Johnny “Irish Kobe” O’Bryant has been working on his game since his stint with the Bucks. Even then, his main way of scoring was shooting midrange jumpers. Now, he shoots AND makes midrange jumpers, with the occasional three sprinkled in. At least in this game. I can’t speak for the rest of his time with the Hornets/Nuggets. He was tearing up the D-League, though, so he must have gotten better. He still looks slow on his feet, probably because those tree-trunk legs of his don’t allow him to ambulate at much more than a half-jog, and he still can’t really jump, but who needs those things when you can splash it from the elbow?
There was never really any hype for O’Bryant in Milwaukee. Rumor has it that the guy the Bucks wanted early in the second round of his draft was taken right from under their nose, so they panicked and picked Johnny O without much thought or preparation. Kind of like when your parents tell you that you were an accident. Accordingly, he didn’t show much at all in Milwaukee, finishing around the rim at an unbelievably horrible rate and not making much of an impact in any area of the game.
This is his first truly better-than-decent game in the NBA. 7 of 9 shooting, no free throws to illegitimately pad his stats, and a big middle finger to the team that didn’t give him a real chance to succeed. That team the being the Nuggets. Not the Bucks. The Bucks gave him plenty of chances and he failed to grab even one of them.