Aron Baynes is making huge strides of improvement
Photo Fotodiena.lt/A.Pliadis
Probably one
of the strongest and most powerful players in the whole of European
basketball –
Aron Baynes – came to Lietuvos Rytas with expectations as high as the
clouds.
With invitations from the National Teams of both New Zealand and
Australia, the
option to sign a player, whose highlight roles in NCAA playing for the
Washington State University also seemed very impressive, sounded very
reasonable
and sensible. Baynes chose Australia, which has deeper traditions and
higher results
in the sport of basketball as his International team. It has to be said
though,
that the Boomers lacked their biggest pieces of talent in the Milwaukee
Bucks
center Andrew Bogut and former Lietuvos Rytas power forward Matthew
Nielsen. Many
of the vast supporting base of the Lithuanian club started to doubt
whether the
Australian would end up in Lietuvos Rytas after the summer. The player
participated in training camps of multiple NBA teams and wore the jersey
of probably
the world’s strongest team at that time – the NBA champios Los Angeles
Lakers –
in the summer league. As it later became clear – there was nothing to
worry about
as the huge-bodied center spent most of his time cheering for his
teammates
from the bench. Fouls kept Baynes out of most of the action and carried
on to
be the Australian’s biggest problem on this side of the pond.
The tale of a bear
Aron
Baynes
lacked stability, the quality of his performances were either on an
absolute
downfall or rising at an unimaginable pace. “If the Russians can teach a
bear
to ride a bike, I believe we can make Baynes a good player,” coach
Kurtinaitis
joked. The Australian bigman was handling the ball like a hot potato,
bricked one
shot after another and knocked out opponents quite regularly. Lietuvos
Rytas
coach promised to solve these problems. Kurtinaitis wasn’t the only one
to see
a bear-like attributes of the import player. “Aron you look like a bear
with a
sore arse, out there,” coach Bennett of the Washington State University
has
said.
Huge strides of improvement
But you just
cannot notice the huge strides that the player has been making from the
beginning of this pro career. The center is much more confident with the
ball
in his hands, both in the decision-making and the execution as well.
Comparing
the first ten and the last ten games at his Lithuanian club, Aron Baynes
has
improved his field goal percentage by over 10 percent and goes to the
line for
free-throws one and a half time more often. His rebound numbers are
down, but
this might do with the not-as-reckless scrambles for loose balls as his
foul numbers
are slightly down as well. It has to be mentioned that Aron’s jump-hook
has
become a weapon for his team, rather than being a waste of possession at
times
in the beginning of the season.
The more, the better
Taking a
deeper look into the statistics, you can see a tendency, that when
Baynes
receives more than 20 minutes of court-time, he delivers. There hasn’t
been a
case, where the player has left the court without reaching double-digits
in
scoring and is averaging over 15 points when he spends at least half of
the
game playing. The thing is that there haven’t been many occasions for
the
Aussie to prove that, while he spent that magic number of 20 minutes
playing
rather than watching teammates with foul-trouble from the bench on only
7-of-41
games. And even when he is given a chance to see more court-time, it
seems that
his body is only able to handle around 25 minutes per night. With that
said, it
looks obvious at least from today’s perspective, that Baynes will remain
the
starting option for Kurtinaitis (if the coach stays at Lietuvos Rytas)
as his
defending and pick’n’roll skills are much more superior to the young
Lithuanian
talent Jonas Valanciunas’, whose time is still to come.
Saturday's perspective
On the
Saturday’s game against Zalgiris, Aron Baynes’ game might turn out to be
the
decisive factor for the day’s winner. Former Lithuanian National Team
coach
Antanas Sireika has pointed out that the key to a successful game for
Zalgiris
is to deny passes inside to the Australian bigman. In a recent domestic
game
against Rudupis Prienai, the coach of the opponents played 2-3 zone
defense for
most of the game to stop the dangerous center, but Lietuvos Rytas’
long-range
shooting took over as the club from Vilnius nailed in more than half of
the
shots from three-point mark. Is it better to leave the shooters open or
allow
the Aussie to have a party under the rim? Let’s leave it for Zalgiris’
coach
Darius Maskoliunas to decide.
