Thursday, November 19, 2009

I'm Pretty Sure Brandon Jennings Is Not Jesus

I watched Brandon Jennings destroy Golden State's 'defense' with multiple long, uncontested threes and thought to myself, "Are they ever gonna at least try to get a hand in his face?" I mean, the Warriors guards were going under every high pick and roll, even after the kid was on fire. Pathetic D. Really, really bad. Another thing I noticed was that many of his other buckets were off-balance floaters or scoops off of one foot, ordinarily low percentage shots. Even though he put up 55, I didn't see any dominant qualities. I saw a player get red hot while the other team did nothing to slow him down- no hard fouls, no going at him on the other end, NO GOING OVER THE TOP OF GODDAMN SCREENS- nothing good teams do to neutralize a shooter.

Because of the 55, the blogosphere is hyping Jennings like crazy. Every story is either a fluff piece or a condemnation of teams that passed on him on in the draft. Everyone seems to think he's a shoo-in for the ROY Award, despite the fact that this is still November. Whatever.

I'd like to point out some things about Jennings that seem to be getting glossed over. First, he's been feasting on a really soft schedule. The only good teams the Bucks have played so far are Dallas and Denver. Secondly, he's averaging almost 4 TOs a game. Third, he still can't guard anyone. And lastly, he's only doing all this shooting because Mike Redd's injured. He won't have the same green light once the team's leading scorer returns.

To his credit, I will say that Jennings is already one of the quickest players in the game. His handle and court vision are also impressive. But to imply that he's dominant already is pure hype. Let's see what he does against Boston, Orlando or Cleveland's defense before we put a crown on his head.

Pictured: Young Money

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