10-0 Run: The Lowdown on Alpha Diallo

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1:02the wallet app on your iPhone today, subject to credit approval, Applecard issued by Goldman Saxe, Bank USA, Salt Lake City branch terms and more at Applecard.com. I got more to say about Alpha Diallo and what I think you'll bring to the nuggets this season that's coming up on the 10-0 row. 10-0 run on Lockdown Nuggets. You are Lockdown Nuggets. Your daily Denver Nuggets podcast. Part of the Lockdown podcast network. Your team every day. Welcome to Lockdown Nuggets. Your daily Denver Nuggets podcast. Part of the Lockdown podcast network. Your team every day. My name is Matt Moore. This is the 10-0 run. If you're new, this is going to be a show that I will do several times a week that's going to be trying target 10 minutes. I always go about 15 to 20. We're going to try to do about 10 minutes on a subject just a quick hit or kind of a wet trapotype as we continue on throughout the course of the Nuggets season.

2:02Glad to have you guys with us today. Show is focused on Alpha Diallo and we're going to get into all that on today's show. After the Nuggets first preseason game, Diallo obviously became a focus of attention because everybody saw him immediately come in and become the race that I described him on last night's show. I want to give a little bit more perspective on this. I have some stuff that's coming up that I think I'm going to put up on the supercast channel for Lockdown Nuggets everyday club subscribers. You can also get a Discord. I post video clips there. I'm always talking with everybody in that Discord. We got some really great people in there. Some really great people in there. No, I've raised it and there's really great. I'm really glad to be part of that community. I also will literally post video clips and stuff that I'm working on stuff for the Nuggets. I will post stuff in there. You get a wide range of perspectives to disagree with me too. I think that's really good and healthy. Make sure to check out at lockdownnuggets.supercast.com. I've worked a lot on Alpha this summer because he was a guy that I was really interested in primarily because I was surprised when I dug into him where it's an American play.

3:09He went overseas. He was 29. He brings experience. He wanted D.P.O.Y. in Euro. That was coming over. That's a really fascinating story to me. Way more so than a very raw prospect that came up or one of the talented European players that's like, oh, he plays European style. That's a harder style to adjust to with the NBA. Not to say that they can't because lots of guys do it. Obviously, I don't know if you know a guy named Nicole Yogue, but you do it pretty well. I do think that there's often times, and even with Alpha, I have this hesitation of, can he translate? What does that look like when he tries to come over? Because the Euro game is different. But when I sat down, I broke down a lot of the stuff on Alpha Diallo, and again, I'll put some clips up over at the Supercast. What I can really notice was how much everything really stood out as far as him being way above what I expected when I dug in. There's been commentary of like, oh, all he did was defend Trey Alexander.

4:12And you're right. That's all I did. Now, I think he had the edge and was really going to bother. I thought that Kionte George was like, oh, okay, we're actually being guarded. He tried a little give-and-go action, and Diallo was tracing then. I think he was actually going to pick it off if it hadn't been kicked in that preseason game. I want to talk about some of the tendencies that I noticed with Diallo. I'll talk about the defense first and how good that is. And then we'll get into the offense after the break, and we'll kind of break that down. So defensively, this was the thing that stood out to me. If Diallo had been a raw, raw, super, it hyped. Oh, man, he's like really athletic, more athletic than all these other players. And he just makes a bunch of blocks, and that's what he does. I would have been like, okay, cool. But there's a reason you're in Euro League and not in the States. And everyone's a great athlete in the NBA. Not everyone, but most players are a great athlete in the NBA. Lots of players are a great athlete in the NBA. And you have to be that high in order to be able to make an impact.

5:13But that wasn't what stood out. What stood out to me was that Diallo has this really incredible capacity to make defensive plays without looking like he's sprinting. He covers ground because he has great anticipatory instincts combined with a long frame and good athleticism. He is a strong 29 year old player who is not like he's not skinned and bones where it's like he's so, you know, wiery and is able to get knocked over. He's a strong dude, but he's also able to track his lateral movement is what absolutely blows me away. And you saw that in those limited minutes in that first preseason game where he's able to kind of contain these things. If you notice in that preseason game, one of the things that was really, was really impressive is, and we'll see kind of what happens. I was talking about this in the discord that look, he was able to make contact with his chest, bother with his hands. And then whenever the player would try and make a move to showcase to try and get the

