Shadowing Practice: Dylan Harper's incredible potential - Learn English Speaking with YouTube
B2
teams to do shield off defense to get that bucket.
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teams to do shield off defense to get that bucket.
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Harper again, weaving, feeding against Henderson, he'll drive.
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I absolutely love Dylan Harper.
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I'm higher on him than any rookie in this class,
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and there was this game in February I was watching where he's chasing RJ Barrett
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and somehow gets back in front of the ball,
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and I thought, okay, that's really impressive for someone who's supposed to be an offensive prospect,
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and then a few plays later,
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he just stonewalled Scottie Barnes beats him to a spot and forces a turnover.
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And now I'm percolating because the next trip they put him on Brandon Ingram,
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he's glued to him on the screen out of the corner and they can't get Ingram the ball.
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So at this point, I'm wondering just how good Harper is defensively at just 19 years old
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while realizing he's conceding three inches to Ingram.
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The next time he goes under the pick
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and then has the strength to stop the back down and completely take away any step back attempt.
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Remember, Dylan just saw a pull-up,
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feels that little move to the left,
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and pounces to close the space.
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And at this point, I'm texting people like,
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you have to see this,
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because he then takes away the handoff at half court,
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sticks to Ingram like gum on a shoe,
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the slick fronting technique, and they can't even get BI the ball.
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On the inbounds, they're looking for Ingram again.
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Dylan teleports through a couple screens,
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and now I'm losing it.
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They literally cannot get the 6'9 Ingram a touch because a 19-year-old decided to deny his catches,
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and I already thought Harper might have the highest ceiling in his draft class,
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but at that point, I thought he could truly be something special.
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I actually thought Harper's perimeter defense was a critical yet under-discussed part of the Spurs' upset over the Thunder.
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When he was healthy in Game 1,
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he just put the clamps on the MVP at the start of the first overtime period,
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and then in the second overtime,
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his strength size, and discipline gave Chet Holmgren nightmare fuel as he could barely get off a shot.
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And having a wing defender off the bench like that who can guard elite perimeter players is massive.
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Amazing hands to knock it off Shea there.
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And SGA had a hard time attacking against Dylan the entire series,
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even when Shea had him on an island and was working in his sweet spots.
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The more the game evolves,
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the more I personally value feel and basketball IQ,
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because the speed of the game is often different for these athletes.
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First, when the ball spits out,
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he's ready to guard, then reads Levert's eyes and body to jump with the pass and nearly catches it.
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Remember, he was 19 on that play,
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and is just a step ahead of grown men.
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This is the kind of stuff that cannot be taught,
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but allows stars to play at their own tempo as they develop.
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The game is already slower for Dylan,
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so it's about playing angles and pace.
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It's not about overwhelming explosiveness,
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but manipulating defenders and catching them off guard.
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This stuff manifests off-ball, knowing where to cut
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or how to sneak into a defender's blind spot and get inside to steal a rebound.
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I don't know if Dylan heard Ty Lue on this play telling the defense to watch for the handoff,
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or if he instinctively felt his defender leaning one way and went backdoor.
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Either way, it's impressive, because it tells me he has a sense of the chess pieces on the floor,
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he tells a teammate to rotate and sits on the likely kickout pass,
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and it tells me he's great at sensing and manipulating the defender right in front of him.
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Again, this is his nervous system moving at a different speed,
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like Quicksilver moving through the kitchen.
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Jeremy Grant's basically level with him on the catch,
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which feels like an invitation to spin for Harper, or this preposterous idea.
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So look at this.
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He gets the baseline, feels help,
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normally takes off two-footed, but instead long strides around the defender for the reverse.
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Now here's the same spot with a faster defender,
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and he stops on a dime layup pass,
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So we're talking about elite body control and the sense of when to decelerate plus the ball fake before the pass.
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So this combination of size,
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strength, and body control already makes him hard to stop in space.
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His incredible braking pairs with that spin move that he absolutely loves,
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and he can do that at speeds if he senses an overplay,
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and this is balaiic footwork.
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I'm gonna whisper here, but sometimes when he does this at speeds,
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it reminds me a little of Manu Ginobili.
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And I know there's like a Spurs left-handed thing going on there,
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but the shifting of his hips and the change of direction in space is Manu-esque.
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Now, the thing about these whirling moves and changes of directions is
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that he threads combinations together and still knows where everyone on the floor is.
