Here are snippets from The Athletic article
https://theathletic.com/3513297/2022/08/16/deni-avdija-nba-evaluation/Avdija’s strengths
A discussion about the best parts of Avdija’s game at this formative stage of his career should start with his size and versatility, scouts said. The Wizards list him as 6-foot-9 and 210 pounds, and he has alternated rather seamlessly on defense between both forward positions.
Avdija distinguished himself most in 2021-22 as a defender. Unseld asked his players to adopt defensive mindsets, and perhaps no one took that to heart more than wing Kentavious Caldwell-Pope and Avdija, although it’s fair to say that Avdija, like most of his teammates, lost at least some of his defensive focus midway through the season, contributing to the team’s slide.
Avdija’s assignments ranged from Antetokounmpo to Boston Celtics MVP candidate Jayson Tatum to Utah Jazz All-Star Donovan Mitchell to Miami Heat All-Star Jimmy Butler. He even displayed some proficiency when switched onto point guards such as the Charlotte Hornets’ LaMelo Ball.
“I thought his defense was good,” Scout B said. “He got after it. He’s got some versatility defensively. I think he’s a plus defensive player, so that’s a nice piece.”
This video shows Avdija picking up Tatum in the half court, impeding Tatum’s progress and forcing him to take an off-balance jumper within the paint.
This clip from a mid-December victory in Salt Lake City demonstrates Unseld’s faith in Avdija to guard late in a close game. With the Wizards leading by four points with 1:10 remaining in the fourth quarter, Avdija forced Mitchell into taking a difficult reverse, and Mitchell missed the shot. Unseld continued to rely on Avdija against Mitchell down the stretch.
During the 2020 pre-draft process, Scout C had concerns about Avdija’s athleticism and ability to contain quicker perimeter players. But Scout C acknowledged that Avdija has proven to be a better defender than anticipated — so much that the scout considered defense as one of Avdija’s best attributes. That characteristic can keep Avdija on the floor in close games.
Also encouraging for Washington is Avdija’s willingness to play with physicality. In this clip, Avdija absorbs a bump from Antetokounmpo and forces him into a traveling violation.
Two more points should be noted from Avdija’s defense on Antetokounmpo. First, Avdija defended without fouling, which is an area he needs to improve. According to Cleaning the Glass, an advanced analytics website that eliminates garbage-time stats and heaves at the ends of quarters, Avdija committed a defensive foul on 4.2 percent of defensive possessions, placing him in the 19th percentile among forwards. Avdija perhaps deserves a bit of leeway because the statistic does not account for the difficulty of opponents Avdija guarded.
Second, note at the end of the video how Avdija forms an X at the end of the play. The gesture should be considered a positive in one sense: It shows how much pride Avdija takes on the defensive end and how Avdija recognizes the value of quality defense. If his teammates place that level of focus on their defense in the season ahead, the Wizards would be far better off.
Indeed, apart from his defensive-foul percentage, Avdija’s defensive stats are trending well. Per Cleaning the Glass, Avdija ranked in the 93rd percentile in defensive-rebounding percentage among forwards as a rookie and in the 90th percentile as a second-year player. Avdija ranked above average in block percentage.
“To have embraced a defensive mindset from this past year, I think it’s indicative of some good upward mobility,” Scout A said. “I don’t know where the perception is on him, maybe given the expectations on where he was drafted and that sort of thing, but he’s big and he’s a very good defender at a position where teams are looking for defenders.”
Avdija’s not only big. He’s also durable, or at least he was during his second season.
Avdija made a strong recovery after he missed the final 14 regular-season games as a rookie and the 2021 postseason because of a fractured right ankle. In 2021-22, he was one of only five players leaguewide to appear in 82 games, joining Detroit’s Saddiq Bey, Phoenix’s Mikal Bridges, Golden State’s Kevon Looney and Dallas’ Dwight Powell.
“It’s a privilege to play in the NBA, and I feel like me missing a game is leaving my teammates behind, leaving my coaches behind,” Avdija said. “They need me, so I’ll be there for them, you know? Even if I’m not 100 percent, I’m still locked in.”
