Thank you for tuning in for the last offseason player profile (assuming there aren’t any unexpected late additions) of 2026. You can find my pieces on Jurian Dixon, Christian Harmon and Nolan Adekunle by following those respective links. As stated previously, there will be no piece on Kalu Anya because he didn’t play this past season and the season prior was unhealthy throughout.
This piece on Jan Vide, the accurate and perhaps even under-listed 6’6″ PG from Loyola Marymount University by way of UCLA and Slovenia, is perhaps the most difficult that I have written in terms of trying to accurately project a player. It’s getting harder than ever to get full game tape from the lower college levels and several of those out there for LMU are contests in which Vide was injured and didn’t play. This is the first “Tracking A Transfer” piece where I’ve ever used film that wasn’t DI tape from the previous basketball season – having to tap into some of his film playing for the Slovenian National Team in last year’s Under 20 EuroBasket tournament. Cobbling together full game film from two very different styles of play, looking at stats and highlights across, makes coming up with a clear projection quite difficult. Not to mention that, while he played the same position, his role on those teams was very different.
That being said, as a result of the less than desirable film situation, I feel like I’ve combed about as much Vide film as I have any player coming into the fold – so these observations are based on the selected games, but based on quite a bit of effort spent trying to get the best sense that I could on how his game will most likely translate.
To jump right to the heart of it, Vide has been virtually a non-shooter from outside throughout his career. That’s a little harsh. He took 29 threes against DI last season across 27 games played (and started) and around 29mpg – roughly one attempt per game and he shot 32.6% on those attempts. That’s up from 22.2% on 9 attempts across 7 EuroBasket games the prior Summer and 22.2% on, against 9 attempts on 19mpg the prior season at LMU. So, he is willing to put an open shot up, which is an improvement, but he doesn’t really want to, looks to do most anything else first, and teams who scout him pretty quickly come to this conclusion and play him accordingly. It’s a significant concern. It messes up a lot of the floor spacing when defenders don’t take his threat to shoot seriously, creates situations where the ball needs to be in his hands a disproportionate amount of time, and places a lot of emphasis for him to make a play, which results in a lot of midrange shots (which he is pretty good at, for the record, but still isn’t very efficient overall), and ends up pushing him into some reckless and out of control situations.
That’s the preface and the thing that’s hard to get beyond when evaluating. To be clear, there is a lot to like about Vide’s game. It’s not without faults or limitations in other areas, which we’ll discuss but, as a long PG who can move a bit, be physical at times, has a pretty decent first step, and has a lot of polish throughout his finishing suite, if he was even an adequate shooter from range, this would be a much different piece and some of the glass half-empty/full calculus would be replaced with full-on excitement. And he’s clearly been working on that part of his game both in how he more than tripled his attempts across his two years at LMU and through the information that’s been trickling out of Summer practices. It’s something that I’m less inclined to believe will stick or be a real threat at the college level against teams that will be scouting him, though, until I see the contrary. It doesn’t project well, given the tape, I’d say.
We’ll move to the video in a second but…
First, Some Additional Context
Normally, I’ll take this section to talk a little about a player’s particular team, scheme, teammates, how they were used, etc. Given that these are multiple teams, I’m going to speak at a higher level and add some color to how I’m considering these things. We get two games from his time at LMU – a regular season contest against Troy (who, keep in mind, was an NCAA Tournament team despite getting throttled by Nebraska) that was his second highest scoring output on the season (he averaged 12.1 ppg, 4 assists, 3 rebounds, and 2.3 turnovers per game for them), and a pre-season scrimmage against USC (be on the lookout for Jacob Cofie) that was pretty competitive throughout. We’ll also get Slovenia’s final two games of the 2025 U20 EuroBasket Tournament against Germany and Lithuania where Vide was the tournament’s leading per-game scorer at 17.9ppg, had 6.6 rebounds and 4 assists per game and 1.3 turnovers per game.
Generally speaking, he was the ball-dominant PG for both teams. Slovenia played him off the ball a little more often than USC did, which wasn’t terrible because their opposition in that tournament appeared to be playing, with a few exceptions, pretty straight-forward defense without much of a scout. The biggest difference, though, was not the position that he played, but his role on the team. For LMU, he was one of four players who averaged double digits scoring (and the lowest of the four). For Slovenia, he was easily their best player and, though they often worked the ball around early in games, later on large chunks of offense often fell to him to create. There was the clear looseness while playing for Slovenia, even in big games, where he confidently knew his spot atop the food chain. For LMU, he had more competent mouths to feed around him and didn’t play with nearly as much confidence.
I’d say that, of the games we’ll look at, USC is considerably the best comparison that we’ll get to play in the ACC. A major conference team with the best athletes of any of the four games, and older, stronger players to boot. EuroBasket U20 has some really talented prospects up and coming, and there’s a lot of skill and even length, but it’s basically like looking at most of your better collegiate rosters, especially with the Big Ten like with USC, or the ACC for us, but even across much of the WCC and only playing against the younger guys on those rosters. Sure, they can still play, and these national teams can rival many with talent, but you just don’t find the strength and athleticism… or experience even, up and down the lineups. Even the game against Troy… those U20 national teams (keep in mind the age designation) would likely beat Troy pretty comfortably… but would do so more on skill and talent than with their physical ability.
All of that being considered should add further context to why Vide feels so different in the EuroBasket games. He’s one of the best athletes on the floor most of the time in those contests. I thought, featured against USC, he was far less efficient and prone to mistake against that level of athlete. It explains some of his box score outputs for LMU last season as well; although he had some nice games against the likes of Saint Mary’s and San Francisco, he really struggled to be efficient against Gonzaga or Santa Clara or Oregon State. It was actually just the consistency in general that was more of the problem. His final 7 games of the season, for example, he shot 50% from the field on 45 for 90 attempts and that was including a 4-16 and a 5-15 performances mixed in. The seven preceding those? He went 10-50 from the floor… a brutal 20% shooting with near half as many attempts. And the assist to turnover ratios were aligned accordingly in those games (30-7 vs. 17-27). Streaky.
So, aside from the broad outside shooting question that looms, the second that I have is whether or not a player who, ostensibly, thrives on volume and feel and having the ball in his hands a lot, and being looked to as “the” guy on the team, whose quality at the DI level – even as almost a 30mpg starter – fluctuated so dramatically, can find the right fit as a backup PG at the major conference level. Keep in mind, he did start his career at UCLA, played 7mpg, and left for more opportunity.
Anyway, that’s how I’m digesting much of the film below, keeping in mind opponent and context, but still considering skills that could translate well. I realize that I sound fairly pessimistic while writing this, but some of that is just to add context because there IS some really good and enticing stuff below. Vide is still only 21. The mystery will be how his specific playstyle can fit in with the rest of this very capable team, coupled with how much he’s been able to improve his game.
Okay, let’s get into it!