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We saw him make this exact move against Minnesota,
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and I think it's just freakish reaction time to sense Gobert as he's spinning back into the shot
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and know to throw it over his ear.
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Come on.
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This one is an important issue to me and you might even be entitled to some money
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depending on whether you or your child experience serious mental health struggles as a result of social media use.
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I know at least one person in this boat personally and as a behavioral scientist who used to work in tech,
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I would have these arguments and battles with executives on the addictiveness of these kinds of algorithms,
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so this one is personal for me.
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Recently, a jury ordered Facebook and YouTube to pay out in the millions for designing and promoting addictive platforms,
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while knowing that these apps could contribute to things like anxiety,
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depression, and body image issues,
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but they did not share those risks with users.
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There's a link in the description or scan on screen here,
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and that'll take you to a pretty short quiz to see if you are entitled to a potential recovery personally.
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Morgan & Morgan, the firm handling this,
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says that recovery could potentially be over $1,000.
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Either way, that's our link to help them with this directly,
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and it's a fantastic way to help thinking basketball while also hopefully making the world a little bit better.
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Obviously we're talking about an incredibly strong ball handler,
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and some of these spins and directional changes also remind me of Shea,
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but his strength and balance at this age are in a different league.
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SGA had herky-jerky moves his rookie season,
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but his shot-making improved over time.
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He lacked the explosiveness and sharp changes that made him so hard to guard,
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ultimately, and his deceleration and unique pliability was there, but in smaller glimpses.
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What does Harper look like with a stronger, more explosive game?
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He already shot 51% on contested 2's outside 12 feet this year.
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Shea shot 55% on 7 times the number of attempts,
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so he doesn't have the same robust repertoire there.
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But he is 6'4.5 barefoot,
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strong, and comfortable getting to 2 feet and then elevating.
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His outside shot is a question mark right now and a swing skill depending on how good it is,
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because this thing looks smooth and confident to my eyes.
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There's a little weirdness with his guide hand having a partial thumb influence as the ball comes out of his hand,
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but we've seen weird shots before,
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and this will probably evolve over time.
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And even without an elite shot,
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this is already someone with a strong foundation as a passer and finisher with a good sense of the game.
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I mentioned his feel and IQ,
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but he plays like a 10-year veteran,
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resetting his dribble against Rudy Gobert,
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taking the space to his right to bump and fake Gobert there,
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basically sensing Rudy's going to lunge into that space,
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and that earns him some free throws.
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Or take this pretty rare idea,
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his teammate's in trouble, so he creeps along the baseline as an outlet for a smitty on the catch and reverse.
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And he has a wide variety of finishing angles with his body,
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which are a blur at full speed.
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His torso and hips are almost facing to the right here,
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then he goes off two feet back to the left to twist and finish right-handed.
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On this one, he's playing out of a double screen,
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uses the Hezzy move and the Ginobili wrap to get to two feet again,
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and he's explosive in these spots,
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catching the dribble on this little hop,
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then quick jumping with a ton of horizontal movement.
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Here's a similar idea in transition,
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and it's almost a surprise takeoff point for the defender,
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because most players are timing up two full steps after the pickup,
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but this is basically a jump stop and a ton of horizontal movement in the air.
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Yet, we've seen him take off on one foot with creative strides.
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Here he goes with the more traditional two full steps on a D-cell and finishes right-handed.
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And let's enjoy the entirety of this one,
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where Jalen Williams tries to get by him.
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This is pretty much perfect lockdown defense.
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Then Wemby does something completely unheard of with the double block attempt.
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And then in transition, Harper jumps off the wrong leg to slither through the defense.
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And the other thing he does on these finishes is move in basically any direction at the last second.
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Well, he also moves the ball around in the air a ton before shooting.
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This is one of his nice little cuts into open space.
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Then he pulls it behind his head to avoid the contest
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and it feels like he has an infinite combination of takeoff points and release angles up in the air.
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It's how you get this two-footed dunk where he pulls the
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ball away from the shot blocker in the air with his left hand,
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but you also get this one-legged jump into a right-handed finish
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where he literally wraps the ball around the defender's arm and shoots it over his head.
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Once you see all these micro adjustments he makes with the ball in the air,
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They just start to pop out more and more on every play and get more and more impressive.
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Here, going off the right leg and extending the ball out as far as possible with his left hand.
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Again, I think his reaction time is playing a role here,
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just sensing shot blockers and moving the rock in space as needed.
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So he has a nearly unlimited array of ideas to choose from when he goes to finish,
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going with a surprise scoop around the defender here.
