Hi happy Tuesday night everyone. We had our first big slate of games for the NBA preseason last night and want to talk a little bit about what we've seen so far starting with the the Pell's Hawks game and obviously the place to start there is I and

what were your overall impressions of his preseason debut physically not not much of a surprise. I mean he was just an absolute freight train and transition some of my favorite plays were them just finding finding him in those spots that first dunk kind of on John Collins more round John Collins.

Now that's actually that was actually Damien. Oh that was Damien. Okay, John Collins was guarding him. Oh, and he got past John Collins got it got it got it got it got it. So that was that was not a surprise but the what was most encouraging to me was how

Alvin Gentry has already and there's still a lot of time in camp much less the season itself figured out ways to do to do something that is extremely important which is get Zion in the half court moving downhill when he catches the ball because it's so hard to keep up with him in the first place

and if you he creates that kind of an advantage just because he moves more quickly than most guys his size not that there are many guys his size. He can just get an advantage and press that advantage and he's a capable passer and all that kind of stuff.

I think that Gentry's bigger challenges are in the half court and there there's there definitely still going to be some hiccups and fall starts because his their limitations and this team has weird spacing but I liked some of the wrinkles a lot of the wrinkles that we already saw.

Yeah, I agree with you. It seemed like it was really only on set plays though that we saw Zine gained the ball in those situations. He seemed to be largely ignored in the course of the normal offense watching Brandon Ingram in particular dribble the air out of the ball.

I think he really needs to make quicker decisions he was doing the derosen dribble into the mid range not creating an advantage and then pump fake and grind everything to a halt for a lot of the game.

I think they don't really have anyone at small forward so they need him but I was pretty disappointed by I shouldn't say disappointing because I kind of realized this and I think the fit of Ingram offensively is going to be a real bit of a monkey wrench.

The Zine's three pointer doesn't look anywhere close to ready as we suspect it is for seven from the free throw line and he's just got to get used to NBA defenses and what they can do.

He had four turnovers he's trying to do some of those jump stops through the lane would get stripped down low. Also it could have had a much better night if he had just made a couple of pretty decent looks at layups as well.

And then defensively I think he's got a long way to go he looked better to me when he was playing center with a nickel of melee defensively when it was clear that he had the help responsible they thought that he really got lost a few times when he was guarding shooters to not make the rotation that he needed to make on the pick and roll again a couple of dunks to Alex Alex Len as a result not helping off the Jury Parker on the week side when it really was his help and you got a force him to throw that pass

for the week side instead and just your teammates to make the rotation. So he's got a long way to go. The short wingspan did appear to as well he had three steals and he's still the way he accelerates defensively to go after a loose ball or a steal is awesome.

So I think he was about as advertised so far a couple of quick hitters on some of the other guys in this game. Lonzo balls reworked jump shot he was three of eight from downtown three of 10 overall and he still is not really going to do much inside the arc in the half court but he got the team running it seven assists in 25 minutes and it is for me the one there was that the confidence he had in that step back that was I think in the second quarter just just pulling that shot was really surprising to me and encouraging and it does look better.

And we've talked a lot and I think it's going to be a big theme this year for dunked on about how a big reason that shooting is important is because of where the positioning and the thought process of the defender and if Lonzo shot is better enough that defenders react more instinctively and get out to him then that's going to make a huge difference even if it's not you know 100% better.

Yeah and his four looks a lot better he's shooting it more in front of his body is definitely reworked his shot to some degree you know he's not bring it way over to the left side of his body as much Nikhil Alexander Walker was behind the other guards rotation became and played the last 15 minutes and he looked about just as good as he does in summer league in the guy just I mean he's very aggressive he had four turnovers you know I might understand if they're saying he's not ready yet but that guy really plays with a lot of confidence and swagger it's enjoyable to watch.

We didn't see much of Jackson hazel the last five minutes to look for appears to be ahead of him in the rotation as is a nickel of melee who I thought actually it didn't shoot amazingly from three but I thought he didn't look out of place athletically now let's keep in mind this is all against the Hawks defense which is going to be a trojus it's not it's not robust also worth noting that the first quarter in this game had 32 possessions it was wild on pace so much damn fun I'd pace for a hundred 28 possession game and it ended up

at 115 but that was that was pretty crazy. Trey Young didn't shoot it well from three but had 11 assists in 26 minutes he looks like he's added some strength that just tightened up his handle a little bit so I thought he looked good so for me the biggest takeaway from the Hawks perspective in this game was the Andre Hunter and Hunter first of all he this is something I talked about in summer

really he didn't play that much but he looked appropriately sized you know like he didn't it looked like he can defend NBA forwards but he is more comfortable a shooting the NBA 3 because for those who remember his shop was was a little bit off he made a lot of M.A.

but it was a little bit awkward and it seemed like the increased distance the NBA line I was concerned that it might take him time to adjust he looked more fluid than I expected but also just the confidence of the two dribbles three dribbles in a good decision and he looked better at that sort of thing now than I expected at the

end of his work year and so that's really positive he still to me profiles as a low or usage guy which is not no shame whatsoever and that not everybody you don't want everybody to be a high usage guy teams wouldn't work that way as somebody who covered Montaille less and Steph Curry I understand this very well but that is a really good sign for the Hawks because something something that is important with the way they moved up for him is that Hunter if he can outgrow the box they had for him that would be great but needing to be at least that good is extremely important.

Yeah I think that Hunter defensively looked about like expected that is one on one defense he got beat a couple of times but looked passable didn't really make any plays defensively as a help guy I can't British looked really good shooting the ball three or four from downtown and Jabari Parker did not look particularly spell and then a couple other notes have been watched Orlando in Detroit as well Markelle faults to me I'm not buying the new jumper necessarily from three or three times.

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