Offense
I’ve talked quite a bit about his outside shooting, and we’ll start with that section below, but Vide does have a lot in his offensive portfolio. He’s good at playing off of the pick and roll and even at beating his man one-on-one. He has a deceptively effective burst off of the bounce and uses his size and body well to spin to either side if his drive is cut off. The size and length is real and can be hard to deal with, especially when he’s defended by opposing PGs, but he’s not one of these slow and lumbering bigger guards who can’t go by anyone. He’s much more comfortable as a pull-up shooter in the midrange but it’s his floater that is a true weapon and gives him so many ways to convert a drive/set up other finishes. He’s got really nice speed in the open floor and can be pretty devastating with hesitations and his ball handling to manipulate defenders, get all the way into the lane, or to keep defenders off balance and to draw contact. He can be out of control, which is a theme that we’ll see throughout, but a Jan Vide fast break can be a true weapon. Noticeably, he doesn’t appear to lose much accuracy across his floater suite even when attacking off of a full sprint (although his contested layups are much better in the half court).
As a lead guard, when on, he can be a fantastic and creative passer. When not, he can be reckless with overly ambitious passes or by getting caught in the air on drives and not having a good outlet. It’s one of those things where, if he can just play in control then you’d feel pretty comfortable – but if you start to reign in his playstyle then you lose some of the benefits/magic that he can create.
Okay, finally, enough setting the stage, let’s get into it!
Outside Shooting
I normally start with this for all guards, but it’s fitting here as it’s his Achilles’ Heel and will serve well to add the context for the rest of the piece. We’ll start with the Troy game, which was one of his better scoring games, going 10-18 from the floor for 24 points, and 1-4 from deep. This first look is actually one of the more fluid looks from him across all of these, side-stepping and shooting the three over the contest. Note, he took this because there was a scramble with the ball and they were at the end of the shot clock. There’s a slight pause at the top of the shot though, he gets the ball into position, freezes it, and then lets it go – so it’s not all one fluid motion. A consistent theme that you’ll see from most of his misses and makes is that he kind of has that sudden push forward on the shot, like he’s more pushing it out there and then trying to guide it.
Here’s a better look, below. This time LMU runs a BLOB play with Jan as the inbounder. He passes the ball and moves to the near corner, which immediately presents a problem because he really isn’t a credible threat from there. Watch how long and how deep his man lingers under the hoop, helping away from the play, and how Vide has no one closer than the lane to him on the catch – he’s got to shoot it but watch how uncomfortable he is doing so. Again, he gets the shot up, pauses at the top of his release, and then pushes it out toward the basket.
That’s how it looks when a player doesn’t feel confident in their shot, but knows that they have to shoot because the play flow dictated it. That’s the thing, though, because the play flow was largely dictated BY him being the one in the corner, so the driving lane wasn’t there. This is why it makes it hard to run offense with him on the floor without him having the ball in his hands a ton – because when it’s away from him, you get put into this situation and he has to make this choice.
The problem compounds, then, when the other team has scouted him – as they all will – and especially after he’s shown the last clip above in the same game. Here’s how Troy started to defend him and I can’t oversell how this is about as uncaring about a guard shooting a three as you can get at this level. Vide pushes the ball up the floor – notice the buffer at first with which he’s met by the defender. He’s down at the elbow three seconds into the clip with Vide right at the three-point line. Instead of shooting or trying to push the ball into a sagged defense, he passes away and moves to the near corner again. Now, starting at about 6 seconds into the clip… watch how his man completely ignores him. Troy isn’t playing zone. They’re man-to-man, but Vide’s man is just hanging out at the free throw line and then fully rotates over with both eyes on the opposite wing. Vide is just standing there, alone, hands up for the pass. Troy switches who is guarding him again, but ultimately defends the high pick and roll with a double drop coverage – both the defender of the screen dropping, with the big who is supposed to be covering Vide camped fully behind him under the hoop.
In that clip, Troy effectively played defense 5-on-4 because they simply refused to send anyone to guard Vide on the three-point line and LMU did not pass it to him. You can’t run offense like that. You have to give him the ball and either have him just shoot it anyway or force a drive in there – but, again, you can see how hard it is to play offense without the ball IN his hands.
This time, below, he has the ball in his hands but you still see the trouble when the opposing team is daring him to shoot. Watch how deep his defender plays him at first, then despite a ball screen being set pretty deep, the defender goes hard under it. Vide represents a shot motion and does get a pretty aggressive contest, but after he passes to the post, his man just leaves him out there and collapses on a double team, actually, not even a double team – he retreats behind his defending teammate to just clog the lane for any drive attempt. Of course, the ball comes back to the open Vide who takes a similar looking aimed shot that misses.
This was the very first film I watched on Vide and I just wrote in bold, underlined, italics, “This is a problem.” It’s a problem when the opposition catches on that they can play you this extremely and basically have an extra defender on everyone else.
Okay, here, below, is his lone make from deep in this game. It was a big one closer to the end of the game that extended the lead to nine. Fortunately, despite the misses earlier, he was able to knock this one down… but man was it open. You’ll see that Troy, again, just completely ignores him out there and has his man standing square in the middle of the lane. LMU really doesn’t want to go there either, but ends up just making the obvious pass and are rewarded this time.
I could probably end this section here and it would be all you need to know about how much of a concern this is, especially when a team makes it such a point of contention.
Here’s a look from the USC scrimmage with Vide primarily settling off the ball in the top corner. Now, USC clearly had an indication of how to play their man – but the scout and behavior wasn’t as extreme as that of Troy. That being said, you can still see how his man is unafraid to linger in the land and how his full focus is on helping on the drive without much concern about recovering back outside:
He didn’t really look for many opportunities to shoot in that one but also didn’t have as many glaring responsibilities to do so like in the Troy game. Here’s a look at the end of the shot clock, though, where he is forced to put the ball up off of the dribble and it’s neither close nor comfortable looking:
Now, the interesting thing about his international games was that, with a few exceptions, those teams played him mostly straight up. He actually played off of the ball more frequently for Slovenia than for LMU (though still not that often) and both Germany and Lithuania treated him as a reasonable shooter. This helped the other elements of his game, as we’ll see later. Additionally, though, even though he still clearly didn’t want to be shooting from outside, and shot worse across that tournament than he did during the LMU regular season, he did look more comfortable taking the open looks and hesitated less getting into the shot. Perhaps it was because his role on that team was to score.
Please don’t misinterpret what I’m saying, he still really didn’t want to be taking these looks, and here, below, you’ll see him with absolutely no one around him on a kick out after an offensive rebound. Instead of just taking the shot, instead he looks off the defender, drives in, and makes the layup.
It’s two points and it’s a higher percentage play than him shooting this – but that’s the kind of look you want a player like him to be ready to pull and be able to convert at a great clip.
And here’s another, below, where his opponent did pick up on the lack of desire and played really far under on the pick and roll. Vide takes the shot and looks more confident doing it, on the step back, even, but doesn’t knock it down.
