Which skill do you think it's the hardest to improve for a player who is already in the league? In my opinion vision like athleticism is something you are born with. You either have it or not. Good handles help so you can keep your heads up but even then you have guys like Kyrie with elite handles that are very lacking in vision. BBall Iq on the other hand can improve the longer you are in the league with more experience. See veterans versus young 2nd-3rd year players. Defence depends a lot on lateral quickness. I haven't seen a player who was slow get good on defence. It's like athleticism. I didn't include post game on purpose because firstly I don't think that many players are focused on developing an elite post game anymore and secondly because it would be the easiest answer. For guards and wings developing a simple post game when they can take advantage of mismatches and back them up in the post doesn't seem to hard to develop.
Nor apparently can you improve shooting if your one of those guys with gigantic hands like most bigs(and Rajon Rondo).
Jordan had huge hands. I think that's just a convenient excuse by Rondo and the Celtic's fans for his lack of any improvement. I have heard many players saying that the easiest skill to improve on is shooting.
I rarely see huge gains from players in rebounding on a per minute basis....leadership is one of those things that you can't necessarily teach either. You can talk the talk, but only true leaders have people who will follow. All the other things I think can be improved upon with lots of repetition - the ones that require full intensity game repetition(playmaking, BBall IQ) obviously are harder to improve upon then the ones you can do in practice(shooting, etc).
Well learning the other player's habits and what to expect certainly helps. Just look at veterans in the league. It may not get very better but it can get "camouflaged". Making faster decisions with the ball also improves a bit with experience- in the league. For sure a player with low bball iq won't suddendly turn into CP3. what about AD? He looks to be a great midrange shooter and his arms are too long?
I would say ball handling. I have never seen a poor ball handler become a good one. We have seen poor shooters become decent to good shooters. We have seen people become good finishers as they learn to adjust or control their bodies after impact. We have seen players become solid to good passers over time as they gain experience. We have also seen quiet, introverted people step up as leaders (Harden) when their teams need them to.
I have heard that too, but I believe that the Rondos, Dwights, and Shaqs of the world have taken not just more reps with shooting coaches, but A LOT more reps than your average 70%+ FT shooter. I can't understand how certain players with that much individual attention in a specific area wouldn't improve at least a little bit if not for some physical limitation from how they are built. Dwight actually might be a bad example because it sure looks 100% mental with him because he appears to be a decent practice FT shooter.
True. You can get better a bit at understanding angles and learning to box out but it seems to be a constant that doesn't flunctuate so much when you look at a players' stats over the years. It also seems to be the one stat that for sure translates from college to pro. What about handles? I think that's the hardest skill one can improve. The cases of a bad ballhandler turning good are very few. That is one of the biggest questionmarks when it comes to a guy like Wiggins who has bad handles. With bad handles you can't pass so well and create for your teammates and playmake.
Long arms and stiff wrists don't prevent you from being a good shooter either. But disproportionate long arms yield themselves to mechanical issues. However, great players like AD WILL work through those issues and becomes plus shooters anyways. Mediocre to poor players like Terrence won't. One advantage AD has had here is he's been able to grow into his length later in his career after playing on the perimeter as a guard before his growth spurt. He most likely had decent shot mechanics when he was smaller and he simply had to work to maintain those mechanics as he grew longer. By the way, AD is not a great midrange shooter....yet. But he's got the potential to be a great midrange shooter and a good 3-point shooter. This is another one of those things you can see coming. But you have to watch the games to see it. Because his shooting percentages don't reflect a great midrange shooter yet.
Harden may have been an introvert but he has never been a follower at all. I think the leadership qualities you see from James is really just him maturing into who he always has been as a person - someone who does things their own way - a leader. I wouldn't confuse natural maturation with some sort of acquired knowledge to become a leader. You can learn techniques leaders use and apply them regardless of whether you are a born leader or not, but like I said - the only people who are true leaders are the born leaders.
I think that can be improved on with increased reps and hardcore footwork training - I think the footwork training is the hardest to stick to and master. The thing with young players in particular is their body is either still growing or they have limited reps with their new size/length. I remember a teammate of mine in high school who was a decent ballhandler who grew 6 inches over the course of a couple of years and it completely threw off his mechanics and he looked like he was just learning how to dribble over again. He eventually picked it back up and even played some college ball but it took him some time(years) to regain that comfort with the ball when dribbling.
That's a tough question. Let me use playmaking and ball handling, which kind of go hand in hand, to prove why I voted for playmaking. See, Jason Williams could flat out handle the ball and make plays mainly because he had crazy handles. Ball handling can be improved upon by repetition, handling 2 balls at the same time etc. I'm not sure if you come to the NBA and do not have good handles, if you can get that feeling but maybe there are examples of it. Regardless of this improvement in handles though, some guys like Jason Williams just had that playmaking ability and others like Rafer Alston did not. So can you really become a great playmaker once you're in the NBA (granted my theory of ball handling relating to playmaking)?
One other thing to consider with ball handling is the quality of the defenders guarding you. I think there are few truly bad ball handlers on the NBA level but probably quite a few who don't handle the ball well against NBA sized defenders. Take Wiggins who was mentioned earlier - part of the perceived poor ball handling is the fact that he faces the other team's best wing defender night in and night out - the Kawhi Leonard, Trevor Ariza, Paul George, Jimmy Butler types who have long arms and are always disrupting the play. If Wiggins were playing with Lebron and Kyrie, chances are he would look like a much better ball handler than he does now because he would be guarded by the opposing team's least skilled guard/wing defender.
Just because someone matured into a leadership role, does not make them a natural born leader. A natural born leader just means someone is charismatic by nature, but that doesn't make someone who grew into the role not a true leader. A leader is someone who puts himself out in front and leads a group. Sometimes this is out of naturally developed characteristics. Sometimes this is out of necessity. Sometimes this is out of pride. However, they are all leaders. You are either a leader or you are not, though there are bad leaders and good leaders.
