Why It’s Hard to Attract a Shooting Guard Here
- Thread starter ImTheVillageIdiot
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Chandler can become a 40% 3-pt shooter and a very good finisher at the rim. I like that he uses the backboard and doesn’t try to make the spectacular dunk play, even though he has very good hops. Smart player to boot.
I have not watched the Johnson clip yet.
Watched the Johnson clip. He has raw talent and very athletic. His jumper looks a little ragged, although in the clip, of course they all went in. He will instill a lot of energy into our team.
He still shot 37% on threes. And he doesn’t just take catch and shoot shots. He can flat out shoot the ball.
We need another guard, or SF. They are basically interchangeable at this level.
You know, there was a thread a week ago that said we should be done, but we were still all in n Wilkerson so of course consensus was no, we’re not done.
But I’ve come around to the OP’s way of thinking. Johnson, Lowe, Chandler, Oweh, and Williams fill out the 1-3 minutes nicely and we know MD is going to play at the 3 as well with JQ/BG/AJ all splitting 4/5 time.
I trust Pope and he clearly wants one more dude.
But I’ve come around to the OP’s way of thinking. Johnson, Lowe, Chandler, Oweh, and Williams fill out the 1-3 minutes nicely and we know MD is going to play at the 3 as well with JQ/BG/AJ all splitting 4/5 time.
I trust Pope and he clearly wants one more dude.
I started a thread a while back asking whether we are all sleeping on Jasper Johnson. I phrased it as a question but believed it to be true -- what video I've watched on him puts him in the category of some Calipari guards who not only performed well in college but are starring now in the NBA. And Chandler will be fully back into basketball after years of rust accumulating.
That's why if the "last piece" Pope adds is not a guy who is a self-described "The Man" like WiIkerson but instead a useful role player I won't be surprised.
In fact, if I had to guess, Wilkerson told Pope "I want to be "The Man." Pope told Wilkerson "on our team you are one of the guys" and it went downhill from there. Wait until "The Man" finds out "The Coach's Son" is playing more or less the same position at Indiana...
Maybe some truth to this theory, but I also think IU upped the ante and gave his friend a spot on the bench. A lot of these free agents just go to the highest bidder. I also think they understand that if they play for Pope they will be splitting playing time with other very good players.
I also fully expect Oweh to improve his 3pt shooting. Not that he was a slouch this past year at 35%.
We're doing alright with the 2-3. Another guy would just be icing on the cake.
We're doing alright with the 2-3. Another guy would just be icing on the cake.
Splitting time with others, but the opponent can't key onto you exclusively... plus you get to play harder because you won't be in for 35+ minutes.
Yeah, our last piece might be another bench piece who can hit spot up threes, or a combo guard bench guy. I know WE want a star shooting guard to come in, but I'm sure it's a tough sell when we have Oweh locking down a starting spot and a lot of touches, and we have Williams backing up the 3, and we have JJ and Chandler who are going to get minutes and shots. We want to be 2 deep with stars everywhere, and adding a star SG would make us clear title contenders... but it's still a tough sell. And we've also probably spent a lot of our NIL budget while IU was able to throw money at a guy.
No, initially Wilkerson was coming but Devries took a late flight for an immediate in-home. That action, as well as, an increased NIL offering secured his commitment.
Unless Perry spends the off-season developing a different type of handle - and there are guys out there that Perry could get that provide the intense training specifically for that - then Jasper Johnson will need to play a whole lot of PG.
I like the combination of Chandler and Johnson at 2G ultimately, I just don't feel comfortable that they'll be ready from a shooting consistency standpoint initially. And that looks like it could be a problem because I don't see any other shooter to count on for knock-down shooting in Lowe, Oweh and Dioubate at the other starting spots. Williams and the Croatian can provide good perimeter shooting for their spots, but I sure wouldn't mind a knock-down shooter at the 2G spot.
I like the combination of Chandler and Johnson at 2G ultimately, I just don't feel comfortable that they'll be ready from a shooting consistency standpoint initially. And that looks like it could be a problem because I don't see any other shooter to count on for knock-down shooting in Lowe, Oweh and Dioubate at the other starting spots. Williams and the Croatian can provide good perimeter shooting for their spots, but I sure wouldn't mind a knock-down shooter at the 2G spot.
That's a good compilation of Chandler's offensive highlights but probably his most encouraging play last season was on defense. I remember watching Arkansas run us out of the gym thinking Chandler was the only guy in blue and white who looked like he belonged on the same court athletically. I don't even think he scored that game.
We are not done. Pope’s offense goes through all these genius contortions to get a high percentage perimeter shooter open——part of those contortions being warping the defense in carefully designed ways to make it react to the right combination of high percentage perimeter shooters being on the floor at the same time.
