A.J. Price has managed to overcome a lot of adversity, some of which was his own fault, some of which was not. Before being drafted, Price's college career saw him nearly die of a brain haemmorage, be arrested in the embarrassing and nationally publicised case of the theft of some laptops, as well as seriously blowing out his knee. The latter of those meant Price had to modify his game, and it's perhaps had more of an adverse affect on his career than the whole nearly-dying thing did. Maybe.
Price used to be very fast and explosive. That was his game. He got to the spot before you did, and he burned you for it. But then the knee went, and with it has gone a lot of his explosiveness. Now, Price's speed is merely 'decent.' And that's fine, you can get by on decent speed. After all, if there weren't people that were below average at stuff, there'd be no such thing as average. However, the loss of speed meant that Price had to change his game a bit. No longer able to get to the rim as often and as easily as before, Price has become more of a jumpshooter, and he's become a pretty good one too. He has good three point range and a fledgling mid-range pull-up, which make him a weapon on the court, if not a very efficient one.
However, having lost his explosive scoring, Price has also had to become more of a conventional point guard these days. And that's not something he's had much practice at. He's a solid ball handler and a solid passer, but he's still a shoot-first player, and he doesn't shoot well enough to justify that. As an undersized 2 without great speed any more, Price is going to have to go from being an inefficient shoot-first player into either becoming a more conventional point guard, or to being a far more efficient shooter. If that makes sense.
A.J. Price fact: The A.J. in A.J. Price's name, according to his mother, stands for the two finest basketball players of all time. 'J' is for 'Jordan', and 'A' is for Anthony', used to represent A.J.'s father, Anthony 'Tony' Price. For what it's worth, Tony Price was not a part of the 50 Greatest Players in NBA history, and scored all of 4 points in his NBA career. She was admittedly rather biased in her sentiment.
- 15th June, 2009.
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Anybody Wanna See Second Prize? Second Prize Is A Set Of Steak Knives.....
