I have not lost my hope yet: Summary of Danny Abdia's first half season in the NBA - Walla! sport

2021-03-06T06:43:40.528Z

The precedents from Caspi's cycle and the initial numbers of Harden and Drusen illuminate the Israeli's difficulties in a different light: although he has not yet expressed his abilities, it does not really mean much yet. Ravitz with Interim Summary of the Washington Washington Rookie Season, Including Removed Question Marks

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Not Lost Yet His Hope: Summary of Danny Abdia's first half season in the NBA

Ravitz with Interim Summary of the Washington Washington Rookie Season, Including Removed Question Marks

Greetings from Caspi, Defensive Sparks Against Kwai and Compliments from Brooks: Danny Abdia's Exciting Night

To the full article

Many better than him had a hard time in the first half of the season.

Abdia (Photo: AP, Nick Wass)

Patience and proportions

Naturally, the first Israeli to be selected in the top 10 creates huge interest in the country.

Every minute, every shot, every attack in which Russell Westbrook is not handed over to him and every statement of every blogger in Washington has become a media event, the drop to the bench and the fluctuations in the amount of minutes seem like fateful occurrences.

So it is important to emphasize that Abdia is in the first mile of a marathon run, a stage where he is still learning to settle into the new world he has reached.

Obviously it's better to be good and dominant as a rookie than bad and passive, but that says very little about what a career sequel will look like.

The important thing is the ability to work hard year after year, summer after summer, get better and add more and more elements of the game.

The league today is full of superstars who were very marginal players like the Rockies, senior players who went through the development league, key players who were not selected in the draft.

Nothing is decided in the first 30 games of a player in the league.

There is no better example of this than Omri Caspi's 2009 cycle.

The top rookie in the cycle was Tyrrick Evans, who provided a spectacular stat line, one of Rocky's most impressive ever.

But it was also the best season in Evans' career, turning from an ineffective star into a likely complementary player until he was ejected from the league.

Caspi himself came very ready for the NBA and was ranked eighth on the list of rookie scenes.

Notice who scored less than him: James Harden, Damar Druzen, Jero Holiday, Serge Ivka and Jeff Teague.

All of these have become far more significant players in the NBA than seven of the top eight rookies in the rookie season (the exception being Steph Kerry).

In each cycle you can find quite a few such examples.

Abdia started the season as a five-man player and the team began to succeed precisely after he went down to the bench.

From the moment threes expert Davis Bartens reset the handle he and Roy Hachimura became the leading forwards on the team.

For Danny, it's better that way.

It allows him to evolve at his own pace, to learn the subtleties of the game in the NBA, without feeling that the team needs him excessively.

He gets minutes first and foremost according to his current contribution, and except for a few games where he was less sharp he earned his place as a rotation player almost all the time, thanks to the little things he does on both sides.

Harden scored less than him as a rookie.

So what?

Money in Sacramento (Photo: AP, Eric Gay)

Creating shot modes

The salient feature of Abdia’s first half season is passivity.

He is barely involved in Washington's offensive game, taking a few shots and performing very few actions with the ball.

He has no problem playing 20 minutes and throwing in the basket once.

His usage percentage is 11.9, a number even lower relative to Rocky: he is ranked 31st out of 35 in the percentage of usage among his classmates who have played at least ten minutes in ten games.

In the entire league Abdia is ranked 217 out of 233 players who get at least 20 minutes per game.

The list of players below him is not bad at all, it includes players who at the end of their careers take on secondary roles such as Andre Iguodala, Mark Gasol and Nick Batum, some quality role players like PJ Tucker, Royce O'Neill and Wes Matthews and some significant defensive chins. .

Abdia is a pretty effective roll player right now, and it's no coincidence that Washington achieves better results in the minutes he plays (his net rating is fourth on the team).

But Abdia was not selected ninth because of his qualities as a role player, but because of his diversity, with an emphasis on his abilities as a creator and moralist.

Why has this not been reflected so far?

There are several reasons for this, among them the style of Washington which is based on the personal ability of two players and the character of Abdia who gets confidence slowly and through success in the small things.

But the most important reason is that creative wingers who are not natural ball carriers are the players who take the most time to crystallize.

Such players initially have a hard time creating shot situations in the face of the size and athleticism of NBA players.

Most of the league’s top wingers have not impressed in their rookie seasons and it was hard to imagine them developing into scorers and morals at the level they have become.

Drusen, Gordon Hayward, Paul George, Kwai Leonard, Jimmy Butler, Chris Middleton, Jaylen Brown, Pascal Siakam - none of them look like an exceptional rookie scorer.

For natural ball carriers and face players with exceptional physical data it is much easier to adapt quickly in the NBA, wing players have particularly complex requirements.

This of course does not mean that Abdia will reach these levels, but that for players of his type it is especially difficult to know what to expect next.

The extent to which Danny will develop the ability to create shooting situations for himself will determine what kind of player he will develop into being and what his roof will be.

In the first stage it will be easier for him to develop the ability to function as a secondary creator - to get a ball after a move by Westbrook or Bradley Bill and take advantage of a small advantage to penetrate and finish with a paint or take out a ball.

