Why Can't Selden Be a Good PG?
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Spot on. I have been saying all along that to get to the next level you need an elite PG; I even started a thread about bigs and smalls and in my opinion, the PG was the key. A PG that cannot dribble is by definition not a PG but a SG or even a SF. To be an elite PG, a player must be a superior dribbler as well, as you so eloquently outlined in your post.
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@jaybate-1.0 I’m sure if you could sit in on practice and see what happens day after day and put Frank and Conner and Devonte and Wayne through basic ball handling skills tests, you’d find the first three far superior to the last.
And the fact that Self does not give Devonte a clear edge means…absolutely nothing at this point. What, are you reading cat entrails now?
And Wayne can’t be developed into a point guard because he’s only going to be here one more year. You can’t “develop” ball handling skills and quickness into a player in one year.
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@jaybate-1.0 lol, Dribbling is for suckers! WHAT are you smoking, Jaybate? Okay, I get it–you’re just trolling for a response. You got me. Touche!
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@ everyone
Dribbling to win REALLY IS for suckers. Dribbling to get open is the hardest way to get open and the easiest way to get stopped. Dribbling is always the second option to passing for a reason. You guys should be ashamed of yourselves for getting sucked into the dribbling versus passing debate on the side of dribbling.
More good passing teams than good dribbling teams win rings.
Teams can win rings without above average dribbling, but not without above average passing.
Wooden proved with 6-4, not-very-athletic, but sharp-passing Greg Lee at point guard that you can win a ring with an average dribbler that dribbles high, if he can pass well! At 6-4, Lee could feed Walton and Wilkes over the top and on cuts. Passing, not dribbling is the key.
Average dribbling is all any good passing team needs.
Average dribbling means good enough to methodically get the ball into position for all the different kinds of passes that winning teams need to make, while protecting from strips.
Any press can be beaten by average dribblers that are good passers. Period.
I know this is one of those old lessons that has to be dusted off every few years in the age of hype, and retaught, especially when dribble penetration is hyped as the way to beat the new officiating. But dribbling to win always over time is exposed to be the fool’s gold approach to playing winning basketball.
Phog would tell you.
Iba would tell you.
Wooden would tell you.
Knight would tell you.
K would tell you.
Roy would tell you.
Self would tell you.
Putting the ball on the deck is the HARD way.
It always looks sexy and heroic, because its one guy doing the work while the other four guys stand with thumbs where the sun don’t shine waiting for a dish.
Cal uses the dribble drive offense. He can’t win diddledy squat unless he has twice the talent of those he plays.
Self tried building around dribble penetration with Tyshawn and got a long way, because Tyshawn was freakishly fast, Self and Joe D were great at masking and breaking down defensive tendencies of opponents, and Self had the mandatory three extraordinary players in TT, TRob and Withey, but he came up short.
Bo Ryan relied on dribble drive penetration enabled by great trey shooting and came up short.
Kevin Ollie foundationed on dribble drive penetration with Shabazz and won. So big deal. The exception proves the rule.
I concede absolutely that we are in a period when coaches have forgotten the cardinal rule that passing beats dribbling and are trying to win with the dribble drive, but it ain’t working generally.
Self has produced the highest winning percentage of all coaches not being asymmetrically stacked by the PetroShoeCos (i.e., Cal) the last decade and he has done it almost entirely with average dribbling combos and passing.
Good passing teams beat good dribbling team more often than not.
Dribbling is for suckers.
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Allen Iverson called and he said you are nuts…and he still thinks practice is overrated.
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Thanks, with Allen Iverson you have just made my case for me definitively.
He was as good as they come at scoring off the dribble. Inside. Outside. In between. AI proved you don’t need height to create enough space with a dribble to score huge numbers of points in college and pro.
Ah, but even LB could not figure out a way get him to win a ring with a team foundationed on AI’s dribble. His only trip to the Finals they got beat handily.
AI, the no-ring-ever in college or pro wonder really could never find a way to “getter done” with or without talented teams, and with or without great coaching, at the college, or pro level.
Dribbling is for suckers.
Dribbling is not for winners.
Cousy could dribble circles around anyone. But Auerbach taught him that great passing was the key to winning.
The guy was such a piece of work that he could only muster a bronze in the Olympics playing for USA! OMG! That is like missing Mt. Everest with a smart bomb!
Well, wait a second, AI was gold at FIBA. Ooooh wow!!!
Dribbling is for suckers!
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Thanks, with Allen Iverson you have just made my case for me definitively.
Only in your mind Jaybate, only in your mind…
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Jesus, are you one of those don’t confuse me with the facts types, or what?
I’ve never had such an easy case to make, made for me. Thanks.
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Like I said, only in your mind Jaybate, only in your mind…
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Now Backfill…
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@globaljaybird
Now, that is funny!!!
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Back Fill here.
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And here.
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And here.
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And then here too.
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and don’t forget here.
Howling!
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Dribbling is for suckers.
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And here.
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Dribbling is for suckers = Jumping the shark.
When you find yourself in a hole …stop digging. - Will Rogers
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If I must be taken to task, let it be by you.
But…
Your first, second, third and fourth clauses depend on an assumption I shall forthwith knocketh out from under thee.
Wayne Selden played most of his freshman season on a knee injury.
Let me see here…hmmm…how shall I put it?
It is very difficult for most freshman, even OADs, to adjust to the speed and physicality of the D1 game, even, when they are, like, say, Andrew Wiggins, playing without injury.
Next, healthy players that you suggest should be able to start and or compete for starting at PG for KU, like, say, Frank Mason, could not stay on the floor at PG last season, against an often bumbling incompetent like Naa Tharpe, or at the 2 last season, when Selden needed a blow, as many total minutes as Wayne Selden stayed on the floor with one good knee.
