#1 thing for tyrus to work on during the offSeason

dougthonus wrote:

There are many things Tyrus could do that would make him a very good player.

He could continue to improve his jumper and basically become a consistent offensive threat. With a very good jumper, it would open up his game to drive to the basket and turn him into possibly a dynamic offensive player, because even though he's not a great finisher at the basket, he draws fouls at a really high rate when he has room to attack because people close out on him.

He could improve his finishing and do a better job when he gets in the lane and doesn't have a dunk but has to go to the one handed hook / layup type move. If he did this his FG% could go way up.

He could improve his defensive rebounding, and actually box guys out and rebound at a high rate. If he did this, it would help the Bulls with one of their big weaknesses last year, help ignite the fast break, and make it really hard to take him off the court even if he had the same offensive inconsistencies.

He could improve his man defense where he often had poor defensive awareness because he spends so much time watching the ball to try and get weakside blocks. Like the defensive rebounding this would make it much easier to keep him on the floor even if he's not giving you great offense.

I don't know which of these things is really the singularly most important thing, but he could improve significantly as a basketball player by improving any of them.

I actually don't think hitting the weight room would help him all that much. I think the majority of the issues he has have little to do with strength and more to do with awareness. Tyrus is never going to be a bruiser who holds 280lb guys out of the lane, and I don't see 240lb guys shoving him around.

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He'll never be a bruiser but if he added 10lbs of muscle would help with mostly everything you said. Being stronger would help him with getting contact and finishing down low. If we wanna convert him into a SF and play him at the 3 and 4 then his 230 frame is okay but IMO 240lbs should be the ideal weight and adding that strength could never be a bad thing

He'll never be a bruiser but if he added 10lbs of muscle would help with mostly everything you said. Being stronger would help him with getting contact and finishing down low. If we wanna convert him into a SF and play him at the 3 and 4 then his 230 frame is okay but IMO 240lbs should be the ideal weight and adding that strength could never be a bad thing

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I don't think him adding muscle would really help with anything I listed.

Defensive rebounding: In theory you would think it would help, but the problem is that he doesn't even try to box out, and is usually out of position from chasing the ball. It has little to do with his strength.

Defensive awareness/man defense: Same thing, he's not getting beat up because he's too weak, he gets beat up because he's chasing the ball to much.

Jumper: Obviously strength won't help him here in the slightest bit

Finishing at the rim: It might help him the most here, but I'm not talking about finishing through contact, but all the times that he basically gets off a shot when he's close to the rim but can't get it to go. He's basically a terrible finisher when he isn't getting a dunk, and if he can improve on those layups he'd be a ton better.

I think there's a lot of things Tyrus needs to work on...
Strength
Jump Shot
Setting Screens
Attacking the rim with different angles

Although there are many things he can work on... he needs to learn to keep his focus and let the game come to him instead of forcing things and to do that... he needs to play a TON of high level pick up games.

Even without his skills being honed, when he plays with focus, passion and isn't forcing things Tyrus is a huge positive for this team, when he forces things he's very predicatable about forcing up a bad shot or making a very tough pass to complete and is a big negative to the Bulls.

Even without his skills being honed, when he plays with focus, passion and isn't forcing things Tyrus is a huge positive for this team, when he forces things he's very predicatable about forcing up a bad shot or making a very tough pass to complete and is a big negative to the Bulls.

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I think if Tyrus made better decisions about when to chase a block and when to box out and rebound that it would help the team more than about anything else he could do.

I do agree with your assessment though, when Tyrus is making good decisions and plays with energy, passion, and focus then he's a very very good player. He seems to struggle to do that consistently, but I think people are way too down on him for having a mediocre playoffs given how many strides he made at the end of the season.

AirP wrote:

I think there's a lot of things Tyrus needs to work on...
Strength
Jump Shot
Setting Screens
Attacking the rim with different angles

Although there are many things he can work on... he needs to learn to keep his focus and let the game come to him instead of forcing things and to do that... he needs to play a TON of high level pick up games.

Even without his skills being honed, when he plays with focus, passion and isn't forcing things Tyrus is a huge positive for this team, when he forces things he's very predicatable about forcing up a bad shot or making a very tough pass to complete and is a big negative to the Bulls.

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Jump shot? I think thats his strength. I think maybe he needs to learn to take a dribble or two and get closer as he does take some deep shots.

Good call Doug. Decision making is priority #1.

#2 for me would be making him more effective at scoring the ball. If he could make people honor his jump shot he could then drive by just about every 4 in the league.

I think he's very close as a player, even if he adds strength, gets a better jumpshot he's still going to have too many plays he "forces the issue" instead of letting the game come to him/playing within himself. It's as simple as a switch going off in his head and just letting the game come to him.

Like I've said before, we saw what Tyrus is capable of right before the trade deadline, he was really the only option at PF so he didn't have to look over his shoulder. Maybe having to look over his shoulder(AT THIS POINT IN HIS CAREER) is too big of a distraction for him.

Back in mid to early Feb people thought Tyrus turned the corner... it just happened to be the only time in his career he didn't have to look over his shoulder and when Tim Thomas came in and played 12 straight minutes... Tyrus' game seemed to completely change... forcing instead of letting the game come to him. I blame it on maturity, the question is will someone close to him get him to figure it out which makes sense to him? I think playing a ton of basketball can get him to realize he doesn't have to force things if someone can't get through to him.

It's not his IQ, it's not his skills, it's his mindset/maturity that is stopping him from being a huge plus for this team then a random huge plus and usual average to negative for this team.

