FSM Presents: Las Vegas Aces 2021 Season Preview: JiSu Park

Photo Credit: Las Vegas Aces

FSM Presents: Las Vegas Aces 2021 Season Preview: JiSu Park

FSM’s Cole Huff continues with our Las Vegas Aces coverage for the 2021 season with part 4 of his player preview series. This week’s focus is on center JiSu Park.

JiSu Park Bio:

Measurements: 6’5; 206 lbs

Age: 30

Position: Center

Years Pro:

4 (Park opted out of the 2020 season to train in her home country of South Korea)

Season Stats: 2019 → 0.8 points, 1.1 rebounds, 0.4 assists on 21.6/ 0.0/ 44.4 shooting splits

Playoff Stats: 2019 → 0.7 points, 0.7 rebounds, 0.0 assists on 20.0/ 0.0/ 0.0 shooting splits

CONDENSED RECAP:

We last saw Park take the court for the Las Vegas Aces during the 2019 season, in which she featured as a depth big during her sophomore campaign. Her minutes were cut in half compared to her rookie season (13 to 6.5), as she appeared in 25 games with zero starts.

STRENGTHS:

When it comes to defensive versatility, JiSu Park is one of the more underrated players on the Aces roster. As a combo 4/5, she takes turns matching up against various skillsets and does it quite well. Standing at 6’5, she possesses enough height and length to stretch her arms and force an abundance of difficult looks while defending the post, and she has strong enough legs to hold her position against backdowns. Park doesn’t get the credit that she deserves for being as mobile as she is — allowing her to be multi-faceted as a pick-and-roll defender.

Multiple Efforts: When Park executes any pick-and-roll defense, you can count on her making multiple efforts. Although she can be heavy-footed at times, Park is usually pretty light on her feet, and her mobility enables her to take away both the jump shot and the drive. Park occasionally gets beat off the dribble, but rarely enough to where she can’t track down the driver and still impact the shot attempt.

Show and Recover: Perhaps Park’s finest asset as a defender is her basketball IQ. She is constantly on time and in a position to meet the ball-handler at the point of the screen and then takes the necessary angles to position herself back to the screener. To finish off the play, Park contains the next drive and maintains discipline to finish the play without fouling. I’m almost certain that these exact efforts are what earns her minutes.

WEAKNESSES:

The fourth-year pro still hasn’t exactly found her niche on the offensive end of the court. The midrange area seems to be her comfort zone — she finds herself there often on the receiving end of pick-and-pop actions and is the safety valve for post-kick-outs. So much comfort that 18 of her 37 shot attempts came from the mid-range area (17-22 feet) during the 2019 regular season. Yet, only two of those shots found the bottom of the basket, which makes out to just an 11% success rate.

Park lives in the mid-range because it’s the only area of the court that she can generate clean looks. She’s had empty results as she’s tried to isolate out of the low post. In her four tries, only one made it to the rim — which was a bucket, but the other three attempts hardly left her hands before being denied by defenders. And when she catches the ball as a roller or is the beneficiary of a drop-off pass, she isn’t explosive in getting the ball to the rim, which leads to mixed results.

If Park can develop her shot-making abilities, it may ultimately unlock more minutes for her in the rotation.

POTENTIAL ROLE:

After a bit of a down 2019 season, which was followed by an opting out of the 2020 season, Park likely finds herself at the end of the frontcourt rotation — behind the reigning WNBA Sixth Woman of the Year Dearica Hamby, WNBA MVP Aja Wilson, and WNBA All-Star center Liz Cambage. She’ll battle for depth minutes with recently re-signed forward Emma Cannon. Still, at the young age of 22, Park is oozing potential that she’ll look to inch closer to unlocking.