This kid looks pretty good....
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Usually I take nothing whatsoever away from highlights and reprimand those who try to. I’ll make a minor exception here. I’m cautiously optimistic. Diego shows some promising skills starting with the weakside move in coverage at the 1:50 mark. Competition level not withstanding, it’s pretty clear the kid has a left and uses to create for himself as well as to distribute. That’s good news for us. It’s been a long time since we’ve had someone with his length who possessed those types of skills. When you combine that with having a reputation of earning PT for his defense and I’m intrigued. We’ll see.
I take nothing away from highlight film of guys draining 3 balls. No context to it in terms of number of attempts, etc.
I take nothing away from highlight film of guys draining 3 balls. No context to it in terms of number of attempts, etc.
If we return to being a really good defensive team, I think he will play a major role.
I agree I'm cautiously optimistic as well. Rivals also ranked him as basically a top 60 or so player in the nation, so if scouts think hes that good, that's another data point that makes me optimistic.
I hear you. Still cautious overall as I thought last year Nwuli would br better but the difference is Diego is a different type of player so we’ll see.
The film on the other one doesn’t really offer much to suggest how he’ll perform as a big man in D1 one way or the other. That’s not to say Miteo won’t be good. It’s just that physical dominance at a much lower level generally isn’t predictive of D1 outcomes. Again, I don’t intend this as a slight either way. It’s a completely neutral comment that’s true of 95%+ of incoming recruit film one watches. You can’t usually tell how good a kid is from HS film for the same reason.
I like Darren and don’t mean this as an attack on him at all but contrasting the above to my comment on Diego - I bet you would not find the types of moves I pointed to in Buchanan’s recruit film. He does other things well and has a very good strong side game, but I’d bet anything his high school film did not feature moves where he penetrated hard left side in contested situation to make a play (shot or pass). That’s simply not a part of his game right now. With Diego - the film suggests the opposite and the level he played doesn’t matter in this limited respect.
The films of both offer enough for me to know how good they will be - maybe not from day one, but pretty soon there.after. Some of Harper's films didn't show that much, but you knew if you knew what you were looking at. I've evaluated thousands of films. You just develop a feel after a while. My only concern might be their adapting to the American game.
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The one thing is that he has a reputation of being a good defender supposedly, which wasn't the case last year. I will say if he does live up to that 4 star rating we will be a tournament contender. Can we finally be lucky for one and find that lightning in a bottle? Just one time? In any sport?
I am working on a large write up of the team including analysis on every player, and for that I’ve watched full games on what I can find. For Diego I could not find tons of full game footage from his pro season for Ulm, only finding one game with good quality, but still it mostly aligned with the U18 eurobasket games of his I watched. I think he’s got super high potential on the defensive end and think a decent bit of it will translate here. He gets around screens on the perimeter, plays well in the passing lanes, positions himself correctly and has just tremendous on the ball ability as well. My prediction is he will be our leading front court minutes player, last few years we have had to go super small to get the level of perimeter defense Pike wanted and Diego should prevent the need to play JMike in spots he shouldn’t. However, if you’re expecting him to be this transformative offensive piece, I think you’ll be disappointed in that respect. As long as he can be a reliable spacer in the corner, make some good connective passes and allow our creators to do our thing he should more than serve his purpose and stay on the floor. I am very excited about Diego, think he can be a good piece this year and maybe be the true guy to return us to our defensive identity of being long and suffocating on the perimeter.
He’s known for being good at D cross multiple scouting sources. For this reason - Nwuli was my “bar” on offense and the moves I pointed to suggest an upgrade. His ball skills and offensive game on his film seem more diverse than Chris in my view.
I’m not saying this means he’ll be good - but his film looks nothing whatsoever like Zrno’s Euro highlights which quite literally told you nothing since it was almost all 3 balls. And defnitely no defense. Diego’s film had a bunch of blocks.
And just to be clear - I’m not knocking 3 point specialists, I’m simply saying anyone can make a great looking video handpicking the 10 best best looking 3 pointers they hit on a season. It just doesn’t tell you anything on a highlight reel.
I don’t recall seeing film on Denis from Euro ball.
That's a little why the video concerned me. Defensive reputation and the only real defensive highlights were a couple feom behind blocks after he was beaten because he couldnt stay in front it seemed. Haven't seen full games or live, so hopefully his rep is earned. RU is definitely due for a hopeful to come good.
I actually thought I saw video of one of the other new guys that looked like what I hoped Nwuli could be. Don't remember the name though.
Yeah if he leads in minutes played, and he doesn't score, that means that the other transfers are a failure and that would mean another long season. I am hopeful Diego can score though.
I mean - it’s a highlight reel, right? Your not going to see vanilla footage of him staying in front of his man in basic on ball coverage. From his position, blocks like those are what you’re going to see. My read on all of them was that he let the kid with the ball pass him and timed the blocks. I didn’t view any of them as he was beat and then reached out a hand in a last ditch effort.
This is from 2 years ago, but a lot of these clips are fairly translatable and remain in line with what I saw in the more current film.
The films of both offer enough for me to know how good they will be - maybe not from day one, but pretty soon there.after. Some of Harper's films didn't show that much, but you knew if you knew what you were looking at. I've evaluated thousands of film
Yes, by far! And as far as 3's, it's not that he is hitting threes, it's that his form is nearly perfect, and his release doesn't look that slow to me.
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On the 3s - the ones you are seeing are hand picked in a highlights video. Now if your saying you’ve watched whole games of him to see his consistent stroke that’s an entirely different thing. I video my middle schoolers playing BB a lot. I could clip together a highlight reel of each kid on the team’s best 3s and outside of a few with terrible form (super low release, etc.), you would not be able to tell which ones shot at the highest percentage from it. I promise. I get that in middle school, form is perhaps less consistent from one shot to another but even in the NCAAs - form looks different depending how balanced a kid is, etc. and some kids with funky looking form shoot at a high percentage anyway. It’s not a reliable predictive indicator. And Sean isn’t wrong about the blocks in the sense that they don’t provide useful data demonstrating that Diego is a good defender. They simply show that he’s good at timing blocks from behind which isn’t a bad skill to have but is of only limited importance in overall game flow.
That’s why I said - the only thing you can really take from the clip is that he defninitely has good length, and is comfortable putting the ball on the floor in both directions to make plays. He looks like a pretty good ball handling forward to me (compared to Grant, Nwuli and Denis). Unlike Buchanan, he uses his left.
We really just don’t know how any of the new guys will fare vs high majors. All should be fine vs low and mid majors but the better defebse/game speed of the high majors is the big unknown
I personally want the NCAA to prohibit these euro pros from ncaa ball though
I personally want the NCAA to prohibit these euro pros from ncaa ball though
Thanks for this, better watch. Weirdly reminded me a little of Derkack in some mannerisms on D.
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