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6 games in

Discussion in 'Rio Grande Valley Vipers' started by RollingWave, Nov 18, 2018.

  1. RollingWave

    RollingWave Member

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    Vipers 4-2, around 4th in the G league western conf. 3-0 at home after coming all the way back (they never lead until around 2 min left in the 4th.) today against the Kings G league team.

    Some overall thoughts, first, **** ESPN+, can't watch half of the Vipers game now...

    Daniel House remains the lead player, his FG% is rough but he's getting to the foul line a ton and he's remarkably accurate there (almost 93%!!) that combination have propped up his scoring efficiency immensely, while I'm skeptical of his athleticism oriented game translating to the next level that well, anyone that can shoot 90% FT over a significant sample size is worth a look at least.

    Zhou Qi has cooled down statistically though he remains fairly consistent, he's improved a bit on every category except that he's also turning the ball over a bit more (they're also running more sets where he's facilitating from the high elbow, he's second on the team in assists.)... and he seem to be getting ever worse at free throw despite having a pretty darn long track record of being solid there and also hitting the 3s pretty well this year. it's getting to a Bruce Bowen point which is just bizarre. Also now that he's been in the league a bit teams are getting straight up blocked less but it's also obvious teams just aren't challenging him or tries very difficult fade away / floaters against him quite often. It's also notable that he seem to be their main screen setter now on offense and has done alright in that role, guys aren't bouncing off him but they are getting trapped into him a bit at least, and he isn't bouncing off them which is a good sign. but conversely, because it's quite common the guy he picked off just gets totally entangled with Zhou's long legs they're both taken out of the play.

    Vincent Edwards is just back so the sample is a bit small but he's hitting his 3s so far but not much else to say except that.

    Among the other guys, they've all been a lot less consistent, Angel Rodriguez and Brandon Sampson stands out, but they vary between a couple of great games to absolute disaster games. Rodriguez especially I feel has been a major problem for them on defense especially (more later.) but even offensively while he his decision making looks pretty good the problem is he can't seem to put the pass on the money consistent enough. and for a guy that small he's not exactly blazing fast either.

    Bruno Caboclo had a very good game last game and caught up a bit stats wise, around similar PER /TS level to Zhou but slightly south.

    Defensive scheme wise is something to look at and that's really the big thing I think if we're evaluating guys like Zhou Qi, the Vipers also run the same scheme as the Rockets and opposing teams have pretty consistently tried to go non-stop 1-5 pick and roll against mainly Zhou Qi and Angel Rodriguez defending. right now it's working a lot more than you'd like to see but the good(?) news is that the failure is mainly because once they get the switch they go to the big and the 5'11 Rodriguez is just getting cooked as long as the big can catch the ball with any moves at all. The good news is I guess they feel that's a better option than trying for the guards to cook Zhou, but that currently says a lot more about Rodriguez just not being able to defend bigger guys at allwhereass Zhou at least there's a chance against smaller guys as long as you don't get a super clean drive and/or spend max effort with multiple cross overs. He's generally held up ok when the small went at him I feel like. At least no where as bad as when they throw to the bigs against Rodriguez.

    To be honest if this current team is trying to win games going to conventional coverage almost certainly do them a lot more good given that Zhou's super long and Rodriguez is tiny. but that's not what the Vipers are about.

    If I'm the Rockets I'd consider giving House a shot, though House's agent seem to be angelling for a spot with more guaranteed play time. House while not a great defender does have the size to switch and at least reasonable chance he can hit open 3s. even last year on Phoenix he was actually pretty effective in 2 point situations even though his 3s weren't falling. But a strong 6'7 guy who might be able to shoot is what every team can't get enough of. Unless they have someone else clearly in mind right now might as well try House

    as for Zhou Qi, I feel reasonably positive on what I see so far, he's generally not getting cooked in space THAT often (obviously still happens from time to time, but it's far from every down situation despite opposing teams going to 1/5 pick and rolls a lot. and I can't really recall him getting beasted down low at all this year if anything there were much more play of the opposite where he's just a freaking tree among shrubs and dominates based on length.) with the one major caveat that his free throw is getting to the point where the sample is large enough to be a serious concern.
     
  2. trugoy

    trugoy Member

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    Does caboclo have a chance in the NBA? if so, at what position?
     
  3. RollingWave

    RollingWave Member

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    Don't seem like it right now, he's doing alright but an average player not even really getting heavy minutes in the Gleague doesn't scream NBA rotation players. (let's be real even the guys popping would still need to get better to be a rotation player in the NBA or else they'd already be up there.)

    He's mostly a 4, the problem is that there's just not any one thing you can particularly point to that he does well, he's been an ok 3 point shooter, an ok rebounder, and doesn't seem to do a lot else.

    Another problem is that a few years back the stretch 4 concept is just different from now, back then your thinking more about guys like Love or say, Patrick Patterson, but now most teams just play bigger 3s there who can do stuff with the ball, so guys who are pure 4s even if they could shoot are just not as useful unless they do at least one thing extremely well (say Ryan Anderson's shot.) With Bruno he's kinda just ok at a lot of things, but has no real ball skills (I've seen Zhou Qi put it on the deck way more than Bruno so far, which says a lot.) and can't REALLY guard 3s or 5s either. (he's a reasonably good shot blocker for his frame and bounce, but isn't exactly someone you think is going to change the change with his length.) again, a player like that unless he has one clear huge skill is just at a major disadvantage.

    When the stretch 4 thing came out it was more relevant if you could even just force people to get out there, but now that's basically the default being able to do just that isn't all that useful. you need to bring a lot more to the table.

    Perhaps most importantly he's been in the G league for 4 years now and the improvements are very marginal (well actually he was almost unplayable in year 1 in the Gleague, but between year 2 to now it's hard to say he's clearly improved somewhere. there's some overall marginal improvements at best.)

    The hope I guess was that he was just very raw and hasn't been really coached yet and he could be a guy who pick up the game fast ( Giannis was sort of like that.) but obviously Giannis was the extreme outlier.


    But at this point Bruno isn't even clearly the 5 best player on the Vipers, with Edwards back if everyone's healthy he's probably the 6-7th man on this team.

    So unless Bruno start bombing 3s (which to be fair, he isn't THAT far away from doing it this year. though it's a real question if he has enough versatility on his shot.) at a higher clip, the odds just don't look great.

    But I guess there's a reasonable path you can see where he makes it, he's reasonably mobile, if he can either run off screens and hit those 3s or he could hit them more like 28-30 feet Ryno style then it's plausible he's an NBA rotation player.
     
  4. trugoy

    trugoy Member

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    Good write up, some players are faster than they look, my impression of caboclo is that he is slower than he looks.
     
  5. D-rock

    D-rock Member

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    Bruno has a chance as a stretch 5.
     
  6. Rashmon

    Rashmon Contributing Member

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    He has looked better the last two games at C.
     
    D-rock likes this.

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