DR Game #1 - Dominican U22 National Team - 4 PM

Exhibition games are always fool's gold, because you always see players that do well in these type of games and end up not having an impact and you see guys that don't do so well and they end up having a huge impact, it's almost like NBA summer league, you have to take everything with a grain of salt.

With that said, I did see more positives than negatives. The big thing that stuck out to me, was the progression of the forwards. We got a solid 4 man forward lineup with Stanely, Nyiwe, Jones, and Soriano. Soriano looked like the leader of this team and a guy that wants to be an all league player. He was aggressive and demanding the ball on offense and really showed an array of moves, unlike last year, where all he had was that right hand hook. His defense still needs work, he needs to learn when and when not to switch, because his feet aren't that quick like Nyiwe, but with the way he's been progressing I'm confident he'll figure that out.

As far as the guards, outside of Posh it's going to be a battle for minutes this year. Posh is heads and shoulders better than the other guards on this team, he's going to play probably around 32-33 MPG it looks like, the team just looks completely different when he's not out there. Curbelo, while his stats didn't stick out, he impressed me with his defense and passing ability, the refs in this game called every little tikky tak foul, that won't happen in the states so he'll be able to cause more havoc than what he did today. The downside to Curbelo which we already knew is he's not much of a scoring threat at all, that's going to hurt him as far as minutes, I can see him being 22-25 MPG guy and averaging 5 or 6 APG and 2 SPG, but he's not going to play in that 28-32 MPG range that the stars that play for CMA normally do unless his scoring ability picks up dramatically, because as we seen in today's game if the team is trailing you can't have a guy out there that's 0 scoring threat.

And last thought, I'm eager to see once Wusu gets back how the guard lineup looks, if I was a betting man, I'd say Posh and Wusu will average the most minutes at the guard positions followed by Curbelo, and it'll always be a battle between Pinzon, Storr, King, and Mathis game to game on who gets most of the back up minutes. I think as time goes on Storr probably separates himself, but King has shown he's not going to settle for being the last man out of the rotation, he was a big part of that group that started the run to take the lead in the 2nd half.
 
Yesterday was a great opportunity to see this year's team. As NCJ mentioned, I wouldn't get wrapped up into minutes played as coaches are still in an evaluation stage. Regarding Curbelo, his value is as a facilitator. He has never been a good shooter, but is very adept at finding offensive opportunities for others. He will make his mark for sure.

Overall, I saw a lot of talent on the floor. I know everybody hates hearing a team needs time to "Gel", but positioning, roles, finding optimal combinations on the floor, and just getting used to one another all takes time. It's August! We will be a good team.
 
Did anyone else notice that during the last to before the half Curbello, who seemed really agitated over the refs, stood away from the huddle and was yelling at the female ref? When she didn't acknowledge him, he cupped his hands and kept it up and she started to come towards the huddle. Huey pulled him away and after the to Anderson came over and said something to him while Curbello slouched in his seat and didn't seem to be paying much attention. Anderson benched him at the start of the 2nd half.

Hope this was just one incident and not an indication of an attitude problem with him.
 
Section9 said:
Did anyone else notice that during the last to before the half Curbello, who seemed really agitated over the refs, stood away from the huddle and was yelling at the female ref? When she didn't acknowledge him, he cupped his hands and kept it up and she started to come towards the huddle. Huey pulled him away and after the to Anderson came over and said something to him while Curbello slouched in his seat and didn't seem to be paying much attention. Anderson benched him at the start of the 2nd half.

Hope this was just one incident and not an indication of an attitude problem with him.
Click to expand...
I noticed his interaction with the ref as well, I also noticed a couple other incidents. When he wasn't in the game during the run late in the second half he was slouched over with a towel over him looking disinterested and CMA went over to talk to him. And then at the end of the game, Curbelo didn't join the handshake line with everyone else, he just went right towards DR bench and talked to one of the coaches and then walked off while everyone else was in line. It's always hard to know what's going on by just seeing stuff on video with no context, but it does appear Curbelo is going to have a learning curve not only on the court but also in the type of culture CMA sets. He's not going to go for any of that pouting and acting like a superstar, that's a quick way to get in his doghouse and get some DNPs. I have confidence they'll figure it out, my guess is Curbelo was just overly anxious and excited yesterday to finally be back on the court and prove himself and calls were frustrating him and limiting what he could do.
 
