life_saver wrote:Calinks wrote:life_saver wrote:The play at 0:27 was my fav play of night from Ant..nice drive and excellent pass..I wonder if Ant would drive and kick it out more if there were more reliable 3 pt shooters on current starting lineup
Ant's path to greatness are in three key areas.
1. Defense, he needs to get better, being average would be enough.
2. Finishing/Attackingalready, he already has a handle good enough to get to the rim 75 percent of the time, the other part is he needs to become elite at finishing. Right now he's solid, get that to elite status and drive more, that is points all day (layups and free throws). Modern NBA cannot stop that attack, it's like Thanos, inevitable.
3. Passing. With his ability to get by defenders and get to the rim, the last piece of his game that would make him elite is the ability to pass to open players. He needs to work on his vision and his pass skills (both are already mediocre-which is pretty promising at 19 as most players would have zero skill here or be bad). Wolves get shooters and solid cutters and Any is looking at 5-10 assist games on a frequent basis.
The more prime time ready Ant becomes the more important it is to keep Towns. Towns today is a must double player, he gets the second most hard double teams in the entire NBA. Ant when he gets better will also be a guy teams double/focus on. You put shooters and cutters around that and it's an absolute debacle on offense. Teams simply will not be able to defend the Timberwolves.
I think Ant has the ability to become a really good defender...it's about putting effort for the most part. He has definitely looked much better on defense in last 4 games..looks more engaged on defense and for the most part, he has been avoiding the silly mistakes he usually makes on defense. Question is whether he can maintain this consistency on defense (as always with lot of Timberwolves players).
Another important step for Ant is improving his 3 pt shooting...getting it around league average would be a good start..he is now shooting at 32% with high volume...he does take some tough shots
Yup, if Any grows a lot in those areas you are talking a hall of famer. It's not likely but he has a better chance than any player we have had before. He really could be the real deal. Talking Wade, Harden, Mcgrady, Iverson, level.