These were his only two makes from deep in the tournament, below, but they did represent the mentality that we’ll need him to embrace if he’s logging time for us. Sure, we don’t want him just hunting his outside shot, but we are going to need him to take the open ones without hesitation. Force the team to guard you and, hopefully, you’ll make enough to keep them doing it and to stay on the court. This was a nice one after driving through, carrying on and spotting up and shooting without second guessing it (still the hitch at the top of the shot, though):
Here’s one more, below, where he spots up and has a wealth of space to get his shot off – but doesn’t hesitate on the catch and does knock it down over the close out:
Again, if this is making you raise an eye brow… please calm down. These were his only two makes across 7 games and only 9 attempts. This will go a long way toward determining how his role shakes out this coming season, though. If he’s thinking about his outside shot like he did at LMU last season, passing up wide open opportunities and allowing opposing teams to help off of him aggressively… then it’s hard to see how our offense that functions with good spacing, wanting most anyone to shoot and be able to play off or on the ball is going to want him out there. If he’s willing to take what the defense gives him, though, and can at least shoot around that 33% range… then there could be something there in backup minutes.
Let’s go ahead and get into the other elements of his offensive game which shake out more intriguingly.
Self-Creation
This is the area of Vide’s game that shows the most promise and is the biggest reason you might consider overlooking his shooting limitation at the guard position. Now, I can hear some of you interjecting “really none of our other guards behind Chance being experienced at running an offense” is the biggest reason, and fair enough. But if you’re talking about upside and the benefit of playing Vide vs. covering for the perceived inexperience or limitation of others, then this is it. This is not a game manager of a player. He can, at times, and may be asked to much more often for us with so many viable options around him, but Vide is a scorer at heart. He’s got a nice first step, uses his size and angles well, and has a variety of nifty ways to finish around the rim the most deadly and commonly used of which is a really nice floater. Commonly, at the international level especially, he’d make a play that was just so smooth and skilled that you’d do a double take.
Let’s get right into the fun. This first clip is from early in the Troy game before they’d decided that they weren’t overly interested in worrying about his shot. This one he pump fakes the close out in the corner, drives it, and you get a first look at the comfort and touch of the push shot over the closing big.
Now, even though that’s a nice shot and a hard one over a pretty lengthy contest, I should point out that the bounce pass was there and could have led to a dunk or layup – so even though he has some talented passing in him, I think that sometimes his natural inclination to score causes him to miss some easier opportunities. Just a placeholder for that thought here. Still, a nice finish.
Here’s the first look at him executing the pick and roll as the primary ball handler. When he’s feeling it, he looks so smooth and under control. I like the little dribble out in front of his body in anticipation of beating a potential pinch from the near side but then he just takes what the defender gives him here with the floater over too deep coverage:
You may think I’m being flippant when talking about his floater… I am not exaggerating.
Here, below, you see him use his size and body in a nice little half-prison dribble (halfway house dribble?) to get to it. He’s very under control here and using nice pacing throughout. Notice that it’s a rejection of the ball screen early to get into this drive too – he doesn’t always need to use it. In fact, he has that low kind of meticulous dribble that he will use to lull his defender, create a new angle, and then attack a driving lane.
Dallin Hall used the prison dribble quite a bit off of the pick and roll last year but, as you may remember, he’d often need to pass out of it if he couldn’t get all the way in to that reverse (or sometimes scoop) layup. Vide has those things too – but his far superior near-midrange game and length gives him more of a scoring pop once he gets those advantages.
This next look is in the second half of the same game with it still very close. You’ll start to see the more extreme sagging from Troy that we discussed earlier and Vide passes up an open opportunity from outside early. In a move very reminiscent of Malik Thomas last year, though, he starts to cut prior to making the catch on the eventual kick out later in the possession, which gives him really nice early separation on his drive. This is the hardest finish and angle that we’ve shown yet:
All of that discomfort that you see when he has the ball outside evaporates when he gets to these closer spots.
The nice thing about watching the international games, though, is that he just played a little more freely and you could see some of the creativity that he has on display. In this one, below, you can see him playing around with a little spin move up front before taking the deeper angle on the pick and roll and getting into his runner:
And here, below, he splits the defense with a nice extended dribble cross-over, gets him on his heels, and then into that runner again:
At LMU, it was a little more methodical where, here, it’s a little more uncaged and free. And, before you start thinking that it’s level of competition exclusively – this Lithuania team probably had more athleticism and talent than that Troy team.
Don’t worry, that’s not the end of the runners as you’ll see more in the “Transition” section – and they are pretty and he does love going to them. That being said, he had a suite of other ways to attack we can look at.
He was also effective at getting all the way to the rim in many cases, breaking someone down off of a dribble with that change of pace and then gliding into the lane. Here against Troy, again, he gets a nice screen that disrupts the defender, but sets up a nice driving path, reads and streaks through it:
Here, below, he just hits his man with the blow by from the perimeter which goes to show off a pretty nice burst and first step that he backs up with the good size and body control to press many advantages that he creates:
I loved this little hesitation with the left hand after the pick and roll. He looks like he’s going to pull it back but then hits the inside-out dribble and it doesn’t take much for him to stride toward the hoop, keep the ball extended in his left hand, and finish:
Here’s another similar look with a harder degree of difficulty with the left-handed scoop over the contest – but he gets the switch and is able to attack the opposing big in isolation to get to it:
And, we recently got to see a clip from practice at UVa similar to this, but he can be pretty effective finishing through contact with some of his layups. When he can get his off shoulder into the body of his defender like he does below, he has nice control and finishing ability, including drawing the foul in this clip:
Throughout most of these straight-line drive clips, notice how he hunts space and angles at the beginning of each to set them up. It’s a lot of misdirection, threatening and then reconsidering. Screens as tools or decoys, but always kind of probing until the right moment.
When his defender does attempt to counter his drive, Vide also has a nice counter where he spins off of the contact, using his size and strides again either to get fully around his defender or to get to a jumper.
Here’s a pretty smooth isolation turnaround jumper against Troy:
Here’s another look, this time against USC where he gets completely by his man and has his scoop shot goaltended:
Here’s another nice and comfortable turnaround jumper in isolation, going over that left shoulder to his right hand:
I also thought that when Vide played off of two feet (which he often didn’t do), he often looked comfortable and effective doing so. Because of his size, he is able to gather himself and doesn’t have to rush getting into his shot. In this clip below, he’s being guarded by the 6’5″ Jerry Easter II (#8). In it, he doesn’t actually use the ball screen but, rather, plays off of it and into the vacated space from the roller. Easter gets caught on a bad recover angle but is able to catch up to Vide as he stops his drive. Despite that, Vide is able to simply come to a full stop, and then jump off of both feet with a slight fadeaway. He’s not really bothered by the contest of Easter despite Jerry being pretty close to him on the shot.
This all was comfortably in his bag against most players, but one thing I did notice and really like is that he was very comfortable targeting and exploiting a size mismatch – which, if he’s on the floor for us as PG – there’s a chance he’ll still be the shortest player on our team in some lineups. If he’s paired with Dixon or Harmon, he won’t be and maybe opponents will play with those matchups – but if he plays with Lewis and Adekunle… it’s going to be hard for most of our opponents to not have some pretty significant size mismatches.
