Cameron Boozer

[Benjammin]

Luka has a huge size advantage against most of the players that try to guard him. Boozer will not.

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[FrodoBaggins]

Here's who has defended Luka the most this season:




Although Doncic functions as a PG on offense, teams tend to guard him with wings and bigger, sturdier guards. It's not as if he's bullying point guards every possession. Teams aren't putting a Brunson, Haliburton, or Young on him. They might get switched onto him occasionally, but not as often as you'd think. A front-court player usually sets the screen for Luka.

[King Ken]

Luka has a huge size advantage against most of the players that try to guard him. Boozer will not.

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They aren't going to be able to guard him in and stay out of foul trouble. The spacing in the NBA is 10x. Boozer will crush guys his size on the perimeter and smaller guys will just get bullied.

He's not going to be easy to guard with NBA rules. He's going to be extremely difficult to guard. What i see on here is ya'll projecting him playing college Basketball with NBA athletes and NBA players. He's going to be playing in the NBA with NBA rules as a leverage superstar and the best player at taking advantage of your mistakes since Luka and a tad better at this stage than Luka was back then.

[FrodoBaggins]

Luka has a huge size advantage against most of the players that try to guard him. Boozer will not.

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They aren't going to be able to guard him in and stay out of foul trouble. The spacing in the NBA is 10x. Boozer will crush guys his size on the perimeter and smaller guys will just get bullied.

He's not going to be easy to guard with NBA rules. He's going to be extremely difficult to guard. What i see on here is ya'll projecting him playing college Basketball with NBA athletes and NBA players. He's going to be playing in the NBA with NBA rules as a leverage superstar and the best player at taking advantage of your mistakes since Luka and a tad better at this stage than Luka was back then.

I think some people just can't get past their aesthetic cognitive bias of not liking bully ball and preferring a finesse approach. Kind of the same thing with Edey a couple of years ago in his draft cycle. Boozer doesn't need Luka or Shai's fluid handle or deep bag if he can just pummel you into submission to get to his spots and the free-throw line.

[King Ken]

Luka has a huge size advantage against most of the players that try to guard him. Boozer will not.

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They aren't going to be able to guard him in and stay out of foul trouble. The spacing in the NBA is 10x. Boozer will crush guys his size on the perimeter and smaller guys will just get bullied.

He's not going to be easy to guard with NBA rules. He's going to be extremely difficult to guard. What i see on here is ya'll projecting him playing college Basketball with NBA athletes and NBA players. He's going to be playing in the NBA with NBA rules as a leverage superstar and the best player at taking advantage of your mistakes since Luka and a tad better at this stage than Luka was back then.

I think some people just can't get past their aesthetic cognitive bias of not liking bully ball and preferring a finesse approach. Kind of the same thing with Edey a couple of years ago in his draft cycle. Boozer doesn't need Luka or Shai's fluid handle or deep bag if he can just pummel you into submission to get to his spots and the free-throw line.

They did the same to Luka. Remember the Hedo comparisons consistently. It's hard for people to see what players do well. They can only evaluate what is common to the eye.

[FrodoBaggins]

The unathletic Cameron Boozer casually broad jumping from the free-throw line to the restricted area off the dribble when driving to the basket, AND absorbing & finishing through contact:




Unathletic, though.

He's functionally stronger than Paolo and Julius Randle. Neither of them leverages their size, strength, and power as Boozer does. Neither has his combination of long strides and fluid/coordinated two-foot jumping ability. Sengun and Sabonis sort of do, but they both have much shorter legs/strides. Long strides + strength, size, and power + two-foot jumping coordination/fluidity is a deadly combination.

Cooper Flagg has a similar combination of stride length and two-foot jumping coordination/fluidity to Cam. More horsepower as a jumper, but less strength/bulk behind it.

[Marvin Martian]

Luka has a huge size advantage against most of the players that try to guard him. Boozer will not.

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They aren't going to be able to guard him in and stay out of foul trouble. The spacing in the NBA is 10x. Boozer will crush guys his size on the perimeter and smaller guys will just get bullied.

