Re(2): Hate the 'poor planning' characterization Posted on December 22, 2023 at 05:18:23 PM by Craig G
Hey Haitian Gary,
I remember you stating how many obligations on your time you had with job, family, house, etc. Wow. Gotta be tough to fit some jai-alai in there.
As far as that drive from Boca, glad you described it. I had planned to attend from PBG, but that weather report was too much for me.
FWIW, back when I was compiling the points stats for the top players from that final Miami mini-season, I had to slog thru a lot of videos. I quickly noticed that in Goiko singles, as soon as he was able to throw a hard low-trajectory (non-looping, let's say) right side passer, it was pretty much lights out. Ditto for Lopez, since they both have the extra controlled power from their larger frames.
As an objective test of that I challenged myself to trudge thru an entire randomly selected week of replays. Looking only at the points played by Goiko, Lopez, and Aritz, based on just one consideration - were they able to throw that right side passer during the point or not? I don't have the figures in front of me, but from memory, it was overwhelming. About 85 to 90% win if yes, and more like 55% if not. Seriously.
My takeaway was that in facing him you must make every effort to keep it on the wall, or at least away from his right. Otherwise, with his size, skill, and power, not to mention the freedom to take a few extra steps, you are dead. You will be eating mostly chulas, chic-chacs and too-hot-to-handles.
How this relates to Dania is that I could see with my own eyes - NOT stats - that by the final perf on Sunday, he now had his right side killer fully operational. So, not surprising that he won 73% of his points that day, and I am sure he would have exceeded that rate if he had stayed longer.