Here he is taking advantage of that against Jordan Marsh (#7) on USC who is listed at 5’11”. Vide has 7 inches on him and plays like it here, using his driving angle to get good depth in the lane and, when he’s eventually cut off, his spin is already deep and his shot is very comfortable/much more straight up compared to some of the fadeaways that we just saw:
Too often players with significant size advantages don’t play like it and fail to take advantage. Odom will attack mismatches, though, and I expect that having Vide in the lineup could offer for some more moments like that one.
Here’s another where he just decides to back Marsh down in the lane and draws a foul in the process:
So, yeah, when he has the ball in his hands, initiating the offense and attacking, there are a lot of tools for Vide to use.
Where I would say the areas of concern here are mostly staying under control and consistent. He could often try to make too much happen and get stuck/turn the ball over. Additionally, he was noticeably less efficient against the kind of athleticism that USC offered – major conference athleticism – than he was against Troy or U20 international teams.
Here’s a look against Troy where he was feeling it throughout this game and tries to split the hedge defense on the pick and roll like we saw with Slovenia. He’s just too ambitious here/over-confident in his handle through traffic.
Here, below, against Germany, he just kind of jams the ball into traffic and has nowhere to go with the ball:
A similar issue below, at the end of regulation, when Slovenia went back to an isolation with him to try to win the game, which they ended up winning in OT. He gets to the hoop this time, but him keeping the ball here given how they’d been playing was predictable and he gets blocked at the rim with basically two defenders collapsing on him.
It was certainly compounded on teams where he was expected to carry a hefty offensive load or, like in the Troy game, where he was in a groove and forcing an issue – but Vide did have some issues with tunnel vision and just trying to do too much from time to time.
Here’s a look against USC. He handles the early pressure and gets by his man into the lane. His teammates don’t give him many options basically all flattened out and static along the baseline – but he still needs to read that he has two defenders on him and won’t be able to get this shot off:
Perhaps he under-estimated their reach and bounce, which brings me to the second point about the difficulty ratcheting up with that increased athleticism.
Here’s a look at him navigating some significant pressure from USC bringing the ball up the floor, and a hard hedge high at the logo with a recovery. Vide does a nice job of maintaining his dribble, waiting for the big to retreat on the hedge, and then attacking the basket through that vacuum (and with his back to the basket). The problem is that he gets blocked from behind on the layup attempt (the replay shows this is a clean block, not just a miss at the rim).
It’s harder when, despite being 6’6″ and pretty fluid with the ball, you can still get tracked down from behind against another guard and blocked. This is something I don’t think he was overly used to.
Here he is against the press (which, I should have just edited out Musselman here but wanted to show that it was coming off of a press break). You see him beat his man cleanly by the logo and start to streak by him… but the recovery, long arms, and strength make it so that when Vide pulls the ball down by his hip on his jump, it’s stripped out from behind him and stolen away.
He just felt really sped up against USC like he wasn’t used to playing against players who he could beat but who could still bother him – and it caused him to make some turnovers, take some bad shots, and also just rush.
I was going to include this clip in the “Transition” section, but am bumping it up here because it speaks to this point well. He’s in full speed in transition in this clip below, where he’s generally quite strong… but he just blows this layup trying to get around the contest:
He makes that the vast majority of the time, as he should, but he just rushes the shot here because he’s anticipating the shot blocker and is uncomfortable.
Two more quick questions I raise about this part of his game within the next to clips. We’ve talked previously about his lack of threatening outside shot and how it affects the defense on the whole. It also makes punishing big switches more difficult for him when they play him not to shoot. Of course, we saw him earlier in this section making it work well and playing through contact, but in this one, the Center sags pretty far back off of him, gives a huge buffer, and still ends up blocking his jumper.
You don’t even really want him taking that shot to begin with. It’s not in the flow of a nice turnaround deeper in the lane as we saw earlier – it’s just a few steps inside of the three-point line… so you might as well back up and take it out there. He settles for it because he doesn’t have that range and because he doesn’t want to try to make a drive on a player who is leaving himself that much room to react and adjust.
So, I think that’s a real concern for us because many bigs won’t worry as much about switching and if they decide they don’t have to worry about his pull up three, they can just stay deep and effectively deny what he wants to be doing (getting to the rim).
Lastly, I’m not in love with his handle when dealing with pressure. I think he does a nice job of keeping his dribble low and lulling defenders into giving up driving angles. When at full speed in the open floor, he’s pretty shifty and able to maneuver well through defenders, but when defenders take the initiative to him, he can be disrupted. He often has to take his time bringing the ball up against full court pressure and even turn his back to the defender while crossing half court on occasion (turning his back to the play which misses opportunities and leaves yourself open to defensive play-making). Here’s a rough look against Lithuania where he’s just too casual with his dribble and gets picked clean, leading to a transition layup the other way.
Vide is certainly the most experienced PG on the roster, but I do worry about quick players at this level getting under his dribble and having him as the guy designated to break a press in high-leverage situations. I can see it leading to some sloppy and frustrating moments and some middle game swings against difficult opponents where you’re cringing and hoping for Chance to go back in. And, in general, I think his ability to stay plugged in and consistent while being the lead ball handler has some room for improvement.
There’s still a lot to work on for him in this area – but his ability to create opportunities for himself to put the ball in the bucket as well as the variety of ways he can do that from about 10-feet in is intriguing. Let’s go ahead and look at his ability to run the offense for others.
Facilitation
Vide is more wired as a scorer, and I called out a few areas where he gets some tunnel vision at times – but he is a very skilled and capable passer. His role was different on both of those teams – the lead PG whose core responsibility was running the offense and, certainly for Slovenia, getting buckets too. Here, he’s likely to be primarily backing up Chance with the minutes he does get (I don’t see much of them together given his shooting and the other talent at SG/SF we have on the roster). As a role player, he will be asked to set up others more, take what’s given on offense, but will not be expected to force the issue. It remains to be seen whether this will be fitting for him or if he will grow restless given his previous volume role.
That being said, his great size and length help with his vision to see open players and with his ability to execute passes around his defender. He has good accuracy and touch with his passes, and can toe the line between recklessness and creativeness at times, similar to his other play.
Let’s start with a look against Troy. This isn’t an overly difficult pass given the height of his teammate, the 7’1″ Rick Issanza (#22), but given some of our struggles executing lobs last year, it’s notable that he puts nice touch on this and into a place where Issanza is going to be able to catch and turn comfortably.
I also like that Vide doesn’t take a lot of time sizing this pass up like some guards do, allowing help defense more time to read where the ball is going and collapse. He’s comfortable just putting it out there once he stops.
Here, below, we see a little creativity. Troy has decided to leave Vide on the perimeter but still to contest his shots if/when he does pull up – even if it’s from some distance. I like how, knowing that, Vide is still able to bait the contest with the shot fake and use that patience to draw the defenders and whip a pass to an open teammate under the hoop.