He's not going to be easy to guard with NBA rules. He's going to be extremely difficult to guard. What i see on here is ya'll projecting him playing college Basketball with NBA athletes and NBA players. He's going to be playing in the NBA with NBA rules as a leverage superstar and the best player at taking advantage of your mistakes since Luka and a tad better at this stage than Luka was back then.

I think some people just can't get past their aesthetic cognitive bias of not liking bully ball and preferring a finesse approach. Kind of the same thing with Edey a couple of years ago in his draft cycle. Boozer doesn't need Luka or Shai's fluid handle or deep bag if he can just pummel you into submission to get to his spots and the free-throw line.

Cam Boozer doesn't have a spot. That's the problem. Every elite scorer has a spot, a go to move and a counter off of that. Boozer just puts his head down and then does a bunch of pump fakes.

Boozer looks like a guy that punishes advantages; superstars like SGA and Luka creates them.

Boozer's current state is fine for a high level role player like Chet, but unacceptable if you are projecting him as a star.

[FrodoBaggins]

The unathletic Cameron Boozer casually broad jumping from the free-throw line to the restricted area off the dribble when driving to the basket, AND absorbing & finishing through contact:




Unathletic, though.

He's functionally stronger than Paolo and Julius Randle. Neither of them leverages their size, strength, and power as Boozer does. Neither has his combination of long strides and fluid/coordinated two-foot jumping ability. Sengun and Sabonis sort of do, but they both have much shorter legs/strides. Long strides + strength, size, and power + two-foot jumping coordination/fluidity is a deadly combination.

Cooper Flagg has a similar combination of stride length and two-foot jumping coordination/fluidity to Cam. More horsepower as a jumper, but less strength/bulk behind it.

Look at this ****.




I can't believe he's getting the tag of being so unathletic when clips like this exist. People are so focused on his vertical displacement (how high he jumps) when they should be focusing on his horizontal displacement (how far/long he jumps). He covers a really decent amount of distance on his one-foot jumps, two-foot jumps, and pivots.

It's going to be really hard to stay in front of him without fouling at the NBA level. Expect a high FTr on rolls, cuts, and drives when he can broad jump half the length of the key off the bounce, absorb and deliver physical contact, send the defender stumbling backward, and finish strong without losing balance.

The NBA is a horizontally stretched-out game these days. The larger pro-sized court, the deeper three-point line, the defensive three seconds rule, the freedom of movement rule, the more prolific three-point shooting and spacing, the fact that offensive players are allowed more physical contact than ever, the carrying of the ball, the gather step.

All of these aspects of the modern NBA benefit Cam's horizontal jumping athleticism immensely. He's not going to have to worry about going over the top of guys to score, as he'll just go through them.

I really think many are overthinking it regarding how Cameron's going to get his shot off in the paint. He's way too skilled, high IQ, strong, long-strided, and has enough reach & length to make it work. The spacing and dribbling/carrying/travelling/gather step interpretation of the modern game has changed the dynamics of how separation is created and leveraged to score.

He can shoot, handle/drive, and pass very well for his size. He finds adequate solutions against problematic matchups in college, of which there aren't many. He'll do the same in the NBA. Too many tools in his workbelt not to fix it like Bob the Builder. Just like Bird, Magic, Karl Malone, and many other similar-sized forwards in the past. And the handful of below-the-rim stars (Brunson, SGA, Jokic, Luka, Curry, Harden, Cade, Reaves, etc) carving up the NBA right now.

He'll take big, long, athletic defenders outside and stretch them with perimeter shooting and dribble drives to negate their vertical advantage. And pick apart their off-ball defense, help defense, and positioning with high-level passing powered by intelligent decision-making. The ability to handle and drive is probably the area I've slept on most, as well as others. The big wing qualities. Imagine Paolo with a brain that can shoot. Actual good shot selection, decision-making, and scoring range.

I always come back to this recent Thinking Basketball video:

"...whereas the gather step is really about ground-bound, horizontal solutions."

"The spacing of today's game has really exacerbated these gather-based moves. There's just a ton of room to play 1-on-1 driving into the paint that wasn't there in the past."

Watch on YouTube

[dcstanley]

The unathletic Cameron Boozer casually broad jumping from the free-throw line to the restricted area off the dribble when driving to the basket, AND absorbing & finishing through contact:

I can't help but feel these low release below the rim finishes are getting swatted in the pros.