During the pre-draft process, at least several analysts for news outlets praised Avdija for his passing and playmaking ability. One ESPN writer described Avdija as “big enough to play power forward but has the ballhandling, creativity and playmaking skill of a point guard.” Since North American fans had not watched Avdija during his three professional seasons at Maccabi Tel Aviv, such descriptions raised expectations to a high level. It also did not help that Avdija’s draft class came just two years after Luka Dončić was drafted; though unwarranted and unfair to both players, it was all too easy to make cursory comparisons between the two former EuroLeague players.
Avdija has not come close to Dončić’s high standards as a playmaker — and again, it was unrealistic if anyone thought that Avdija might do so early in his NBA career — but Avdija showed signs of growth last season as a secondary playmaker and as someone who can initiate the offense. His usage rate climbed to slightly above average for a forward, according to Cleaning the Glass, and he ranked in the 68th percentile among forwards in assist percentage.
This clip of Avdija pushing the ball in the open floor and completing a behind-the-back pass, from the March 29 loss to the Chicago Bulls, illustrates his comfort level as a ballhandler.
“When you add a secondary playmaker and guys who can create off the dribble for themselves or for other people — not just having one, but having multiple people on the floor — it gives you a whole different dimension,” Sheppard said. “And that’s where I think Deni showed some progress this year: being able to be one of those type of players.”
Avdija’s weaknesses
Unfortunately for Washington, there’s a flip side to Avdija’s newfound reps as a secondary playmaker: an increased number of turnovers. He turned the ball over on 12 percent of the possessions he used, according to Cleaning the Glass, ranking him in the 33rd percentile among forwards.
“His usage went up and so did the fear factor amongst the courtside ticket holders — you know, when the ball comes flying at them,” Sheppard quipped. “Sometimes he had some turnovers, but we’ll live with that for his growth.”
Indeed, Scout C said he considered Avdija skilled for a 6-foot-9 player, with a caveat. The scout emphasized that Avdija’s skills only grade as OK relative to the rest of the league, not as above average or plus.
Where all the scouts agree is that Avdija’s 3-point shooting must improve. After Avdija made 31.5 percent of his 3s as a rookie, he improved to only 31.7 percent during his second season. To put that in perspective, Avdija ranked in the 29th percentile among forwards in 3-point shooting percentage, according to Cleaning the Glass. It’s a problem.
“Is he ever going to be a shooter or a scorer?” Scout B said. “I think that’s a big question mark, and I don’t think he’s shown much progress that way. The numbers were a little better this year. His (accuracy from) 3 was pretty much the same. I don’t think that’s his mindset. You’d like him to be, depending on the minutes, at 12 points (per game), but he’s more like eight. In terms of his upside and what he can provide, I think that’s a major question mark: scoring and shooting. He can make plays. I like that. He’s got some playmaking ability. He’s more of a glue guy, a ball mover. But he doesn’t have a lot of punch.”
One of Deni Avdija’s areas of focus needs to be improving his 3-point shooting, particularly from the corners. (Wendell Cruz / USA Today)
There are reasons to think Avdija will improve as a long-range shooter, but perhaps none more than his youth. Even with two NBA seasons on his résumé, he ranks as the fourth-youngest player on Washington’s roster, trailing only 20-year-old rookie wing Johnny Davis, 20-year-old forward Isaiah Todd and 21-year-old big Vernon Carey Jr.
Avdija’s shooting form is not broken, but his inaccuracy is a problem both for the Wizards and for his efforts to earn more playing time. It’s important to note that 3-point shooting was a teamwide weakness last season. Washington finished last in the league in 3-point makes per game (10.5); even Bradley Beal made just 30.0 percent of his attempts, a success rate lower than Avdija’s. So while Avdija’s poor long-range shooting was not an anomaly among Wizards players last season, improvement is one way he can separate himself from his teammates.
One area where he needed to improve this offseason is with his corner 3s. Avdija made only 27.9 percent of his 68 3-point attempts from the corners, one of the lowest percentages among the Wizards’ rotation players, according to the NBA.
This clip, from a late-February loss in Cleveland, illustrates the kind of shot Avdija needs to make more frequently. This is of a feet-set 3 from the right corner. To be sure, Avdija must have been cognizant that 6-foot-11 defender Lauri Markkanen was about to close out on him, but this is still a shot the NBA’s tracking system classifies as a “wide-open” shot, an attempt in which the closest defender is at least six feet away.