Think about what has to be going through his mind in a two-point game, having scored the ball around the rim but basically being dared to shoot for the majority of the game, having the wherewithal with that much space to take SO much time getting into his fake shot that he’s able to get a pass to the basket. I thought that was a pretty cool one from a creativity/mentality standpoint.
This next play didn’t lead to anything – his teammate lets the defense back into the play and then turns the ball over – but I think it’s a good example of Vide’s court vision and pass accuracy under pressure. He spins out of the double team and quickly fires a nice leading bounce pass to his teammate’s low post seal, which should have led to a bucket.
It’s a throwaway play in the box score but for some reason that play always jumps to the forefront of my mind when I think of Vide’s passing. I think it’s because he was so effective at seeing around that lengthy double and turned the tables very confidently with that distance post feed. Sometimes it’s the little things that help see how a player can translate.
This next one is a lot more creative and exciting… and still doesn’t lead to an assist! Despite the spoon-fed dunk, too. Vide takes the ball off of a DHO, works his way methodically into the lane, plays the post up game for a minute, and spins off to go to that fadeaway jumper that we’ve seen earlier. Instead, though, this time he draws two defenders on the shot block attempt and, while hanging dumps a great pass off to his big… who promptly bricks the dunk.
This is classic big guard stuff. You use your size to get to your shots around the hoop over smaller players and then, when you start to draw help, you counter with a nice pass out of the help. I like how Vide buys himself time in the air and only delivers the pass as he’s descending, too – makes it that much harder to defend.
Here’s a similar look but this time, rather than backing his man down from the outside, he just straight posts up after an attempted backdoor cut. Notice a similarly executed shot fake, linger in the air, and then dump off from a different angle to the help man’s cover. This one results in a foul drawn, at least.
And then here, in the next clip below, we see similar pacing off of the pick and roll this time, again being patient and drawing two, and this time with a nicely executed pass threading the needle back to his teammate on the bounce.
When he’s in command of his game like this, he can really do a nice job of using his creation skills to create those opportunities for others and has a good feel for how to get them the ball. I like it when he slows the game down like this, uses his body to give himself some time and space, and lures help defenders to him.
He passes well on the move too, though, when he’s opened things up a bit. Here, we see him split that hedge again with a nice cross over and that good extension dribble. Help comes this time, though, so he uses the advantage (the hedge defender gets fully left in the dust and taken out of the play) to draw help and kick to the corner.
And then, this next play was super clutch. This was the final play in OT, down by two, in a back and forth game with Germany. We saw earlier at the end of regulation how he jammed the ball into traffic and got blocked on his game winning attempt. This time he gets going at full speed from the full court. His speed in the open floor is legitimate and he draws three defenders with him to the rim, likely thinking about how often he’d been shooting in this game. This time, though, Vide collapses the defense and fires a laser out to the corner for the game winner.
I kept the tape rolling to show how big this moment was for the team and Vide’s passion, jumping into the arms of his coach. That’s a really nice moment and great pressure/execution from Jan in a pressure situation.
Now, occasionally, he’d try to do a little too much, like with the “Self-creation” section, and get caught in an awkward situation and make a bad pass, like in this one below where he gets caught in the air and simply mishandles the ball when trying to make a pass out to the corner.
But, where I actually thought he ran into the most issues were more at the collegiate level where he either just under-estimated a defender’s ability to close on a space/get their hands on the ball, like here:
But what I worry about a little more is his ability to deal with sustained pressure while trying to run an offense against the major collegiate level of player. Here we see him breaking the press against USC. He starts with a short jab step and a straight-line drive past his man. I like the body angle where he veers in front to cut his defender off the path. Now, LMU has all four guys flattened out here; two on the blocks and two in the corners. Not great basketball to be able to find good kickouts or passes. When Vide gets into the lane, the help can step up, and the kickouts to the corners isn’t viable because of the length of the defenders. They needed to slide up to the wings much more quickly. That being said, notice how Vide is sprinting and rushing to break this press and is a little out of control approaching the lane. He stops, seeing no pass, and pulls the ball back out. LMU stays flat to allow for him to attack in isolation, (I don’t love this set as a clear-out option, but whatever), but Vide is just too sped up now. As he attempts to spin out of the isolation, he loses his handle and has to chase it down before the help defender closes on it.
10 seconds left in the shot clock and LMU is scrambling at that point with no real offense run. This is the kind of rushing to try to get by the press, causing to some rushing trying to set up the offense, bobbles of the ball, sloppiness, etc. that leads to bad offense and even turnovers.
This one, below, stood out to me the most, though, even though it looks kind of innocuous. Vide brings the ball up the floor, plays with his back to his defender at the logo to get the offense going, backs out of it and gives a pretty deliberate and cautious pass to his teammate that goes out of bounds for a sloppy turnover.
Now, I do want to get something out of the way – his teammate should have caught this pass. It was slightly difficult but certainly catchable. That being said, LMU is in a state of shell-shock here being down 18-4 to open the game. They’d actually hold their own through defense and keep the margin pretty much the same from here. Why this stands out to me is something that people who have played PG may recognize. When you have to sustain your dribble against pressure, you need to remain a threat to go by your man and to be able to keep your eyes up the floor. I know sometimes late in games or in the NBA, you’ll see guards do the back to the perimeter defender far away from the hoop to kill time before getting into an offensive set, but when they’re having to do it to withstand pressure when getting into the offense, that’s not a great sign. It means they don’t have as much visibility into what’s happening ahead on the play, and it also means that their timing in starting the play can be more easily disrupted. Here, Vide backs up away from his pressuring defender to start the offense, having to initiate it almost by half court as opposed to much closer to the three-point line. This makes passes either longer or, in this case, forces his teammate to be pushed far away from the hoop on a prospective catch. Not only was that pass attempt timid and overly cautious to start an offense because of being worried about the pressure on ball, even if his teammate had caught it, it would have been almost on the sideline, many feet away from the three-point line, with his back to the basket. It’s allowing the defense to dictate where you’re catching the ball, to make you uncomfortable, and to force you into non-threatening areas of the court. And that starts with the PG play, being able to back his man off, create more space, threaten the blowby, gaining much more depth when initiating the offense.
Aside from the shot, this is the main thing I’d have questions about with Vide. When the offense is his to run as the focal point, he can afford to attack more and hold his defender at bay. But, if he’s asked to operate more within a system, to get things going for an offense that has four other capable scorers (it’s possible and even likely that, at any given time on the floor, each of his teammates will be more efficient scorers than Vide). If he needs to control where on the floor his teammates get the ball and get going and then, likewise, be able to keep his own defender from helping too much and disrupting that flow, how well will he be able to do those things? That will be a huge question. How ball-dominant does Vide need to be in order to be effective and how much do we want him to be when he is out there?
