Community Bank 3Pt Tee
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- Dec 29, 2019
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In light of today's transfer news, I thought kicking off discussion in a new thread with an eye toward next year was most fitting.
There's a lot of reaction on this, but it changes little for me. I loved having a relatively capable backup big to Osun in Shaw, but it wasn't realistic that he was going to be content sitting behind a 30-35 MPG all-conference player. You could argue he deserved 8-10 minutes a night instead of 4-5, and you probably wouldn't be wrong. Something tells me that extra 5 minutes wouldn't have been a difference maker for his decision.
As far as AJ, he seemed like a fun-loving guy and gelled with his team. He brought us energy and spark that we needed sometimes. Whether he deserved more minutes or not seemed to be a bit of a flash point for fans from what I observed online, and in actual conversations with other fans. I'm in the camp that believes he more or less played an appropriate amount. Maybe a few more second half minutes throughout the year, to give guys breathers, was warranted. By and large, there was reason for his being yanked most times. I interpreted his leash to be measured not so much by the fact he made mistakes, but the frequency with which he repeated the same mistakes.
One of the takeaways from last Saturday was, we need a little more help. That meant one of two things- either AJ took a massive leap in the off-season, or we brought in guys who would have been directly competing with him for his minutes, with the ability to make an even greater impact than him immediately. The latter was the more likely of the two, and the result would have been stagnancy at best in AJ's minutes.
The 6'8" slasher and 6'4" 3 Pt/all around scorer voids left by Winston and Roberts are still our two greatest needs, with or without AJ. I genuinely wish AJ well. From strictly a basketball standpoint, though- he's a raw talent who brought occasional bursts of good play in his 10-15 MPG. On paper, I'm confident an incoming freshmen will be able to replace that.
There's a lot of reaction on this, but it changes little for me. I loved having a relatively capable backup big to Osun in Shaw, but it wasn't realistic that he was going to be content sitting behind a 30-35 MPG all-conference player. You could argue he deserved 8-10 minutes a night instead of 4-5, and you probably wouldn't be wrong. Something tells me that extra 5 minutes wouldn't have been a difference maker for his decision.
As far as AJ, he seemed like a fun-loving guy and gelled with his team. He brought us energy and spark that we needed sometimes. Whether he deserved more minutes or not seemed to be a bit of a flash point for fans from what I observed online, and in actual conversations with other fans. I'm in the camp that believes he more or less played an appropriate amount. Maybe a few more second half minutes throughout the year, to give guys breathers, was warranted. By and large, there was reason for his being yanked most times. I interpreted his leash to be measured not so much by the fact he made mistakes, but the frequency with which he repeated the same mistakes.
One of the takeaways from last Saturday was, we need a little more help. That meant one of two things- either AJ took a massive leap in the off-season, or we brought in guys who would have been directly competing with him for his minutes, with the ability to make an even greater impact than him immediately. The latter was the more likely of the two, and the result would have been stagnancy at best in AJ's minutes.
The 6'8" slasher and 6'4" 3 Pt/all around scorer voids left by Winston and Roberts are still our two greatest needs, with or without AJ. I genuinely wish AJ well. From strictly a basketball standpoint, though- he's a raw talent who brought occasional bursts of good play in his 10-15 MPG. On paper, I'm confident an incoming freshmen will be able to replace that.
