A Monster Slasher…

[https://twitter.com/UsherNBA/status/1758171344083075331](https://twitter.com/UsherNBA/status/1758171344083075331)

Several facts about Deni’s game transformation over his career and especially this year.

* Year by year part of 3PA among all FGA was decreasing: 53.8% -> 44.7% -> 40.1% -> 29.0%
* At same time part of FGA at rim (less than 3ft) was going in opposite direction: 14.4% -> 22.1% -> 27.8% -> 34.1%
* Concerning finishing abilities. Rookie year there was no real problem in this department – Deni FG% on shots less than 5ft of basket was 65.1% (though on just 86 shots), but 2nd season was the year of huge slump down to 58.4 % with infamous missed open lay-ups, next year it got back to 63% which was still not good enough but this season till now Deni scored on 68.8% of 256 FGA around basket.
* If we look on list of all players which attempted over 250 such shots, and there’re less than 50 players in this list, Deni’s success on par with scorers like Sabonis, Tatum, Jokic, LeBron James, Scottie Barnes, Siakam and significantly better than of Randle, France Wagner, Tobias Harris, not speaking about Cade Cunningham or Jerami Grant
* Another important facet of Deni’s progression is ability to draw fouls, especially shooting fouls. Number of shooting fouls on Deni increased year by year from just 21 in 54 games, to 52 in full 82 games season, to 78 in 76 games. and to 95 this season till now… in 54 games.
* Interesting also that of those 95 fouls, 31 were actually “and-1”. It means that in close to 1/3 cases Deni absorbed contact, and still succeeded to score, which showcases his improved ability to finish through contact.

Deni’s ability to get to the basket, and score there are based on extremely rare combination of size, quickness, strength, high BBIQ and good enough skills.

* Certainly important improvement which helped to unlock his driving ability is improvement in his 3P C&S success… Defenders are forced to respect his shot which gave him opportunities to attack close-ups with ease.

And now there’re several improvements which could change his driving abilities which are very good already to truly elite level :

* left hand dribble and finishes – both improved a lot… but still not good enough,
* also Deni can and should became more crafty – he employs some crafty finishes, including some turnaround moves, pump-fakes, ball-fakes and here and there Euro-steps but still he has a lot space in improving his counter moves, developing more efficient Euro-step an so on…

Last issue to touch in this post is… even if Deni’s driving ability and finishing will became great, there still will be something lacking which is required to be added in order to became high level scorer…

* Which is naturally pull-up shots… There are situation when scorer can’t get to the basket – especially if opponents know that driving and finishing his best weapon, and then pullup shot would be the best possibility.
* Now. While there’s perception that Deni is bad in pullups shots… it’s not 100% correct. By now Deni scored 12 of 33 pullup 3PA. It is 36.4% and it’s rather ok… But also he succeeded only in 8 of his 35 pullup 2PA which is very bad.
* So are 2P pull-ups more difficult to hit ? Certainly not… But those aren’t same shots – 3P pull-ups including contested shots and step-backs are at least partially planned and taken decisively, on other hand – pull-up 2P attempts are always taken reluctantly and looks awkward and he misses them, he seems to feel that it’s wrong way to end the possession… which is mostly correct for role player, but top-2 player should know when such shot is the best option.

At this point we are at \~2/3 of the season…

Deni’s stats for 54 games are 13.8 pts / 6.6 rbs / 3.8 ast on 61.3% TS% with 19.1% USG%

In last 27 games they are 15.9 / 7.4 rbs / 3.6 ast on 63.4% TS% with 21.0 USG%

There’re 28 games left…

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by arusinov