Danny Abdia’s rookie season is gaining momentum and is slowly taking shape. Abdia’s games are behind us, quite a bit of nerves towards the Wizards are still ahead of us, and we can say that we have already learned to know the people who are working well. He will look for excuses and Danny will continue to establish his place in the NBA, with Washington in the background not stopping to sink.
Precisely within this routine, and perhaps because of it, Scott Brooks decided to make a change in his quintet. After 16 consecutive games (19 including preparation) Abdia went down to the bench, and was replaced by Bartance who makes his contract this season ($ 80 million for five years) look worse than his hair.
If after the win over the Chicago Brooks he thought that change in the top five really changed something, Toronto took care to land him back on the ground. Westbrook came back against the 2019 champions, and with him all the familiar problems of the team from the capital: weak defense, a messy attack in too much of the game and a horrific fourth quarter that turned a game close to defeat. We made an order and remembered the week that had passed.
Between Friday and Saturday: 95: 122 to Miami over Washington, who saw Bill score 1 of 14 from the field. Abdia recorded 4 points and 6 rebounds in 16 minutes.
Sunday evening: Early game, ending early. Somewhere in the second quarter. Lamello Bull sniped a resounding three over Abdia who scored 4 points in 15 minutes, and Charlotte defeated the Wizards 97-119.
Between Monday and Tuesday: Washington displayed surprising and improved defensive ability, achieving a 101: 105 victory over the Bulls at United Center. Again, 4 points to Abdia, to whom he added 10 rebounds (an NBA career record). This time he played 28 minutes.
Between Wednesday and Thursday: About eight minutes before the end, the Wizards trailed 111: 106 against Toronto, and managed to lose this game 137: 115. Abdia played 27 minutes and finished with 9 points and 7 rebounds.
Hashomer Hatzair
Almost every team in the NBA has a “look-down defender,” a player whose job if necessary will be to neutralize the opponent’s best player, and embitter his life as long as he is on the floor. Danny’s luck, the shortcomings of the team he’s got into also have advantages, and one of them is enjoying a regular date with the rival star.
Danny Abdia is the best guard Washington has to offer. But that’s not the story here. He’s not in competition with Troy Brown Jr. or Isaac Bonga or any other player, and arguing “the Wizards are not a defensive team” has no meaning because we should not be interested in him keeping better than some of the players on the Washington roster. We should be interested in the fact that none of them guards better than him.
That is, Washington does not have a guard who is in a high place from a loss in the defensive hierarchy, a sentence we probably could not have said if he had been elected to any other team. The derivative is that Danny gets to keep the best players in the world at the age of 20, which will surely help him in the long run. If in the early games for us Israeli spectators it was clear that Danny saves more than anyone else on the team (at the level of commitment at least), over time the Washington coaching staff also saw this and this week we got the stamp.
Against the Chicago Brooks gave Abdia a task to keep Zac Lavin, and the Israeli did a great personal job. Danny stopped the star on 30% from the field (3 out of 10), while in the rest of the passers the guard scored on 56% (9 out of 16). In addition, Brooks bounced the rookie off the bench for Chicago’s last ball, indicating his status on defense. A status that none of us imagined on the night of the draft when Danny was first introduced as a formidable attacking player.
Some of the defensive flashes that Deni Avdija showed against Zach Lavine last night were quite impressive. Take a look. pic.twitter.com/so46jHTmKi
– wizzy (@youngwizzyDFS) February 9, 2021
It was fun to see Danny get along with the Toronto stars more than once. Pascal Siakam scored 40% from the field against Abdia and 54% against the rest of Washington, while Shepard Van Wallit scored 33.3% against Abdia and 57% against the rest.