[King Ken]

The unathletic Cameron Boozer casually broad jumping from the free-throw line to the restricted area off the dribble when driving to the basket, AND absorbing & finishing through contact:

I can't help but feel these low release below the rim finishes are getting swatted in the pros.

He's in your chest, you ain't swatting ****

[Cammo101]

Anyone calling him unathletic isn't paying attention. What he is is an average athlete compared to guys normally being selected in the top 3 picks of a draft.

[CptCrunch]

I've parsed the shot location into more details, here are the output for Cam.

[FrodoBaggins]

The unathletic Cameron Boozer casually broad jumping from the free-throw line to the restricted area off the dribble when driving to the basket, AND absorbing & finishing through contact:

I can't help but feel these low release below the rim finishes are getting swatted in the pros.

He's in your chest, you ain't swatting ****

Yeah, good luck trying to get vertical when you're backpedaling at speed, then stumbling off balance because a 250+ pound freight train just hit you like a football player.

That's on drives.

Will he get blocked on post-ups now and then with his current approach? Sure. But he's either scoring, drawing fouls, or rebounding his own misses enough to offset that. And finding the open man to punish poorly positioned off-ball defense and help defense. He'll face some longer defenders, but he'll have more 3PT shooting and spacing to work with, defensive three seconds to open up the key, and a higher rate of mismatches (PF posting up a slower PF or C, or a smaller SF, SG, or PG).

1.0+ points per possession on 2-4 select post-up possessions per game? Wouldn't be surprised to see him do those kinds of numbers in the NBA. That's in line with what Pascal Siakam (1.01 ppp on 3.0 poss/g), Bobby Portis (1.05 on 2.4), Tobias Harris (1.13 on 2.3), and Paolo Banchero (1.10 on 2.1) are doing right now. And he's a more precocious post-up talent than any of them at the same age.

[King Ken]

I can't help but feel these low release below the rim finishes are getting swatted in the pros.

He's in your chest, you ain't swatting ****

Yeah, good luck trying to get vertical when you're backpedaling at speed, then stumbling off balance because a 250+ pound freight train just hit you like a football player.

That's on drives.

Will he get blocked on post-ups now and then with his current approach? Sure. But he's either scoring, drawing fouls, or rebounding his own misses enough to offset that. And finding the open man to punish poorly positioned off-ball defense and help defense. He'll face some longer defenders, but he'll have more 3PT shooting and spacing to work with, defensive three seconds to open up the key, and a higher rate of mismatches (PF posting up a slower PF or C, or a smaller SF, SG, or PG).

1.0+ points per possession on 2-4 select post-up possessions per game? Wouldn't be surprised to see him do those kinds of numbers in the NBA. That's in line with what Pascal Siakam (1.01 ppp on 3.0 poss/g), Bobby Portis (1.05 on 2.4), Tobias Harris (1.13 on 2.3), and Paolo Banchero (1.10 on 2.1) are doing right now. And he's a more precocious post-up talent than any of them at the same age.

You get it. It's insanely easy to score in the NBA. That doesn't mean it's easy for non hoopers but for guys who can hoop at a high level, it's not anywhere as difficult as Euroleague, Eurocup, or the NCAAs. Mainly for some of the reasons you mentioned.

That said, the NBA is so much harder to defend in. The athleticism required is a lot. It requires so much functional athleticism. A lot of 80s and 90s bigs would be ran out of the modern NBA whereas some bigs from that era would have thrived in this modern era. 4s especially would have had some issues. 2000s 4s changed the game which would be fine in the modern NBA. In fact, we don't really have that many modern 4s in today's league as they are just difficult to find in general.

[King Ken]

Anyone calling him unathletic isn't paying attention. What he is is an average athlete compared to guys normally being selected in the top 3 picks of a draft.

We said the same for 77. I don't want Hedo with the top pick. He's not athletic. He's floor bound. He has a high floor but his ceiling is not that high. Man, all that dude has been in the NBA has been dominant.

[FrodoBaggins]

Anyone calling him unathletic isn't paying attention. What he is is an average athlete compared to guys normally being selected in the top 3 picks of a draft.

