Aleksej Pokusevski : All Possessions (2021-02-02) – YouTube
It was announced the Thunder are moving their recent 17th pick in the first round to their G League team so as he can develop in a comfort zone more to where he is right now as a basketball player.
I would just start feeding him would be the first thing I’d do if I were Presti. Lots and lots of food. But as far as the shooting problems we’ve witnessed from Poku with the flat trajectory of his shot…we’ll see.
I mean…this is the same franchise which never figured out how to get Andre Roberson to make free throws. Never developed Steven Adams’ shot from outside of the paint. Never turned Cole Aldrich into a stretch big. Never really made any sense of why they drafted Josh Huestis. And never figured out Russell Westbrook’s woes with shooting the three ball other than enabling him to shoot more.
Kevin Durant already knew how to shoot. Same with Harden.
Serge Ibaka would be the outlier if you remember how awkward Serge was Year 1. Serge actually developed a shot with the Thunder.
So now this is that same organization thinking they’re going to teach this kid how to shoot?
I find this to be an interesting thought of sorts.
Here’s my interesting thought for the day for Sam Presti moving forward…why not draft players who can shoot already?
Why is it you draft players in the first round who can’t shoot?
But to Presti’s credit his second round pick Theo Maledon has a shooting stroke of gold. I know some of these Mr. Pillow- Trump crazies in Oklahoma are thinking Maledon is the next Tony Parker instead of in reality being the next Eric Maynor or Reggie Jackson…but the kid has a nice stroke and would seem to me to be a natural for the Sixth Man slot next season if the Thunder don’t piss away their away their two first round picks this summer.
But in defense of Presti …he did try his best last season to make that deal with Miami with Chris Paul going to Miami and Tyler Herro coming to Oklahoma City.
So what does Poku do well?
He runs well. His rebounding is fine. His defensive footwork needs work, but so does every other Thunder player not named Dort and Kenrich. His passing and vision are pretty good. His freakish long reach is a dream for deflecting passes in lanes. So those are the positives.
Now …just make sure he’s getting nourished and see if you can add some trajectory to that shot of his or tell him to mitigate the three from his shot selection.
He seems like a nice kid. I hope he can garner some confidence in his game in the G League and start playing at both levels as the Thunder begin to get serious about tanking in the coming days.
Let’s go Houston!