in a half court offense for the bench he is the shot taker. Felton will help give the bench more balance.

[getrichordie]

Effort isnt his problem.

His problem is avoiding contact. He's actively going out of his way to not defend properly.

I actually think Kanter doesn't mind the physicality part. I think he plays with a lot of nervous adrenaline but it actually makes him better guarding, rebounding, and scoring in traffic. His problem seems to just be that he's

1. Not quick enough to contain on the PnR/perimeter.

2. Not explosive enough to protect the rim.

And

3. Not smart enough to know where to be in space.

Agreed. He struggles against centers and longer athletes because he is a bit of a tweener. He's 267 lbs and only 6'10 with a 7'0 wingspan. He's just an immobile big who isn't long enough to play the 5 against bigger centers and is too big and too slow to stick with a lot of 4s in today's league and make an impact with help-side defense.

My suggestion? Lose 15 lbs and work on lateral quickness and knocking down the corner 3. Play Kanter at the 5 so you can draw the rim protector out and give space to your wings to get to the basket with a minimal contest.

[spearsy23]

The problem with putting Kanter in an all offensive lineup is his weak passing skills. If he could ever learn to pass out of a double team then I could see the justification for him at times. As it stands he can rebound well but his only move is to go to work when he gets the ball.

That's why you pair him with a pick and roll partner. He should rarely be getting the ball on postups, instead let the pg make decisions.

[sleestak33]

Start him and play him about 34 minutes per game which would give him the minutes to become one of only 5 bigs who average 20 points and 10 rebounds (a truly elite group). Continue to work with him defensively in pick and rolls (the only area where he really struggles defensively) and passing out of double teams. You can take a player that's bad defensively and make them better but you're never going to take a terrible shooter that's a bad offensive player and really do anything with them. It makes much more sense to put time and energy into somebody like Kanter who has a tremendous upside.