Way too soon to speak of player deficiencies as we are in mid summer so I'll give some overall impressions and positives. While I know that everyone is high on Curbelo, I still don't see the value to the Posh Curbelo combo. Sure they can both penetrate and Posh looks as though he's working hard on his perimeter game and shot very well from three, but as a tandem, I just see two small guards with limited offensive (scoring) contributions that when they play a team with a big two guard may be at a defensive disadvantage unless they can make up for it with scrappiness and all out pressure which has yet to be seen. Saw marked improvement is Soriano offensively and liked allot what I saw in Nywe. Kolby King held his own and I really like Storr but he will need time on the court to develop to his potential, and not just 10 minutes a game. I liked Stanley's effort as well as he looks much stronger then in the past. Of course David Jones is a welcomed addition but if he can he replace Champ's contribution has yet to be seen. Again, this was against a team that would be labeled a mid major with no visible inside presence so one needs to take that into account when doing any sort of evaluation. And while it was just a scrimmage to get everyone in, Im hopeful that in the future, Anderson shortens his rotation and gives players like Storr and King ample floor time to develop their play. And no, this is not a contradiction as I see the both of them with more potential then some holdovers and would play them more. These games provide a great experience for the players and to give the coaches an idea of what players may need to work on prior to the upcoming season.
 
Johnny Rapper said:
Way too soon to speak of player deficiencies as we are in mid summer so I'll give some overall impressions and positives. While I know that everyone is high on Curbelo, I still don't see the value to the Posh Curbelo combo. Sure they can both penetrate and Posh looks as though he's working hard on his perimeter game and shot very well from three, but as a tandem, I just see two small guards with limited offensive (scoring) contributions that when they play a team with a big two guard may be at a defensive disadvantage unless they can make up for it with scrappiness and all out pressure which has yet to be seen. Saw marked improvement is Soriano offensively and liked allot what I saw in Nywe. Kolby King held his own and I really like Storr but he will need time on the court to develop to his potential, and not just 10 minutes a game. I liked Stanley's effort as well as he looks much stronger then in the past. Of course David Jones is a welcomed addition but if he can he replace Champ's contribution has yet to be seen. Again, this was against a team that would be labeled a mid major with no visible inside presence so one needs to take that into account when doing any sort of evaluation. And while it was just a scrimmage to get everyone in, Im hopeful that in the future, Anderson shortens his rotation and gives players like Storr and King ample floor time to develop their play. And no, this is not a contradiction as I see the both of them with more potential then some holdovers and would play them more. These games provide a great experience for the players and to give the coaches an idea of what players may need to work on prior to the upcoming season.
Click to expand...
What guard would you prefer starts next to posh if not curbelo?
 
Johnny Rapper said:
Way too soon to speak of player deficiencies as we are in mid summer so I'll give some overall impressions and positives. While I know that everyone is high on Curbelo, I still don't see the value to the Posh Curbelo combo. Sure they can both penetrate and Posh looks as though he's working hard on his perimeter game and shot very well from three, but as a tandem, I just see two small guards with limited offensive (scoring) contributions that when they play a team with a big two guard may be at a defensive disadvantage unless they can make up for it with scrappiness and all out pressure which has yet to be seen. Saw marked improvement is Soriano offensively and liked allot what I saw in Nywe. Kolby King held his own and I really like Storr but he will need time on the court to develop to his potential, and not just 10 minutes a game. I liked Stanley's effort as well as he looks much stronger then in the past. Of course David Jones is a welcomed addition but if he can he replace Champ's contribution has yet to be seen. Again, this was against a team that would be labeled a mid major with no visible inside presence so one needs to take that into account when doing any sort of evaluation. And while it was just a scrimmage to get everyone in, Im hopeful that in the future, Anderson shortens his rotation and gives players like Storr and King ample floor time to develop their play. And no, this is not a contradiction as I see the both of them with more potential then some holdovers and would play them more. These games provide a great experience for the players and to give the coaches an idea of what players may need to work on prior to the upcoming season.
Click to expand...
There wasn’t value in the Posh / Curbelo tandem in the game except it allowedPosh to play off the ball,which probably helped his shooting Curbelo played poorly and had zero offense. Based on the single game King looked more helpful. But it was only 1 exhibition game, so I wouldnt come to many conclusions. I agree Soriano was a very pleasant surprise and liked POSHs shooting. Today we will get another glimpse of the team.
 
They didn't bring Curbelo in to play less than starter minutes so we will see lots and lots of he and Posh on the floor together. Way too early to judge how well they'll mesh but both have loads of talent so I'm going to be optimistic at this point.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top