Everything Valanciunas

[white men can't jump]

The Hibbert focus was for 2014-15.

Oct 2, 2014 "In fact, we call it ‘do the Hibbert’ because he (Roy Hibbert) is one of the best in the league at doing that.” - Casey

Oct 9, 2014 "Right now, [Pacers centre Roy] Hibbert is the best. We want him chasing Hibbert." - Bayno

So that was a goal for 2014-15. We're only one full season removed from that (2015-16).




Bullshit.

- May 2014


- Sept 2015

- April 2016

- April 2016

- October 2016

- December 2016

I mean the guy's worked with Olajuwon, Sikma, bulked up, worked with a running coach, shooting/extending range, and is now--even after signing his big contract--taking up boxing to improve his quickness.

Don't revise history to fit your dumb narrative.

Yeah anyone who knows anything about basketball and international ball fully knew Lithuania's coach was using Jonas as a scapegoat for an awful tournament where poor tactics were obviously a huge issue with their national team.

There had never been a single bad thing said about JV's work ethic or motor until after his NT randomly said this shit in the summer.

[SkywalkerAC]

Atta boy JV!!! Pushed through fatigue with a massive effort against a formidable frontcourt.

[Lupe]

Apologies for how big this pic is.

[KeonClark]

Great game jv! Put the pitchforks and torches away for a day or 2, angry mob

[S.R.]

Apologies for how big this pic is.

wtf put him back in the Bible quick before he breaks something

[Maury]

I hate the way JV is basically whispering in his godaddy spot. Too breathy.


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[DanH]

Great game jv! Put the pitchforks and torches away for a day or 2, angry mob

Yeah, thank goodness he had a good one. Hopefully it's a slump buster.

[McRealistic]

This is what we need from JV every single night with better defence. He needs to bring it every single night just like DD and KL do.

Anything less than that, is a failure on his part.

This team has a chance ONLY if JV does his part and can stay focused.

[Lupe]

Excerpt from a Zach Lowe article:

"If your big guys don't dominate, you have to go small," Casey said. "I tell Jonas [Valanciunas]: 'Oh, you want to play more? Then dominate. I don't want to see fadeaways over 6-8 guys. Get to the rim. Get every offensive rebound. If not, you're coming out.'"

Post-up bigs who can't shoot 3s or defend smaller players -- Greg Monroe, Jahlil Okafor, Al Jefferson, Enes Kanter, Nikola Vucevic -- have already been relegated to bench roles. The nostalgic worry Houston-style offenses might play them out of the league entirely.

http://www.espn.com/nba/story/_/id/1...ring-explosion

Harsh reality but that's how it works now for slow-footed bigs that don't defend well. You need to crush the glass and be a force inside or you're hurting defensively more than you're helping anywhere else.

People keep pointing to JV's playoff run as why he needs to play more but they don't get that the REASON he was playing more is because he WAS dominating inside to such a point (particularly on the glass) that he made himself undroppable. That's how you stay on the court nowadays as the type of big JV is, rev your motor up to 100% and keep it there.

Some other things that were interesting:

Switching will become an even more sought-after skill as the cleanest way to snuff the drive-and-kick attack. Coaches say they will spend more time coaching that, and teaching proper defensive positioning -- stances, footwork -- so that guys of all sizes are better at keeping opponents out of the paint. "That technique on the ball is going to be so much more important than ever," Thibodeau said. "You have to contain dribble penetration."

Casey said he might devote more time to a zone defense in future seasons. A few team officials even proposed scrapping the defensive three seconds rule so that plodding rim protectors could stay on the floor.

"The floor is just so spread out," Brad Stevens, Boston's coach, told ESPN.com. "You have to scramble against guys 24 and 25 feet from the rim, and that just opens up every driving lane."

[LJ2]

Brad Stevens promotes a scramble defence?

[S.R.]

Excerpt from a Zach Lowe article:





http://www.espn.com/nba/story/_/id/1...ring-explosion

Harsh reality but that's how it works now for slow-footed bigs that don't defend well. You need to crush the glass and be a force inside or you're hurting defensively more than you're helping anywhere else.

People keep pointing to JV's playoff run as why he needs to play more but they don't get that the REASON he was playing more is because he WAS dominating inside to such a point (particularly on the glass) that he made himself undroppable. That's how you stay on the court nowadays as the type of big JV is, rev your motor up to 100% and keep it there.

Some other things that were interesting:

I 100% agree with Casey and most of us would, I think. JV's never going to be at 35 mpg for that reason, he can't be out there against everybody.

The bigs mentioned who have moved to the bench, aside from being "slow footed," are just not that good - aside from Vucevic who's pretty good and has been shoved to the bench because a) Orlando's GM is a lunatic and acquired 56 power forwards last summer, and b) Orlando's bench was so horrible he needed to play with them. The guy still plays 28 mpg, a high enough number that "starter" and "bench player" is starting to become a bit of a semantics game, not really connoting what it usually connotes. Also, JV is better than all the guys in the list, so that's a difference.

Last night's Utah game is a perfect example of why to keep using a guy like JV. There are still very good teams in the league with dominant 7 footers. JV put pressure on Gobert and Utah that Bebe or Noel or whatever rangy defensive-minded big you want to pick never can. Fans just need to get over the idea that JV is redundant. A lot of really good teams have a certain amount of talent redundancy. There's too much offensive ability and not enough ball in GS, right now. The Celtics Big 3 had to sacrifice personal offence, they won a championship. Whenever Lebron joins up with superfriends, some guys are sacrificing personal usage and they win championships. Really good teams have a depth of talent that isn't taken full advantage of each and every game, but it definitely comes in handy over an 82 game regular season and four rounds of playoffs.

