carnageta wrote:zgope1 wrote:Strus looks good because he's stout and can shoot the heck out of it. But Duncan's shooting ability is on another planet to his. Higher degree of difficulty gives him so much more gravity.
There's levels to this. Duncan is a far superior shooter, as you pointed out.
Teams don't even gameplan for Strus, and the players you don't gameplan for are usually the ones who surprise you the most. Duncan on the other hand, has entire schemes built just to stop him from getting open shots.
All definitely true. Strus is interesting though. 42% 3-point shooter through his first 16 NBA games. Duncan was under 30% from 3 at that same juncture in his career. Now, we all know Duncan is a special shooter and one of the best in the world. But, we also know the Heat system and development program does a lot to maximize guys who are natural shooters with quick releases.
Strus is actually pretty athletic and has more potential to be competent defensively than most of our other shooters right now. He's strong and can move. Remember, he's also just over a year removed from a torn ACL. So, it's reasonable to think he's getting back into full form still.
In addition to signs of solid athleticism and defensive competency, Strus is interesting because he seems to have strong court awareness and can put the ball on the deck competently and drive (he has always been the leading scorer on his teams). The most intriguing thing is his quick trigger release (like Duncan).
The big question is if his 3-ball is as legit as we need it to be. He's got a good stretch going right now. But, he has a history of streakiness from 3. TBD on that front, but I definitely want him to continue to get opportunity.
