It’s hard not to focus primarily on Gradey Dick shooting 6-for-33 over his first two games on assignment with Raptors 905. But Blake Murphy says there's more to it than meets the eye.
In the second half of Monday’s game, a switch seemed to turn on. The shooting results weren’t much better, but Dick was a factor on the glass, tipped out a couple of offensive rebounds for teammates and made a pair of plays defending in transition that led to Go-Go turnovers. He at least tried to turn the intense pressure Hamadou Diallo was defending him with against him, looking to get into the paint attacking off the catch rather than getting off the ball and floating the perimeter. He even had a nasty block at the rim after initially getting beat.
This is great. While we all can see the shooting, Gradey was often the “little things king” during his minutes early with the big squad. These little things just stopped happening in his last couple of games with the big league squad. It’s nice to see some of that come back.
Also, the article seems to make a note of it, but Gradey does seem to be better as a movement shooter than as a stationary one (which is strange). The biggest three he made on Monday was a one where he was drifting left behind the backboard – it was also the most pure of his makes surprisingly
This is great. While we all can see the shooting, Gradey was often the “little things king” during his minutes early with the big squad. These little things just stopped happening in his last couple of games with the big league squad. It’s nice to see some of that come back.
Also, the article seems to make a note of it, but Gradey does seem to be better as a movement shooter than as a stationary one (which is strange). The biggest three he made on Monday was a one where he was drifting left behind the backboard – it was also the most pure of his makes surprisingly