Originally Posted by
FellowTraveler
To my eye, in his first several games (exhibition and real) Rivers demonstrated a fantastic first step, but his lack of elite athleticism frequently allowed the defense to recover by the time he shot, leading to a lot of drives that began with him making a great move to create separation and ended with a contested shot anyway. In the last two games, he’s had a few great drives where he’s successfully built on the initial separation, including a very nice drive tonight in which he incorporated a jump-stop and a couple of quick changes of direction. His first step is a huge asset. When he develops the ability to capitalize on it by maintaining separation to get clean shots -- and by finding teammates left open by a shifting defense -- he’ll be a truly elite offensive player.