Here Siakam tries to seal the first quarter with a basket but Danny places his body nicely with his hands up and forces him to take a hard shot. For the team it didn’t really help because Robin Lopez dreamed of closing for a rebound (Danny could have taken control of the second ball too) and Chris Shame took advantage of that to lay down two easy ones.
via GIPHY
There is no shortage of judges who will whistle a foul on Danny’s duty in the first part of the move, but credit is given to an Israeli who does a good job especially on the baseline against Van Velit.
via GIPHY
The numbers do not lie
The season story of Washington is Russell Westbrook. The big star who came in to trade John Wall on the safe (or least dangerous) standard of betting – makes the Wizards management regret the moment they allowed their icon in the last decade to go to Houston.
After 11 games I posted the Washington data here with and without Westbrook, and after 11 games we can unfortunately say that nothing has changed. The balance then stood at 6: 1 with Russell and 2: 2 without him became 13: 2 with the coordinator and 3: 4 without him. Here are some more numbers and comparisons that come to show where the Wizards would have been located without Westbrook.
balance: As mentioned, 13: 2 with Westbrook (last in the East in terms of success rate) and 3: 4 without him (third in the East)
Average difference: 11.6- With Westbrook (last place in the league), 2.86+ without him (eighth place)
Points: 113.1 with Westbrook (13th place), 115.6 without him (4th place)
Points of the opponent: 124.7 with Westbrook (last place), 112.7 without him (22nd place)
Percentage of three: 33% with Westbrook (last place), 37% without him (14th place)
Three percent of the opponent: 43% with Westbrook (last place), 34% without him (fourth place)
Assists: 24.1 with Westbrook (20th place), 26.9 without him (4th place)
Losses: 14.8 with Westbrook (22nd place), 12 without him (3rd place)
Rebounds: 43.2 with Westbrook (26th place), 45.3 without him (ninth place)
If you’ve hooked up with numbers, here’s some more advanced statistics. According to the Spotrac website, so far this season Washington players have been fined $ 43,000 for various technical offenses. 18 of these were burned for the Wizards in the games in which Russell Westbrook played, and 0 (!) In the seven games in which Westbrook was not a partner. Russell, by the way, leads the NBA with eight technicals this season (along with Dwight Howard).
Simply put, with Westbrook the 2020/21 version of Washington becomes a neighborhood. The decision-making is bad, probably in the money time, the nerves go up along with the stress and there is no trace of team basketball or fun to watch that justifies the loss of all of us sleeping hours. The real trouble in this case is that everyone knows what the problem is (maybe except Brooks who denies the matter) and it cannot be resolved because of Westbrook’s shocking contract that will likely leave him in the capital until 2023.
With a weak hand and an outstretched arm
Abdia started dripping more, which is a good sign. In fact, five of the nine field goals he scored last week came after his dribbling, and once he connects that with a good shooting day – we’ll see Danny finish double-digit games with no problem.
So we passed the first stage successfully: as time goes on Danny begins to realize that when he goes aggressively to the ring for the guards it will be difficult to stop him (certainly for the low ones where you meet him in the defensive part often). And now we’ve reached the second stage where the scouting divisions of the NBA teams go into action. Once they take Abdia more seriously, they will tell his guards to “lead” him to the left.
Why left? Because if there’s one element in Abdia’s offensive game that is far from polished, more than anything else, it’s the use of his weak hand. When Danny attacks the basket, almost always, the left lane remains out of his field of vision. He is looking to go to the right by force, and the numbers so far this season: 44.8% from the field with the right hand (47 out of 105) and only 16.6% with the left hand (1 out of 6). In the last six games he has not tried to throw once with his left hand.
Let’s take for a moment Roy Hachimura as a separate example. While Abdia threw six times with his left hand in 18 games, the Japanese forward took 30 (!) Left-hand shots in 15 games this season, scoring them at 47%. In his rookie season, Hachimura took 78 shots on the left and scored 37%. If Danny wants to become a true scorer in this league, he will have to work on his weak hand, and he has an excellent attacking player next to him who can definitely be learned from.