It’s a peculiar weakness considering how prized corner 3s are because of their shorter distance, but perhaps not as peculiar as one other eccentricity of Avdija’s game: his difficulty finishing at the rim. Even though he has no problem attempting dunks during pregame warm-ups, Avdija all too often prefers to attempt layups instead of dunks, even on fast breaks. To be clear, that’s my observation, not the scouts’. But it falls in line with scouts’ criticisms of Avdija’s low scoring numbers, and even Unseld noted it as an area Avdija needs to improve.
“He’s got to grow and continue to improve his finishing, work with his left hand, his off hand,” Unseld said.
Avdija’s future
To his credit, Avdija spent part of this offseason working with renowned skills coach Drew Hanlen before joining the Israeli national team for international competition.
The young forward will face challenges during the 2022-23 NBA season from the get-go. While he certainly will have a place in Unseld’s nine- or 10-man rotation, he faces competition to earn more minutes. Will Barton and Corey Kispert are among the top candidates to gobble up minutes at small forward. Kyle Kuzma, Rui Hachimura and perhaps even Taj Gibson will vie for minutes at power forward.
What the Wizards will ask from Avdija will be straightforward: defend at a high level, hit open shots, pass and finish better. His path toward becoming a better playmaker likely will be limited, at least while the team is healthy. Monté Morris, Delon Wright and Beal will serve as primary playmakers, and Kristaps Porziņģis and Kuzma also figure to be high-usage players. Although Avdija has shown potential as a secondary playmaker — indeed, it’s a promising layer to his game — there’s only one basketball.
“He’s going to have to come into training camp and carve out his role and carve out his minutes by production,” Sheppard said. “This (past) year, (his playmaking) was a work in progress. I was very impressed. … Still, his left hand has more fingerprints on it than his right hand. He never uses his left. He’s going to have to go left more. He’s going to have to cut some turnovers down. As his usage went up, turnovers (typically rose). That’s natural. I give him a hard time, because I know how good he can be. I think putting him in DHOs (dribble handoffs) and making him a secondary playmaker (is something he can do). I saw him bring the ball up this (past) year and be able to initiate the offense. Those are things he wasn’t doing a year ago. We know he’s far more capable of more.”
Avdija remains a fascinating long-term prospect. Assuming he continues to be a dogged defender, there’s one skill more than any other that will determine whether he reaches his upside: his shooting. Three of the scouts I spoke to brought up that point. It’s an obvious statement, but just because it’s obvious doesn’t make it any less important.
“The challenge for him is to adjust his game away from his natural inclination, which is to handle the ball and be a playmaker,” Scout A said. “They need him to be a very good 3-point shooter. They need him to be a spot-up 3-point shooter and then build from there, which means drive on closeouts. There’s still a lot of potential for him.”
Asked if Avdija can develop into a starter on a contending team, Scout A answered, “I think he can because he cares. And to have been put in this position to defend and then to execute that the way he has (that bodes well). And he’s so young, 21 still. I think that there’s a lot of upside with him still. Because he cares and he’s big and he wants to be good, I think that we’ll continue to see him add layers to his game going forward.”
Scout C regarded Avdija as trending upward, but limited right now by his overall skill level and his shooting. Scout C added that Avdija can make a significant leap if his shooting makes a corresponding improvement.
Scout B is more pessimistic.
“I thought he was better this year,” Scout B said. “Yes, there are all these expectations because he was the ninth pick. Just forget that. Is he going to help them win? That, to me, is more fundamental. And I think he can. But it’s more like a ninth man or an eighth man as opposed to a starter or even a first guy off the bench.”
Again, as all the scouts noted, time is on Avdija’s side, for now. It cannot be stressed enough: Avdija won’t turn 22 until January.
A fourth scout, Scout D, took a big-picture look at Avdija’s future.
“I do think he has a profile of a modern wing because of his size and he has skill,” Scout D said. “So, I think being patient with him makes the most amount of sense.”
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They bricked a lot of free throws and could've probably won the game on some other day.
