Deni Avdija

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Wait what? Luka's not a good shooter? Are those 25 foot step-back 3's that he swishes just my imagination?

I think he meant not a good 3-point shooter.... That's fair -- he's at 29% this year on a lot of attempts.

Ooops.

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Deni took 47 threes last season with Maccabi over the course of 26 games and was a 27.7% shooter. he's taken 45 threes over the course of 14 games in the NBA and is a deadeye 46.7% so there's an equally large sample saying he's a good shooter as there is saying he's a bad shooter, and the good-shooting survey is the more recent one.

For comparison, Luka is not a good shooter (despite his volume). The year before the NBA he was a 28% shooter in Spain, and he's proven to be a ~30% shooter in the NBA. Through 14 games, Luka was at 39% shooting his rookie year (inflated by a pair of 4/6 shooting nights).

Deni's numbers are juiced by a 4/7 night, a 7/15 night, and going 5/6 and 5/9 in the last two.

All of this is to say... idk.

He tweaked his form. So Macabi numbers are irrelevant.

[FAH1223]

Deni and Rui are the bright spots beyond Beal's insane scoring this season

I had low expectations on Deni but he needs the ball more and more shots. Let him playmake a little.

[pancakes3]

he just needs more experience. he is pretty wild w his dribble and control to be an effective playmaker but he's already proven to be an excellent secondary playmaker. when beal/wb drives and kicks to him and the defense is in disarray, he's great at putting it on the floor or making the pass but he's not great at being the initiator and he's not great at running the break. but yeah, the tools are there. he just needs reps to learn what he's capable of and what he's not.

[youngWizzy]

Adding this here

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[jangles86]

He’s got plenty of upside. Will need to hit the gym and get a lot stronger I believe.
Only shooting 54% from free throws isn’t helping his value to the team. But overall definitely a lot more talent then Troy Brown Jnr and can see Brown being offloaded very soon.

[Ruzious]

He needs to improve a ton - and that's to be expected given his age. His defense is awful, his ball-handling is sloppy - though he's gotten away with that so far, his shooting doesn't look confident, and his foul shooting is unacceptable. His passing is excellent.

[Frichuela]

He needs to improve a ton - and that's to be expected given his age. His defense is awful, his ball-handling is sloppy - though he's gotten away with that so far, his shooting doesn't look confident, and his foul shooting is unacceptable. His passing is excellent.

Agreed but I would not say his defense is awful. He is probably one of the best defenders in the team..which does not say much!

According to Kevin Broom, LaVine only shot 3-10 when Deni defended last night.

[Ruzious]

He needs to improve a ton - and that's to be expected given his age. His defense is awful, his ball-handling is sloppy - though he's gotten away with that so far, his shooting doesn't look confident, and his foul shooting is unacceptable. His passing is excellent.

Agreed but I would not say his defense is awful. He is probably one of the best defenders in the team..which does not say much!

According to Kevin Broom, LaVine only shot 3-10 when Deni defended last night.

Good observation. That makes sense, because LaVine loves to pull up and shoot over smaller players - like Beal. Maybe it makes sense to use Avdija on that type of player. We'd give up fewer easy 3's.

[2Fluffy4U]

He needs to improve a ton - and that's to be expected given his age. His defense is awful, his ball-handling is sloppy - though he's gotten away with that so far, his shooting doesn't look confident, and his foul shooting is unacceptable. His passing is excellent.

Seriously? His defense his awful? Did you watch a single game this year? He is currently one of the top 3 defensive players in the team IMO and if he is that awful - what does it say about his more experienced teammates? (needless to say the worst def. team in the NBA these days). Feels unfair to me to call him out on D in this situation.

[NatP4]

I think he needs to work on his ball handling primarily, but he’s a solid defender. One of the only decent defenders on this horrible team.

[pancakes3]

it's hard to quantify defense because even if he's great at on-ball defense, or face-guarding a threat like Levine, he can still be deficient from a team perspective (rotations, showing and recovering, doubling, etc.) but what i've noticed, he's pretty good on-ball and perfectly average (no complaints) overall.

plus, defense is dictated by the big man anyway so it's asking a lot for him to be a defensively meaningful player as a wing like Butler, Kawhi, etc.

