The List: Davon Reed, Bones Hyland, and cumulative wingspan

1. I really love the Reed-Hyland combination, primarily for the fact that you combine two players with “sneaky wingspans.” It’s well documented that the league is skewing longer on the perimeter but often times that is thought of merely as “taller.” But wingspan and reach may be just as important as height and “sneaky wingspan” may be even more valuable than both.

By sneaky wingspan, I am referring to players with abnormally long wingspans relative to height. Davon Reed is just 6’5 but has a 7′ wingspan. Bones Hyland is 6’2 but has a 6’9 wingspan. Both of them are extreme outliers in their wingspan relative to their height, which I think causes a subtle increase in the amount of turnovers a team can generate when they are both on the court. This is highlighted quite nicely in the play below where both players get their arms into the passing lane of a basic PnR before turning the play into a turnover.

2. One of my favorite traits about Bones is that he has shown he is capable of making pressure decisions at full speed, a trait that lends itself nicely to Michael Malone’s .5 mentality, or, making a decision with the basketball within .5 seconds of receiving a pass.

3. Speaking of quick decision making, Aaron Gordon has gotten very good at burying switches in the post. Making that decision quickly allows the pass to arrive before the helpside defense can rotate. And if the pass arrives early, the rotations arrive late, and that leads to wide open cutters along the baseline.

4. Gordon has also improved on these types of three-point shots. He’s basically taking a dribble handoff and turning it into a defacto catch and shoot three by taking his time, realizing the defense is going to duck way under, and hopping into a balanced, set jumper.

5. What Zeke Nnaji has going for him right now is elite catch-and-shoot three-point shooting, great defense on the perimeter, and size to play the 4 or the 5. Those three traits make a great foundation for a young prospect but to fully unlock his game, he will have to expand his game in a few key areas. Rebounding and interior defense would be the two most valuable skills for Zeke to gain. Low post scoring and just general finishing around the rim would also increase his value.

While he works to expand those aspects of his game, the easiest way for Zeke to increase his fit on the Nuggets is to speed up his reads in a flow offense. Below is a great example of the flare screen and slip cut that I have been highlighting on the List over the course of this season. You can see that Zeke recognizes the cut a second late but is still able to slip to the basket and finish with authority, so the play is a success. But learning to make these reads quicker and more smoothly will really open up his value as a piece alongside Jokic in the short term while he gains confidence and experience in the areas that require more skill development.

6. That is the cerebral improvement to Zeke’s game. The other area of focus for Nnaji that can really improve his game in the short term is to focus on becoming more tenacious. In the clip below, Zeke plays bully ball and it earns him a second-chance bucket.

7. On first glance, this shot looks like a heat check and nothing more. Bones Hyland was 3/4 from behind the arc and heating up, well within his right to jack up a shot. But there is actually a method to the heat check below. For starters, this is an ATO, a play call out of a timeout. The play was designed to get Dwight Howard switched onto Bones out on the perimeter. From there, Bones only needs to make one read: if Howard is sagging off, shoot it. If he is playing up, drive by. It’s a designed heat check, and the design makes the quick trigger decision that much easier for the rookie.

8. Perhaps the most valuable silver lining of Nuggets being forced to play this season without two of their three best players has been watching Jokic get better at subtle aspects of his game that have been made more difficult by having so much attention placed on him by opposing defenses. For example, forcing switches.

When the Nuggets are fully healthy, forcing a 1-5 switch usually takes a simple 1-5 PnR.  Teams are so focused on stopping Jamal Murray or Michael Porter Jr. that they won’t risk hedging, fighting over the screen, and recovering. Without Murray, teams are more willing to fall a step behind Monte Morris, Facu Campazzo, and the other PnR partners on Denver’s roster in order to ensure that they don’t let Jokic get loose.

But this just means Jokic has been forced to become a genius at forcing guards further and further out of position until they have no choice but to switch. The clip below demonstrates how Malik Monk was trying in vain to avoid getting trapped on Jokic island, only for Jokic to out maneuver him. The offbeat pass to the corner that stunned LeBron was just the spoils of a job well done generating the switch.

9. Here is another example of Jokic creating a switch despite the defense’s best efforts to avoid one.

10. If you are going to double Jokic, you better have confidence in your defensive principles. The Lakers were not on a string defensively against the Nuggets and that means Jokic got to sleepwalk to a triple-double off of plays like the ones below.

11. Often times people will only notice and/or analyze the final moment of a defensive possession. In the clip below, LeBron speeds past Jokic for an easy lay in. Poor defense from Jokic. Right? The real breakdown, in my estimation, occurs when Gordon sticks tight to Westbrook rather than stunting into the lane and cutting off the line drive to the basket.