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Post by DERRENMATTS on Mar 27, 2017 16:39:33 GMT -5
Anytime I'm watching these 6'7" wing players who are not gifted with blazing speed, who do not possess great athleticism and jumping ability, but instead have strong and sturdy bodies, I think, "can he be the next Paul Pierce?"
But surely, just having a sturdy body will not make you the next Paul Pierce. What was it about him that allowed him to be a lethal scorer, even though he didn't have, say Jordan's physical abilities?
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Post by afceltic on Mar 28, 2017 4:02:36 GMT -5
He had a quick first step that allowed him to get great angles to the basket and as he aged was able to add a very good mid range game that allowed him to play past the point where his physical abilities left him. A lack of a mid range game is what has been killing Wade because he can't shoot at all, and LeFlop's jumper isn't very good either. That is why players like them will be forced to retire as soon as their physical ability to get by guys leaves them due to father time.
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Post by DERRENMATTS on Mar 28, 2017 4:30:40 GMT -5
Agree with your assessment, and I'll add that Pierce was a master at driving to the basket and drawing fouls. He regularly was among the NBA's leaders in free throw attempts per game.
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Post by eja117 on Mar 28, 2017 8:31:44 GMT -5
I think Pierce's body was excellent in a unique way. One thing I remember was Pitino saying everyone was going to be in the best shape of their lives right after he drafted Paul and the press was like "What about Pierce?" and he said "I'm not worried about him. Kansas already has him on our program." or something like that. At the time I took that to mean he knew the Kansas coach and they were of a like mind on physical training.
So many players are so young when they come in the league now they're absurdly skinny and grow into their bodies in the league and I'm not sure they learn how to deal with it. Like I think it took Tyson Chandler years to realize he needed to hire a chef or something.
Pierce came in with a really decent body where if he needed to be a little bigger/stronger he could do that to play SF and then use his body to draw fouls and punish people and rack up rebounds. But if he needed to slim down to get bouncier and improve his ball handling and get quicker to be a shooting guard he could do that too, hence he played a lot of years at both spots. When he was a SG the advantage he had was being bigger and shooting over people and defending well.
The other thing was he was just very confident and a very hard worker so his shot kept improving as well as his defense.
Interestingly I feel like Pierce became his best self once he wasn't THE MAN on the team. Once he didn't have to do everything he could do everything he was doing at the best possible level. Suddenly he was a great scorer AND a great defender. Suddenly he was a great 4th quarter guy.
I feel like he was a very flexible player but we never felt like he was because we always just saw him as the man. In a sense he was more Scottie Pippen than MJ. The year MJ left Scottie showed he was an incredible player and MVP worthy, but that's not how we think of Scottie as his best. We think of Scottie at his best as an all world defender who would steal the ball from you at will and then pass it up and get on an unstoppable fast break.
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