Adam is a TBW staff writer and college basketball coach at Dickinson College. He loves watching for offensive schemes while specializing in individual skill development, shooting technique and coach-speak. Born in New Hampshire, Adam grew up as a Celtics fan but now claims to just love "good basketball", which does not include mid-range jumpers.
The NBA Draft is about value as much as it is talent. If somebody is talented, they hold value to a team looking to employ the most skilled players possible. But value can also be derived from non-basketball skills in ways that distort the picture on draft night. Franchises are making investments when they use…
One thing ESPN’s The Last Dance has really hammered home for me is just how stark the contrast in playing styles is between the modern game and even 20-30 years ago. That premise has gotten my mind racing: What players from that era would seamlessly fit in the modern NBA? Remove the brutish post-ups and…
There’s not much sugar left to coat this season with, and that has nothing to do with the pandemic-related stoppage. The New York Knicks fell short of expectations yet again. The rotations were muddled, the front office and coaching seats had little continuity, and the pieces on the roster do little to complement each other.…
During the 2019-20 NBA season, the league-average team took 33.8 3-point attempts per game and hit 35.8 percent of them. That equates to 36.3 points from beyond the arc. Those numbers looked a little different ten years ago during the 2009-10 campaign. The league-average team took only 17.7 treys and shot 35.1 percent—accounting for 18.6…
At this point, it’s pretty well known: coaches all steal stuff from each other. Few are complete innovators, but most just take concepts from elsewhere and incorporate it into their own system. The NBA has become so cut-and-paste in many ways that the offenses we watch are hardly discernible from one another. Then a talent…
In a 2020 draft class that’s weak on wings, the guard position fills the void with plenty of names worth knowing. You can find all different types: Those who shoot, are defense-first, are pure passers and those who are supreme athletes. Position and taste will dictate who goes where, not necessarily a clear hierarchy of…
6’9″ and 220 pounds with jump-out-of-the-gym athleticism. 39 percent 3-point shooting, 1.06 points per possession on post-ups and 4.4 ppg in transition. The anchor of the nation’s most efficient offense and a National Player of the Year candidate for a team that went 29-2. Obi Toppin checks a lot of boxes. He’s a prototypical inside-outside…
From a managerial perspective, a weak draft class means it’s likely the perfect time to swing for the fences. If the likelihood of hitting is lower, why not swing harder to see if you knock something out of the park? If that’s a common perception shared around the league, teams will begin to covet the…
Bias props up frequently in the NBA prospect evaluation process. I’m told it shows up in many other forms of decision-making throughout life as well… Those who are making key decisions are informed by their past experiences and anecdotal knowledge. Their job is to understand how what they see, informed by a grasp of how…
In baseball, the term “five-tool player” gets thrown around to describe those who can hit, hit for power, run the bases, field well and throw well. In essence, they possess all the tools to be effective in every facet of the game. In basketball, I’ve been developing a similarly versatile nomenclature for those skill sets…
