Summer Superlatives Coming this Week
The New England Recruiting Report will publish a three-part series next week entitled “Summer Superlatives”, which aims to recognize a group of prospects that didn’t always get the highest level recruitment or score the most points, but were still critical to their team’s success during the recently completed July Evaluation period.
We’ll focus our lens on three distinct areas. First, we’ll try to highlight the “toughest” players in New England by recognizing those prospects that play hard at all times, have an unusual ability to play through discomfort, and embrace the physical part of the game, whether that be inside the lane or on the defensive end of the floor.
Then we’ll focus on the top defenders we saw during the month of July. The goal won’t be to recognize just the best shot-blockers, but instead, the best all-around defenders. That includes things that don’t always show up on the stat sheet like guarding against dribble penetration, pressuring the ball, communicating, closing out well, and making rotations from the weak-side of the floor.
Finally, we’ll turn to the offensive end of the floor and look for the best three-point shooters of July. True shooters are becoming an endangered species, primarily because it requires long hours of dedication to hone your craft and doesn’t necessarily get the same recognition as those players who can attack off the dribble and play above the rim. But those celebrated playmakers are often reliant on floor spacing, and you can’t have floor spacing without three-point shooting, and so it’s time to recognize the guys who make good offensive basketball possible.
The Summer Superlatives series was first announced on Saturday via the NERR twitter account, @NERRHoops, and as we said there, we’re open to suggestions, so if you know anyone who should be recognized for their toughness, their defense, or their three-point shooting, tweet at us, and we’ll consider them for next week’s stories.