Deni Avdija

[CntOutSmrtCrazy]

Let me know if you guys can see this vid. I just had to record this off my TV. The look on deni's face was priceless.

After clicking the link I think you have to hit the image to get the vid to play.

https://photos.app.goo.gl/W1L5zYZ4A3gSTZNo9

"Get that **** outta here."

[Benjammin]

Usually it's "Get that weak $_#/ out of here," at least back in the day.

Sent from my motorola edge plus using RealGM mobile app

[nate33]

Let me know if you guys can see this vid. I just had to record this off my TV. The look on deni's face was priceless.

After clicking the link I think you have to hit the image to get the vid to play.

https://photos.app.goo.gl/W1L5zYZ4A3gSTZNo9

This is fantastic!

[nate33]

Read on Twitter

I like the strong dribbling in his offensive possessions. His left hand has become MUCH better.


And I can never get enough of the defensive montage videos:

Read on Twitter

[long suffrin' boulez fan]

Deni is starting to look like he could be a critical piece of a championship team. Maybe not here because we have a lot of work to do to fill in. But a guy that can guard all five positions, rebounds well, can hit some shots - isn’t a black hole on offense. Think Iguodala.

[Dolevi]

Let me know if you guys can see this vid. I just had to record this off my TV. The look on deni's face was priceless.

After clicking the link I think you have to hit the image to get the vid to play.

https://photos.app.goo.gl/W1L5zYZ4A3gSTZNo9

Not in my house!
Check out Holiday's reaction behing

[keynote]

Read on Twitter

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I'm Team Deni on this one. It's not like he gummed up the play. Bertans didn't fully wait for the pick, and yet he still got freed up (somewhat) for a 3PA.

Sent from my Pixel 6 Pro using RealGM mobile app

[nate33]

Spoiler:

Read on Twitter

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Read on Twitter

?t=1HZRUH42YrggKKmUaQ6BAg&s=01

I'm Team Deni on this one. It's not like he gummed up the play. Bertans didn't fully wait for the pick, and yet he still got freed up (somewhat) for a 3PA.

I love how Dinwiddie put his arm around Avdija and tried to calm him down.

I'm also on team Deni here. First of all, because Deni plays defense. And secondly, Deni was right. He had the opportunity to abuse Curry and they should have gone with him. Not to mention, that even though the pick was botched a little bit, two guys chased after Bertans leaving Avdija wide open if Gafford would have seen him.

[Halcyon]

Bertans knows his time is up once Rui comes back. He should be getting DNPs if everyone is healthy.

[willbcocks]

I'm on team SMH.

Arguing among teammates about whose number is getting called while down 23 late in the game?

[payitforward]

I agree -- that molehill looks like a mountain to me too.

[nate33]

I'm on team SMH.

Arguing among teammates about whose number is getting called while down 23 late in the game?

I feel like it was Bertans who instigated the unnecessary argument. Avdija looked mad because he was unfairly being berated at an inappropriate time and place.

It really looks to me that the pressure is starting to get to Bertans and he is lashing out. It must suck to be missing all of his shots when that's his role, and then to watch a 20-year-old outplay him so dramatically and take his spot, not to mention the rookie Kispert also encroaching on his minutes.

Of course, I'm just an idiot fan watching on TV. We can't know for sure the real story.

[Pistol King]

Somebody can get into Deni's head and explain why he's refuses to take higher amount of shots?

On paper I don't see any glaring issues, he shots 33% from 3 (4'th best on the team among rotation players) and 45% from FG (5th best) on 55% TS (4'th best), and I feel he could end up with much better stats this year just by simply be willing to take more shots and increase his margin of errors. I'd claim he needs to take more shots even if he wasn't shooting 4'th and 5'th best on the team.

Yesterday he had a great opportunity to bump up his stats and create some hype around him, I've expected him to take 15 shots with the circumstances the team has with the short rotation, and he took only 4 miserable shots on 31 minutes. This is unacceptable for me. Should we put the blame on Deni? or is it more on the coaching staff to make sure he takes more shots? one way or the other, it shouldn't happen. I just checked up and his usage rate this year is 11th highest among the rotation players. Dead-last.

https://www.nba.com/stats/team/1610612764/players-advanced/?sort=USG_PCT&dir=1

I really wondering What is going on in his mind. I'd rather seeing him ends up with a 4-15 FG shooting night than a 2-4. You just can't develop yourself as a player when you're so passive and not willing to take risks.

