A Coach's Analysis

I spent some time with an old friend today, a guy who has coached at an elite New England Prep School, and is currently a scout for an NBA team. He was visiting my area because there are a few high school players that he wanted to work out, and we spent a couple of hours today discussing KU. He has watched every KU game this season, in order to evaluate 3 players, two who (unfortunately) are not playing at this time) and one who is a strong prospect to be a lottery pick in one or two years. Here are his thoughts, as close to what he said as I can recall:
KU is a deeply flawed team right now, and the fact that Self has them in the hunt is amazing. They have two scorers, one potential scorer and two non scorers on their starting 5. One scorer, Devon Dotson, scores primarily in transition, but could score a lot more if he started shooting 3s more frequently, and earlier in his games. The fact that he rarely shoots in the 1st half closes off a lot of his driving opportunities, essentially making him a transition scorer only. Over time he will start to shoot more and earlier, and his overall offensive game will dramatically improve, turning him into at least a 1st round pick. But as long as he refuses to shoot at least 5 or more 3s a game, he's limited and KU is limited.
The second scorer is Dedric Lawson. He's a smooth and skilled player, but he lacks strength and athleticism, which means that he too is limited as to what he can do against certain teams. He is prone to losing his discipline, and simply drives the ball into double and sometimes triple coverage, which leads to turnovers or poor shots. Yesterday he simply was pushed around and without an aggressive 3 point effort, he was almost useless. As well, he's really a complimentary rebounder, and is incapable of either out-jumping or physically dominating good 4s and 5s. With an authentic 5 he's more effective, but given the current lineup, he's just a mediocre rebounder, making his overall game less than optimal. And, of course, he's not a good defensive player, again because of his lack of strength and athleticism. If he comes back for another season, and builds up his body, he has a chance to play in the NBA. Otherwise he's at best a European player. At best! More likely he ends up in China or Australia.
The third starter with ability is Ogbaji. But he's raw, and still lacks to ability to create for himself. He's great in transition, but if he is forced to score on his own, it won't happen. He should be the 2nd guy off the bench, not a starter, but with this team he has to start. He's going to be a really good college player, and after another 2 years he's going to the NBA.
McCormack will be good in 2 or 3 years. He's not good now. He should be getting 10 minutes a game, 5 minutes a half. He's improved since the beginning of the year, but it's not nearly enough to have earned him 20 plus minutes a game.
And then there is Grimes. Nothing there. He can't shoot but ironically the only way he can score is to set up beyond the 3 and shoot as soon as he gets the ball. He cannot create his own shot. He's stiff and slow with the ball in his hands, and lacks the quickness and acceleration necessary to penetrate to the basket. He can't rebound because he lacks rebounding instincts and isn't quick to the ball. And his defense is, at best, mediocre, again because he's stiff and slow. He is not a starting quality player, and probably should have been red-shirted in the hope (and hope is really all there is) that he'd develop physically over the year. Given his lack of ability at this point, if Self has the ability to recruit over him, he absolutely must. Grimes is a transfer waiting to happen, since it's highly unlikely he'll see the floor next year unless KU is simply lacking any alternatives.
If Garrett could shoot, he would be a star. But he can't, and on this team he's a distinct liability. If he doesn't develop a decent shot, and Self recruits a couple of 3s for next year, Garrett will play 10-15 minutes a game at most.
The bench sucks. He had nothing more to say about them.
With Doke and Silveo, we'd be in the hunt for the NCAA title. Not having either or both makes us a likely early out in the NCAAs. We may get through the first 2 rounds, but then we're toast unless Self has a magic wand or Aladdin's Lamp.
He also said that for some reason the NCAA is really anxious to screw KU. He has no idea why, but to him, and many others in the pro game, KU is on the NCAA's hit list.
Oh, he LOVES Lightfoot. He said that if everybody on the team had Lightfoot's mentality, we'd be a pretty good team. And he also pointed out that our team is dominated by freshmen, which translates to significant letdowns on the road. He pointed out that the one great element to Ksryskchrocsky's coaching is his ability to get freshmen to play like seniors.