Transition
Now, this is an area where I think Vide is a real weapon without many weaknesses. He’s fast in the open floor, has no noticeable reduction in ability to hit his shots and make his passes at full speed, and is often more creative and comfortable in how he manipulates a defense because they can’t be as aggressive on his dribble when retreating at that speed vs. from closer to a standstill. Most of the things that allow a coordinated defensive strategy account for his weaknesses are not nearly as easy to execute on the scramble – and Vide has an opportunity to show off his athleticism and mobility in very effective ways. Given how much Odom likes his teams to push off of rebounds and even some makes, I expect this will be where Vide is most compelling.
Okay, here’s a first look, this time in more of a delayed transition opportunity but before the defense is fully set. Vide takes a pass ahead with the defense mostly back, but takes advantage of their recovery by taking his man in isolation and getting all the way to the hoop for the layup before the help defense can rotate.
Nice and opportunistic.
Okay, now we’re back to the tear drop and this one’s a really pretty (and long) one. It’s very important to note that he can get into it from the half court, sure, but also while pushing the tempo in transition coming off of full speed.
I love how that one is just fully a one-man fast break with Vide driving the tempo. When he collects the loose ball, he only has one teammate ahead and three USC defenders closer to him to the hoop. He just outruns one of them, evening the numbers, and then his skill with that push shot does the rest despite the length of the defensive big.
Here, below, we get a really nice 3-on-2 break with the assist this time. It’s notable that he’s effective at outrunning a team like USC in a game that he just helped to close to a four-point deficit with about 4:30 to go. It’s very nice speed and churn to get the ball up the floor in a hurry from his own rebound.
I also want to pause to focus on that rebound, too. I don’t have a section in here exclusively dedicated to rebounding, but Vide is absolutely a plus rebounder for his position. He boxes out pretty well, as seen here, and has the size and length (and decent hops) to go get the ball. The ability to turn a long rebound into a runout like this makes his rebounding an even bigger weapon. On many of these other clips below, we’ll see some quality rebounding turned into a break, so I want to highlight it in advance since I won’t always be calling it out after each clip.
Okay, here he is in full speed transition after grabbing another board. This play is very similar to the USC clips above except that he’s able to get all the way in closer to the hoop, backing his defender off with his speed, and is able to even more effectively outpace the opposition in foot speed.
Here, below, we get to see his functional dunking. He’s got a straight line to the hoop with a taller defender closing in on his hip – so why leave anything to chance? He finishes with a nice full-speed dunk in transition:
Here, below, we see him outrun a few defensive players and then finish with a left-handed layup through the chest of his defender… much like we saw earlier from the half court, just with more build up and speed leading in:
And now we’re going to see all of these concepts again for reinforcement from the Lithuania game… but they get progressively more fun.
Takes the outlet with one hand, outraces the defense with the ball, and leaves a clean pass to his teammate for the finish:
Grabs the rebound, turns and transitions up the floor… nice, in control floater over a hot contest….
Maybe the most impressive of the group, rebound in traffic, races out in transition, leaves initial defender grasping at air (and powers through the foul attempt), and then a really nice runner after drawing contact a second time for a glorious and-1….
I will break momentum here for a moment just to emphasize the fluidity of his movement in the open floor here. He absolutely jukes both defenders with some legitimate misdirection with his dribble.
And, finally, a coast-to-coast dunk where his teammate leaves the ball behind for him so that he can get the engine going, and he weaves around/parts the seas on his way to the hoop….
That last one is really pretty poor defense from a flat-footed Lithuanian team that made very little priority to stop ball on their recovery… but it’s still really nice handling and using his speed as a weapon.
There’s really not much I’d highlight as an area of weakness here. I really liked this element to Vide’s game; his ability to consistently generate advantage and I think his decision making was better in the open floor. That being said, I did show him miss that contested layup against USC earlier and there was this look, below, where he still did a nice job of running ahead on a nice rebound (gets away with a little shove). He did get tunnel vision on the hoop and was blocked from the side on the jumper, though.
I’d still classify this as a fully advantageous part of his game – he was effective with it virtually across the board. But I do think it’s more limited against major conference athleticism and he does still under-estimate the ability of his defenders to close/it does make his finishing more difficult.
That’s the Jan Vide offensive experience. Very compelling in some ways, but with glaring weaknesses in others. To me, it looks like a player full of confidence when playing for his national team… who has lost some of that playing at the collegiate level. We’ve seen Ryan Odom to a lot for many a player’s confidence over the years and as recently as last season for us (Ugonna Onyenso stands out). He’s good with a reclamation project. That being said, everything hinges on that outside shot. I don’t expect that he will suddenly become a great shooter from distance in one offseason given his form and history, but he does need to be willing to take the wide-open opportunities and capable enough to convert them at a rate where the opposition isn’t willing to just let that happen. Almost certainly, our competition is going to try playing us similarly to how Troy did by the end of their game. Disrespect the outside shot, help elsewhere, force him to beat you. How will Vide be able to respond? And, secondarily (and related to the point), how much will he be able play within our offensive system or will he have to be a more ball-dominant player to be effective… and will we even find those shots if he is to be as efficient as we need them to be? These answers to come – to very big questions.
Defense
Alright, now let’s take a look at Jan on the other side of the ball. Vide is a long defender at the PG position who, when playing there, should make our lineup pretty huge and lengthy across the board. He’s fully switchable 1-4, which is a boon in Odom’s system considering that’s where we run our switches. Chance Mallory is a superior player and will certainly be the starter on this roster – and in many ways is a superior defender – but there will be times when teams try to target him on the switch due to his size. In a world where, say Vide, Lewis, Adekunle, and De Ridder are on the floor… there’s really no switch the opposition could hunt and realistically find a good size mismatch.
Vide is strong, physical, aggressive with his hands at the point of the shot, and is a good rebounder, as we saw earlier. He does a really nice job of matching length with somewhat bigger players and then using his ability to move to stay with them, and he does a pretty decent job of using his length to bother smaller, quicker players. Elite lateral quickness and the ability to concentrate and stay locked in throughout a possession are areas where I would say he is weaker, though.
Here’s a good first look against Troy. He’s picking up the 6’7″ Victor Valdes (#11), Troy’s SF, in transition. Valdes decides to try to attack Vide off of the dribble, and notice how Vide stays in his hip pocket and, despite giving up the slightest of advantages on the bounce, pretty quickly cuts things off and contests the shot really well. This forces a really awkward attempt that goes nowhere.
This is a player who, positionally, should have a physical mismatch on Vide (SF vs. PG) but you really can’t tell much of a difference on the floor. Jan is able to match his physicality and length.
Here, below, you see him take nearest after a BLOB play and that’s the 6’8″ 225lb Thomas Dowd who functioned as Troy’s PF. Vide shuts him down pretty easily on the drive and then hangs in there with a physical box out (Troy is called for over the back on his teammate).
So, there you see him scaling up in length across the 3-4 position rather easily. In this next clip, below, we see him squaring off against the 5’11” 146lb Jordan Marsh (#7). A much different size, strength, quickness matchup. Vide loses a little more to Marsh on the corner turn, being less parallel with his him and more in the chasing position… but his length more than makes up for it and he gets a really nice contest on the shot, forcing the miss.