Sorry if it sounds like I'm too harsh on him, he has a tremendous upside IMO, and I don't want him to develop bad passive habits.

[Dolevi]

Somebody can get into Deni's head and explain why he's refuses to take higher amount of shots?

On paper I don't see any glaring issues, he shots 33% from 3 (4'th best on the team among rotation players) and 45% from FG (5th best) on 55% TS (4'th best), and I feel he could end up with much better stats this year just by simply be willing to take more shots and increase his margin of errors. I'd claim he needs to take more shots even if he wasn't shooting 4'th and 5'th best on the team.

Yesterday he had a great opportunity to bump up his stats and create some hype around him, I've expected him to take 15 shots with the circumstances the team has with the short rotation, and he took only 4 miserable shots on 31 minutes. This is unacceptable for me. Should we put the blame on Deni? or is it more on the coaching staff to make sure he takes more shots? one way or the other, it shouldn't happen. I just checked up and his usage rate this year is 11th highest among the rotation players. Dead-last.

https://www.nba.com/stats/team/1610612764/players-advanced/?sort=USG_PCT&dir=1

I really wondering What is going on in his mind. I'd rather seeing him ends up with a 4-15 FG shooting night than a 2-4. You just can't develop yourself as a player when you're so passive and not willing to take risks.

Sorry if it sounds like I'm too harsh on him, he has tremendous upside IMO,and I don't want him to develop bad passive habits.

Every word. Talked about it in the last game topic. He gotta take more on himself. No excuses.

[nate33]

Somebody can get into Deni's head and explain why he's refuses to take higher amount of shots?

On paper I don't see any glaring issues, he shots 33% from 3 (4'th best on the team among rotation players) and 45% from FG (5th best) on 55% TS (4'th best), and I feel he could end up with much better stats this year just by simply be willing to take more shots and increase his margin of errors. I'd claim he needs to take more shots even if he wasn't shooting 4'th and 5'th best on the team.

Yesterday he had a great opportunity to bump up his stats and create some hype around him, I've expected him to take 15 shots with the circumstances the team has with the short rotation, and he took only 4 miserable shots on 31 minutes. This is unacceptable for me. Should we put the blame on Deni? or is it more on the coaching staff to make sure he takes more shots? one way or the other, it shouldn't happen. I just checked up and his usage rate this year is 11th highest among the rotation players. Dead-last.

https://www.nba.com/stats/team/1610612764/players-advanced/?sort=USG_PCT&dir=1

I really wondering What is going on in his mind. I'd rather seeing him ends up with a 4-15 FG shooting night than a 2-4. You just can't develop yourself as a player when you're so passive and not willing to take risks.

Sorry if it sounds like I'm too harsh on him, he has a tremendous upside IMO, and I don't want him to develop bad passive habits.

I don't think it's an issue.

A basic principle of basketball is that everyone gets 1 or 2 really good looks a game from fast breaks, offensive rebounds, missed defensive rotations, or being spoon-fed under the basket for an easy lay-in/dunk. And those shots are going to come at a very high TS% - probably north of 70%. Each additional shot attempt is likely to be more contested, with a lower TS%.

Avdija only has a TS% of 55.0%, despite an extremely low usage rate. His low usage rate means he is taking very few contested shots to offset his easy attempts, and yet his TS% is still pretty mediocre (just below the team average). That suggests that each marginal additional attempt is coming at a fairly low TS%, well below his overall average of 55.0%, and well below the team average of 55.7%. He therefore wouldn't be helping the team if he shot more.

This should also be viewed in context of role. The primary ball handlers (Beal, Dinwiddie, Neto) are often forced to take bail-out shots if the offense hasn't yielded a high-value shot. That will pull down their TS% to below team average, which is indeed the case with them. (Beal's is okay at .535, Neto and Dinwiddie are too low, down in the 50-51 range.) But complementary scorers typically don't have that burden, so one should expect a TS% slightly above team average, which is what we see out of Harrell, Gafford, and what we should see from KCP, Avdija, Kuzma, Kispert, Holiday, and Bertans. In fact, all 6 of the non-centers aren't quite meeting their responsibility to make shots with efficiency (though KCP, Holiday, Kispert and Avdija are close) and none of them really deserve more looks.