A word about the “bench”
No need to make an ant out of an ant. It’s basketball, and unlike football there is not too much importance to the “starting lineup”. In his last two games in the top five Abdia played 31 minutes in total, and in the last two when he came off the bench he played 55 minutes, so which is better?
There are two questions that are relevant to us in this matter: Does Abdia play in the final minutes of close games? And is he the “landlord” when he plays with the second five? Well, Danny does not necessarily close games at this stage of his career (against Chicago this week he was sent out 2:41 minutes to go when the difference was 3 points and returned to the closing seconds), and he still does not make decisions on the field with sub-players by his side. Usually Smith / Raul Neto take command and for some reason the attack revolves around Robin Lopez. We hope for a change in this aspect.
The Rockies Index
As every week we examine where Abdia is ranked compared to the rest of his classmates. Our story this time is of course the three percent that dropped (missed 12 straight threes during the week), forgetting the fact that just seven days ago he was one of the best scorers in the NBA, at least on paper.
Avdia’s averages last week: 23.9 minutes, 9.3 points on 57.9% from the field, 50% from threes and 100% from penalties, 4.3 rebounds, assists, 0.7 losses, 0.3 steals, 0 blocks and a plus-minus index of 4.7.
Weekly average: 21.7 minutes, 5.3 points on 34.6% from the field, 13.3% from three and 25% from penalties, 6.3 rebounds, 1.5 assists, loss, steal, 0.3 blocks and a plus-minus index of 7.3.
Seasonal average: 23 minutes, 7 points on 44.9% from the field, 38.3% from three and 53.8% from penalties, 4.6 rebounds, 1.8 assists, 0.7 losses, 0.9 steals, 0.2 blocks and a plus-minus index of 1.7.
Comparison to the rest of the Rockies (minimum 5 games and 10 minutes on average)
subtlety: Rated 8 (8 last week, Isaac Okuro first with 33.8)
Points: Rated 16 (14 last week, Lamello first with 14.3)
Percentage of field: Rated 15 (10 last week, Fresh Achiva first with 58.9%)
Percentage of three: Rated 9 (3 last week, Mason Jones first with 51.5%)
Percentage of penalties: Rated 28 (22 last week, Isaiah Joe first with 100%)
Rebounds: Rated 6 (8 last week, James Weissman first with 6.1)
Assists: Rated 11 (10 last week, Lamelo first with 6.1)
Lost: Rated 23 (28 last week, Lamello leads with 2.5)
Kidnappings: Rated 9 (9 also last week, Lamelo first with 1.4)
Blockages: Rated 25 (26 last week, first Wiseman with 1.3)
Plus-minus index: Rated 17 (10 last week, Desmond Bain first with 2.7)
During the game against the Bulls, the Chicago fan page “Bleacher Nation Bulls” read: “I admit I was part of the Danny Abdia Festival, and I know it’s early, but I’m glad our vice president Arthuras Karnishovas was a lot smarter than me and took Patrick Williams in the draft.”
I was admittedly on the Deni Avdija hype train. And I know it’s still early, but I’ll just say this: I’m so happy Arturas Karnisovas is way smarter than me and took Patrick Williams.
– Bleacher Nation Bulls (@BN_Bulls) February 9, 2021
What next?
Our week will open tonight with an intriguing and first-of-its-kind battle against the New York Knicks (2 p.m., live broadcast on 5SPORT), who gave up on losing in the eighth pick. Bill will get a rest for no apparent reason, so this will also be the first time Danny will play alongside Westbrook as the sole leader on the floor. Last time Noah Trail, Abdia sniped 20 points in front of the hit.
On Sunday night we will get another early game of the Wizards (20:00 against Boston), hoping he will not mention the loss a few days ago in Charlotte. Between Monday and Tuesday at 2 p.m., John Wall will host his rematch in the capital along with the Rockets, and between Wednesday and Thursday at 3 p.m., Abdia will get to know the Joker, Nikola Jukic.