Of course, his teammate came over to try and block the shot as well, giving up the put back, but if Vide can stay somewhat attached like this with smaller guards and get these kinds of contests at the rim, that will work.
He’s not slow. That should be clear from the earlier sections, but sometimes bigger guards like this feel like they are white knuckling it to stay in front of their man on the perimeter. This clip below, is the 6’5″, 193lb Jerry Easter II (#8). Vide gets caught fairly deep when Easter sets up a ball screen, but still slips over it and shuts down the driving angle so that the ball has to be kicked back outside.
I think he plays with good retreat angles and, again, can’t be bullied through very easily on the dribble.
And here, below, this time we actually see him smothering Marsh on the ball. He stays with the cross over and retreats really well while being right there to smother a shot attempt:
Jan got called for this foul… but I don’t think that’s called the vast majority of the time, and I’ll take it. He’s moving his feet, Marsh is the one initiating contact, he’s simply using that left inside arm as a slight bar (which rarely gets called when it’s tucked in and not extended), and Marsh actually trips himself trying to force the issue. Guarding players like Marsh is always my concern with a player like Jan – but he proved more than adept and USC didn’t go out of their way to target the matchup.
This next clip is against Martin Kalu, who also played for Charleston last season, featured on the German U20 team here. Vide face guards him on the block, is on him on the catch, and does a nice job of shutting down his attempted drive into the lane (which is supported by help defense pecking down on the ball to create the turnover).
Again, a good mix of the ability to play big and physical but also the ability to be quicker than larger guards.
Here, below, is the same matchup, with Slovenia needed a stop down four in OT against Germany (recall, they won this game on Vide’s assist… and his fingerprints were everywhere to close). Kalu attempts to build up some momentum bringing the ball up the floor, but Vide stonewalls him on the rejected ball screen, then slides with him on the drive attempt, and completely inhales the shot attempt with a great block (in immediately takes off the other way to try to create an opportunity in transition).
That’s really good defense against a DI player.
One more like this against Lithuania, this time guarding the 6’9″ Armandas Bancevičius (#4), a rising Freshman for UT Martin. Vide gets caught behind a screen away from the ball, but takes a nice recovery angle in the lane and then perches right on that shooting hand. He blocks the first shot attempt and then, off of the deflection, blocks the three-inch taller player a second time at the rim.
His length and ability to get his hands on shots is real.
In fact, you just see his length and reach pop up in a lot of convenient places, like this deflection where he switches the ball screen and makes trying to pass over him for the 6’1″ Cooper Campbell (#3) impossible and deflects the ball, forcing the turnover.
That’s a great look at his switchability, too, as he goes from covering Valdes to jumping over to their actual PG… and he just made Cambell look tiny and those passing lanes look miserable.
And here’s another cool look, getting back in transition. Troy fires a pass ahead attempting to get an easy bucket. That’s their effective Center; the 6’9″ 225lb Theo Seng (#33). And that’s Vide getting back, meeting him on the block, and bothering his shot into a contested miss (which he also then pulls out of the scrum and starts the other way).
I understand that Seng is not ACC Center material – but having Vide able to very comfortably contest that type of player with the ball near the basket is a nice luxury to have on the floor from your PG.
Now, encouragingly, there really weren’t a ton of examples of Vide just getting beaten by his man straight up from these games. When it did happen, it was often a pretty quick first step sometimes coupled with him relaxing too much. Here’s a look, for example, where he takes significant contact from the ball screen on the pick and roll and isn’t able to turn the corner or his hips quickly enough to get to this layup.
We saw him do a much better job against a similar play vs. USC… but here he just can’t quite get back into the play.
Here, you see him bite on a shot fake and get pretty badly beaten on a quick cross-over. It doesn’t lead to a material shot at the rim due to the help/traffic/player, and you see that Vide is actually able to get back to his man and reach around the ball despite being completely turned around.
Even though there was no consequence for that one, it is an example of him being a little too casual with the defense here, perhaps under-estimating the offensive player.
Here’s another example of that… where I just think he wasn’t anticipating the blowby on the close out and this time it does cost his team points late in the game.
And, while I do think this was largely a concentration issue, it is harder for a player of his size to go from moving toward a perimeter player to then recovering on the blow by the other direction.
Overall, I think Vide is a good on-ball defender who can switch onto basically anyone and present a formidable matchup. He will likely be a fantastic option in certain matchups with bigger guards. For smaller, quicker guards, I think we have better defensive options on our team (like Chance, Dixon, and Gertrude) – but I think you can still play him comfortably against those matchups. This will be an area of his game where, situationally, he offers some really positive things and, against other matchups isn’t likely to be something that keeps him off the court. And, while individually, I think we have more talented options here, I do see him in certain lineups where the collective is bigger than the sum of the parts due to the collective length we can have on the floor 1-5 at times.
Okay, let’s now take a gander…
Off Ball
One thing that Vide does really well is ball denial to his man. He has good vision for the ball and his man, and his length not only makes passing to his man less desirable, but allows him to get to more passes.
Here, in a BLOB play against Troy, you see the air they have to put under the pass to try to get it to his man. They do, but it’s carried him too close to the sideline, and Vide has nice body control to both avoid having the ball thrown off of him and then to steal the ball and start running out. Not the cleanest pass in transition, but LMU still regrouped and got an added possession.
Here, below, I really like this look from him. He’s guarding Marsh again (#7), the 5’11” PG. USC starts this play trying to run the offense through another player with Marsh off of the ball. Vide does a good job of chasing around a screen and then does a really nice job of gaining help depth while also being on a line between the ball and Marsh on the wing. This is text book help (for many systems) where he gets to a spot where he can see both the ball and his man out of the corners of his eyes, and react to either. He continues to slide through the rotation and when USC decides to try to reset the offense through Marsh, Vide doesn’t accept an easy pass out, steals the ball, and then fires a nice one-handed pass ahead in transition.
It’s a little behind his man, sure, but it’s also away from the defender and should have been caught. LMU still retained the ball here. A really good way at being disruptive to an opposing offense (and although LMU didn’t score much at all in this scrimmage, neither did USC) is to keep the ball away from their PG. Very nice from Vide there.
He’s also got the ability to move in the press, which should be unsurprising given his transitional offensive play. Trying to ramp up the pressure on Troy in the second half, check out this where he moves to trap and then retreats to steal the pass at half court, transitioning into a nice assist for three on the near wing, taking the easy pass/play.
I hope Odom unleashes a trap some this year in the full court as a wrinkle as opposed to fully token pressure, but I expect Vide will be solid at bothering the ball handler and getting his hands on passes for steals and deflections.
I’ve written a bit about his switchability being a big part of his defensive value. We saw that in the different styles of players he defended on the ball earlier. It’s very relevant here too, though. In this clip, below, he gets switched onto Theo Seng again (#33), who is Troy’s Center at 6’9″. Not only does he flash through and help make Valdes pick up his dribble, but then he denies Seng as a cutter and stays attached to him for the remainder of the play.
