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blazerkor said:
Melo looks so slim, and more laterally mobile. @BonesJones may be eating his words when Melo plays the three spot effectively for the rest of this season. Also it won't be shocking if Melo can play effectively at SF since he will likely be in the hall of fame one day for a career made as a small forward.
Click to expand...
28yo Melo doesnt = 36yo Melo. I dont get how people bring up Melo's prime and the earlier parts of his career as if he's not 36 now... Players slow down with age. Just because he was quick enough back then doesnt mean he still has that same level of quickness at 36...

I still highly doubt he's effective at SF, but for him to have ANY chance at being successful there, he had to slim down. Meanwhile, stats and his previous play and lack of quickness for the last 3 years has said he's awful at SF, so if he's a pleasant surprise in the face of all that, great.
 
Hassan on Zach and Nurk:
"I didn't think that much into it. I'm just excited those guys are back. We've got a lot more size down there now. We switched up the defense a lot. It's a lot different down there.
I've got to actually pump fake in practice."
He also said he had to make an effort to get enough to eat there; that's what I thought when I saw photos of meals; maybe that is enough for an old somewhat sedentary guy like me, but for young basketball players?
https://sports.yahoo.com/hassan-whiteside-had-lot-reasons-004422102.html
 
blazerkor said:
Melo looks so slim, and more laterally mobile. @BonesJones may be eating his words when Melo plays the three spot effectively for the rest of this season. Also it won't be shocking if Melo can play effectively at SF since he will likely be in the hall of fame one day for a career made as a small forward.
Click to expand...
Unless the years fall away like the pounds, he's still going to be a sieve on defense at SF.
 
UKRAINEFAN said:
Hassan on Zach and Nurk:
"I didn't think that much into it. I'm just excited those guys are back. We've got a lot more size down there now. We switched up the defense a lot. It's a lot different down there.
I've got to actually pump fake in practice."
He also said he had to make an effort to get enough to eat there; that's what I thought when I saw photos of meals; maybe that is enough for an old somewhat sedentary guy like me, but for young basketball players?
https://sports.yahoo.com/hassan-whiteside-had-lot-reasons-004422102.html
Click to expand...
It just occurred to me that this might also benefit Nurkic; I don't think he has ever gone against a guy in practice who is a big as him.
 
Just checked out the Blazers website and they have Zman listed at 250lbs, Nurk is listed at 290lbs & Hassan 285lbs.
 
Rastapopoulos said:
Unless the years fall away like the pounds, he's still going to be a sieve on defense at SF.
Click to expand...
He has always been fairly ineffective defensively... his entire pro career. That being said, the past several years that he has been an absolute liability on D he has been much heavier than the Melo we're seeing in that practice video. So the pounds falling away most definitely could look like years of slowing down falling away from his game on both ends of the floor. With Melo however, in order to be a net positive on defense, he would have to make an extreme change to his approach to it. In international play his intensity on D has always gone up but he's still been bad because his BBIQ is all offense and pretty low defensively. I just think he could be in good enough shape to defend by getting up into his assignment on the perimeter so he doesn't give up any easy threes, trying to recover after being blown by (which will happen often) so he can more effectively funnel his man toward our shot blockers and playing decent against any 3 that wants to try and post him up.
 
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