Alley-OOPs

I think you answered your own question.

Francis can get into the lane easier than Alston, Wesley, Head, Anderson, or Barry.

Yao, Swift and Juwan all have better shooting range than Cato whose range is closer to Bowen's than any of the first 3.

You take what the defense gives you.

 

I think we will see more of this as the season goes on if Tracy stays healthy (cross fingers).

I think though that we will not see this with Yao as much as that's really not his game.

I do think we will see this with the poor man's Kelvin Cato, Stromile Swift.

 

Yao draws too much attention to be that open for alley-oop's, unless it's on a break.

Swift should be able to get some action though.

 

funny, yao tried to throw one to tracy last night and threw it out of bounds.

 

They should throw one up for Luther....

 

The Cato play was nice. You could almost count on it. Swift prob should have some plays run for him. It's obvious his whole game is centered around attacking the rim violently and without discretion.

 

Yeah, that was an aweful pass. TMAC saved it under the backboard. But man. There were 2 pretty bad alleyoop passes last night.

 

We will see more of those with TMac back. He tried to throw one to Stro last night that was just a bit outside and also threw one to Stro that Swift just blew. As the guys get used to each other, we will see more of it.

 

Hey if somehow Mutombo were to throw the alley and Luther jams the oop, that could be called the Deke-Head alley oop. Get it? Deke-Head!? Get it? Anyone? Man I'm so creative sometimes.

 

You can't do it with Yao because (1) he jumps too slowly and (2) he never gets that open under the basket.

I am hoping that Alston to Swift alley-oop can work. But Alston has to be able to finish like Francis in order to draw the defense in the lane. And Swift has to be able to be productive enough to stay on the floor like Cato.

 

Man times have changed. I recall Steve getting killed and hammered for those alley oops...People called that "play ground" or "stree ball" and undisciplined rubbish. Even Steve Kerr used to comment on those, saying that drives JVG crazy!

I notice Stro gets alot of chances at alleys but they have mostly been "oops" so far. He had one last night where he blew the dunk and one in the Dallas game where Jon B threw him a sweet pass on the break that he blew.

 

Whatever you want to say about Steve and Cato, they had a terrific connection on alley-opps. They were worth an easy bucket every single game.

 

how come head has yet to even attempt a dunk? i know he can get up there and have seen some francis like high rebounds from him, but any reason why he doesn't throw some down? it doesn't matter that much but there have been a few instances where he went to the layup and missed it when he could have just as easily dunked it.

 

This is 100% WRONG!

What Steve got criticized for was after beating his man, he'd try to go 1 on 2 or 1 on 3 against the rest of the defense and not passing off to anyone.

To SF's credit, he's finally driving and kicking out to teammates this year in ORL. It's early in the season, but he almost doesn't even look like the same player (from a structural not skills standpoint).

 

I don't think drawing attention has much to do with it. Alley oops are all about timing and most of the time the alley-ooper and the alley-oopee being on the same page. Hakeem was double and triple teamed and still got alley oops. Lebron, Kobe, TMac, etc. all get guarded tight but have spin moves around players after which they just elevate to dunk the ball. Yao's timing and quickness to jump is a bit off/deficient. He can do it, but it's risky from the times I've seen him do it. I thought he was going to kill himself one time he attempted it.