Is There a Bounty on KU OADs?
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Today is my day for asking an irreverent question, I guess.
Self said Selden was injured early and some times his uneven play hints that his injury recurs intermittently.
Embiid is like a lion taken down by a shot to the knee, then to the back. One cannot help but wonder if there were another injury shot about to be inflicted to take him down for good.
And then there was one–Andrew Wiggins.
And Andrew walks around kind of like a guy walking down a dark alley glancing furtively in several directions.
What is going on here? What if Andrew goes down? What would be the odds that 3 OADs all got injured?
How are the OADs at UK doing injury wise?
This is verging on pseudo-spooky.
Maybe the OAD rule should be changed simply to keep the guys from getting hurt in D1?
Or maybe the players need to start wearing titanium and carbon fiber exoskeletons and we change the name of the game to Bionicleball.
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“Maybe the OAD rule should be changed simply to keep the guys from getting hurt in D1?”
Why don’t we just go back to the old days… and have a JV team? OADs can come, but they will be playing JV ball, and those games won’t be televised.
Only juniors and seniors on the varsity team.
It is the way it should be.
It makes no sense to run an 18 yr old kid up against men who are often 23.
Then… don’t accept NBA players under 21… ending this OAD debacle.
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@jaybate 1.0 well if they’re getting hurt in D1, imagine what would happen in the NBA? Bigger, stronger, faster and don’t give a crap if you are injured! If someone takes you out, fine them. Nobody cares.
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@drgnslayr: I guess it makes us old curmudgeons, but I totally agree with the old days of a year’s adjustment on a JV team. This is just getting too brutal to watch. Sending these beautiful young athletes up against these older players is excruciating to watch. And it is just plain WRONG!
I do not think I will forget the KU-SDSU game this year as long as I live. It was like sending a bunch of year old thoroughbreds out with three year olds. Talent has to have a chance to mature.
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@Crimsonorblue22 : I was being tongue in cheek. I totally agree with what you have written.
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I will say this about that from what I saw in the 70’s. Nolan Cromwell came to KU because we said he could run Track as well as play Football. In that day, he started playing with the Frosh team and my friends on the team were in awe of him. By the end of the season he started for our Varsity team. Solid, above average college player. Two years later at 21 he was college all American status-at the college level, a few years int the NFL made it to pro-bowl. It takes time to develop- even super stars take time to develop.
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I would call him well, well above average player and athlete. He was Big-8 Offensive Player of the Year and Big-8 All-Conference selection in 1975 in football. He was also All-American in Track and Field.
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Solid above average college player is specific to him as a freshman. The point I was making was these studs develop over time.
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@JayhawkRock78 : agreed. He had everything but a good arm. Great strength and toughness. Handsome, laconic and charismatic. Great speed. Great agility. Great anticipation. He could play almost any position on the field. He could deliver a blow on any size player. And he was fearless. But he and matured physically quite a bit while at KU. He benefited greatly from some time to develop, even though like Andrew Wiggins he was very good from the beginning.
The problem with sending 18-year-old basketball players to the NBA is that even though their length and athleticism and skills permit them to play, unless they have incredible strength and weight, as does LeBron, they just get kicked around for a couple years. It is great to make big money being kicked around, but you are still being kicked around. And the closer to the basket that you play, the more dangerous the transition to the NBA appears physically. Andrew Wiggins can go to the NBA next year and play the two guard and not have to worry very much about being savaged at the rim. Experienced professionals will be sent to the iron. Andrew will make space and shoot jump shots. His problem appears to be that he seems not to be nearly as good of a jump shooter as Xavier Henry. But He has enough potential that they will let him develop a Kobe style game, as slayer has pointed out. He will get punked some, but probably not badly hurt. His dad has apparently taught him well about how to avoid injury in the college game. He apparently just works on developing skills and apparently does not play at the edge of his envelope; this appeared to be the same strategy that Xavier Henry appeared to follow. It apparently gets an OAD to draft day uninjured, but then that player has to learn how to play hard in the NBA, and anecdotal cases like Rose and Henry suggest the learning curve for intense play is so steep that injuries result pretty soon in the NBA.
Big men playing without physical maturity has always appeared to me to be a much greater risk than perimeter players doing so, on either the college, or the pro, levels. Increasingly, the Bigs play a kind of sumo wrestling game on a 90 foot mat made of hard wood. It is a bad place to try to play without sufficient strength.
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@jaybate 1.0 why would that be an irreverent question? Also, who cares if they are ready for anything as long as they can take that million dollar payday. Isn’t that the only thing that matters? It’s not like long term improvement and development, or lack thereof, has any impact on financial risk and growth.
Also: RE your Hedge Row thread the other day was a great read. I really enjoyed it. Although I am not a fan of Military History at all, your post made me believe that I should be because the strategy and tactics can be applied to life, which you illustrated by relating it to the basketball battlefield. Nice job.
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Just wondered what you guys thought about Embiid coming off the bench again? Of course, providing he’s healthy. Thought it might be nice to start the Texas game w/Tarik, set the tone? Love to see them try to throw him down, plus I will be there!!!
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@jaybate 1.0 Ha, I like it–Bionicle Ball. Given that visual, what would then constitute a ‘hard foul’? Jaybate, do you realize what you have done here?? In one creative stroke, you have postulated something that just may have made that jaybatian descriptor of XTRemeMuscleBall obsolete! I mean, if I was to give the BionicleBall vision to Tom Izzo, the man literally would be sweating raindrops like a cartoon, and frantically unbuttoning his neck button…I guess his first question would be: “well, werent the Transformers some sort of ‘family’? We could still pitch our ‘family’ angle, right?” I’d have to reply, “maybe”, although I spent FAR too much time mentally on theoretical hypothetical considerations revolving around Megan Fox…
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@ralster: you get my jokes. Thank heavens. And I am LOL at Ratso loosening his tie!
