The Anthony Black Thread

[SOUL]

I don't think he plays like Fultz at all. One of his weaknesses may be similar, but the fact that people can only bring up Elfrid, Penny, Fultz, show that their frame of reference is very limited when you can realistically reach up to probably 50 players all-time with similar profiles, and yet still not correctly pinpoint him because every player is pretty different.

[eyriq]

Watch on YouTube

Three statistical comps come up for him based on their college production; Bruce Brown Jr., Kemba Walker, and SGA.

how did those comps come up? because their games are very different and production was even different

It's a similarity score based on euclidean distance between their box score and advanced stats.

[basketballRob]

how did those comps come up? because their games are very different and production was even different

Before I ever heard anyone say anything, I compared him to SGA and Haliburton. They have a smooth flow to their games, and Black has passing vision like Haliburton.

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i am by no means a scout. i base many opinions off stats and production, which could be vastly wrong. SGA i saw was a much better shooter in college than Black. even Haliburton was 42%+ 3 pt shooter. Black is coming in not a strong shooter at all. i guess that is why i didnt see the comparisons.

I think Haliburton shot in the 60's from the FT line when he was a freshman. Either way, it was different team dynamics, different competition levels, and other factors. It's also possible that they practiced shooting more than Black did. We know he was a 4 star receiver his junior season at the 6A level in Texas, which is the highest level. It's possible that he spent time practicing football when other players were practicing shooting. This could mean that his shot develops a little later.

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[tiderulz]

Three statistical comps come up for him based on their college production; Bruce Brown Jr., Kemba Walker, and SGA.

how did those comps come up? because their games are very different and production was even different

It's a similarity score based on euclidean distance between their box score and advanced stats.

[OrlChamps2030]

Before I ever heard anyone say anything, I compared him to SGA and Haliburton. They have a smooth flow to their games, and Black has passing vision like Haliburton.

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i am by no means a scout. i base many opinions off stats and production, which could be vastly wrong. SGA i saw was a much better shooter in college than Black. even Haliburton was 42%+ 3 pt shooter. Black is coming in not a strong shooter at all. i guess that is why i didnt see the comparisons.

I think Haliburton shot in the 60's from the FT line when he was a freshman. Either way, it was different team dynamics, different competition levels, and other factors. It's also possible that they practiced shooting more than Black did. We know he was a 4 star receiver his junior season at the 6A level in Texas, which is the highest level. It's possible that he spent time practicing football when other players were practicing shooting. This could mean that his shot develops a little later.

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It’s probably worth noting that Halliburton only shot 26 free throws total as a freshman.. and also went 49/113 from 3 for 43%

[basketballRob]

i am by no means a scout. i base many opinions off stats and production, which could be vastly wrong. SGA i saw was a much better shooter in college than Black. even Haliburton was 42%+ 3 pt shooter. Black is coming in not a strong shooter at all. i guess that is why i didnt see the comparisons.

I think Haliburton shot in the 60's from the FT line when he was a freshman. Either way, it was different team dynamics, different competition levels, and other factors. It's also possible that they practiced shooting more than Black did. We know he was a 4 star receiver his junior season at the 6A level in Texas, which is the highest level. It's possible that he spent time practicing football when other players were practicing shooting. This could mean that his shot develops a little later.

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It’s probably worth noting that Halliburton only shot 26 free throws total as a freshman.. and also went 49/113 from 3 for 43%

Black shot 9 free throws in summer league, and we're categorizing him as a bad shooter.

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[Knightro]

Black shot 9 free throws in summer league, and we're categorizing him as a bad shooter.

Uhhh no.

We're categorizing Black as a bad shooter because he didn't make threes or free throws at a high level in college, isn't making them so far in the summer league at a high level, and doesn't have a particularly good or consistent shooting form.

[Orl_Magic]

Come on he's tossing bricks and shooting air balls. Let's call a spade a spade here

[basketballRob]

Black shot 9 free throws in summer league, and we're categorizing him as a bad shooter.

Uhhh no.

We're categorizing Black as a bad shooter because he didn't make threes or free throws at a high level in college, isn't making them so far in the summer league at a high level, and doesn't have a particularly good or consistent shooting form.

He's only had one open 3 pt shot, and his stroke didn't look bad to me.

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[basketballRob]

Come on he's tossing bricks and shooting air balls. Let's call a spade a spade here

The one air ball he shot when 6'11" Jackson was closing out on him is going to turn into dozens of air balls.

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[KillMonger]

people might cringe at the name but look up how MCW played his rookie year, that's sort of in the ballpark of how i see AB playing in the league....might be able to take that even higher if he can figure out that jumpshot

[Knightro]

He's only had one open 3 pt shot, and his stroke didn't look bad to me.

