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I'm hearing absolutely nothing about this guy. Apparently he's very high on his shooting abilities... with good reason.
Full Name: Demetris Tiaunt Nichols
Position: Forward
Height/Weight: 6-8 / 216
Birthdate: September 4, 1984 (Boston)
High School: St. Andrews HS (Barrington, R.I.)
College: Syracuse
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I'm hearing absolutely nothing about this guy. Apparently he's very high on his shooting abilities... with good reason.
Good shooter, poor rebounder and defender. But to his credit, hes a REALLY good shooter.
Good defender, actually.
Yeah, im trying to remember the game, but i saw Nichols run down a guy on the fast break from under the goal line to block a layup last year and I was really impressed.
I know Boheim plays a lot of zone, but Nichols has excelled in it for the most part, and is a pretty good athlete so I think he'll be a decent to good defender at the pro level.
When this kid is on shooting the ball, there is absolutly nothing that can stop him, but @ SU he was the definition of streaky
That's what I understand about Nichols, too. The zone masked whether he was a good defender or not. At the Orlando camp people liked what they saw (on defense). He needs screens to get his shots, but in sets that's okay. Spurs have slashers, anyway.
I wonder if I got him confused then with somebody else.
He does do a lot of shooting off screens (but man has he made some amazing falling away fade away's from 3 off those screens) but he's pretty active without the ball a la Rip Hamilton.
Often times at SU he was subject to double and triple teams in his sweet spots making it easy to neutralize him though. At the NBA level where he will likely be no more than an effective role player he will probably become more consistent (he wont be the focus of any NBA team's defensive scheme.)
He does, however, have a decent pull up jumper off the dribble and he's good at running the open floor and finishing in transition.
Watching Syracuse this past season is what made me think he'd fit this team well. Long, seemed pretty quick to me, and shoots lights out. I think his defensive reputation was hurt by playing in that constant Syracuse zone, and I was curious to see how that changed after the draft camp.
From everything I've seen, he played very good man to man defense there, and shot very well, as usual. It's true that he's not great at putting the ball on the floor and doesn't rebound well, but if he did all of that he'd be long gone by 28.
If he played on the Spurs, he would soon realize hed have to rebound to play, and play defense.
All I know about this guy is that he's 6'8 with a 7 ft. wingspan and good athletic ability. So he passes the eye test.
He seems to be an intriguing prospect for me.
I also wonder why he isn't ranked a bit higher. I guess no mock has him in the 1st round, but with so many teams in need of 3pt shooting, there should be quite some interest in him. (didn't the best 3pt shooting team just win it all? some GM might have recognized this fact)
he has good size for a SF and maybe some missed that he had by far the best time in the lane agility test. (i guess it was also the best time of the last 4 years). this test might not tell much, but at least it tells, that a player has a very good lateral quickness to be able to make the test in such a time.
Nichols is labeled as at least decent on defense and he should have all the tools to become a good defender.
if he is a good rebounder or not is as difficult to judge as the level of his defense considering the team. his average of 5.4 last season wasn't bad and he got this number in a team with a big lineup (for college standards) and 2 good rebounders in the middle and alongside the probably best leaper and best rebounding guard this season (Paul Harris). so he wasn't asked to rebound as much and hard as he would have been in another lineup. maybe in this case he would have achieved an average of 7+ and we would be talking about a very good rebounder, when talking about Nichols.
he isn't on top of my wish list, but for sure I would also be happy if we end up drafting him.
Athletic,can run the floor and likes to shoot the 3, sounds like a golden state warrior to me.
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