[DanH]

Excerpt from a Zach Lowe article:

Harsh reality but that's how it works now for slow-footed bigs that don't defend well. You need to crush the glass and be a force inside or you're hurting defensively more than you're helping anywhere else.

People keep pointing to JV's playoff run as why he needs to play more but they don't get that the REASON he was playing more is because he WAS dominating inside to such a point (particularly on the glass) that he made himself undroppable. That's how you stay on the court nowadays as the type of big JV is, rev your motor up to 100% and keep it there.

Sometimes I buy this reasoning. The part that bugs me is a lot of the time he gets yanked anyway, even when dominating the boards. Like, of the 20 games he's gotten 29 or fewer minutes this season, in 10 of them he had 10 or more rebounds already. In those 20 games, he averaged 14 rebounds per 36 minutes. In last year's playoffs he averaged 14.5 rebounds per 36 minutes.

I dunno. There are definitely some games where he is not doing enough to stay on the court. But there aren't nearly as many as his minutes pattern would suggest.

[white men can't jump]

Sometimes I buy this reasoning. The part that bugs me is a lot of the time he gets yanked anyway, even when dominating the boards. Like, of the 20 games he's gotten 29 or fewer minutes this season, in 10 of them he had 10 or more rebounds already. In those 20 games, he averaged 14 rebounds per 36 minutes. In last year's playoffs he averaged 14.5 rebounds per 36 minutes.

I dunno. There are definitely some games where he is not doing enough to stay on the court. But there aren't nearly as many as his minutes pattern would suggest.

Also it ignores the fundamental issue of falling into trends and buying into growing homogeneity in the sport...

Ok the league is emphasizing spacing more and paces are pretty high which leads to a lot of small ball. You can bench Jonas or your true big and beat a team that's trying to beat you going small. Mostly we're more talented than a huge chunk of teams in the league, though, and could beat them in different ways.

However will you beat a team as good or better than you in talent level playing that way? In these years watching the Raps the answer seems to be a big "no". We're not going to beat a team like GSW or CLE going small. They're better than us at it both in terms of talents fitting that style and actual style of play. We're not good enough at it to force teams like the Spurs or Grizz to force them to go small. A team like LAC can stay big and beat us in an uptempo game. We can maybe beat a Houston, who is less talented but overachieving, but we have a huge advantage down low so it would be weird to want to match up small and help offet their disadvantage.

So why would we fall into the trap? If our best playoff run in history involved our big man dominating, why aren't we trying to establish an identity that makes it easier for us to accomplish that? Doesn't mean making JV anything more than a 3rd option, but it does mean really establishing him as that, and playing a pace/style that maximizes as many of our pieces as possible because frankly most of our guys are not good high tempo players and we don't have tons of deadly shooters.

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[Fully]

Also it ignores the fundamental issue of falling into trends and buying into growing homogeneity in the sport...

Ok the league is emphasizing spacing more and paces are pretty high which leads to a lot of small ball. You can bench Jonas or your true big and beat a team that's trying to beat you going small. Mostly we're more talented than a huge chunk of teams in the league, though, and could beat them in different ways.

However will you beat a team as good or better than you in talent level playing that way? In these years watching the Raps the answer seems to be a big "no". We're not going to beat a team like GSW or CLE going small. They're better than us at it both in terms of talents fitting that style and actual style of play. We're not good enough at it to force teams like the Spurs or Grizz to force them to go small. A team like LAC can stay big and beat us in an uptempo game. We can maybe beat a Houston, who is less talented but overachieving, but we have a huge advantage down low so it would be weird to want to match up small and help offet their disadvantage.

So why would we fall into the trap? If our best playoff run in history involved our big man dominating, why aren't we trying to establish an identity that makes it easier for us to accomplish that? Doesn't mean making JV anything more than a 3rd option, but it does mean really establishing him as that, and playing a pace/style that maximizes as many of our pieces as possible because frankly most of our guys are not good high tempo players and we don't have tons of deadly shooters.

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I interpreted Casey's comments as being open to the plan you've laid out - - but it obviously relies on our big man, you know, actually dominating. It's a great theory in premise - making small ball line ups pay by owning the offensive glass and scoring in the low block at will to offset his defensive shortcomings.. but it quickly unravels if JV is just pawing at offensive rebounds, turning it over on a high percentage of his touches and missing bunnies around the rim.

[CalgaryRapsFan]

I interpreted Casey's comments as being open to the plan you've laid out - - but it obviously relies on our big man, you know, actually dominating. It's a great theory in premise - making small ball line ups pay by owning the offensive glass and scoring in the low block at will to offset his defensive shortcomings.. but it quickly unravels if JV is just pawing at offensive rebounds, turning it over on a high percentage of his touches and missing bunnies around the rim.

Last night's game against Utah is a good example of this not holding water.

At one point in the game, JV and DeRozan both had 16 points. JV was on 6/10 shooting, while DD was on 6/20 shooting. JV also had double-digit rebounds. After that point, JV went 1/1 and DD went 2/6.

I get that this Raptors squad is still the Casey-DeRozan-Lowry show and, despite Casey's comments about JV, he'll never heavily factor into their game-planning. When it comes to his playing time, it is at least equally dependent on the need to cover the shortcomings of DeRozan & Lowry (ie: quickness, athleticism and shot-blocking of Biz & Bebe), as it is on his own play.

JV could absolutely dominate a game offensively and on the glass, but if the weak perimeter defense is leading to easy baskets, it's JV that will get the early hook, not DeRozan or Lowry.