Ultimately, I'd say KCP, Avdija, Bertans, Holiday and Kispert are close enough to team average TS% that they don't deserve much criticism in shot selection, but they also shouldn't be whining about getting more looks. Kuzma, Dinwiddie and Neto are the guys that are definitely shooting too much at an unacceptable efficiency, particularly Kuzma.

[GoneShammGone]

Somebody can get into Deni's head and explain why he's refuses to take higher amount of shots?

On paper I don't see any glaring issues, he shots 33% from 3 (4'th best on the team among rotation players) and 45% from FG (5th best) on 55% TS (4'th best), and I feel he could end up with much better stats this year just by simply be willing to take more shots and increase his margin of errors. I'd claim he needs to take more shots even if he wasn't shooting 4'th and 5'th best on the team.

Yesterday he had a great opportunity to bump up his stats and create some hype around him, I've expected him to take 15 shots with the circumstances the team has with the short rotation, and he took only 4 miserable shots on 31 minutes. This is unacceptable for me. Should we put the blame on Deni? or is it more on the coaching staff to make sure he takes more shots? one way or the other, it shouldn't happen. I just checked up and his usage rate this year is 11th highest among the rotation players. Dead-last.

https://www.nba.com/stats/team/1610612764/players-advanced/?sort=USG_PCT&dir=1

I really wondering What is going on in his mind. I'd rather seeing him ends up with a 4-15 FG shooting night than a 2-4. You just can't develop yourself as a player when you're so passive and not willing to take risks.

Sorry if it sounds like I'm too harsh on him, he has a tremendous upside IMO, and I don't want him to develop bad passive habits.

I don't think it's an issue.

A basic principle of basketball is that everyone gets 1 or 2 really good looks a game from fast breaks, offensive rebounds, missed defensive rotations, or being spoon-fed under the basket for an easy lay-in/dunk. And those shots are going to come at a very high TS% - probably north of 70%. Each additional shot attempt is likely to be more contested, with a lower TS%.

Avdija only has a TS% of 55.0%, despite an extremely low usage rate. His low usage rate means he is taking very few contested shots to offset his easy attempts, and yet his TS% is still pretty mediocre (just below the team average). That suggests that each marginal additional attempt is coming at a fairly low TS%, well below his overall average of 55.0%, and well below the team average of 55.7%. He therefore wouldn't be helping the team if he shot more.

This should also be viewed in context of role. The primary ball handlers (Beal, Dinwiddie, Neto) are often forced to take bail-out shots if the offense hasn't yielded a high-value shot. That will pull down their TS% to below team average, which is indeed the case with them. (Beal's is okay at .535, Neto and Dinwiddie are too low, down in the 50-51 range.) But complementary scorers typically don't have that burden, so one should expect a TS% slightly above team average, which is what we see out of Harrell, Gafford, and what we should see from KCP, Avdija, Kuzma, Kispert, Holiday, and Bertans. In fact, all 6 of the non-centers aren't quite meeting their responsibility to make shots with efficiency (though KCP, Holiday, Kispert and Avdija are close) and none of them really deserve more looks.

Ultimately, I'd say KCP, Avdija, Bertans, Holiday and Kispert are close enough to team average TS% that they don't deserve much criticism in shot selection, but they also shouldn't be whining about getting more looks. Kuzma, Dinwiddie and Neto are the guys that are definitely shooting too much at an unacceptable efficiency, particularly Kuzma.

Good post. I also think people's natural frustration with how the rest of the team is playing is resulting in this extra criticism of Deni not being aggressive enough. Sure, I get it... the Wizards kind of suck right now, and Deni is one of the few bright spots, so its natural to want him to be more forceful. But he's 20 years old in his second season. It just takes time for him to develop confidence in his offensive game to match the confidence he has on the defensive end. But he has time. No sense in getting mad at Deni for developing at a normal pace for a young NBA player. Save the criticism for Spencer, Beal, KCP, Bertans, and the other veterans who are playing far below their expected level.

[payitforward]

I agree with nate & GSG.

[arusinov]

Somebody can get into Deni's head and explain why he's refuses to take higher amount of shots?

On paper I don't see any glaring issues, he shots 33% from 3 (4'th best on the team among rotation players) and 45% from FG (5th best) on 55% TS (4'th best), and I feel he could end up with much better stats this year just by simply be willing to take more shots and increase his margin of errors. I'd claim he needs to take more shots even if he wasn't shooting 4'th and 5'th best on the team.