[FAH1223]

it's hard to quantify defense because even if he's great at on-ball defense, or face-guarding a threat like Levine, he can still be deficient from a team perspective (rotations, showing and recovering, doubling, etc.) but what i've noticed, he's pretty good on-ball and perfectly average (no complaints) overall.

plus, defense is dictated by the big man anyway so it's asking a lot for him to be a defensively meaningful player as a wing like Butler, Kawhi, etc.

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We need to trade Anyone Else. When did we draft that guy?

We should have picked up Anybody But instead -- which is what I said at the time.

[nate33]

it's hard to quantify defense because even if he's great at on-ball defense, or face-guarding a threat like Levine, he can still be deficient from a team perspective (rotations, showing and recovering, doubling, etc.) but what i've noticed, he's pretty good on-ball and perfectly average (no complaints) overall.

plus, defense is dictated by the big man anyway so it's asking a lot for him to be a defensively meaningful player as a wing like Butler, Kawhi, etc.

His on-ball defense is average, which is better than everyone else on the team save Bonga and perhaps Hachimura and Beal. His off ball instincts are really good, but he is also inexperienced and often makes mistakes on rotations. So overall, I'd say his off ball defense is below average but with the potential to be above average with experience.

[Ruzious]

He needs to improve a ton - and that's to be expected given his age. His defense is awful, his ball-handling is sloppy - though he's gotten away with that so far, his shooting doesn't look confident, and his foul shooting is unacceptable. His passing is excellent.

Seriously? His defense his awful? Did you watch a single game this year? He is currently one of the top 3 defensive players in the team IMO and if he is that awful - what does it say about his more experienced teammates? (needless to say the worst def. team in the NBA these days). Feels unfair to me to call him out on D in this situation.

So because the rest of the team is awful defensively, I shouldn't mention that he is, too. Got it.

[2Fluffy4U]

He needs to improve a ton - and that's to be expected given his age. His defense is awful, his ball-handling is sloppy - though he's gotten away with that so far, his shooting doesn't look confident, and his foul shooting is unacceptable. His passing is excellent.

Seriously? His defense his awful? Did you watch a single game this year? He is currently one of the top 3 defensive players in the team IMO and if he is that awful - what does it say about his more experienced teammates? (needless to say the worst def. team in the NBA these days). Feels unfair to me to call him out on D in this situation.

So because the rest of the team is awful defensively, I shouldn't mention that he is, too. Got it.

You are correct. My apologies, I will clarify and rephrase:
Beacause Deni is Top D player in this awful def. team IMO - he shouldn't be the one being faulted or called for as a rookie regarding that specific aspect. He does need to improve all around - but D is nit the issue. IMO if Longbardy had any idea what D is - things could look better for all..

[Dat2U]

He needs to improve a ton - and that's to be expected given his age. His defense is awful, his ball-handling is sloppy - though he's gotten away with that so far, his shooting doesn't look confident, and his foul shooting is unacceptable. His passing is excellent.

Seriously? His defense his awful? Did you watch a single game this year? He is currently one of the top 3 defensive players in the team IMO and if he is that awful - what does it say about his more experienced teammates? (needless to say the worst def. team in the NBA these days). Feels unfair to me to call him out on D in this situation.

So because the rest of the team is awful defensively, I shouldn't mention that he is, too. Got it.

He's a typical rookie. Surpringly his individual defense shows he's capable of defending wings but he's not good or experienced enough yet to not fall into the bad habits that the rest of our guys have.

I'm more concerned about his aggressiveness offensively but I figure alot of that is playing with two ball dominant guys that mostly look for their own.

[Halcyon]

The statement "His defense is awful" is just inaccurate. Sorry

[Ruzious]

The statement "His defense is awful" is just inaccurate. Sorry

I'm sorry that his defense is awful. Let's watch the next couple of games and get back to that. And count the number of times his teammates yell at him for being out of position.