West mostly eschewed the mid-range jumper tonight, only letting fly from the baseline twice and one top of the key shot. Instead, he focused on man-handling Kenny Thomas and Jason Thompson en route to the basket. He had some great success at that. However, he was consistently wrestled out of position on the defensive glass in the second half by the massive Jon Brockman and Thompson, and he was unable to corral the boards as they bounced out to Kings perimeter players. Still, it was nice to see West working the interior like a champ. One thing to note: Okafor and West are starting to develop a pretty solid game in the paint where West works the interior, draws both bigs, and finds Okafor for an easy flush.
via The Kings beat the Hornets – Hornets247.com.
You know that whole thing about Power Forwards and 16-23 footers we talked about? Yeah, that. West is shooting as many shots from 16-23 feet as he is at the rim.
Without Paul, the Hornets are trying to filter their offense through a power forward who can’t play between the rim and 15 feet, and in his second-most-frequent range way out there just shy of the three, he’s shooting 6% worse than he did in the magical ’08 season, at 39%. If the Hornets are going to somehow claw their way back into playoff contention, either West’s going to have to adapt a more traditional power forward role, or he’s going to have to warm up in a hurry.
On the plus side, he does lead the league in scowls, just barely beating out every Celtic on the roster.
