When he gets to the elbow or the middle of the paint, his stop and pop jumper is lethal. Problem is, one, we go long stretches without looking to get him the ball in positions to score and, two, he seems to lack aggression against bigger and better opponents. Hopefully both of these change down the stretch.
We’re kinda in a catch-22 with our big men. ORN is obviously the best we have all around down low, but he tends to take some games off (typically against our toughest opponents, unfortunately). Plav plays harder than anyone on the roster, but he has his limitations with rebounding and, a lot of the time, scoring. Aidoo rebounds well, but can get pushed around by stronger big men and isn’t the scoring presence inside that ORN and sometimes Plav is. Awaka can rebound like a madman and has developed a decent back to the basket game, but his height and experience will limit him against guys like Oscar. We REALLY need ORN to step up and play hard game in and game out. If he can be the guy every night, that raises the ceiling of this team to the moon because we can situationally play our other bigs. If he can’t, well, you see what happened on the glass Saturday….
Plavsic will always rebound well against the mid-majors of the world, but will be only adequate at best against the athletic leapers of the world. However, he was 9-11 against Kentucky. That almost always wins against Kentucky, unless other scenarios go wrong on the same night. If Plav had played the same minutes as Oscar, he would have scored 30. He, Awaka, and Aidoo need to play 90% of the minutes. ON should sit. Four years in he is what he is. He can win you some games, but he can lose you some games.
Year to date per game averages:
I agree and I think Awaka should be playing more. I kinda feel like we should do like last year before ON got injured and play a bit more double big with Awaka and either ON or Aidoo if we’re having issues with rebounding. I know Plav was having an amazing game, but you can’t have two non shooters, so it’s hard to play them together.
I said from the beginning, based off the eye test, he wasn’t going to translate to this level. Outside of the Gonzaga game that take has been correct. When he’s playing confident he’s a solid 3pt shooter and can get a bucket underneath against smaller defender, but for whatever reason he just cant’t execute consistently. I’d rather see Mashack play over him.
We really do have the most passionate fanbase in all of America. We also have the most uninformed fanbase in all of America. So many of them would be utterly embarrassed if Rick Barnes pulled them in a room and asked them to break down film with him. Just such an embarrassing collection of misplaced confidence from our fans.
You could almost say case in point is DJ Jefferson. He and Edwards do play different positions so there’s that, but not once have I heard anyone clamoring about how we need him. The coaching staff clearly see that neither he or Edwards are ready, yet you always hear people complaining about Edwards.