Normally, when an opposing team’s Center gets switched onto the Point Guard, they’re immediately trying to get him the ball down low to exploit the mismatch. There’s no thought of that here. Troy doesn’t even register the matchup.
This next play, I really like from Vide as an example of how you can use him within a defense, despite USC still getting a bucket away from him on the play. LMU starts the play with Vide on USC’s 6’7″ Forward Terrance Williams II (#5). They do this so that he can switch onto the ball after an ancitipated ball screen and because USC isn’t going to force the ball to Williams to try to exploit a one-inch size mismatch. They do this, getting Vide onto Marsh with the ball in isolation. USC then passes back to a big and uses Marsh to screen away, but Vide stays home and does a nice job of denying that pass on the wing, sustaining all the way up to the logo near midcourt. That effectively blows up the play and forces USC to try something else. Marsh comes back for a DHO, no longer with Vide on him, but Jan does a nice job of pinching down and bothering his dribble, forcing him to pick it up sooner than he’d want. Marsh still does a nice job of getting around his man and making an acrobatic shot… but Vide’s presence throughout that possession was disruptive wherever he was.
When Vide is locked in like that, you can see the bevy of assets he brings to this area and how challenging it was for USC to run the offense they wanted while keeping him out of the play.
The last thing I’d just highlight as a positive in this section is that Vide’s length isn’t just helpful for disrupting passing lanes or bothering his man’s shot. He does have the ability to rotate over and get blocks at the rim. He’s not going to necessarily be going up with the biggest and most athletic players in major conference play – but we saw him get some great contests on the ball earlier, and here he is sliding down after a long rebound to block Marsh at the rim.
Again, it’s not Center-level rim protection – but it’s a luxury when you can get that kind of rim protection from your PG position. Especially when you pair that with so much length across a lineup, it creates the feeling that we saw from Jan himself against USC earlier – where you start to anticipate the shot blockers from all over which leads to rushed attempts and increased misses even when the shot isn’t blocked.
Now, there are still things he absolutely needs to work on. He does sometimes get left behind or take bad angles when chasing screens. We’ve seen him previously find quality recovery angles to meet the ball, but when the footspeed increases he can be late. We see this below, against Marsh, where he can’t quite catch up fast enough and gets a (legitimate this time) foul called on him trying to position in front.
He’s not going to be fantastic with his change of direction, and sometimes he gets caught in no man’s land. Here’s a good example where he sees Cofie (hey, remember him?) open for the three, but makes a business decision to try to bait the pass to his own man and to stay home on the close out and let Cofie shoot the wide open three.
Now, given a decision between the two players shooting, it probably wasn’t a terrible decision by Vide on this play. Cofie does miss the shot. That being said, he had plenty of time to see this play develop (and did) but stayed home anyway. He could have tried to be there on the catch, or at least be closer to try to play between both players rather than simply making the decision to let the shot happen without any contest whatsoever. This was at the beginning of the game, too, so it’s not like fatigue was a factor. You’d just like to see more of a motor here.
Similar to the below, he can lose concentration a bit and fail to anticipate where he’s needed to help on the floor. It’s not always, remember how active he was against Marsh and USC in the earlier clips… but here he has so much time to see the pick and roll/rejection developing to his side of the court… and really just kind of waves at the offensive player as he drives by.
The prior two plays make me think that he doesn’t trust his recovery that much. That when he gets going to help, he struggles to turn quickly and get back to contest the shot. I believe it, but sometimes you need to make that sacrifice and hope your man misses in order to bother the easier play. This was slowness identifying the threat, as well.
And, lastly, I love his switchability, as mentioned. But, if he’s going to switch onto an opposing big, he does need to be more aware of where his help responsibilities are. This is a coaching point that I’m sure will be hammered at UVa and shouldn’t be relevant against Centers anyway (we don’t switch off of them normally), but is still worth noting. Here, he gets switched onto the 6’9″ 235lb Jerrell Bellamy (#10). The ball doesn’t find Bellamy, which is great, but Vide is in perfect help position to slide over and help/cut off the perimeter drive down the middle, and completely sleeps on that responsibility.
That’s mostly just not recognizing himself, given his position, as being the last line of defense. He’s not used to having so much responsibility to come off of his man on drives… but it’s still something he’ll need to be aware of in a switch-heavy defensive scheme.
All-in-all, I think that Jan Vide is a bit of a utility infielder when it comes to defense. We have more specialized and better answers to specific questions our opposition can pose to our defense. That being said, he’s a good and, in many cases, better answer to a wider variety of questions. That’s a positive considering how often our 1-4 switch who they are guarding throughout a possession, how often he should find himself around the rim to contest a shot or try to grab a rebound and take off the other way, and perhaps most importantly, how as a piece within many of our lineups he should help make the collective length and size of the team be smothering. In that way, on this roster, he has the ability to be one piece that’s better together than the individual parts. So, I’m optimistic about his ability to contribute on this side of the ball and view it as a net positive – although not one that’s going to be the deciding factor on how much time he gets.
In Conclusion
The very first time I watched a full game featuring Vide was Troy. He scored 24 points on 10-18 shooting from the floor. But my initial reaction after seeing how Troy adjusted and played him defensively was, “how are we going to play this guy if he can’t shoot?” Candidly, I still have that concern. I have warmed, after doing a deep dive into all of his film, to the variety of things that he can bring to the floor. There is a lot in terms of defensive versatility and as an experienced play-making scorer that is tempting.
I still worry about fit. Can he play with the requisite confidence if his MPG are significantly lower than they were at LMU or for Slovenia? How effective can he be offensively in a system that wants to move the ball around and doesn’t need (or want) him to be so ball-dominant? Will he be willing to take the open three-point shots that will surely present themselves and, if so, can he make them at a clip where teams won’t just allow him to shoot? If he is shooting roughly as he has for his career from deep, how will the opposition play him with a quality scout? Will his presence clog up the floor for our other players?
It’s a lot of questions that need positive affirmation. That being said, if he can address the majority of those, that’s exciting because the rest of his game offers real value if you can minimize or effectively work around the limitations. Ryan Odom often does a nice job of designing and coaching toward his players’ strengths and limitations – so of all of the considerations this season, I think I’m most curious as to what he does with Vide and how Jan responds. The most likely scenario, in my opinion, is that he’s backing up Mallory as more of a one-to-one (I don’t see many benefits of playing them together given the roster) – but there are a wide range of outcomes that could shake out here. It’s really intriguing!
Okay, that’s it for the offseason player addition pieces! Thanks for coming along for the ride, especially with the Twitter issues that took place over the Summer. We get actual basketball in the form of scrimmages starting this month! I’m looking forward to seeing how the outdoor game goes. I’m going to check out the scrimmages, likely write a few things learned from each, and then do my final hopes for playing time piece closer to the start of the season. Until then!
Leave a Reply