And you have no problems with arguing that Devonte might well be able to play a lot of minutes at PG as a freshman, when everyone would agree that he is not nearly the athlete that Wayne Selden is, when Wayne is healthy. I don’t follow this logical at all. Devonte will have to go through adjusting to D1 speeds and violence at 6-2 and a haricot vert svelte 175, and somehow he will magically be able to necessarily be better than Wayne Selden?
Finally, and this is where the knocking out of the assumption that Selden cannot play PG commences in earnest swiftness, Wayne Selden is reputedly entirely healthy and recovered this season. Despite my personal concerns that his explosiveness may not have been restored. Coach Self thinks his explosiveness has returned. Coach Self thinks Wayne is such a superb basketball player that he plans to play Wayne at the 1, 2, 3 and 4 positions. Now notice that Self uses the numeral 1.
1 typically refers to the point guard, does it not? Thus we can begin by concluding that Coach Self categorically disagrees with your assumption that Wayne Selden could not possibly play point guard for the four clauses you posited above.But more important than Self thinking Wayne can play some PG, is the fact that he apparently thinks this because Wayne is now healthy.
I have had both ankle and knee injuries during my too short playing days in basketball. And I recall through this addled old brain of mine that particularly a knee injury makes it tough to dribble and cut, and dribble and pass, and dribble and get by opponents. And being unable to move quickly and surely on a bum wheel often restricts the kinds of passes one can make in any given situation, because one cannot get into a proper place on the court to make the proper pass.
Another thing about knee and ankle issues is that they tend to reduce one to just trying to survive during the season rather than spend a lot of time focused on being able to put in the kind of work necessary to really get better at things like dribbling, passing, guarding and jump shooting. My guess, and it is ONLY a reasonable guess, is that the Wayne Selden you saw that lead you to the strikingly pessimistic conclusion about Wayne’s ability to handle the ball was biased to far to the negative early by Wayne’s freshman struggle to adapt to D1 speeds, followed by Wayne’s knee injury that spanned most of the season. As a result, I have a wild and crazy hunch that Wayne is now sharply better at everything you doubt about him, and that he will continue to rapidly improve in these regards and others if Self tasks him with doing so.
But, of course, I could be entirely wrong about all of this.
Wayne Selden could be an athlete that is unaffected by knee injury and lacks entirely the getting better gene when it comes to dribbling and passing.
But then you could be wrong, too.
Thank heavens we have the reality of seasons to lift us up out of these mysteries.
(P.S.: Seriously, you know I respect your judgement and because it is you disagreeing with me I will doubt myself even more than usual.)
My hunch is that Wayne’s good health is going to allow him to resolve all four issues you raise
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@jaybate-1.0 I won’t say he cannot, but last year post conf when he did try to drive to the rack, his head was down & blindly headed into the trees, often with unfavorable results. Once conf began he pretty much stopped trying. In fact more often than not, it seemed the entire team stood back & waited for Wigs & Embid to take over. After Joel was injured it became even more obvious. JMO
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@jaybate-1.0 har·i·cot vert noun \ˌär-ē-kō-ˈver
plural har·i·cots verts also haricot vertsDefinition of HARICOT VERT
: a thin green bean
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@Crimsonorblue22 Go girl !!
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@globaljaybird
Here again, I argue that what you note is not so much an indication of his structural inabilities to learn the point guard role, as early struggles with D1 speeds, and very shortly knee injury limiting his capabilities to adapt, perform well, and to get better.
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@globaljaybird
HOWLING!
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@ et al
Alright, alright, I am just not as young as I used to be.
I have been trying to play n-dimensional ping pong posting this morning and, as I used to do so effortlessly before the old age crap caught up with me, and I am already tired. What a weeny I have become.
Nevertheless, I believe this old coot has done his duty to get community blood pumping as the great evil of college basketball–UK–sails towards us like a bunch of Yamatos and Akagis, while Chester Self and Ray Roberts and Bull Howard and Frank Townsend make a target of part of their fleet and move their OAD and TAD carriers off to an unexpected angle and lay down smoke and misleading SigInt to prepare for sailing into harm’s way.
Over and out for now.
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“Dribbling is for slobbers!”
My 14-month old is an excellent dribbler… right off his chin!
He can also dribble a mini KU ball pretty well on a mini table.
I don’t think he is ready to battle Kentucky this early in the season, but give him another couple of years.
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@jaybate-1.0 You said, “But then you could be wrong, too.” I’m shocked. I know @Crimsonorblue22 is too. I must retreat. The last word is yours. Good discussion all the way around.
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@drgnslayr I had hours and hours of fun and memories with mine when they were young with a little breakawy kids hoop in our dining room (converted to a play room). Some of the best fun were games of horse, double banks off the wall and ceiling. Wish they were young again … enjoy every minute.
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@drgnslayr so slayer, did you grow any haricot verts in your garden this year? I did! How did I do Jaybate?
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You tended a garden. If you shared your produce wth even one person you were not related to, then you are a good person deserving of going to heaven in my eyes.
Vaya con dios.
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@jaybate-1.0 I did share, but believe I need to do more than that!!
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That is really quite enough. Share twice and you will so stand out in heaven that you will be amazed, or so my dead father tells me from time to time.
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@jaybate-1.0 my grandma would be turning over in her grave knowing I canned salsa. I actually gave 2 jars away this week.
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Sleep well then. Two more next week and you will approach the modern equivalent of sainthood.
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@jaybate-1.0 to hard of work to give all away. I’m Stuck then!
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