It's just common sense stuff Rob. Black didn't shoot the ball all that well in college. He hasn't shot the ball all that well so far in two summer league games.

It's fine to just say "he needs to improve his shooting to maximize his effectiveness" rather than pretend he's the next Haliburton when there's been no indication he's anywhere close to the same caliber as a shooter so far.

[Black and Blue]

I actually don't think there is as much in the ways of similarities between Fultz and Black as people are implying on this board. I don't blame the comparisons as both have shooting woes, but their play styles seem wildly dissimilar to me so far:

-Fultz plays a more uptempo game while Black is all about patient, methodical dissection of a defense.
-Black baits his opponent on defense to get steals while Fultz uses his athleticism to make his opponent uncomfortable.
-Fultz wants to keep the ball moving, while Black appears most comfortable so far while dribbling and collapsing the defense.

In short, Black so far is more cerebral while Fultz is more of a tempo guy.

This is super early on, but the guy who Black actually reminds me of is a slower, taller Steve Nash with no outside shot. That may sound like a knock but it's a heck of a compliment given his young age and room to grow. He has legit surprised me so far with how much further along he is in his development than I expected.

Man you get a good shooting coach on the Magic and watch out. Almost every player on the roster right now you can point to and say if they simply improved their shooting they could be an All-Star.

[Orl_Magic]

Come on he's tossing bricks and shooting air balls. Let's call a spade a spade here

The one air ball he shot when 6'11" Jackson was closing out on him is going to turn into dozens of air balls.

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What about the wide open, uncontested, top of the key shot that bricked so hard?

[basketballRob]

Come on he's tossing bricks and shooting air balls. Let's call a spade a spade here

The one air ball he shot when 6'11" Jackson was closing out on him is going to turn into dozens of air balls.

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What about the wide open, uncontested, top of the key shot that bricked so hard?

What about that silky smooth mid range jump shot?

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[jezzerinho]

Im not sure if there is an easy Black comparison. He's maybe a MCW/ Rubio hybrid. If he works hard, he could have the best of both, which is a hell of a positive force for a team. If he can add consistent shooting and stay good at the D and playmaking, then you're talking a serious player.

But there's another path where hes the latterday MCW/Rubio hybrid. Selfless, hardworking, connective, terrier type, but not a big enough offensive threat to be a star.

[neuraldarwinism]

how did those comps come up? because their games are very different and production was even different

It's a similarity score based on euclidean distance between their box score and advanced stats.

Easiest way to think about this is as clusters (in simpler non-stats jargon English, unknown groupings or subgroups within a massive database--say every NBA player). The goal is to identify the groups. You don't know who or what belongs in each group, or even how many groups there are.

Restated, the point of cluster analysis is to take what appears to be disparate individuals/players/raters/objects and statistically combine them into groups and compare how similar/different those groups/clusters are.

Objects (in our case, players) in each cluster tend to be similar to each other and dissimilar to objects/players in the other clusters.

Cluster analysis is more or less the base of these more complex ways to quantify euclidean distance (there are other types of way you can calculate distance).

For example, imagine a database of cars sold. Say it lists 100k sales across 20 different models of cars.

The cars will obviously have different average price, resale value, size, mpg, horsepower, whatever else.

Say you run a cluster analysis on all those cars. The analysis will output a euclidean distance for each of the 20 models.

Likely a Toyota Camry and Honda Accord are going to have very small euclidean distances between them. That is, they are very similar cars and likely in the same cluster (group of cars).

Conversely, a Toyota Corolla and a Ram pickup truck is going to have a very large distance between them. That is, the two cars are very different/likely in different clusters.

To bring it back around, basically SGA and AB have similar distances/differences (aka the two players are quantifiable close to the level of similarity between a Camry and Honda Accord) between their box score scores and advanced metrics. So the model is clustering SGA and AB together, which is good.

Conceptual example from random papers:
https://ibb.co/vh5tDn9
https://yourimageshare.com/ib/nGBBtGR4fV

[basketballRob]

I'm ahead of the curve with Black just like I was with Franz. So, to my future self, when I come back to laugh at all the bad takes.

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[pepe1991]

I'm ahead of the curve with Black just like I was with Franz. So, to my future self, when I come back to laugh at all the bad takes.

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Say hy to your past Bamba takes

[basketballRob]

I'm ahead of the curve with Black just like I was with Franz. So, to my future self, when I come back to laugh at all the bad takes.

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Say hy to your past Bamba takes

To my future self, when Bamba plays more playoff games than Vuc

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