Thoughts on Sixers – Rockets: Closer Look at Landry, Note on Iverson

My plan heading into this game was to chart every offensive possession featuring Carl Landry.  I have listed the sequences below:

1st

• 4:11 – board and lay-in in traffic
• 2:58 – faceup jumper on the left wing – miss
• 2:25 – board and left handed baby hook under basket
• 1:56 – catches pass inside under hoop and draws foul

2nd

• 7:11 – catches in post and turns to face up, spin and hook shot near basket against Dalembert – misses it short
• 6:28 – posts up Brand on the right block and goes toward middle fading away and gets fouled
• 2:45 – posts up on the right block and goes to the middle – offensive foul
• 1:11 – offensive board and putback off glass

3rd

• 2:46 – catches it in the paint off the pass and goes up for the ‘and 1′.
• 2:17 – faces up on the left block, drives in close, and misses two handed layup off the glass against Young

4th

• 9:12  – dribbles right, crosses left, and kicks it out of bounds – note: the drive seemed extremely slow
• 8:44 – jumper from the right block – miss
• 6:17 – catches inside off the pass and gets fouled
• 4:38 – jumpshot from 1 foot off the catch – miss
• 2:36 – catches on left block, faces up, hesitates left, and goes right, getting fouled – note: this is Carl’s signature move
• 2:01 – catches off the pass and gets fouled

As one can see, the vast majority of Landry’s baskets either came through cuts to the basket or putbacks.  The data above did not support my pre-existing thesis nor did it work to disprove it.  My assertion has been that Carl Landry’s achilles heel is ’shooting over the top.’  As evidenced above, he rarely posted up in this game so we don’t have any relevant sequences through which to proceed.

To elaborate, my contention is with some of the recent projections predicting stardom for Landry on the basis of his production thus far.  From an on-court observational perspective, I simply don’t see him having the necessary tools.  He can only go around his defender, but not over or through.  As a power forward, this makes things difficult.

It should be obvious that he is unable to back his man down.  However, in addition, one will note that he almost always comes up short when posting up and shooting the fadeaway.  He is thus far shooting 60% on close shots (not including dunks).  This comes on the strength of an absolutely lethal spin move as seen with 2:36 remaining in the game.  Make no mistake, the driving spin is Carl Landry’s signature move.  While this move, in addition to his jump shooting ability, make him an absolutely lethal option for any team, I simply think that his inability to reliably score over taller defenders must preclude any discussion of star potential.  However, as today’s data did not display anything of relevance, we will have to suspend this inquiry for the time being.

One final note for tonight’s game involves the match-up of Aaron Brooks and Allen Iverson.  One must wonder the feeling for a guy like Brooks matching up with the idol of his childhood generation.  Iverson’s relationship to the generation of young guards in today’s league in my opinion goes so much deeper than that of anyone who worshipped Mike to Mike or any other student-mentor pair that may come to mind.  This isn’t due to some superiority of Iverson.  It’s simply because he was a direct socio-cultural phenomenon.  Mike’s draw was ‘greatness’ and pizazz but he was to be worshipped and watched from afar.  It wasn’t possible for society to emulate him.  Iverson represented the spawning of a heresy that changed the way basketball was played into the present day.  The wide crossover dribble stands as one of the greatest social symbols in modern sports history.  Simply put, Allen Iverson was more brand than idol.  For Aaron Brooks, this must have been the realization that he had almost become what had already seemed so accessible.  No one could be Mike, but in some ways it was always possible to become Allen Iverson.