Udoka Azubuike vs. Diallo

Attended the game last evening and spent some time watching our young, very young C, Udoka Azubuike or Dok as he is called by HCBS. I then tried to put myself back to when I saw Diallo play last year. No question Diallo was quicker but Udoka already plays smarter than Diallo at the end of last year on both offense and defense. While he was not always in the correct position defensively, he was more often than not. On offense, he has no interest in wandering around the three point line looking for the ball at this stage although he can set a mean pick. In the first game he got called for a moving pick, none last night that I can remember.

This kids is learning very fast from coach Lucas, our new bigs coach.

While he will foul out of a number of games, my bet is that by the end of the year he will be having a significant impact on our team. If teams feel the need to pack it in, our three point shooters are going to have a ball.

About the only similarity I can find between Diallo and Azubuike is they are both tall. Other than that they couldn't be more different. Diallo was a fair disappointment last year because he did not progress. Who knows how well Dok will progress but he really can't do much worse than Diallo. Diallo is the proverbial hammer looking for a nail. He seemed to not want to let go of his fast and loose moniker. His reputation as a fast and athletic big was baked into his mentality. And while that is a plus, he needed to add greatly to his repertoire which was not forthcoming nearly to the degree needed. Embiid was the antithesis. Embiid seemingly learned and improved each and every game and even within a game. Let's hope Dok is more like Embiid. His calling card is his muscle and force. That is a good thing but he needs to add footwork, positioning, timing, pace, verticality, judgment and body control among other things to his skill set. I liked what I saw last night but it is very early. Few freshmen come in and play like "not" freshmen. Even the best have a strong tendency to show their inexperience and inconsistency. I suspect Dok will show it all too often. But what we want to see is a player who is substantially better in about 4 months. Diallo was only marginally better. Embiid was not even the same player after 4 months. The biggest loss KU has had in years was the loss of Embiid.

I think the issue with Diallo was that the team was not better with him on the floor. That was why he did not play as much as some people wanted. He had all of the physical skills to play but he did not "play within the system" and "let the game come to him." That made it to where the team was not better with him on the floor. I have not seen Dok enough to say but as others have mentioned Mr. Embiid was a very unusual case.