It's where you practice your shots at. If he practices his shots at the elbow, he needs to take them there.

If you watch, his FG% for his jumpers are much much higher when he gets the shot and in one motion takes the shot... his FG% drops dramatically when he pump fakes or hesitates on taking his shot. At this point right now in developing his shooting... he's great for a big man at shooting FTs... which is one motion, no real movement other then the shot... the same way with his jumper... it's when he adds in things to take him out of his basic rhythem when he shoots bad... but with practice that can be lessened. It just looks like he's about 1/2 way through learning to hit jumpers... the shot is solid, now he has to adjust to his body movements(head fakes, jab steps, quick 1 pullups).

AirP wrote:

It's where you practice your shots at. If he practices his shots at the elbow, he needs to take them there.

If you watch, his FG% for his jumpers are much much higher when he gets the shot and in one motion takes the shot... his FG% drops dramatically when he pump fakes or hesitates on taking his shot. At this point right now in developing his shooting... he's great for a big man at shooting FTs... which is one motion, no real movement other then the shot... the same way with his jumper... it's when he adds in things to take him out of his basic rhythem when he shoots bad... but with practice that can be lessened. It just looks like he's about 1/2 way through learning to hit jumpers... the shot is solid, now he has to adjust to his body movements(head fakes, jab steps, quick 1 pullups).

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This may be moronic, because I don't want to apply my own personal basketball history to an NBA player, but I'm going to do it anyway and risk idiocy, and this is probably only loosely related to your point.

I found a guy to help teach me basketball, and I worked extensively on shooting. When I started I couldn't hit the broad side of a barn unless I was right at the 3 point line where I was streaky, but I took so many shots in games there that I seemed to have the distance lined up well.

Anyway, it didn't take long before my normal jumper improved significantly from mid range and where I could hit it from a variety of spots on the floor, and it didn't really matter where I was. It's still streaky, but my mid range shot probably went from about 30-35% from anywhere on the court except free throw distance to about 55-60% from basically any angle.

He then started having me work on one step dribble jumpers where you take one dribble and a step at the same time lining yourself up for shooting form as you catch the balls. It removed an extra step for when I tried to shoot off the dribble dramatically speeding up my release. It took me an extended period of time to just add that one step move into the shot.

I then started working of running off screens and catching the ball as it was delivered to a spot in shooting. I was pretty much terrible at this for a long time as well, and it took me a long time to get better at it.

I also started working on doing step back jumpers where you basically explode backwards off your lead foot to gain separation (I still can't do this to save my life and hit the jumper afterwards).

I also started working on trying to do one to 2 dribble moves into my one step jumper (which I still struggle at).

The point with all of this is that getting good at a jumper is a lot harder than just getting good at hitting a jump shot in one spot. Depending what you do right before you shoot (with or without the ball) makes a huge difference in how effective your shot is relative to how it normally is.

Tyrus has gotten much better at hitting a straight catch and shoot shot which is the easiest of the various thing I've tried to work on, but he still has a long way to go in order to become really good at all of the various things you need to do to become a decent shooter overall.

Tyrus doesn't need to be a good shooter overall, he only has a few areas on the court he needs to hit from and although just practicing at the elbow will make him better overall at that range from all over the court, he'll be better more then likely at that one place he shoots from.

Even though Tyrus' jumpshot is somewhere in the middle of development... you can see that it's helped him with his touch around the basket(although not good, much better then his first 2 years).

PS... if any Bulls fans are in the Oklahoma Area... we need to get together and play some full court games on a regular basis!

dougthonus wrote:

He'll never be a bruiser but if he added 10lbs of muscle would help with mostly everything you said. Being stronger would help him with getting contact and finishing down low. If we wanna convert him into a SF and play him at the 3 and 4 then his 230 frame is okay but IMO 240lbs should be the ideal weight and adding that strength could never be a bad thing

Click to expand...

I don't think him adding muscle would really help with anything I listed.

Defensive rebounding: In theory you would think it would help, but the problem is that he doesn't even try to box out, and is usually out of position from chasing the ball. It has little to do with his strength.

Defensive awareness/man defense: Same thing, he's not getting beat up because he's too weak, he gets beat up because he's chasing the ball to much.

Jumper: Obviously strength won't help him here in the slightest bit

Finishing at the rim: It might help him the most here, but I'm not talking about finishing through contact, but all the times that he basically gets off a shot when he's close to the rim but can't get it to go. He's basically a terrible finisher when he isn't getting a dunk, and if he can improve on those layups he'd be a ton better.

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This might sound dumb but adding more muscle might make him feel more comfortable banging down low on the glass.

I'm 5'9 200lbs and play with guys that range from 5'9- 6'4 but for my weight playing with the guys I play with I feel more comfortable banging down low but if I was 185-190 not so much and my game totally changes because I've been that weight before. So IMO by him adding the extra lbs might make him more confident down low which could relate to better boxing out just because he's more comfortable

Finishing the same thing having the extra weight could make him more confident when he goes to hole which IMO makes a big difference. Even if it's 5lbs I just think if he adding more muscle it would make him a better player.

Same goes for Noah. By year 4 Noah needs to add a gran total of 14lbs of muscle to his frame. I would say 7lbs this year and another 7lbs in the 2010 summer. He's 232 right now and needs to be 239 going into this season. If Noah can get to 242-245 by 2010 that would be ideal

Re:#1 thing for tyrus to work on during the offSea

the main problem with tyrus is that he's a stupid basketball player.

noah definitely needs to add that muscle, but idk how much adding strength on tyrus would help because it could limit his athleticism.