{"id":77152,"date":"2023-01-17T07:26:18","date_gmt":"2023-01-17T07:26:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sportsrabbi.com\/?p=77152"},"modified":"2024-11-03T09:31:10","modified_gmt":"2024-11-03T09:31:10","slug":"former-wizards-center-marcin-gortat-offers-his-advice-for-deni-avdija-to-navigate-nba-life-as-a-young-defender","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sportsrabbi.com\/en\/former-wizards-center-marcin-gortat-offers-his-advice-for-deni-avdija-to-navigate-nba-life-as-a-young-defender\/","title":{"rendered":"Former Wizards center Marcin Gortat offers his advice for Deni Avdija to navigate NBA life as a young defender"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Life in the NBA continues to have its ups and downs for the now 22-year-old Deni Avdija. The third-year forward has scored in single-digits in his last five games totaling 26 points on 36 percent shooting from the field. Avdija did however record a career-high 20 rebounds in Wednesday&#8217;s narrow victory over the Chicago Bulls. That performance made Avdija (22 years, 8 days) the second-youngest player in Washington Wizards\/Bullets franchise history since the ABA\/NBA Merger in 1976-77 to haul in 20+ rebounds in a single game (Chris Webber, 21 years, 270 days, 11\/26\/94 vs. LAL).<\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" data-width=\"550\" data-dnt=\"true\">\n<p lang=\"en\" dir=\"ltr\">Kyle Kuzma jokes on Deni Avdija&#39;s 20 rebound night that &quot;most of them were uncontested, but I&#39;ll still give it to him.&quot;<\/p>\n<p>&quot;I&#39;m really mad at him because he only had 9 points so it doesn&#39;t even look good.&quot; \ud83d\ude02 <a href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/aK4uE78Wds\">pic.twitter.com\/aK4uE78Wds<\/a><\/p>\n<p>&mdash; Neil Dalal (@NeilDalal96) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/NeilDalal96\/status\/1613376893742448641?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">January 12, 2023<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n<p>&#8220;It&#8217;s easy to say there is something to it, it&#8217;s just a want,&#8221; Wes Unseld Jr. described on Avdija&#8217;s 20 rebound benchmark. &#8220;You treat every shot as a miss and you got to want it, you got to go get it and he did that tonight.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>During Washington&#8217;s 4-game homestand that finished a disappointing 1-3 without Bradley Beal (left hamstring strain), former Wizards center Marcin Gortat returned to the team in his honorary assistant coach and player development role. As Gortat (dad) describes, he along with Kristaps Porzingis (uncle) and Avdija (son) form a family of international NBA players. Gortat and Avdija would play 1-on-1 after practice for the latter to work on his post-game offense (but also defense) which should come in useful when opposing teams try to stick their non-defender smaller guard on Avdija.<\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" data-width=\"550\" data-dnt=\"true\">\n<p lang=\"en\" dir=\"ltr\">Marcin Gortat still got it 1-on-1 against Deni Avdija after practice<a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/MGortat?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">@MGortat<\/a> was like make sure you record this \ud83d\ude02 <a href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/O8JpX2Wh9y\">pic.twitter.com\/O8JpX2Wh9y<\/a><\/p>\n<p>&mdash; Hoop District (@Hoop_District) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/Hoop_District\/status\/1614684664970493952?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">January 15, 2023<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n<p>Throughout Avdija&#8217;s young NBA career, one constant has been him becoming frustrated with officials calling him for fouls he does not feel to be. Sometimes he has a strong case whether it was in the third quarter against the Knicks getting called for three fouls in 96 seconds or two first-quarter calls against Steph Curry, but he has to remember that the most important play is the next one. <\/p>\n<p>&#8220;He needs to become more focused on staying aggressive during the game. The biggest improvement for him is when he does not catch easy fouls in the first quarter and he automatically gains more confidence and he\u2019s more aggressive after that. I see as he gets a couple of easy fouls, in the first quarter, everything goes down for him,&#8221; Gortat astutely assessed.<br \/>\n<div id=\"attachment_77155\" style=\"width: 1090px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-77155\" src=\"https:\/\/sportsrabbi.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/01\/FlzqYU9XEA8_AbM.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"1080\" height=\"1080\" class=\"size-full wp-image-77155\" srcset=\"https:\/\/sportsrabbi.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/01\/FlzqYU9XEA8_AbM.jpg 1080w, https:\/\/sportsrabbi.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/01\/FlzqYU9XEA8_AbM-150x150.jpg 150w, https:\/\/sportsrabbi.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/01\/FlzqYU9XEA8_AbM-610x610.jpg 610w, https:\/\/sportsrabbi.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/01\/FlzqYU9XEA8_AbM-440x440.jpg 440w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 1080px) 100vw, 1080px\" \/><p id=\"caption-attachment-77155\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Deni Avdija &#8211; Photo Credit: Washington Wizards<\/p><\/div><br \/>\n&#8220;You got to let it go,&#8221; Gortat offered his advice for Avdija with the referees. &#8220;You got to understand that\u2019s how this shit works in the league. He\u2019s 22 years old and he\u2019s going to get calls. As soon as he gets more experience, it\u2019s going to be easier for him. He needs to let this thing go and just focus on playing basketball and making the right play, attacking the basket, shoot open shots and make open shots.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>The Wizards will play at the New York Knicks on Wednesday hopefully with Bradley Beal back and host the Orlando Magic on Saturday before embarking on a five-game road trip. At 18-26 and a fan base pleading for an overdue rebuild in Washington, any playoff hopes this season starts to look bleak, but let&#8217;s try to end on an optimistic note.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI still believe he\u2019s got a lot of ability to improve,&#8221; Gortat expressed on Avdija. &#8220;He definitely has a great body to play in the league, he\u2019s athletic, he\u2019s fast, he\u2019s strong, he has a very good basketball IQ, he just got to get more experienced. He\u2019s got to get more aggressive. I think it will come. This year is big for him, you got to continue to improve.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Life in the NBA continues to have its ups and downs for the now 22-year-old Deni Avdija. The third-year forward has scored in single-digits in his last five games totaling 26 points on 36 percent shooting from the field. Avdija did however record a career-high 20 rebounds in Wednesday&#8217;s narrow victory over the Chicago Bulls. [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":14,"featured_media":77144,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[4074],"tags":[37,5456,1872],"class_list":["post-77152","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-jews-in-sports","tag-deni-avdija","tag-marcin-gortat","tag-washington-wizards","et-has-post-format-content","et_post_format-et-post-format-standard"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v27.3 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>Former Wizards center Marcin Gortat offers his advice for Deni Avdija to navigate NBA life as a young defender - Sports Rabbi<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/sportsrabbi.com\/en\/former-wizards-center-marcin-gortat-offers-his-advice-for-deni-avdija-to-navigate-nba-life-as-a-young-defender\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Former Wizards center Marcin Gortat offers his advice for Deni Avdija to navigate NBA life as a young defender - Sports Rabbi\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Life in the NBA continues to have its ups and downs for the now 22-year-old Deni Avdija. The third-year forward has scored in single-digits in his last five games totaling 26 points on 36 percent shooting from the field. Avdija did however record a career-high 20 rebounds in Wednesday&#8217;s narrow victory over the Chicago Bulls. 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