It might seem like a distant dream that Suns' center Marcin Gortat could be a go to offensive weapon in the post. Last season he was so bad that when teams switched the pick and roll Steve Nash would rarely even throw him the ball to take on a guard. But the Polish (Hammer) Machine is committed to fixing this and will soon be heading to Houston for a session with The Post Master Himself, Hakeem Olajuwon.
↵Gortat's former teammate, Dwight Howard, famously sought out Olajuwon last summer to get help with his offensive moves. The results are questionable since Dwight's post efficiency actually dropped a bit from 09-10 to 10-11 but at the same time he faced more double teams and was increasingly the focus of the Magic offense.
↵Olajuwon has his work cut out for him with Gortat who ranking 29th-percent in the NBA in post-ups which rates a "Below Average" score by Synergy Sports Tech. He converted just 42.9 percent of his opportunities. He made just 33 baskets in the post last season compared to 124 off pick and rolls.
↵Watching film of all of his post baskets you see he's got two basic moves. He likes to set up on the left block and hard dribble to the middle and shoot a little righty hook in the lane or he'll spin over his right shoulder and take a baseline fadeway. He almost never got fouled and rarely showed a counter move or got to the rim. Needless to say, he didn't face many double teams in the post either.
↵In his favor, Marcin does use both hands and he certainly has a desire to improve. He understands he has to get better in the post and improve his lower body strength. He talked about that many times last season (4:20 mark).
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To help Marcin even more, he's bringing a friend with him to visit Hakeem, Garret Siler:
↵↵Twitter / @Big_G_21: RT @suns4ever: @Big_G_21 H ...
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@Big_G_21 Hey big G you going down to Houston with Gortat to work with the dream ?-yessir ready to get better out there