There are three basketball skills that you cannot improve significantly after you reach the pro level: court vision, ball handling, rebounding. These things you are either born with or you master them at a very young age. So I do not put up any hope that Motiejunas will ever be a good rebounder on NBA level competition. From my eye test, DMo actually played well on defense. He stayed with LMA most of the game, which is a daunting task for anybody. Aldridge made some miracle shots. Otherwise, he was somewhat contained by DMo's defense. DMo also did some good rim protection stopping guard penetration under the basket. So that's encouraging. What he needs to improve is being meaner on offense. Right now, when he gets the ball in the paint, he can only do two things: (1) his back to the basket move with his hook shot (which is fantastic), (2) rushing a weak sauce semi-tear drop over the defenders (which is bad). What he needs is to go up strong when he has the ball in traffic. I know he is not strong and is not explosive. But at least he should force his way to the rim and get some foul shots.
I genuinely feel bad for how much he's going to be exposed in the playoffs. This rebounding is unspeakably bad.
Ok so I was wrong. I thought DMo could be a starting caliber NBA center. I no longer feel that way...at all. He can play spot minutes at center, he can play back up center, he can start at center against teams that don't have a good center or a true center, but he cannot be a quality night in and night out starting center in the NBA. He is overwhelmed and overmatched by the physicality of the position it seems. He has a size advantage at PF that he is able to exploit offensively and plays better defense there as well it appears. So that means he is officially in my mind a PF who can give you minutes at C, which means he has to split minutes at the 4 with TJ, which brings us back to the inevitability that one or both of them will likely be traded. Morey won't pay them both the salaries they will likely demand to play the same position. If he could have shown the ability to adequately man the 5, I thought keeping them both would become an option. Naw...not going to happen unfortunately.
Serious question: has there ever been a worse rebounding 7 footer among NBA players who played over 20 minutes a game?
And still, dmo is millionaire, who have really entertaining life. and u are just a pathetic internet forum hater, who just spend his life by watching games and complaining about how bad Dmo is. Dmo dont even know u exist :grin::grin::grin: by the way, i think he already had more relationships with models than u will have in your entire life. Good luck
Now there are some fans that are losing their mind. You guys sound lame making up weirdo excuses for D-Mo.
no one is making excuses for his rebounding. not even his biggest fans from LT make excuses for his problems in rebounding and boxing out. but lets not forget that he is ordinary human being. Now there can be only two ways, he and coaching staff can either make some findings about why that happen and how they can fix that and he should better work hard to fix that. Or he can give up. I think the most important for us is to support a man who have troubles, not just laugh about that. What is the meaning of making fun from Dmo who is rockets player and who have fcking problems? Is that what all americans do when someone have problems? Making fun of that?
I've noticed that tall Europe-born basketball players are USUALLY never good at rebounding the ball in the NBA
agree. European players should really consider to start using growth hormones at very young age to make hands and palms much longer. Now most of them have short hands ant that is huge weakness. America clearly have better system to grow players like davis or durant