FanHouse previews a player to watch from each NBA team in advance of the 2009-10 season.Julian Wright can jump very high.
When I say that, I don't mean that he jumps really high for normal people. I'm talking, he jumps high for NBA guys. For grasshoppers in relative height. When I caught him in front of his old college crowd in Kansas City last Thursday, I could almost hear the sound of a 747 going by. If Billy Bob Thornton and John Cusack had been around, they would have been parked in the photography section waiting to get blown backwards to St. Louis. The dude jumps like Skywalker in Empire, only he doesn't have to get his legs under him at all. Not kidding, HSA is giving thought to labeling him as a "flight risk." Wakka wakka wakka.
Okay, I'm done telling you how high Julian Wright can jump.
Just kidding! Here's a graph, in case you're not buying what I'm selling.
So as you can see, using this very scientific graph, Julian Wright can jump very high.
The question, of course, is if he's able to actually play basketball well enough while jumping this high to be a starting small forward in the NBA. Because if the Hornets are going to regain any scrap of the title-contender respect they garnered after the 2008 Playoffs, Wright is going to have to ... ahem, make the leap, so to speak.
The gap between Wright and outstanding player status isn't so much a building project, nor has it been that way since Wright came into the league two season ago. Some rookies you have to completely deconstruct, wipe away all ego and the useless ideas they attached themselves to in college. ("Hey, what happened? Why am I suddenly not better/faster/stronger/bigger/cooler than everyone else on the floor? No fair!")
But with Wright, he seemed to grasp what his role should be, and what areas he needed to concentrate on when he got floor time. The issue was always filling in the gaps. Things like learning to defend the pick and roll, learning how to space himself for a shot off-the-ball, sliding to cut off the baseline, working through screens, and not, you know, jacking up a three whenever he was left open regardless of circumstance were examples of what Wright lacked. And while those seem like elements which don't take work, with Wright it's like trying to teach a giraffe to tap dance. I mean, yeah, it's got feet and all and you can put shoes on it, but getting it to understand what you want is tricky. And not getting bit. Giraffes bite. No lie.
This season, however, is poised to be different. Wright is beginning to find his identity on the court, and with Peja Stojakovic and James Posey heading toward fossilization, the man they call JuJu has both the means and opportunity to cement himself at the young age of 22 as a legit threat at the small forward position.
Hornets coach Byron Scott has told reporters that he sees Wright's ceiling in the Josh Howard model, a long lanky power forward who can defend multiple positions and knock down shots from range. Wright's 3-point shooting is something he's said he focused on. With the rest of New Orleans's shooters beginning to downgrade with age, Wright has to be able to provide Chris Paul with a perimeter to 15-foot option to dish to if he can draw the double, not just the alley-oop spectacle Wright's athleticism affords him. However, Wright can't afford to be one-dimensional, and certainly he needs to put that trademark athleticism to good use. With David West at power forward, the Hornets are at a distinct disadvantage on the glass, as West works a little bit outside of the paint. The addition of Emeka Okafor should force extra attention, but Wright needs to be able to sweep in from the wing and collect.
Wright is still trying to find his place in the NBA. But as opposed to past years, he at least know how that place looks. He can recognize the outline, the contours, the ins and outs, the general geography. Now he's just got to figure out how to get there.