Right now we don’t have that special combination of high percentage perimeter shooters we can put on the floor together to make that very specific and very well-designed magic happen.
We have a good coach and we have a great collection of pieces already. We will have a decent season no matter what happens. But if we quit teambuilding and go into this season with only what we have now, leaving that magic combination just out of reach when we’ve already taken such extraordinary effort to build towards it and have already come so close, it will just be a shame. A waste. (Pope knows this. That's why we were after Wilkerson and why we are after Zrno and others.)
Highly consistent kill-shot shooting guards are just rare now, in this era when more than a decade of sustained hype and pressure has focused basketball more towards athletic prowess and size and length and leaping ability than towards basketball fundamentals. They are essentially the elite power forwards of the early 2000s, in that the really good ones are so few and far between that it’s a feeding frenzy of relevant schools falling over themselves to put together their very land best pitches every time one of them comes on the scene. Combine that with a coach who is brilliant and socially awesome but is also taking a wait and see attitude and leaving some of our financial assets “in a holding pattern” in anticipation of the final upshot of the House settlement, even actively leveraging some of that reticence to “filter kids who really want to be here,” and it explains why bringing in the perfect shooting guard to really finish our otherwise-juggernaut team, making it fully battle ready, has been a bit of a sticky wicket.
It’s not something to panic about, as I’m sure I will be accused of doing. (Again.) And it’s not something to give up on, which in my opinion is what fans are doing when they say it’s time to pack it up and roll with what we already have.
It’s just a bit of a sticky wicket.
Not trying to pooh-pooh your post, @ImTheVillageIdiot . I think Chandler and Johnson are both great players and both will be important pieces in that special moving geometry Pope aims to put on the floor. I just don’t think either is that final bit of plutonium we need right now to combine with the key playing pieces we already have into a magic critical mass to make the whole thing go nuclear. (And mostly my response is not even geared towards you but to people who are saying we are done now. Chandler and Johnson are indeed strong players and we did have to get them and it really is an accomplishment worth celebrating now that we’ve gotten that done. Imo we just still happen to need this one more accomplishment to be what we’re just achingly close to being already.)
Right now we don’t have that special combination of high percentage perimeter shooters we can put on the floor together to make that very specific and very well-designed magic happen.
We have a good coach and we have a great collection of pieces already. We will have a decent season no matter what happens. But if we quit teambuilding and go into this season with only what we have now, leaving that magic combination just out of reach when we’ve already taken such extraordinary effort to build towards it and have already come so close, it will just be a shame. A waste. (Pope knows this. That's why we were after Wilkerson and why we are after Zrno and others.)
Highly consistent kill-shot shooting guards are just rare now, in this era when more than a decade of sustained hype and pressure has focused basketball more towards athletic prowess and size and length and leaping ability than towards basketball fundamentals. They are essentially the elite power forwards of the early 2000s, in that the really good ones are so few and far between that it’s a feeding frenzy of relevant schools falling over themselves to put together their very land best pitches every time one of them comes on the scene. Combine that with a coach who is brilliant and socially awesome but is also taking a wait and see attitude and leaving some of our financial assets “in a holding pattern” in anticipation of the final upshot of the House settlement, even actively leveraging some of that reticence to “filter kids who really want to be here,” and it explains why bringing in the perfect shooting guard to really finish our otherwise-juggernaut team, making it fully battle ready, has been a bit of a sticky wicket.
It’s not something to panic about, as I’m sure I will be accused of doing. (Again.) And it’s not something to give up on, which in my opinion is what fans are doing when they say it’s time to pack it up and roll with what we already have.
It’s just a bit of a sticky wicket.
Not trying to pooh-pooh your post, @ImTheVillageIdiot . I think Chandler and Johnson are both great players and both will be important pieces in that special moving geometry Pope aims to put on the floor. I just don’t think either is that final bit of plutonium we need right now to combine with the key playing pieces we already have into a magic critical mass to make the whole thing go nuclear. (And mostly my response is not even geared towards you but to people who are saying we are done now. Chandler and Johnson are indeed strong players and we did have to get them and it really is an accomplishment worth celebrating now that we’ve gotten that done. Imo we just still happen to need this one more accomplishment to be what we’re just achingly close to being already.)
Oh cool, you provided the clip I was looking for. Right at the end of the Chandler video you posted is that half-time ending shot he hit against TN where afterwards he was the ultimate Mr. Cool - Oweh comes up to him all excited and Chandler just gives him a cocky smile and mouths "You liked that?". That's when I knew Chandler has some sh** to him and I loved it.
Starting to think you have a Perry poster above your bed with his high school scoring printed out next to him....he is buried on the bench as he should be.....kind of getting a bit of an obsession vibe over the kentucky kids no?
