Emotional Injury Scars
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I think most everyone in here is a fan of Wayne Selden. I know I am.
Negative attention is creeping up more on Wayne as the season progresses. He received a temporary reprieve when he started lighting it up from 3 recently. But the attention to other parts of his game have become a glaring issue with this team.
The questions mount… how does an athletic 6’5" 230 lb player only get 2.7 rebounds per game, especially when averaging 30+ mpg?
That’s a very good question. We are talking about less than one rebound every 10 minutes of action. If you apply some basic physics, along with the dimensions of a basketball court, you’ll find that there is almost a natural occurrence that the ball will fall on a guy once every 10 minutes.
So why isn’t a physically-built linebacker like Wayne Selden getting more rebounds? Does he lack hustle?
Maybe we can find some answers by looking at other parts of his game. Wayne only has 15 steals on the season. 15! He’s played about 800 minutes. Do the math… that is around one steal every 52 minutes. Once again… you can explain that steal as a basic force of nature and physics.
In the blocked shots category he has 16 for the year… that’s like one in every 50 minutes of action. Nothing to write home about.
His shooting, even though he has been hot recently, is still at a meager percentage… including at the FT line. That can easily be a side effect of his esteem level. His mom comes to town and he starts lighting it up!
What sticks out is his assists. Wayne does have 79 assists this season. That translates to 2.72 per game. A respectable amount, and it puts him only behind Frank in assists. What does that say? Well… it does say that he isn’t mentally zoned out of games. And he does offer a certain degree of hustle. Guys that don’t hustle aren’t near the top of any player stat, except maybe in fouls. Ooops… Wayne is second to top on fouling, just behind Perry. Does that indicate he isn’t hustling? Or is he hustling enough to foul, but just getting himself in bad situations? Or is he hustling and bailing out other players?
What I’m wondering is if he is suffering with emotional injury scars. Wayne has been facing injuries at least going back to his junior year in HS, where he faced his first surgical repair. And last year he was in the doctor’s office again… this time for his knee.
Wayne is a tough guy. No one questions that. But might he be a victim of emotional injury scars? Might there be a little man in his head directing his play on the floor… instructing him to avoid plays that put him most at risk? I wonder.
I notice that he often shies away from contact. He does make a few nice hustle plays… but usually those seem like they are calculated as low-risk gambles. And then there are other times, when he seems to be frustrated in himself for not contributing enough in the physicality department and he over-compensates. Those plays usually don’t pan out. He did have one masterful 94-foot drive in WV, all the way to the rim. A real beaut! Reminded me of what we thought we would be getting in Wayne 100% of the time.
Players can really lose the edge to their game when they get these emotional injury scars. Back in my day, I had to overcome it myself. It’s hard to take the gambles again, and sometimes you just relive one of your injuries in your mind.
There has to be a reason why Wayne isn’t producing like he should. Or could it be that he is carrying another actual injury?
A few games back, I thought he might be suffering from the same thing EJ suffered with… just over-thinking during the game. This still may be part of it… and perhaps the over-thinking is focusing on some risk aversion from injury.
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@drgnslayr said:
Might there be a little man in his head directing his play on the floor… instructing him to avoid plays that put him most at risk? I wonder.
That could be said of most of our players this year. Remember what your wife was calling them during the last game?
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Next time I’ll record it and send it to their next practice session.
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@drgnslayr LOL - that would be awesome!
I hate to admit this, but I call them the same thing, except I preceed it with an " F ".
French Pastries.
Something like that.
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He’s an enigma that’s for sure.
I think this off-season, praying he’s still around (if he jumps it will be the biggest mistake since Selby) the coaches can refine his game. He’s got weaknesses and good parts of his game. The biggest thing is consistency. If he was consistent from game to game I believe he’d be a 1st round player this year but until he finds that in his game its best to stay and develop.
He came here with a lot of hype and failed to live up to it so far. What can ya do, not everyone is going to progress at the same rate. It’s not a 100% success rate that All American’s are NBA ready after 1 or 2 years. He’s taken a lot of heat this year because he should be a leader, a more consistent leader both vocally & scoring wise. He should be our leading scorer but he’s just not there yet.
He is an important part of this team and I do hope he decides to come back for a Junior season because he will be apart of a rotation that has a chance to do even better.
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I have long advocated full time sports psychologists for teams, because I believe players could be helped not just with their games, but with their lives.
Good sports psychologists could help the young men sooooooo much.
Andrea Hudy for muscles and flexibility and weight.
Dr. X for their minds, competing skills, and social skills.
Dr. Y for diet.
We would get the most out of our players and give them the most.
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@jaybate-1.0 does Wayne Simien still work w/team? I don’t see him as much.
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Interesting conversation on Dan Patrick’s radio show the other day about Penny Hardaway and Derrick Rose that might be relevant. Discussing Derrick Rose post-recovery–how he’s become a ‘jump shooter’ and doesn’t go hard to the bucket nearly as much. Penny said he totally relates, because after his injury, he never trusted his leg to go hard into traffic and just instinctually pulled up all the time. Wasn’t long after that, he was out of the league.
Before reading this thread, I was just about to post and come down hard on Wayne after re-watching the WV game, that he doesn’t belong on the court–nothing but turnovers and bad passes that caused his teammates to turn over. And in the second half, after a sweet feed from Jamari, he misses a layup. Granted, he was fouled, but with an ‘NBA ready body’-- you gotta finish that. Then he proceeded to miss to free throws.
You’re might be right about him dealing with emotional scars–something just doesn’t seem right with him.
