At first glance, Steve Novak appears to be nothing more than Matt Bullard. But I see a little more in his game. He can move without the ball, come off screens and catch and shoot. He is able to pump fake from 3 and hit a mid range leaner. Finally, I think he is a better pure shooter than Bullard. His shot has a Peja like quality, but he's not that level a player overall. But Peja is fairly unathletic. Peja has good height, a quick shot, and a high release. Peja seems to be slightly more athletic than Novak, and better able to dribbe and get to the basket I think Novak is a NBA player. The question is what kind of player
I don't see him being anything more than a role player, not unless he's D is going to prove dramatically. On a side note, I go nuts when he makes a shot.
Novak can be the best shooter in the entire league. But his defense and rebounding are what are keeping him from playing more. Just from tonight, Atlanta got two or three dunks because of him.
Novak isn't 1/10 the player Peja is. He also isn't 1/4 the player Kapono is. When he gets more court sense/awareness/savvy, then he might break someone's rotation. It isn't just bad defense and rebounding keeping him off the court.
Novak may be the best shooter but his defense is greatly ugly. Put him at the PF and he gets out power'd...put him at the SF and he gets broken down like a set of math problems
Defense,rebounding,and slow rotation are all weaknesses. He is too thin for the big guys and too slow to handle either small or bigger players. 11th or 12th man at best. RD, Novak can never be a "poor man's Peja". When Peja is at his best,he is the 2nd or 3rd best player on his team.
he will be a weapon when there is a offense challenge player on the opposite team for him to match up on defense. His abilty to get into places to shoot is especially needed when the other players are cold. He might even be the spurs killer for this year's playoff, where he can match up on bowen on defense.
I think he can become a Bullard Plus, since Novak is tall - he can shoot over a lot of the SGs and SFs of the league. A tall tower of accuracy. On defense, however, we'd just have to live with his limitations.
I like Novak, but he still needs to improve his defense a lot if he's going to get any playing time. He's getting more confidence in not only his 3point shot, but also 18ft. jumpers. But he still tends to get intimidated when guarding other physical players. I don't know if he can work on overcoming that or not.
