Bucks Diary

Wednesday, November 26, 2008

Villanueva is the NBA's worst inside player


There is no problem at all this season with Charlie Villanueva's effort. In fact, watching the Bucks game against the Atlanta Hawks tonight, I was chuckling at how funny it looked to see him hustle so hard.

The problem is the results... no, the results in one bizarre area.

I always complain that Charlie V's fatal flaw is he is allergic to the paint. But, now that I think about it, that's not entirely true. He's not Ralph Sampson... his reboundings totals alone prove he's not a power forward who dreams of being 6'5''.

The problem with Charlie's inside game is its so damn ineffective. In fact, among players with at least 100 attempts, Charlie Villanueva is the worst "inside" shooter in the NBA. I'm not saying the worst among big men, either. I'm talking about THE WORST IN THE ENTIRE ASSOCIATION... point guards, midgets, everyone included. And it makes zero sense. There's just no easy explanation for the incompetence of his interior game.

Sure, Villanueva isn't the greatest athlete ever. But neither is Bogut, or Mehmet Okur, or Brad Miller... they all make a far greater percentage of their inside shots than Villanueva.

And he's got excellent size. His bulk is above average for a power forward, and his standing reach of 9'00 almost qualifies him as a center.

And he's a decent "pure" shooter. His free throw percentage is quite good, and he can obviously hit the three. Which may be the problem.

Here's my theory. He's been ruined by the three. He found he could make them pretty proficiently early in his career and so he neglected to spend the hours and hours it took guys like less athletic but yet still effective inside players like Larry Bird and Kevin McHale and Tim Duncan to perfect their craft.

Think about the inside moves those guys featured. Bird often used the glass, or his perfected fadeaway, or a variety of one handed shots. McHale was the master of the inside move. He was something to behold. And Duncan has perfected the bank shot.

What does CV have? Not much. He kind of tries a jump hook, but he usually bricks those. If he can just perfect something, anything, any kind of "pet move" he can go to, he would be a far more effective inside player and a far better Win Contributor.

2 Comments:

At November 27, 2008 at 2:24 AM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

yeah...never mind that he's only played 12 games this season and the fact that he only averages a little over 2 three point shots per game for his career (a little over 1 this year). His career FG% is about 45 (shot 46 and 47 his first two years). He's also averaging more rebounds in about 9 less minutes than LRMAM despite playing injured for half the games, but god forbid you give him any credit for anything. going by these stats to prove your point is extremely flawed anyway. CV can generate his own offense while most of the top guys on that list benefit from great passing. put him on a team with Chris Paul and see what happens. you should think about renaming this site. its too biased to be a Bucks team blog as you only focus on players who perform well on a very flawed system.

 
At November 27, 2008 at 9:07 AM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

I'm unfortunately coming to the conclusion you are already at. CV is one of those guys who at times makes all sorts of beautiful noise on the court so you think he's really impacting the game. Then you realize that none of it helped us win the game.

I've watched him a ton since his rookie year. He's not gotten any better in any facet of the game. That's the problem. I was 100% for the CV trade at the time, thinking that all CV needed to do was get better with age as most players do. But there is no aspect of his game he's improved.

I'm guessing some team gives him a 3-year full MLE deal this summer ($20 million) and we do not match it.

 

Post a Comment

<< Home