Yesterday he had a great opportunity to bump up his stats and create some hype around him, I've expected him to take 15 shots with the circumstances the team has with the short rotation, and he took only 4 miserable shots on 31 minutes. This is unacceptable for me. Should we put the blame on Deni? or is it more on the coaching staff to make sure he takes more shots? one way or the other, it shouldn't happen. I just checked up and his usage rate this year is 11th highest among the rotation players. Dead-last.

https://www.nba.com/stats/team/1610612764/players-advanced/?sort=USG_PCT&dir=1

I really wondering What is going on in his mind. I'd rather seeing him ends up with a 4-15 FG shooting night than a 2-4. You just can't develop yourself as a player when you're so passive and not willing to take risks.

Sorry if it sounds like I'm too harsh on him, he has a tremendous upside IMO, and I don't want him to develop bad passive habits.

I don't think it's an issue.

A basic principle of basketball is that everyone gets 1 or 2 really good looks a game from fast breaks, offensive rebounds, missed defensive rotations, or being spoon-fed under the basket for an easy lay-in/dunk. And those shots are going to come at a very high TS% - probably north of 70%. Each additional shot attempt is likely to be more contested, with a lower TS%.

Avdija only has a TS% of 55.0%, despite an extremely low usage rate. His low usage rate means he is taking very few contested shots to offset his easy attempts, and yet his TS% is still pretty mediocre (just below the team average). That suggests that each marginal additional attempt is coming at a fairly low TS%, well below his overall average of 55.0%, and well below the team average of 55.7%. He therefore wouldn't be helping the team if he shot more.

This should also be viewed in context of role. The primary ball handlers (Beal, Dinwiddie, Neto) are often forced to take bail-out shots if the offense hasn't yielded a high-value shot. That will pull down their TS% to below team average, which is indeed the case with them. (Beal's is okay at .535, Neto and Dinwiddie are too low, down in the 50-51 range.) But complementary scorers typically don't have that burden, so one should expect a TS% slightly above team average, which is what we see out of Harrell, Gafford, and what we should see from KCP, Avdija, Kuzma, Kispert, Holiday, and Bertans. In fact, all 6 of the non-centers aren't quite meeting their responsibility to make shots with efficiency (though KCP, Holiday, Kispert and Avdija are close) and none of them really deserve more looks.

Ultimately, I'd say KCP, Avdija, Bertans, Holiday and Kispert are close enough to team average TS% that they don't deserve much criticism in shot selection, but they also shouldn't be whining about getting more looks. Kuzma, Dinwiddie and Neto are the guys that are definitely shooting too much at an unacceptable efficiency, particularly Kuzma.

In fact Deni's TS% went up as his USG% went up.
It was 44.8% on 12.6% in October, 53.1% on 13.5% in November and 60.2% on 16.5% in December

With his size and quickness a lot of possibilities
which are hard for other players are easy for him, and he should be able to score 12+ ppg on high efficiency...

For whatever reasons each time it seems he starts to get things together on offense there comes another disappointing game

[CntOutSmrtCrazy]

[boogie-reke]

I will repeat again that the thing that holds him back the most is strictly his ball handling and sophistication in his dribble.

Right now, his ball security is pretty bad - you could see that whenever he’s even slighty pressured as he runs the ball up the court - heck, even when he’s all alone running the fast break you could see how out of control his dribble is, and how high and loose he brings the ball.

Deni is a smart guy, he’s a sponge - and you can clearly see he sees things on the court, but right now the gap between what his mind sees and wants to do - and what his technique and skill-level allows him to is evidently wide.

I think the way he’s being brought up offensively is perfect for him - running him through screens to the elbows initiating PNR situations where he has to read/react : Drive hard to his right hand, Find the lob, or dish to a shooter.

Last night he was given more chances to bring the ball up as well to allow Beal to work off the ball, but even then we saw that the one time he tried to do what his mind wanted and actually go coast to coast (something that as he improves his handle should be a clear weapon for him but not right now) - he immediately cuffed it up with minimal pressure due to his poor ball security.

The sooner he’ll understand that he needs to completely revamp his dribble the better - because it’s not just about ball security, but being sophisticated enough to get to your spots on the court - and again right now he has a very stiff and vanilla dribble/ball handling that prevents him from executing what he reads or what his mind wants him to be doing.

Once he works on that - and I think it should take 1-2 summers, it will really unlock his full potential and make him shine, because his unselfishness, IQ and playmaking are shown in extremely limited packages right now.