Trentyn Flowers played his first ‘regular season’ game of his professional career as part of the NBL Blitz for the Adelaide 36ers against the New Zealand Breakers. He recorded 7 turnovers, 5 of which were alarming and worthy of clipping and breaking down. Here’s how it played out, play by play:
Play 1: dribbles off his foot; needs to tighten handle
Play 2: Passes before looking due to trapped P&R
Play 3: Dribbles into help defender waiting to swipe, doesn’t see him because head is almost down while dribbling
Play 4: Gets ball poked but still keeps trying to win, gets stripped instead of passing it forward
Play 5: Loose handle gets taken advantage of again by smaller defender
On the bright side, Flowers had 8 points on 3/5 shooting, as well as 2 assists and 2 rebounds. However, the two assists were both simple post entry passes, which furthers the playmaking questions scouts will have: how much can he create for others, and how much realistic room to grow is there for him as a passer and creator? It should be noted that while Flowers had 7 turnovers, 2 of them were from bad passes from teammates that he simply couldn’t catch because of active hands. How Flowers reacts to pressure going forward, both this year and long-term, is a major swing skill for him.
Other notes from this game:
- First shot for him this game was a wild attempt after also struggling to break free from the defender picking him up the entirety of the court, then getting space to go full speed and attack the rim. Once he broke free from the final defender, he had an open attempt but missed everything. This will be something to monitor, and will be important in (video) determining how well he can translate right away to NBA tempo
- Off-ball defense was rough all game, as shown below:
- Overall decision making needs work on both ends. Processes the game somewhat slowly at times.
- Jump shot looks projectable, especially catch & shooting.
