Olivier Nkamhoua sizes up his new team
In this free 247 Sports article, Olivier Nkamhoua comments on how he might fit with some of the current players:
For a second there, I thought he had hit the portal again.
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Some of us have it like that. It's the Michigan Difference.
I'm going to need a refund...
Sounds like a good dude. Love the enthusiasm.
Same. Dude is extremely complementary of his new teammates and seems very excited to play with them.
Pretty much an offseason fluff piece, but I liked this quote: "I think me and Dug are going to be lethal in the ball screen, because we can create in any situation. If he wants to get to the cup, I can stay back. If we're both getting to the cup, we have the pick-and-roll on the lob, on the low passes. We have that short roll game, we can even run slips and get him downhill really easy." Just hoping we look like a competent team this year!
The short roll will be deadly with Nkamhoua. He's incredibly versatile in the midpost as a scorer and creator.
But overall he reminds me of Rasheed Wallace. He's excellent as a post up player but more as a midrange scorer than as a brute strength scorer like Dickinson.
'Sheed was the real deal!
Ball don't lie
"Both teams played hard, my man" is probably my favorite NBA postgame press conference moment, ever.
Love RW...both his game and his mental make up. Dude brought an edge with him that had to put him on the all-NBA confidence team
The real question is lethal to whom?
Love his attitude. He seems like a really mature young man and a team player. Might bring some leadership this team could use.
Is he officially in and on the team? Or is the Admissions Office still licking its chops off somewhere in the distance?
He's at least in the directory:
Your mentor Nikita?
Glad he's into it and helping the team. I love it when our team is humming
Excitement is better than no excitement, but this reminds me of my son's first year on an AAU team a few years ago. We were coaching them up pre-season and I kept thinking, man we are a well oiled machine. I hope we have some tourney's scheduled that will challenge these kids because our offense is flowing and our D is aggressive... I think we're gonna crush everyone.
NOPE
First tourney - boys came out and were obliterated. the other team was raining 3's from everywhere. we couldnt move the ball. We couldnt rebound. Insane. The other team apparently was coached too! hah
Everyone has a plan until they get punched in the mouth.
My pessimism will remain until Howard's trajectory changes. It is not helped by the bargain basement shopping in the portal that is going on 2-3 months before the season.
From what I've read and the clips I've seen (mostly on this site), Nkamhoua looks like he should be a solid addition to the team.
But when I look at his stats from last year, I see contributions at roughly the same level (and maybe even a bit below) as the player most of us thought/hoped Terrance Williams would be -- which doesn't seem like all the much reason for enthusiam:
Williams actual stats from last year are below.
If Nkamhoua can actually generate the ~7 extra points a game the differences in their stat lines (points + assists) suggests, that ought to be worth a few victories. And this doesn't account for any extra value he brings as a defender.
But I'm not confident enough in this admittedly crude analysis to suggest that anyone should be excited about Nkamhoua's arrival.
All good details. I'd add... That the real issue isn't this kid, who seems like a decent piece. It's what is around him. I don't see a lot. But I'll watch. And grumble. And hope
51 vs 38 fg% is like a mindboggingly huge difference in basketball, sir.
Imagine that-a poorly coached AAU team. You have demonstrated many times that you do not know nearly as much as you believe you do. This is very likely just another "time".
So because you didnt do a good job coaching AAU one season, you are pessimistic about Juwan Howard's coaching ability?
Interesting perspective. Thanks for posting.
And then we have guys like Terrance Williams. I feel like there's a lot of his game that I can help grow. We can go at each other in practice. I can help him grow his confidence and me and him, I think, will fit on the court well together on both of those wings.
This part stood out to me. It will be interesting to see if T-Will is a different player at all this year. Really hoping he gets that confidence to be a leader for this team.
TWill can be a transformational player this year if Juwan finally lets him cook.
For whatever reason, T-Will has not found his place on the court yet. He was always going to be a tweener, but those guys can find a role in college. I think Coach Howard has given him opportunities to figure his role out. Hopefully this is the year he and coach can put it together, because as noted, the team could really benefit from an experienced leader.