Let's be real here...this is kind of like D Neal and baseball. Once they see where their true future is, they'll drop that second sport pretty quickly. [Reply]
Originally Posted by RockChalk:
Let's be real here...this is kind of like D Neal and baseball. Once they see where their true future is, they'll drop that second sport pretty quickly.
Originally Posted by KC_Connection:
As it is, if we’re not gonna play 4 guards/wings, I far prefer the Flory/Dickinson 4-5 lineup to KJ/Dickinson because while we lose offensive spacing (with both lineups), we gain defense and rebounding with Flory.
I agree. I love KJ's contributions to this team but he is practically worthless right now. And we have better talent. He's just making the team worse. I think he would be much better in limited minutes coming off the bench. But we all know Self is not going to do that. [Reply]
Originally Posted by Lzen:
I agree. I love KJ's contributions to this team but he is practically worthless right now. And we have better talent. He's just making the team worse. I think he would be much better in limited minutes coming off the bench. But we all know Self is not going to do that.
I keep hearing that but doesn't he have a history of moving more veteran players to the bench while more talented players are elevated as they adjust to college play? [Reply]
Originally Posted by cmh6476:
I keep hearing that but doesn't he have a history of moving more veteran players to the bench while more talented players are elevated as they adjust to college play?
Yes, he does.
Embiid wasn’t a starter right away.
Oubre wasn’t a starter right away.
Doke wasn’t a starter right away.
We think he won’t bench KJ, but look at the bench we’ve had the last two years. Who was the best bench big? Udeh probably? He was out of control most of the time.
We haven’t had hardly any good guards on our bench either. [Reply]
Originally Posted by smithandrew051:
Yes, he does.
Embiid wasn’t a starter right away.
Oubre wasn’t a starter right away.
Doke wasn’t a starter right away.
We think he won’t bench KJ, but look at the bench we’ve had the last two years. Who was the best bench big? Udeh probably? He was out of control most of the time.
We haven’t had hardly any good guards on our bench either.
I think Embiid and Flory are going to have a fairly similar freshman year in one key aspect. People like to say Embiid started on the bench, and while this is technically correct, it's ignoring the real reason he wasn't starting: foul trouble. I don't have any memory of this at all, but Embiid had horrible foul problems at Kansas. In 28 games, 15 of them had him at 4 or 5 fouls. It's hard for self to start him when in back to back games in November against Wake Forest and Villanova he had 27 total minutes and 9 fouls. That sounds like Flory last game, who was impactful when he was in but he wasn't in very long because of foul trouble. If you are going to put KJ in a limited minutes role, then you have to have confidence that the guy primarily taking his spot can play more than 15 minutes a night. [Reply]