Jan Vesely

[Nivek]

According to the official play-by-play data, both of you are wrong.

[tontoz]

According to the official play-by-play data, both of you are wrong.

I actually looked at the play by play for the first two games just to see. I feel like one of those clowns running around in the woods looking for bigfoot.

[Ed Wood]

He made a jumper in what was technically his first game with the team in the preseason, I have no memory of anything about Utah.

Ah me, halcyon days.

[Ruzious]

Or was that halcion daze?

[closg00]

How about a betting-pool for when the next jumper will be made?

[leswizards]

http://www.basketball-reference.com/players/v/veselja01/gamelog/2012/

Maybe I am reading this wrong (the advanced game log that is), but it seems to me that Vesely is quietly becoming a rather effective player. His Ortg has been substanially better than his Drtg for the last 6-8 games, and for the last 20 games, it has been consisently better. Plus, his last 20 games has clearly been much better than his first 20 games.

[verbal8]

http://www.basketball-reference.com/players/v/veselja01/gamelog/2012/

Maybe I am reading this wrong (the advanced game log that is), but it seems to me that Vesely is quietly becoming a rather effective player. His Ortg has been substanially better than his Drtg for the last 6-8 games, and for the last 20 games, it has been consisently better. Plus, his last 20 games has clearly been much better than his first 20 games.

Good point. It does look like there is a glimmer of hope with Vesley's development.

I thought it was interesting comparing his rookie season with Jared Jeffries and Seraphin:

http://www.basketball-reference.com/pla ... 01&y3=2011

[dobrojim]

my eyes say he's rebounding better lately

and he has improved his FT shooting which isn't saying
that much since he was horrible early on. The trend is
in the right direction though.

[Zonkerbl]

He took a jumper last night. Glanced off the side of the rim.

[Ruzious]

Now that Javale's gone, Vesely is the only long athletic big on the roster. I think this makes it more important that he develop - though you can certainly win with stumpy bigs - as long as they're really good. But I do think it puts you at a strategic disadvantage if you don't have a long athletic big... who can play.

[Ruzious]

my eyes say he's rebounding better lately

and he has improved his FT shooting which isn't saying
that much since he was horrible early on. The trend is
in the right direction though.

He no longer puts a 20 foot arc on his FT's. There were complaints about the indoor rain showers he was causing.

[DCZards]

my eyes say he's rebounding better lately

Vesely's rebounding, which ultimately may be his most important asset does seem to be getting better. Some of us argued several weeks back that Jan had the potential to be a decent rebounder...because of his size and length, bball IQ/instincts and aggressiveness. Vesely needs more muscle/strength to really have an impact on the boards...but the potential is there.

[dobrojim]

Agree - no question he needs to get stronger

[Nivek]

Here's Vesely's rebounding per 40 minutes -- rolling season average calculated after each game. That brownish (supposed to be orange) line is league average for a PF.



And one more look -- 5-game moving average throughout the season.



More volatility in the 5-game average (which we'd expect). Overall, his rebounding is trending up.

[fishercob]

CHAMPIONSHIP!

[Illuminaire]

His offensive rebounding always gave me hope. He was getting to balls, and he had good instincts.

He still can't body too many people out of the way, and he still can't pull down balls in traffic because of weak hands. If he can manage to get up to league average rebounding before really developing his body in the next few offseasons, though, there is reason to think he won't suck as a basketball player.

[Ed Wood]

Lest it be thought that I'd prefer that the kid crashed and failed rather than be proven wrong I'll go ahead and attempt an upbeat assessment of our prospects here.

While I am at times skeptical of lusting after "intangibles' because I think it's very easy to take what is a reasonable point, that current quantitative measures of performance are imperfect, and to fail to acknowledge that the alternative, subjective assessment, is at least as flawed (and personally I think my own is vastly more so, one reason I rely on objective measures is that I know my experience in and comprehension of the game doesn't allow me to appreciate at a glance every nuance of quality).

Nevertheless it is my impression that Vesely has a lower threshold of production to meet in order to be a valuable player than, say, Jordan Crawford. Because of Vesely's size, effort and generally passable (and hopefully improving) defensive positioning, simply being on the floor he should be able to have a moderately positive impact. Should, that is, this not necessarily now the case. But he seems to be very gradually becoming... not alarmingly bad. His rebounding, as Kevin set out graphically, has lately approached acceptable. His offensive production is still... not good, but his foul shooting stroke is losing its orbital arc and if he can even manage to convert those competently that would be significant progress.

In March a rough and dirty bit of math yields these per 40s:

11.19 pts 9.76 rbs 1.67 ats 1.19 sts 1.19 bks 63.8 TS and approaching 60% from the line.

... which isn't fabulous, but it's viable, and with an uptick in offense might be palatable for a bench energy player. I'm not exactly sanguine, but given that my general impression of Vesely on court is "scared as ****" perhaps simply calming down will yield positive results. Perhaps as importantly I think that, for a high pick, people within and without the organization seem comfortable with the perception that Vesely may be useful in future but isn't a foundational piece, and so I don't expect his presence to warp the team's future plans.

[Ruzious]

One thing he's got to learn to stop doing is trying to play volleyball with rebounds and tipping the ball to nobody - If you're going to do that, at least aim it for where a teammate is - I think you actually get credit for a rebound if you tip it directly to a teammate. But the best thing to do is to just go after the ball and grab it. Be a man out there; not a European.

[leswizards]

Perhaps as importantly I think that, for a high pick, people within and without the organization seem comfortable with the perception that Vesely may be useful in future but isn't a foundational piece, and so I don't expect his presence to warp the team's future plans.

I had completely written Vesely off. So anything he does here going forward is an added bonus.

As to him being a high pick, I think everyone would like to get more value out of such a high pick, but I think the sad truth is the draft was so weak, you can only find a few players who were drafted after Vesely who have been significantly more productive than Vesely, and the best player available was still available when the Wizards selected Singleton.

[dobrojim]

One thing he's got to learn to stop doing is trying to play volleyball with rebounds and tipping the ball to nobody - If you're going to do that, at least aim it for where a teammate is - I think you actually get credit for a rebound if you tip it directly to a teammate. But the best thing to do is to just go after the ball and grab it. Be a man out there; not a European.

+1 Ruz

that and if you get the ball somewhere near the basketball, just go ahead
and try to dunk it, assuming it's our offensive basket anyway.