2022-2023: Week 2 Player Reports

Game 1: Team Purple vs. Team Orange

-In what I suspect was a battle between two of the worst teams in the league, none were surprised to see a pretty low level of play. Purple may have shown a bit more feistiness, which is critical, but the disparate styles of play are still jarring and tough to make sense of. Seems like 5 guys doing different things at the same time. Aderman’s points feel empty right now as they don’t stem from any cohesive strategy. Lots of broken play opportunities. There’s nothing wrong with those and that’s what he does best, but in the playoffs, if they can get there, you have to score in the half court. You have to be able to generate good looks through some type of team offense. Jerry’s team still feels too small on defense as well. Expect more bully ball from certain teams and an avalanche of fouls and free throws as they figure out how to handle it. Still, with all that said, Purple won the game, which is about as bad of an indictment of Team Orange as you can get right now. Matt Koll’s squad showed brief flashes of how their bevy of shooters can work together and stretch defenses. But, as it stands, there isn’t a player on their team who can score in the paint. Chuck’s confidence abandons him the second he steps inside the three point line. Konopko’s go-to move appears to be a shitty fade away in the middle of the lane. Wills/Kamba are both capable shooters, but neither can put the ball on the floor. Matt Koll is a frantic mess who still doesn’t want the ball. That leaves the ballhandling responsibilities to Mike Schick and…Rob Walus? Is that what you’re banking on? Ouch. They are 0-2 and if they can’t secure games against teams like Team Purple, they will be eliminated from playoff contention by the halfway point.

Game 2: Team Green vs. Team Blue

-This game went exactly according to plan, until it didn’t. Mid-way through the first, Troy’s rag-tag team of nobodies refused to quit, despite an atrocious start. With their second round pick now in doubt, they assembled a very balanced attack was vaguely effective against what should rate as one of the better defensive teams in the league. It wasn’t pretty. Justin got his first taste of how much teams will key in on him with this roster and scored just 11 points. But 3 other players scored double-figures to help him out, led by rookie Tim Glover with a game-high 22. There was bound to be some uncertainty guarding this team, with 3 brand new players on the court, so some of that production might disappear after the honeymoon period is over. Tim might not get that many open looks again. But, importantly, that should relieve some of the pressure off Justin and let him get going, which is of course a net positive. Team Green was steady early, but faded as the game went on and just barely held on due to some excellent free throw shooting. Is that going to be a theme for this squad? Dead legs in the second half? They seem to lose some of their bounce after quick starts, but it’s hard to gauge anything from the Week 1 massacre of Team Black, so let’s not jump to conclusions just yet. Green becomes the first team to 2 wins.

Game 3: - Team Yellow vs. Team Black

-Yellow was probably the team everyone needed to see live before we could judge anything about them. Finnin is as solid as it gets. Molloy was drafted more appropriately, which will help his contributions matter more. This team also had 3 rookies and their chances seem to ride on how they pan out. So far, the jury is still out. Franco won’t give much and Alex looks clueless, if still helpful. Jones clearly has some talent, but he’ll need to find ways to translate that to production. He probably took 10-15 shots and ended with just 8 points. That’s not enough for this team. They’ll need him to average 15+ a game. Finnin was steady, as usual, but the flipside to that is he just doesn’t seem to have huge outbursts of scoring. Last season, his game-high was 25. He averaged just under 19 ppg on the year. Statistically, that shows how consistent he was. But, if Jones can’t pick up the scoring slack when needed, it’s possible Finnin’s scoring won’t be enough. This was their first game and guys usually settle in after the jarring experience of the first time in our league, but 46 team points isn’t even close to enough. A good team will need to be in the 65-70 range on average to be a legitimate title contender. Jones is the best chance they have to make up the delta of 20 or so points they’ll need per game. Black, with a mostly full roster, looked much better in Week 2. Ed had a little of his verve back and having players other than Dave Phillips out there certainly has a positive impact. They even overcame a miserable game from Jay to still secure the win. Especially early on, while teams are figuring things out, these wins are critical.

Standings

Team	Captain	Win	Loss	Record	Win %	Streak	PS	PA	DIFF
Green	Kyle Garmes	2	0	2 - 0	1.000	W2	153	133	20
White	Rob Knapczyk	1	0	1 - 0	1.000	W1	59	49	10
Pink	Mark Koll	1	0	1 - 0	1.000	W1	79	59	20
Purple	Jerry Hahn	1	1	1 - 1	0.500	W1	112	116	-4
Black	Steve Dudek	1	1	1 - 1	0.500	W1	118	131	-13
Blue	Dave Troy	0	1	0 - 1	0.000	L1	65	68	-3
Yellow	Matt Vitaliano	0	1	0 - 1	0.000	L1	46	50	-4
Orange	Matt Koll	0	2	0 - 2	0.000	L2	116	142	-26