June 17, 2014

Ben Brust gets so angry that scared man in background blurs into surroundings just to hide from him.

Ben Brust is primarily a shooter, yet he has one of the weirdest jump shot release you'll see in a player who can actually shoot. He pretty much shoots the ball before he jumps, and then jumps anyway. Obviously it's not quite as egregious as that, but he does shoot the ball long before reaching the apex of his jump - in a player only standing 6'1, this makes for really quite a low release point.

When open and with his feet set, Brust is a knock down shooter. Most of his jump shots are open with the feet set and of the catch-and-shoot variety - always moving without the ball, Brust is particularly effective from the top of the arc and from above the break, rather than getting into the corners. He improved a bit in his time as a Badger at being able to create jump shot looks, both off the dribble and in moving off the ball, and uses shot fakes well to create that extra bit of space. He has also demonstrated NBA range, and can shoot off the dribble as well as off the catch.

What Brust is, though, is a 6'2 shooting guard without much athleticism. He is small with the aforementioned low release, thus needs a lot of space to get a shot away cleanly (which partly explains the NBA range). And at the professional level. Brust is tough, competes, an aggressive and energetic if physically underwhelming defender who never turns the ball over, who plays very astute and timely help defense, and who very rarely commits fouls. He is a smart and intense player who crashes the glass extremely well for one his size, fearlessly mixing it up when it looks as though he has no chance. But he's too limited in what he does - rarely able to get to the rim and a poor finisher when he does, never getting to the foul line and not a point guard, his intensity can only mask so much.

There is always a place for this at the right level, though.

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