Caitlin Clark is ****ing awesome

[staylor26]

Caitlin Clark is cold af for this pic.twitter.com/ieyvCRmq1S

— Lindsey (@LuLu_Vue) April 1, 2023

[mr. tegu]

Originally Posted by Buehler445

You're probably right. But I disagree she CAN'T be a post player. I watch almost no WNBA so I'm certainly open to being wrong, but I think she has enough physically to compete down there. She can obviously board, I don't see clips of her getting worked on defense (doesn't mean it's not happening). Plus her ability to run the floor can put a lot of pressure on other Centers.

Her problem (and this part I'm sure of) is she has a fundamental lack of understanding of how to obtain and maintain leverage, no clue what angles she should be using, and a complete lack of any move other than try to go around you because my feet have decent quickness. I mean, I'm a ****ing nobody nothing assbag, but I'm pretty sure I could spend a week with her (if she'd do the work) and 10X her arsenal of post moves.

That's absolutely criminal. She has tools out the ass and literally does nothing with the ball other than to try to go off to the side of the defender. She can't even be bothered to achieve balance over a base.

Again, Crime against basketball.

I think you are being quite generous and looking at it too deep. I think she just sucks at one of the most fundamental parts of basketball, that being to put the ball in the basket. That’s not really unusual. Lots of people lack the touch, skill, depth perception, coordination, and muscle memory to make baskets with any sort of consistency. She needs a complete foundational overhaul and learning some moves won’t help one bit.

She just happens to be big and strong enough for those things to not prevent her from playing at high levels of competition. There is zero chance her not being able to make baskets is a new thing. It’s just that until recently it didn’t matter because she was just the biggest and never had to develop any actual skills. She’s the 10 year old that reaches puberty early and stands 6’2” tall still playing basketball on an 8 foot goal. In men’s basketball those players get weeded out or are forced to develop more skills due to enough competition as they grow up. Those pressures to improve didn’t get to her.

[Buehler445]

Originally Posted by jd1020

I don't think she has enough talent to do any of what you suggest.

I go back to that clip I posted of a free break away lay up. She overruns the basket, has to stop flat footed, arches backward to get the ball off the glass, somehow makes the shot, then loses her balance landing and falls to the floor. All of this being uncontested. Like... That's the level of skill you expect to see in a 8-10 year old league. Not from a player cracking the starting lineup at LSU

She has all kinds of talent. I haven't played basketball in close to a decade and I'm pretty sure I could still work for a position and present a target. She has orders of magnitude more talent than I do.

She has no skills.

[Buehler445]

Originally Posted by mr. tegu

I think you are being quite generous and looking at it too deep. I think she just sucks at one of the most fundamental parts of basketball, that being to put the ball in the basket. That’s not really unusual. Lots of people lack the touch, skill, depth perception, coordination, and muscle memory to make baskets with any sort of consistency. She needs a complete foundational overhaul and learning some moves won’t help one bit.

She just happens to be big and strong enough for those things to not prevent her from playing at high levels of competition. There is zero chance her not being able to make baskets is a new thing. It’s just that until recently it didn’t matter because she was just the biggest and never had to develop any actual skills. She’s the 10 year old that reaches puberty early and stands 6’2” tall still playing basketball on an 8 foot goal. In men’s basketball those players get weeded out or are forced to develop more skills due to enough competition as they grow up. Those pressures to improve didn’t get to her.

I think if she'd get her feet right, establish a base, and operate with balance over her base, it would solve some problems.

That's pretty close to a complete foundational overhaul, but isn't really that difficult. The more difficult thing for her is that if you don't have a base to work off of KICK IT THE **** OUT. That seems to be every bit of a problem as the skills.

[jd1020]

Originally Posted by Buehler445

She has all kinds of talent. I haven't played basketball in close to a decade and I'm pretty sure I could still work for a position and present a target. She has orders of magnitude more talent than I do.

She has no skills.

Her skill is opening her mouth to keep her name relevant. She has no talent for basketball.

[Fansy the Famous Bard]

She's a product of ability without ever having accountability. She's just been physically superior through the school leagues with her length. Now she's just not as naturally superior, and has to learn if she wants to succeed at this level she will need to put the work in. She's just a raw talent. If she figures it out with footwork and such she still has physical gifts that will make her successful. Angel just needs to learn how to put in the work.

The inability to make even the basic of shots, the poor footwork, and lack of any low post technique whatsoever have simply just caught up with her at this level.

