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Walker Kessler Thoughts?

KqWIN said:
I don’t really buy the good athlete or “moves well” stuff. He can barely get off the ground, and he has no twitchy movements at all. Compared to someone like Zubac, for example, who isn’t even a good athlete to begin with is more athletic.

Everybody says he’s a good athlete….for his size. Well, I’m actually struggling to find someone in the entire league that he’s actually more athletic than.
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He’s not a bouncy athlete at all. He moves well though. Most guys his size are stiffs… I don’t think he’s that. It depends on how you define athleticism. Is his top end speed or vertical leap going to impress? Nah but functional athleticism might be more important and it loops in coordination and such. The play where he quickly slides past a guy to get a reverse layup for instance… there is definitely a measure of functional athleticism there. He hasn’t gotten cooked like I thought he would on the perimeter.

He isn’t Wiggins or a track athlete that is for sure but he seems to get where he wants which is more important. I do wonder if he can increase the vertical a bit because it is quite low.
 
Maybe the way to classify him is fluid and coordinated but lacking in some key athletic areas? Like he can’t jump… but he runs really well… most of those the guys his size are much more “lumbering” with their movements.
 
Handlogten's Heros said:
He’s not a bouncy athlete at all. He moves well though. Most guys his size are stiffs… I don’t think he’s that. It depends on how you define athleticism. Is his top end speed or vertical leap going to impress? Nah but functional athleticism might be more important and it loops in coordination and such. The play where he quickly slides past a guy to get a reverse layup for instance… there is definitely a measure of functional athleticism there. He hasn’t gotten cooked like I thought he would on the perimeter.

He isn’t Wiggins or a track athlete that is for sure but he seems to get where he wants which is more important. I do wonder if he can increase the vertical a bit because it is quite low.
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He has great touch/hands. As we saw with Rudy that's not something you can learn easily, so it's a function of his athleticism.
 
Handlogten's Heros said:
He’s not a bouncy athlete at all. He moves well though. Most guys his size are stiffs… I don’t think he’s that. It depends on how you define athleticism. Is his top end speed or vertical leap going to impress? Nah but functional athleticism might be more important and it loops in coordination and such. The play where he quickly slides past a guy to get a reverse layup for instance… there is definitely a measure of functional athleticism there. He hasn’t gotten cooked like I thought he would on the perimeter.

He isn’t Wiggins or a track athlete that is for sure but he seems to get where he wants which is more important. I do wonder if he can increase the vertical a bit because it is quite low.
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When you're often the tallest/longest guy on the floor, I'm more interested in how your feet move on the floor laterally than I am in how high you get off the floor.
 
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NUMBERICA said:
When you're often the tallest/longest guy on the floor, I'm more interested in how their feet move on the floor laterally than I am in how high they get off the floor.
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And I don't think he is awesome at that, but he is better than advertised. He just moves well... its smooth and fluid. He also seems coordinated. I think he is athletic enough (in that track and field sense) to survive with his other tools. Not to go white guy to white guy comparison mode but Joe Ingles survived on the wing with good lateral movement and positional size.
 
Handlogten's Heros said:
Maybe the way to classify him is fluid and coordinated but lacking in some key athletic areas? Like he can’t jump… but he runs really well… most of those the guys his size are much more “lumbering” with their movements.
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Are we certain that he can't jump or has he been coached to not leave his feet? At the college level he probably should never have jumped on the contest, and almost nobody ever was as good at blocking shots in college as he was.

He's going to face athletic players his size and bigger now so we'll see what he does.
 
framer said:
Are we certain that he can't jump or has he been coached to not leave his feet? At the college level he probably should never have jumped on the contest, and almost nobody ever was as good at blocking shots in college as he was.

He's going to face athletic players his size and bigger now so we'll see what he does.
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That's part of what I was getting at: being disciplined about not biting on pump fakes is as important a skill as blocking shots. Being tall/long fundamentally helps with being able to contest shots with lower odds of fouling.
 
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framer said:
Are we certain that he can't jump or has he been coached to not leave his feet? At the college level he probably should never have jumped on the contest, and almost nobody ever was as good at blocking shots in college as he was.

He's going to face athletic players his size and bigger now so we'll see what he does.
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You'll see it more when he finishes around the rim. When he dunks (or tries to) that is when I have noticed it.
 
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