11-23-2020, 05:04 PM
I spent quite a bit of time watching WCS highlights last night. I noticed two things:
1) He looked substantially better on both ends of the court in those highlights with the Kings and Warriors than he ever did in even his best games with the Mavs - and I was perfectly satisfied with what I saw from him with the Mavs last year. With cow saying WCS was so dire with the Kings, he would have had to have spent pretty much the entirety of the rest of the games outside of the highlights heading to the side of the court while he was in the game to eat hotdogs. I understand the idea that highlights make all players look great, but I saw a guy with tremendous ***awareness*** (which was surprising from WCS, to be quite honest) on both ends of the court.
2) As for the "hotdogs" comment above, that was one thing I noticed - I did get this impression watching the videos of some sense of nonchalance before plays kicked in - moving a bit slowly, not seeming to have his head in the game - and then it was like he'd see something that made a fuse light and he made the move (once again, on both ends of the court) to do something impressive. So my takeaway was that if you put Green's or Hinton's motor in Willie, you'd have a defensive, rebounding and rim-finishing beast.
I'm hoping that Luka and the crew of dawgs that we traded for, signed, or drafted will get into Willie's head to make him enjoy and be engaged in playing winning basketball. Unless he becomes a better-than-Dwight-level shooter, he's not a guy you'd want starting for the Mavs long-term (not an issue - we have a starting center), but he could definitely become a long-term solution as the primary bench big.
1) He looked substantially better on both ends of the court in those highlights with the Kings and Warriors than he ever did in even his best games with the Mavs - and I was perfectly satisfied with what I saw from him with the Mavs last year. With cow saying WCS was so dire with the Kings, he would have had to have spent pretty much the entirety of the rest of the games outside of the highlights heading to the side of the court while he was in the game to eat hotdogs. I understand the idea that highlights make all players look great, but I saw a guy with tremendous ***awareness*** (which was surprising from WCS, to be quite honest) on both ends of the court.
2) As for the "hotdogs" comment above, that was one thing I noticed - I did get this impression watching the videos of some sense of nonchalance before plays kicked in - moving a bit slowly, not seeming to have his head in the game - and then it was like he'd see something that made a fuse light and he made the move (once again, on both ends of the court) to do something impressive. So my takeaway was that if you put Green's or Hinton's motor in Willie, you'd have a defensive, rebounding and rim-finishing beast.
I'm hoping that Luka and the crew of dawgs that we traded for, signed, or drafted will get into Willie's head to make him enjoy and be engaged in playing winning basketball. Unless he becomes a better-than-Dwight-level shooter, he's not a guy you'd want starting for the Mavs long-term (not an issue - we have a starting center), but he could definitely become a long-term solution as the primary bench big.