[ghak99]

Blacknbatalk is now making the Magic vs Bird comparison.

.... w/ the "bird" being Big Bird.

[BEAVER]

Originally Posted by DJ's left nut

Exactly. She 'graduated' into being a classic Tweener and nobody wants to admit it.

Make her 3 inches taller and 30 lbs heavier and I'd say "man, she might just be more time away from being a real force down low..."

But she's not.

There are physical reasons she's not capable of playing the game she's trying to play. And because she's the brash loud-mouth who's willing to stand up to the white girl that's destroying everyone else in their league, nobody wants to say anything bad about her.

The complete unwillingness to call a spa...uh...to point out Angel Reese's obvious defects as a player is just bizarre to me.

Make he 4 inches shorter and she is wearing a headset in the McDonalds drive-thru.

[chiefzilla1501]

Originally Posted by DJ's left nut

Exactly. She 'graduated' into being a classic Tweener and nobody wants to admit it.

Make her 3 inches taller and 30 lbs heavier and I'd say "man, she might just be more time away from being a real force down low..."

But she's not.

There are physical reasons she's not capable of playing the game she's trying to play. And because she's the brash loud-mouth who's willing to stand up to the white girl that's destroying everyone else in their league, nobody wants to say anything bad about her.

The complete unwillingness to call a spa...uh...to point out Angel Reese's obvious defects as a player is just bizarre to me.

I don’t think by wnba standards she’s a tweener. Her size is not the issue. She’s got length, she has lots of power and she’s got lots of hustle. I would’ve thought she’d be outmuscled but to her credit she’s held her own there. She can be a decent enough player if she can learn to become Jalen duren and not Jokic. The problem is she’s gotten away with bully ball for years. In the wnba it’s been exposed but her apologists have led her to believe otherwise. She has no technique or touch. Her entire game is built around hustle and out-physicalling others. Her entire offensive game is built around second (or quintuple) chance opportunities and being a free throw merchant.

She won’t have an inside out game but you can pair her with a big who can space. She’d do fine as a pure inside player… if she works on her post game

If she just hit her damn layups she can be an effective player. Not an elite player. Effective. But to do that she has to do more than just outmuscle everyone. She has got to learn technique because her offensive bag is an absolute mess. And she’s going to destroy her team by insisting she’s the main character.

[chiefzilla1501]

Originally Posted by Buehler445

I think if she'd get her feet right, establish a base, and operate with balance over her base, it would solve some problems.

That's pretty close to a complete foundational overhaul, but isn't really that difficult. The more difficult thing for her is that if you don't have a base to work off of KICK IT THE **** OUT. That seems to be every bit of a problem as the skills.

All this. For a player who lives and dies out of the post her technique is horrendous. To her credit she’s been ok (even if severely overrated) without it. So if she figure that part of the game out she could actually be a factor. She should’ve at the very least done mikan drills til her fingers bled instead of working on a jumper she’ll never be good at. On top of just fundamentals in the post. That lazy underhand flip is an abomination for a player whose majority offensive bag is a few feet from the basket.

[Megatron96]

Originally Posted by chiefzilla1501

All this. For a player who lives and dies out of the post her technique is horrendous. To her credit she’s been ok (even if severely overrated) without it. So if she figure that part of the game out she could actually be a factor. She should’ve at the very least done mikan drills til her fingers bled instead of working on a jumper she’ll never be good at. On top of just fundamentals in the post. That lazy underhand flip is an abomination for a player whose majority offensive bag is a few feet from the basket.

I don't think she has a chance of getting significantly better, because of something you mentioned right here. In short, she has no fundamentals. She isn't going to learn great fundamentals in the pros. She should've learned fundamentals in HS or college. Now, it's just too late. She's a good rebounder. She'll never be a good shooter, from anywhere on the floor.


reese is like Manziel. Good athlete, with a 2 cent brain. History is replete with these types of goons. Those kinds of players never rise above where they started.

[chiefzilla1501]

Originally Posted by Megatron96

I don't think she has a chance of getting significantly better, because of something you mentioned right here. In short, she has no fundamentals. She isn't going to learn great fundamentals in the pros. She should've learned fundamentals in HS or college. Now, it's just too late. She's a good rebounder. She'll never be a good shooter, from anywhere on the floor.


reese is like Manziel. Good athlete, with a 2 cent brain. History is replete with these types of goons. Those kinds of players never rise above where they started.