6:13foul call Diallo shows his hands. And that's like such a big deal in the league, man. You have to constantly show your hands in order to hang in this league because they will just call literally it. If your hand is in there, most offensive players, a lot of the ball handlers will move into that in order to draw that foul. They'll, if your hand is here, they'll move into you. Even though you should be able to occupy that space because they know that they'll get that foul call. So being able to react to bother and then show hands and then get back into guarding is so important in his lateral movements, really impressive. But the other thing is just as IQ. So there's all these sequences that I tracked where he would get switched onto a guy, shut down the drive. Ball gets kicked. I can't go anywhere. Kicks it out. Diallo would recognize, make a call out on assignment and then make the anticipatory next rotation. He has really incredible anticipatory instincts.

7:13And that's something that I really can't stress enough as far as like that's something I can see translating. That's why I started to get excited about him when I watched him was, yes, he is a dog. He will absolutely just bother you and make your life miserable as a ball handler. But he's got a real sense of how to space himself. There was a sequence where there was a DHO and again, put these clips up over on the super cast where there's a DHO up front. So he's caught in a matchup zone with two players at the top trying to guard this action. And he's basically the matchup zone between that corner spot and the dunker. And we all know that's a problem spot for the nuggets because they wind up always being in real trouble trying to knock it killed by the dunker spot and then recovered to the backside of that weak side corner. And Diallo was able to basically, he's like, he would just as soon as the ball handler would kind of look to the dunker spot. He just like subtly moved over to position himself to be like, I'm not going to let you get this pass. And then when they try to get back to the corner, he immediately jump back that way.

8:16And there was all these sequences, I would see of guys in that spot of a ball handler looking to, oh, it's a two on one and Diallo just being like, no, there's nothing here because he's able to, he knows how to manage ground really effectively. Now NBA courts wider. It's bigger, right? Three point line. It's further out. That can matter. Okay. The athletes way better. I'm not sitting here saying that Alfa Diallo is going to be a Sartom son. What I do think is that for a nuggets team that literally has no one on the roster that right now, I think is a plus screen navigation and on ball pest. I think Cameron Johnson is a very disciplined, effective defender. And if you go back and you watch last year, you will see that. Like Cameron is a good defender. And honestly, it was like way more impactful than I realized at the end of the year.

9:16Like when I went back and watched about just how I was like, man, Cam Johnson's like really good at this. And he understood the scheme. Like he knows where to be. I think that's why he and A.G. kind of as a year went on, they started to like talk a lot more on court is because they understood like we have a recognition of the plays and can help in various situations. But they don't have anybody like Diallo. And so I am just of the opinion that Diallo needs to play a lot more because of what he brings to the table. On the other side, what I want to talk about is his offense. So I'll kind of give you the highs and the lows. And my opinion on what he stands as an offensive player because I don't think that he's been accurately described that way, which is not to say that he's great on that. But we'll get to that coming up on lock on nuggets. Today's show is brought to you by game time. There's something about a night in Denver when you're surrounded by your friends. The energy is completely different and you know, you're going to remember it. You know, think about the last avalancher Broncos game that almost didn't happen for you.

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14:34So switch your home and auto to progressive and see if you could save and keep sipping away. Get your quote today at progressive dot com progressive casualty insurance company affiliates and other insurers not available in all states. New intros with new music and all sorts of cool stuff for the season coming up. OK. So I want to talk about Diallo as an offensive player. And I want to start right here because this is the most important thing. Last season with Monaco Alva Diallo grayed out as below average on catch and shoot jumpers. He shot 39% from the field on catch and shoot jumpers, including 38% on three pointers on catch and shoot unguarded.

15:45He shot 46% from the field and he shot on three pointers. 46% ATS. I'm sorry, those are the defensive numbers. Let me go back to the offense. On catch and shoot, he actually great as good. Let's go back to that. He great as actually good. 34% was his field goal percentage on all catch and shoot jumpers. He grays out at 34.5% on those unguarded 36% his dribble jumper 25% he doesn't have a dribble jumper does not have a pullup jumper. Not going to take it. He's just not going to probably attempt it all that option. He had 65 of those last year only. What he does do, however, is like he I would say that from a catch and shoot perspective here unguarded. He shot 36% last season. Which is totally fine. An unguarded catch and shoot shooter should probably be closer to 40% in the NBA. That's a shorter line. But 30 if he can shoot 34% from three, he is absolutely playable given his defensive jobs.