I can't disagree with any of those observations. I was one of the people say i saw some improvement in QG a couple games ago. I really thought he was getting closer to mentally being ahead of the game. Obviously it has not happened and he knows it. I will still argue that he will be better than what we have seen. For him to shoot free throws the way he has is not his inability to make that shot it is his inability to make that shot in the game. We have done a terrible job all year with the front ends of 1 and 1s and he is a big contributor to that. I hope he can become what we want him to be. The last thing I will say on this is that his team mates appear to be routing for him.

Grimes Big 12 Stats
GP MPG FG% 3 PT% FT% RPG APG STL BLK PPG
14-14 26.6 .347 .300 .429 2.6 1.6 10 2 6.6

Very interesting analysis and observations by your friend. This bit "He also said that for some reason the NCAA is really anxious to screw KU. He has no idea why, but to him, and many others in the pro game, KU is on the NCAA's hit list" is disturbing to say the least - unfortunately it seems to be the case.

Agree with pretty much everything your buddy wrote.

Here's the real head-scratcher: I was looking up something and stumbled across a preseason list of NBA Big 12 prospects from before the season and Grimes was the headline. Total lottery pick who was going to spend a year leading KU to glory in his 1 year in Lawrence. Now there are people who are literally saying he's bad at basketball and might need 4 years to get competent enough to play overseas in Obscure-astan.

This defies all logic. There's just no logical explanation of how a guy was THAT good (lots of people saw him play and lots of people agreed) and is now THIS bad. I feel like there's something that we don't know here...something happened and it's being kept quiet....I don't know what. Hell, you can go find video of him playing in HS and it looks like another player.

As for D Lawson, I agree that he'd have been better if he could play the 4 instead of the 5. Nevertheless, I do see him going pro after this year. Whether he actually gets a job in the NBA is another matter entirely, but you don't average a double-double in D-1 and then stick around looking to improve your game. I think he's hit his peak.

On Lawson, not to improve his game, but to improve his body. His game is fine. His body is not NBA ready. Another year with Hudy would be the best thing he could do for his future.

Yeah, but he's already had all last season and all last off-season to improve his body under Hudy. Makes you wonder how much more he can do.

To my eye, he's not an explosive leaper and isn't particularly quick. While I'm confident Hudy could help him strength wise which would make him more competitive battling in the paint, I'm not sure how much she could do to make him quicker or jump higher.

Personally, I'd love for him to come back. If Hudy and Self can convince him that it would improve his stock to stick around that would be great. On the other hand, there have been a lot of guys even less prepared than him who have jumped.

Of course the other wild card is the NCAA. If they're truly out to get us and they're successful, it might have ramifications that might impact next season. Faced with a post season ban or something similar, it might push him toward leaving, and maybe even cause some other guys to transfer.

Pretty sad times these days in Jayhawkville.

I read the quote about the lackadaisical attitude and had a similar initial reaction. Then after thinking about it, I'm willing to cut Dedric some slack here.

First, however, if he truly meant that, it's unfathomable. This was clearly THE biggest game of the year so far and he had a week to prep. Everyone knew what was on the line. If he really meant that they intentionally came out without being focused on the task at hand, that's REALLY bad.

But he's also a 20 year old kid who's getting quoted immediately after getting his butt kicked in a basketball game, so while he might have SAID that, he might have MEANT something else. For example, it isn't a stretch to interpret this as the same as saying that Tech came out on fire and that mentally put KU in a rough spot that they weren't able to get out of.

Bottom line, I don't question Dedric's heart or desire to win. I just think he's limited in what he can do.

A few weeks ago there was an article somewhere which compared Dedric's torso now to his torso when he arrived at KU. The difference was significant, but his mass hadn't really changed. He had redistributed his weight, and certainly gained muscle mass, but now by a lot. I suspect that he, like many people in all walks of life, doesn't respond to training the way someone like Ogbaji would or perhaps did. With another year he's bound to get bigger and stronger, and at his height, even without a significant increase in vertical and
quickness, increased strength in his lower body will give him an increased opportunity to work the boards as well as play defense. I cannot say it would make the difference between the NBA and Australia, but it might.