With time and confidence he will be able to lead a ball and start moves on his own, and as some of the players in the previous paragraph showed, this can happen in the third and fourth year as well.

In the meantime, he hardly penetrates or throws threes with a dribble, two things he has a lot to do at Maccabi Tel Aviv and are definitely in his repertoire.

Scott Brooks will look for opportunities to let Abdia work on those parts, but as long as Washington fights for a ticket to the playoffs it will only happen in Garbage Time.

Still fed on leftovers.

Abdia with Westbrook (Photo: Official Website, Wizards Official Website)

attack

Having dealt with what Abdia does not do, one can talk about what he does.

In his first half of the season Danny has provided impressive answers to two of his most prominent question marks, one on offense and one on defense.

In this attack, of course, the shooting from the outside.

Abdia throws three threes per game (more than half of his shots) and scores them at 35.6 percent, including 36.9 percent of completely free threes.

These are very average figures created due to large fluctuations: in December and January Abdia scored threes more than 43 percent, in February at 28.3 percent.

This is an instability that is very typical of the Rockies, usually (but really not always) the good shooting periods are more indicative of their potential.

Abdia's shot is effective at the NBA level because he releases the ball relatively quickly and from a high point, allowing him to get on the shot quite comfortably even when there is a guard close to him.

His shot mechanics are good, they always have been, but he's still not stable enough on landing, his legs often move sideways and forward.

The most interesting statistic is that unlike most players, Abdia scores threes from the corner (22.2 percent) much less well than the rest of the three-point arc (42.4 percent).

Although a large part of the attacks he stands in the corner, he prefers to move to the half-corner area and from there most of his shots come.

This means that Abdia feels very comfortable with the NBA range and the area from which most players find it harder to score.

His off-arc percentage ranks him 22nd in the league out of 210 players who have thrown at least 50 such threes, which is his most impressive figure to date.

This is important because this ability will allow Brooks to use it alongside players who are mostly effective in threes from the corner, and also because there is no reason that over time the shots from the corner, which are from a closer range, will also start to come in.

On the other areas of attack there is little to say in the meantime.

Abdia's delivery ability is reflected in making decisions in passing attacks and in moments of good ball movement, he knows how to deliver the extra delivery to a more available player.

He moves to color with and without the ball only when he recognizes a clear path and has recently identified more opportunities to move without a ball.

But most of the time his job on offense is to stand on the three-point line and create a space for Russ and Bill.

Spacing can also be active - with movement to free spaces and creating delivery angles.

Abdia most of the time stands still and rarely moves, especially when he plays alongside Westbrook, a player who imposes passivity on the sub-players next to him because he does not use drills and attacks at unexpected moments for his teammates as well.

Rarely create moves.

Abdia (Photo: GettyImages)

protection

On the other side of the floor, there was little doubt about Abdia's ability as a team guard.

He is a smart and disciplined player, so he reads situations correctly and understands where he should be at a higher level than most of the youngsters in the league.

This is also noticeable in the defensive rebound.

Danny is very aware of this underappreciated element, his position in defense constantly takes into account the need to close for a rebound and help fight hard rebounds.

This feature is especially important in a team that most of its inside players are not good rebounders.

Abdia is the second most quality defensive rebounder in the team after Westbrook, making him an asset in substitutes that include Robin Lopez and Davis Bartans who rarely take rebounds.

Abdia's surprising defensive ability so far is personal defense.

It turns out to be one-on-one guard better and more effective as you get closer to the ring.

While in general the players he keeps score are 1.6 percent more than expected (a reasonable figure for Rocky), in the area closer to the basket (about two meters from the ring) the opponents score 4.5 percent less than expected.

Time after time players find it difficult to get a good shot in the paint in front of Danny.

He has a special sense for closing shot angles, he recognizes the right moment to position himself in a way that leaves the opponent without a comfortable option.

He also knows how to recognize the moment a player organizes for a shot to take a quick step in his direction and raise his hands.

Sometimes he gets into the player's territory and it costs him an offense, but overall it's a clean and very effective way to make it difficult for colored shots.

Abdia makes life difficult in these situations for both the most senior players and players taller than him.

The part where Abdia has a hard time is defending Pick v. Roll.

He has not yet developed the ability to go through blockages, he often gets stuck in blockages and needs replacement, this is an ability he will have to develop in order to become a truly quality personal guard.

Agile guards can pass him in the first step, but this is true for almost every winger in the league.

His entanglement in offenses that have made headlines in the last two weeks is not bothersome, these are mostly little Rocky mistakes and sometimes even Rocky whistles.

You can bet this will not be a problem later on.

Overall, Abdia's defensive potential looks high, and his current abilities on that side allow him to remain a rotation player on the team with playoff aspirations even when he rarely initiates an offense.

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All sports articles on 2021-03-06

I have not lost my hope yet: Summary of Danny Abdia's first half season in the NBA - Walla! sport

Not Lost Yet His Hope: Summary of Danny Abdia's first half season in the NBA

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Greetings from Caspi, Defensive Sparks Against Kwai and Compliments from Brooks: Danny Abdia's Exciting Night

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