16:46That's fine. That's totally good. He doesn't need to be able to because like I understand the idea well if he's not a threat, then he can't space the floor. You have a lot of lineups you can get to that can space the floor. Right. You can stagger with Jamal. You can stagger with Cam. Julian might be in a position to do so like tomorrow. Rosen's going to have the ball all the time anyway. And if they double if they double the more, that's what you want because then you can get cuts. And that's where you can kind of absolute. That's where you can get easier, easier buckets with that second unit. One of the things that really surprised me was his runner. So he doesn't take it a lot, but he has a really good both running and standing floater. And that makes it that's actually really important because quite honestly, his finishing ability is a little suspect. He grades out well on synergy from a layup perspective.

17:48There's a lot of plays that I saw where he would hit the underside of the backboard. It's almost like his incredible floor, I think, pretty incredible understanding of floor spacing and a quarter awareness. Goes away when he's under the rim. And he's not like hyper explosive. He can definitely get like a running dunk, right? It's not like him like he's athletic enough to do that where it's like you can do. If he's cutting and he catches it, he can absolutely dunk it. But he is not going to make a tough finish layup over contact. And he's going to he will get blocked or miss the the layup finish. And you kind of saw that in that first game where he missed the layup attempt. The floater though is pretty good, which means that he can actually operate a little bit on some shortcuts and dunker spot stuff. If he or called into that, which I don't think he should, he should probably be more in the two, three, but. My point here is that I do not at all think that Diallo is an offensive zero. He's limited. He's gotten out like you're not going to give Alfa Diallo the ball and be like go make something happen.

18:54He shot 12 of 29 last season as a pick and roll ball handler with Monaco, which isn't horrendous. It's just not good enough, right? It's 41% field goal percentage. ISO, he was 14 or 33 again, not great. But cuts he shot 72% on cuts last season. And if you're wondering like, wait, if he has trouble finishing, how did he finish on the cuts? One is the floater and two is he's got really good quarter awareness to be able to slice in and make little plays that are wide open. I genuinely think the Alfa Diallo is not as zero offensively. This is not a guy like he's not a star Thompson defensively, but he's not a star Thompson offensively either. So I genuinely think that Alfa Diallo can play this season for the Denver Nuggets. And I hope he gets a chance to we'll see if he plays more in preseason game number two. If you sign up for the locked on nuggets every day or his club tomorrow, you will get a scouting report about what I'm looking forward to in the preseason game number two for the Denver Nuggets versus the Utah Jazz.

20:02Use of Nercatch, by the way, missed a practice. Sounds like he's going to miss that game. Okay. People shake down says Alva was guarding trail Alexander when you just slowed down a bit. One, he guarded Kionte and he actually had position on Darren as well. Two, I get it, but I'm telling you that like I did this work about who he was last year and what I see from him in this capacity. Maybe you're right. Maybe he will get completely overwhelmed and he won't play and be terrible. But I will tell you that it says something that Cam Johnson after having him guard him and practice all weeks at that guy can guard David Adelman, who's coached him the NBA for decade has said that guy is an awesome defender. I understand it. This is why I'm frustrated. He didn't play in the first half because I want to see him versus Isaiah Collier. I want to see him versus Kionte, George. And I want to see him versus Darren Peterson. We'll see if we get more minutes of that tomorrow, hopefully in preseason game number two.

21:04If you sign up for the Everydayers Club, you will get my preseason game number two, what I'm looking forward to as well as every single game this season. I do a scouting report breaks down the streets and weaknesses of the nuggets match up on that night. Appreciate you guys being with us on tonight's show. That's a 10 hour run for you. Go in the usual 20 minutes. Have yourselves a great Tuesday. We'll see you guys again next time on Lockdown Nuggets. Hey sports fans. It's JD, the host of Lockdown Cardinals. And did you know with the Discover Cashback card, it's payback time when you earn cash back on everyday purchases, activate and earn 5% cashback in different categories each quarter on up to $1,500 in purchases. That's 5% cashback at different places each quarter, like grocery stores on gas and at restaurants. It pays to discover terms apply, see discover dot com slash five four to tails. Every game day you show up for your team.

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