More of the Silasses brilliant coaching in action "After now seeing Spain twice, lets talk about Usman Garuba... Wow, what a terrible player. He is atrocious, no other word for it. Guy doesnt belong, looked like a man from a street. Hey, you are 6'8, want to be in this game between 2 European powerhouses? Man, this was a guy who was arguably the best defensive player in EUroleague. Either something happened to him(silas and lucas coaching?), or hes just aint cutting at this next level. Dude is a terrible athlete, awful, the only reason we aren't talking about him as a huge Euro stiff, is because he is not white. Guy has zero lift and zero skill, not a good combination. Can't believe I fanboyed over him so much 2 years ago. Someone here 2 years ago asked me is there another Luka Doncic on the horizon, and I said no, but I said, this guy Usman Garuba exist, he is Bam Adebayo with a 3 point shot... Yeah, that comparison of mine ain't happening anymore."
Not ready to call him a miss yet. He still has size, defense, wingspan, and outside shooting - not a common combination and worth keeping around. Let's see what he can do once he is healthy for a longer stretch and gets some PT.
Hey, great to see you post. I have a question, is your name Oscar? We call our son "Oski" all the time because of that...
Good minutes by Garuba today. Very active, like the "old" Garuba. See him moving better, leaner, getting in shape.
So we had this discussion on the Rox Watch channel. IMO the biggest hurdle is that Usman needs a lot of minutes and is fairly raw, I just don't see him getting those minutes over guys that are further along than him - I could be wrong, but to me he looks like he needs a season in the Gleague....or al least half a season. He just needs time to find his game in the NBA. Some were comparing him to Chuck Hayes.....with FTs.....that would be huge if he gets there to that. DD
He had no highlights, actually he only attempted one shot, had no blocks or steals. But he was very solid defensively, very active, showing in time, running the transition and setting good picks/handoffs and rolling hard, reading and passing well (as usual)... I just saw him moving better. He's been already 3 weeks working at his conditioning, I think 2 weeks practicing normal with the whole group. Has played 3 games with the national team, today played two stretches of 7 minutes. He's had too many small injuries the whole season, including the ankle injury at summer, and obviously didn't eat very well in his first year living away from home. He arrived in bad shape to the concentration -coach Scariolo said it, too-, but may be in time to make the final roster and play the EuroBasket.
his defensive potential is undeniable, there's natural talent there w/ respect to anticipation, recovery, hands, etc but this summer he looks like a blimp so you have to question his dedication to becoming an nba player
Just GLeague the man. Try bringing him back after trade deadline and see how he does. Being ONLY a defensive player is not enough, he needs to be serviceable on offense at least.
Active. Didn’t necessarily show up in the box score but he was active and doing positive things. That being said in a blowout game against apparently weaker competition, I would have expected more from him than just make your opponent work for it.
He played 5 games in the Gleague, got more than 9 boards, but shot under 50%, didn't really dominate like most of our guys when they play G league level. https://stats.gleague.nba.com/player/1630586/traditional/ 11.1% from 3pt range 43.9% overall FG 9.6 boards in 25 minutes a game. 4.2 fouls....in the same time Just doesn't look like NBA ready to me, looks like 2 years away and playing every game in the GLeague. I know he is a role type of player, but if you have 5 -8 two way players, you don't need to play the role only guys..... DD