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I mean, he's so good as a finisher,
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we've basically glossed over his S-tier ball handling and that grown man strength.
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His reaction time also shows up on defense,
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where he's a master of stunting and baiting the pass.
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I think this is one of the reasons he's averaging more than a steal per game in the playoffs,
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despite coming off the bench.
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And as we've seen, he's just really sturdy defensively,
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reading ball handlers, beating them to spots,
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using all that strength and his freakish balance in these spots,
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and some of those lead to turnovers as well.
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Harper turned 20 in March,
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so this was his age 19 season on Basketball Reference,
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meaning he played the majority of this season as a 19-year-old.
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In their age 19 playoff run,
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only 16 players have ever logged 10 minutes per game.
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The only players with higher scoring rates than Harper are Kobe Bryant,
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Stephon Marbury, and he's basically tied with Jason Tatum,
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only Harper's true shooting percentage is much higher than all of them.
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I'd say it's a pretty good start,
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but I actually think he has the highest ceiling of anyone in this draft.
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That's a hard thing to pin down.
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Half the superstars in the league right now blasted through any concept of what their ceiling could be,
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including Steph Curry himself, but Harper has this Dwayne Wade feel to me as a prospect.
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Yes, there are things to nitpick,
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but his athletic gifts, this intuitive fast-twitch feel in close quarters,
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along with his larger basketball IQ,
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just give him superstar potential.
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If the jumper doesn't come along and he doesn't improve much,
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he feels like someone who would only be an all-star,
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but if he expands his passing game,
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especially out of pick and roll and with that weaker hand,
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along with adding that third level of scoring with his outside shot,
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I do think we are talking about an all-time great.
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check out patreon.com slash thinkingbasketball.
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Thanks for watching this one all the way through.
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And as always, I hope you are having a great day.
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About This Lesson
In this lesson, you will focus on improving your English pronunciation and speaking skills through the analysis of a basketball video transcript featuring Dylan Harper. By engaging with the content, you will practice critical listening and comprehension, which are essential for effective communication. You'll learn to articulate complex sentences accurately and gain confidence in your English speaking practice. As you delve into the transcript, you'll notice the nuances of conversation and the importance of intonation and pacing, which are vital for achieving fluency.
Key Vocabulary & Phrases
- weaving: moving in and out between obstacles or players, often used in sports contexts
- stonewalled: when a player effectively blocks or prevents another person from advancing
- teleports: to quickly move or transition from one place to another, metaphorically used in basketball when discussing fast movements
- denying catches: preventing a player from receiving the ball; a defensive strategy
- critical yet under-discussed: something very important but not often talked about
- nightmare fuel: something that causes anxiety or difficulty, often used figuratively
- feel and basketball IQ: intuitive understanding and mental acuity regarding gameplay, crucial for success in sports
- playing angles and pace: strategic positioning and timing during gameplay
Practice Tips
To maximize your learning experience, consider using the shadowing technique while watching the video or reading the transcript. Here are some practical tips to guide you:
- Start Slow: Begin by listening to short segments of the transcript, focusing on the pronunciation of key vocabulary. This will help you improve your English pronunciation.
- Repeat Aloud: After each segment, mimic the speaker's tone and rhythm. Pay attention to the nuances in their voice, which will enhance your English speaking practice.
- Use Pauses: Don’t hesitate to pause the video to internalize challenging phrases before repeating them. This is especially useful with faster-paced segments.
- Record Yourself: Record your voice while shadowing and listen to the playback. This will give you insights into areas that need improvement and help with your IELTS speaking practice.
- Engage with Content: Try to summarize what you've practiced in your own words to solidify your understanding and fluency.
By employing these techniques consistently on a reliable shadowing site, you’ll be able to strengthen your speaking abilities and expand your vocabulary effectively.
What is the Shadowing Technique?
Shadowing is a science-backed language learning technique originally developed for professional interpreter training and popularized by polyglot Dr. Alexander Arguelles. The method is simple but powerful: you listen to native English audio and immediately repeat it out loud — like a shadow following the speaker with just a 1–2 second delay. Unlike passive listening or grammar drills, shadowing forces your brain and mouth muscles to simultaneously process and reproduce real speech patterns. Research shows it significantly improves pronunciation accuracy, intonation, rhythm, connected speech, listening comprehension, and speaking fluency — making it one of the most effective methods for IELTS Speaking preparation and real-world English communication.
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