The thing is, athleticism is a far more complex and multi-dimensional concept than how it's often presented or discussed. It's generally diluted down to expressions of speed and power, such as how fast you run (40-yard dash) or how high you jump (vertical jump). There are several components and even subcomponents to consider, all of which are influenced considerably by the sport-specific context.

How you value or weight these components and subcomponents determines your perception of athleticism and the evaluation of it regarding individuals. If you place a greater importance on acceleration, speed, and vertical displacement? Yeah, Cameron's athleticism isn't impressing you. But if you put more emphasis on strength, power, horizontal displacement, coordination, dexterity, stability, and balance? He looks better than a lot of high flyers.

Athleticism is nuanced as hell. LeBron's strength, speed, power, and endurance were incredible, especially for his size. But his flexibility and agility were always lagging in comparison. More specifically, his two-foot jumping, lateral movement, ability to rotate, change direction, and pace. This resulted in a lack of fluidity at times, including a stiff handle, clunky footwork, and a comparative lack of vertical displacement or coordination going off two feet compared to his one-foot leaps, particularly from a standstill or off one or two steps.

Shawn Marion and Gerald Wallace were better shot blockers and rebounders than LeBron despite being generally smaller. Their superior two-foot leaping was one of the primary reasons. Does that make them more or less athletic than James? Depends how you value the components of athleticism. Just one example of the complexity/nuance of athleticism.

[Marvin Martian]

Anyone calling him unathletic isn't paying attention. What he is is an average athlete compared to guys normally being selected in the top 3 picks of a draft.

We said the same for 77. I don't want Hedo with the top pick. He's not athletic. He's floor bound. He has a high floor but his ceiling is not that high. Man, all that dude has been in the NBA has been dominant.

Luka isn't athletic and he is floor bound. He is 26 and he can barely dunk now. How is this a gotcha?

Luka became a superstar anyway because he has a elite handle and is also an elite shot maker from the perimeter. His fluid shot mechanics and high release point lets him get his shot off only needing just an inch of space.

Cam Boozer has not displayed these skills at Duke. Being floor bound is a bigger issue for him because he doesn't have those same elite guard skills that Luka has. And he is expected to take on more defensive responsibilities at the next level.

Fortunately for him, if he goes to any team other than BKN or SAC, he will never have to do that. But then he will also be limited to being a high level role player like Chet.

[The-Power]

Luka isn't athletic and he is floor bound. He is 26 and he can barely dunk now. How is this a gotcha?

How does that even matter when he's been historically ultra-efficient around the rim and gets to all the spots he wants to? Who cares if he cannot dunk? That doesn't mean that he completely lacks important athletic traits. He's just not explosive or a leaper.

[FrodoBaggins]

Luka has those basketball skills because of his athleticism. He's quite strong, incredibly coordinated, and has exceptional balance and stability. He's also quite flexible and agile, hence the superb footwork, pivoting, and tight handle. His deceleration is often mentioned as his standout quality, but he's got a bunch of great qualities to his athletic package. Don't forget the dexterity, too.

Just because his speed and vertical power are limited doesn't mean his athleticism is poor. It depends on how you define and value the components and subcomponents of athleticism.

You can't separate anthropometry, athleticism, and sport-specific skills. It's all entangled together.

[JMAC3]

The unathletic Cameron Boozer casually broad jumping from the free-throw line to the restricted area off the dribble when driving to the basket, AND absorbing & finishing through contact:




Unathletic, though.

He's functionally stronger than Paolo and Julius Randle. Neither of them leverages their size, strength, and power as Boozer does. Neither has his combination of long strides and fluid/coordinated two-foot jumping ability. Sengun and Sabonis sort of do, but they both have much shorter legs/strides. Long strides + strength, size, and power + two-foot jumping coordination/fluidity is a deadly combination.

Cooper Flagg has a similar combination of stride length and two-foot jumping coordination/fluidity to Cam. More horsepower as a jumper, but less strength/bulk behind it.

The fact this is the clip you found to prove he is athletic is kind of sad. This is the most standard drive of all drives my guy lol
He jumps from inside the ACC logo in the paint to the edge of the restricted area.