I think most kids, at least highly rated kids we'd want, enter the portal with two things in mind. Maximizing NIL is one, and having a prominent role on a team is another. No judgment here, that makes good sense to me. But the kids in those 2 buckets almost certainly eliminate themselves as far as UK goes. We already have 10 kids who expect to play (and two more in Perry and Noah who probably think they should play), so we already have a lot of NIL dollars devoted and we already have a ton of minutes of playing time spoken for. We are not IU, with 4/5/6 players on the roster, or whatever it is. So we have to find another kind of kid. One, he has to be good enough to play here, and two, he has to be more interested in being a part of a potentially great team, at the probable expense of being featured and making more money. My guess is those kinds of kids are rare. Pope is being surgical about this, so if one of them is there, he'll find him I'm sure. If he doesn't, like I say, we have a rotation of 10 already. Let's roll.
Our roster is in good shape. Listening to Pope on BBN tonight interview, he is very selective. He will take his time and get players that will not be afraid to play on biggest stage, shared the ball but also play for the name on the jersey.
I would not be surprised to get another international player. They typically :
-have great fundamentals , shooting, passing , dribbling * check for Pope system
- played against grown men * check for SEC physicality
- are experienced players * check to learn quick a new system
- played in Europe in front of big crowds * check against not to be intimidated playing in Rupp and other hostile arenas.
So , Pope said he will take his time and great players that he needs. We got the bigs and athleticism, now we will get some skills.
I would not be surprised to get another international player. They typically :
-have great fundamentals , shooting, passing , dribbling * check for Pope system
- played against grown men * check for SEC physicality
- are experienced players * check to learn quick a new system
- played in Europe in front of big crowds * check against not to be intimidated playing in Rupp and other hostile arenas.
So , Pope said he will take his time and great players that he needs. We got the bigs and athleticism, now we will get some skills.
I bet Perry is working hard on his game right now. Kid is a natural baller and will get there as an important piece to our roster.
It's not hard. Last year we had Brea
This year, it just happens that shooting guard is the last piece we're adding. When you already have 10+ guys on a roster that can play, it's hard to convince a talented person to join the roster. Where are the minutes that an elite player wants going to come from?
That is the tough part, selling an elite player to come to a roster of 10+ that can all play.
This year, it just happens that shooting guard is the last piece we're adding. When you already have 10+ guys on a roster that can play, it's hard to convince a talented person to join the roster. Where are the minutes that an elite player wants going to come from?
That is the tough part, selling an elite player to come to a roster of 10+ that can all play.
I think this is spot on. Jasper is a baller and Chandler will be a 22 year old sophomore 5 star. I get the desire for a backup but we’ve been in way worse situations.
Pope knows he needs a stud at that spot. It’s obvious he is trying to put together a monster roster and yeah those guys WILL be good. But they’re not there and may not get there this year. It’s not hard to read the tea leaves on this. It seems good but we are going for a title. I’m happy to know our coach knows what it takes and isn’t satisfied with bodies. We should all expect another big time player added to the roster likely at the 2g. Chandler and Jasper are nice young players. Pope wants a guy who is a stud and back him up with those guys chandler and Jasper.
You wanna win titles or compare worse situations? Pope knows what it takes to get to a final four. He knows a 1 seed is imperative. Can’t afford slow starts with guys who may not be ready
What about Perry? It’s gonna be a long season if we have to rely on him. He has to learn how to compensate for some things especially on defense. I think he should take a red shirt personally.
All I’m saying is if we have to roll with what we’ve got we’re not totally screwed. You clearly disagree. I got no problem with what you’d like to see happen. But if it doesn’t, maybe just maybe, we’re gonna be ok.
We are top 10 right now with Oweh.
You add Haggerty or Jackson and you’re a top 5 team. There are some other guards out there too. Point is go all in if you’re going this far.
i like this take more than the usual posts about it. thanks for this.
To answer the question of this thread... Collin Chandler and Jasper Johnson will be great at the shooting guard position and we will get a 3rd. Truthfully, if we don't sign another player at any position, I love what we already have . I'm sure will fill it up though.
I agree that JJ and Chandler are gonna expect minutes at 1 and 2 so that hurts UK to get another starter at the 2.
Also, the disturbing obsession a segment of our fanbase has with a certain player is already getting nauseating and we have 3 seasons to go.
Also, the disturbing obsession a segment of our fanbase has with a certain player is already getting nauseating and we have 3 seasons to go.
Much like Calipari, Mark Pope also hates Kentucky kids.
Again, we are pretty thin in the backcourt, specifically 1/2. With the injuries we had last year, I would bet and hope Pope isn't done there.