(06-24-2022, 12:49 AM)dirkfansince1998 Wrote: It looks like he has straight line speed but I would argue that Brunson has superior basketball specific athleticism. First step. Change of pace and direction. And as a big RED FLAG. His lateral quickness is a problem.
Fair enough although I feel like Brunson has developed a lot of that post college. He just looked like a bad athlete coming out of college and in his first season where you did not see much of the Luka like stop start, speed changes he shows off right now. Also think Brunson's ball handling was more basic too. He's developed significantly with both ball handling and foot work since his first season.
Brunson is a strong dude, but he's still small, Hardy looks like he has the body to be able to barrel and bully backpeddling defenders much more effectively at his size especially as he gets into an NBA program, and will have to do less jerk and jive type dribbling to get to the rim than Brunson does. Also has a much more refined isolation scoring game than Brunson had coming out of college. Kinda shows just how much Brunson has developed when you think about it.
One thing I still don't like about Brunson is his pull up 3 game off the dribble. It's not very good, and means he often needs to penetrate the paint as the primary ball handler unless he passes it out. It makes him predictable and is currently a big limiter on his scoring potential I think.