busdriver4687

I watched almost all of his games for the last two years at Vanderbilt, and he can definitely jump off of one leg when the situation calls for it. I remember once in particular when he was ahead of everyone on a break, and a guy came from behind and went low trying to strip him about 8 feet from the basket. He protected the ball as the guy reached in and missed the strip and went flying past. Jenkins proceeded to jump on his next step, off the wrong leg, and dunked with two hands fairly easily. He's never going to dunk on anybody, but he's a crafty finisher who has good awareness and understands angles around the basket. Combined with decent athleticism, he should be fine finishing on the break and around the basket.

If Al keeps playing the way he is and doesn't find a way on to the all star team, it will be even worse than Josh Smith missing out on the festivities last year. Guys who average 17 points, 9.5 boards, play great defense, shoot 60 % from the floor, and have PERs around 25 belong on the all star team. In addition, he is the only guy in the top 10 among centers in both assist rate and turnover percentage (as in fewest turnovers), which I think is quite a feat. This wouldn't even be a discussion if Larry Drew would play him 36-38 minutes instead of 32.

They are hot right now, and I would much rather see the Bucks than the Heat at this point. However, the Heat's schedule coming down the stretch has been absolutely atrocious. They've won 10 of eleven, but the only win of note came at Milwaukee. The Nets, Bulls (no Noah or Deng), Bobcats(when playing on the road), Raptors, Pistons, Pacers, T-wolves, 76ers, and Knicks isn't exactly a terrifying slate. And they close the season with the 76ers and Nets. Toronto had a similar stretch like this in the middle of the year when they were hot, but have since shown they are still very average.

That's some pretty elite company Smith could get himself into. Keep it up Smoove!

The Raptors just had a very easy stretch of games, with 9 out of 12 at home, and I believe only one of those games was against a team above .500 entering tonight (LAL, which to the Raptors credit, they won that game). They're next 11 games include a 4 game west coast roadie, along with games against Cleveland, OKC twice, Houston, and Atlanta. If they are still hanging around us in 3 weeks, I'll really start to get worried about them. But I think they will drop back a little just looking at their schedule.