I think it is time we really looked at exactly what we have with Meeks.
The good: he is a good team member, not a problem child in the locker room, his mates seem to love him and he his mates. He is a skilled passing big man, great outlet passer off a defensive rebound with the size to carve out room, he has great hands to catch even difficult passes. he has the size to set really nasty screens and block outs, Has good timing on blocked shots, has a lot of PT under his belt so should be be confused on assignments. 6'9" 260lbs and physically strong. Has a solid mid range jumper when he decides to use it.
The Bad: for 6'9" & 260lbs he has T-rex arms combined with the inability to jump over the Cary phone book, has improved, used to not be able to jump over the Dunn phone book. Tends to set up to deep in the paint and does not seem to like to finish or try to finish thru contact. Tends to go straight up while deep in the paint making his shot way to easy to block and does not make the defender pay for the block by drawing the foul. Maybe the weakest foul shooter of our players that get regular minutes. A lot of his offensive rebounds are his own missed shots. Brings the ball down and makes himself smaller than his size. Does not move his feet well, struggles to recover back down off the high screen, not consistent between hedge & show on the top screen. If he hedges he does not hold it long enough for the chase guard to recover or effectively redirect the ball handler and if he shows tends to hold that to long to recover back to the rolling screener. gets caught in no mans land way to much forcing help to cover.
Something just is not right with Meeks, I do not know what it is but we have all seen him play really well in games but those games seem to always be games prior to New years day, it has been a pattern for all 3 of his seasons with us. maybe it is some sickness, maybe it is yet another injury that will not go away, it is almost like one of those high ankle sprains that seem to never go away until the season is over. Maybe the knee contusion is lingering and he is just playing thru it, maybe there is some medical issue that saps his energy level that we do not know about. But something just seems off with him and I don't have enough information to understand it, really wish I did, because it could allow me to not think in terms of a lazy player.
