Here’s What Anthony Black Showed During the 2023-24 Season

Here’s What Anthony Black Showed During the 2023-24 Season

one of the things about the 2023 NBA draft class that really stands out to me overall is that there are a lot of really good Defenders amongst this group obviously we all know about Victor wanyama the Thompson Twins A men and assar are excellent defensively Bel kulali of the Wizards and Taylor hris of the Jazz both have the potential to be terrific Defenders Ben Shepard is already one of Indiana’s best defenders tumani kamaro for Portland had many impressive defensive moments in his rookie campaign also somewhere at the top of this list is the Orlando Magic’s Anthony black who appeared in 69 regular season games in 2023 24 including 33 that he started in the first thing to highlight about black is his defensive contest frequency at 6’7 his length so many times disrupted opponent shots this particular stat is is interesting among the 244 players who were the closest Defender to at least 400 shots in the regular season black had the ninth highest contest percentage rate at 94.1% which was also second among guards number one on that list overall was Sacramento’s Keegan Murray and last was Atlanta’s Trey young that’s According to second Spectrum just reviewing how black fared contesting notable players Jaylen Brunson was eight of 19 from the field with black [Music] contesting dangelo Russell was two of eight [Music] [Music] Donovan Mitchell was two of six Kate Cunningham was also two of six Zack LaVine was 0 of five [Music] and Trey young was two of s something else I was able to discover was how poorly opponent shot from three-point straight away with black defending According to second Spectrum opponents made just nine of their 39 attempts from this region with AB as the nearest Defender among the 273 players who were the closest to at least 35 of these shots that 23% Mark ranked fifth lowest [Music] what I also found impressive was his ability to stay connected to opponents flying around off ball screens this led to a combination of many Miss shots and turnovers just watching these clips you can see how hard AB Works to stay linked with his man [Music] Orlando defended the eighth most shots that were created via an off-ball screen opponents made just 38.7% of those attempts [Music] [Music] both black and jayen Suggs are exceptional at pressuring ball handlers up the floor the magic as a team ranked fourth in most times pressuring a ball handler in the back court and they forc the third most turnovers ultimately after applying back hord pressure Orlando defensive rating with black on the floor in the regular season was 108.9 the only two magic players with better on court defensive ratings were Jonathan Isaac and fron Vagner and among all rookies who appeared in at least 40 games black ranked number one in defensive rating offensively it’s still a little blurry as to what he can become and how the magic will utilize him as he develops one specific thing black exceeded expectations with from an offensive standpoint was his shooting from distance off kickout passes from the paint I thought this was an interesting stat so black shot 43.2% on 37 attempts from three-point range off a kickout from the paint of his 16 makes poo benero and Cole Anthony each delivered four of them fron Vagner and Marquel folz each had two of those passes black was Orlando’s only player to shoot over 40% on them with at least 30 5 attempts Joe Engle shot 53% on 30 attempts overall from three-point range AB shot 39.4% 50% of his three-point attempts came from the corners where he shot just over 40% another thing he does well is make hard cuts to the basket which was something the magic as a team excelled at they ranked fourth in scoring off Cuts this season more specifically they were great making passes to Cutters directly from the paint Which is less common here you see black be the recipient of some of [Music] them the big question going forward is whether he can develop a better shooting touch out of self-creation According to second Spectrum he took 31 shots following an on ball pick but made just nine of them that’s 29% what’s interesting though is that he has impressive movements as far as shiftiness and some craftiness but a lot of times he just wasn’t able to make the [Music] shot something less glaring but an effective part of his game is his off ball screening for a guard he does a really good job angling his screens which free freeze up teammates as you can see from these [Music] clips for the season he appeared in 69 games average 16 14.9 minutes 4.6 points 2.0 rebounds 1.3 assists 0.5 Steals and 0.3 blocks shooting 46.6% from the field overall 39.4% from three-point range and 61.3% from the free throw line his best scoring game came on December 26th against the Washington Wizards when he scored 23 points he also had a 20-point game in his hometown of Dallas on January 29th against the Mavs so that’ll wrap up this video If you like this kind of content please subscribe

Anthony Black of the Orlando Magic has a chance to be one of the NBA’s premier defenders. He has the potential to be an effective offensive player as well. #nba #orlandomagic #anthonyblack #filmroom #nbafilmstudy #magic

Video footage courtesy of NBAE