I don’t think it’s too late for that. She’s not going to become Tim Duncan. But if she commits to it she can clean up a lot of it just through drills and technique. It’s so bad right now that it won’t be hard to get better. If she can progress to even mid on those things, it makes her a pretty effective player when paired with rebounding and that she plays pretty good defense.

Bc I also don’t think it’s a work ethic thing. She’s not lazy. She’s actually got a great motor. But she needs to be taken down a peg or 2 or 20. Which I think she is now. And she’s gotta stop deluding herself into thinking she has superstar potential which I suspect is why she spent so much time working on a worthless outside jumper vs working on fundamentals. If she does those things she can be a female gobert or Tristan Thompson. if she does it well enough Jalen duren. Which is fine.

[Megatron96]

Originally Posted by chiefzilla1501

I don’t think it’s too late for that. She’s not going to become Tim Duncan. But if she commits to it she can clean up a lot of it just through drills and technique. It’s so bad right now that it won’t be hard to get better. If she can progress to even mid on those things, it makes her a pretty effective player when paired with rebounding and that she plays pretty good defense.

Bc I also don’t think it’s a work ethic thing. She’s not lazy. She’s actually got a great motor. But she needs to be taken down a peg or 2 or 20. Which I think she is now. And she’s gotta stop deluding herself into thinking she has superstar potential which I suspect is why she spent so much time working on a worthless outside jumper vs working on fundamentals. If she does those things she can be a female gobert or Tristan Thompson. if she does it well enough Jalen duren. Which is fine.

I can't think of a single instance of a player without fundamentals learning fundamentals at a high enough level to turn them from a middling/below average player into a top echelon/star level player in any sport at any time.

I mean, maybe women's basketball is globally so untalented and lacking in fundamentals that a small change in fundamental play could make a large difference for one player. I don't watch it, so maybe that's true. But I highly doubt that's the case.

[chiefzilla1501]

Originally Posted by Megatron96

I can't think of a single instance of a player without fundamentals learning fundamentals at a high enough level to turn them from a middling/below average player into a top echelon/star level player in any sport at any time.

I mean, maybe women's basketball is globally so untalented and lacking in fundamentals that a small change in fundamental play could make a large difference for one player. I don't watch it, so maybe that's true. But I highly doubt that's the case.

Well I think the story is that she’s a middling player even while being horrendous on offense. If she were to just play defense and rebound and shoot way less she’d be a decent player. So we aren’t talking about bronny here. So if she cleaned it up from horrible technique to passable technique it would make her ok. At worst it makes her Rudy gobert except with more defensive range.

I think what makes her so unique is that her fundamentals are so so bad that a lot of that shouldn’t be hard to clean up with some work.

As to if that elevates her to elite… well, like I said I think she and her army of apologists need to drop that delusion. She can become Clint capela or duren and that is fine. Probably more useful in the wnba where for now it’s a lot of physical post play.

[UChieffyBugger]

Lol Clark got absolutely LOCKED UP against Atlanta yesterday. Going 0-5 from 3 and 4/11 on all shots with four turnovers and ya'll wanna talk about Angel struggling?

Angel was poor against NY clearly but how many of ya'll actually watched the game? NY started landing three after three early and Chicago were In a deep hole. They also turned the ball over 20 plus times to allow easy points and kill possessions. Being in a 30 point hole they were feeding their shooters to take threes rather than feeding Angel and Cardoso in the paint and that was that. Just one of them nights.

Angel is a rebounding goat and a great defender who can defend one through five. Her offensive game is still a work in progress but here is something ya'll may not know about Angel. As a young kid it was discovered that she was born with a medical defect in her right elbow. She's right handed and that defect hampered her shooting form. So she was forced learn to shoot with her left hand which is not natural to her. This is why she's mainly lived in the paint and only shoots a minimal amount of midrange jumpers and threes per game.

As a sixers fan she reminds me of Ben Simmons tbh. He too had an issue shooting and would shoot with his left hand despite being right handed. Angel has gotten better with her midrange shot but it's still being developed.

Last season she had several games getting 19 plus points which combined with her rebounding and defense is a very good performance. She's not Claek shooting or assisting obviously. But Clark isn't her rebounding or defensively. It is what it is.

[ghak99]

Nasty Snatch is on pace to have the worst field goal percentage in the history of the WNBA.

The. Worst. Ever.