I do think fit and culture will be an important factor here, but in terms of all-around basketball ability, Miller is second only to Wembanyama in terms of being able to produce meaningfully in his first season in the NBA. He’s a good shooter, good cutter, can play with physicality and has the traits to be an impactful player immediately. Miller was clearly college basketball’s best freshman last season, averaging 18.8 points, 8.2 rebounds, 2.1 assists and shooting 38% from 3-point range.Īt 6-9 and with a 7-foot wingspan, his body type and skill set is the prototype for an NBA wing. 1 pick because of what he projects to be and how good he can be in the first few months of his rookie season. If Wemby wasn’t in this draft, purely from a basketball standpoint, I think Miller would be the No. Guarded optimism all the way to tabula rasa seem appropriate reactions until talent signs on the dotted line and wins mature in the score column.įield of Dreams Game Reportedly Headed to Alabama Never again ought we fall for another presser rah-rah.) (Remember Avery Johnson? Remember Bohannon? Nope. But again, I would hope we have learned to tune these sorts of things out. In it, Vaughn was crisp good, even, if you want to believe press conferences. You can read Rog’s glowing review of the press conference below. Worse, he does so with questions looming about recruiting and the sledgehammer to the face that an SEC learning curve will present. This is the fourth skipper Alabama has had in five years now, and Vaughn inherits the most handicapped school in the SEC. I’ve grown too jaded to become attached to baseball coaches, or to expect much of them. And if doesn’t work out at all, then Vaughn will be out on his ass in a few seasons, and it will be a problem for the next Alabama athletic director (though, let’s be honest, I don’t how many more of these searches Roger can handle). If it works out swimmingly by Alabama standards (see 2023), then great. If it works out beautifully, then barring a dramatic fiscal strategy shift, Alabama will never be able to afford to keep him and/or will lack the institutional seriousness to do so. But none of that changes or will ever change that the decision was one not made in a vacuum, and thus it is okay to not be fine with the way it played out: At the least, make JJ say no to a job he had earned consideration for.Īnyway, we shall see how it shakes down over the next few years. Hope he loves it, that he wins games, that he sticks around - that he becomes a Tuscaloosa institution, even. No one wishes Vaughn and his family and the program anything but the best. So you can be fine with the hire, but not fine with the way in which it was conducted, nor the way in which loyalty and damned good work were disregarded. JJ stuck around, so that will alleviate some of the recruiting pain, we hope.īut again, if your prospective success relies upon keeping the guy who was winning games and recruiting and motivating the players to do so, then it does in fact become “curious” why he wasn’t offered the job. He has yet to learn the importance of recruiting in a league where no one has talent good management is enough to get you by? Some other wildcards? A combination thereof, perhaps? Who knows. He may actually be as bad at recruiting as it seems or, 4. the Big 10 is far, far worse than we thought 3. Vaughn is really good winning games with substandard players 2. But you can expect any sort of pain to descend on anyone coming from outside the league, though. I don’t know about the brown-nosing heard the rest of the stuff and yes, the last is a legitimate concern. “Strategic ass-kisser.” But an “average recruiter that the SEC could devour.” We were texting back and forth about what he called a “curious” hire, saying Shelton State probably has near peer-level talent to that of Maryland: Good guy. Worse, despite finishing 2nd, 1st, and 1st in the B1G, Vaughn was never able to parlay that success to the living room.Ī friend of mine from Iowa scouts for the Royals, and before that was on-staff at a Big 10 team. Not a single class has been ranked above 40th, and most are the 50s. It not only did not improve when he took over, it dipped slightly in several years. The latter was the lifeblood of both the team and the bailiwick of Coach Jason Jackson.Īnd that is where the largest deficiency in Vaughn’s CV is so glaring as to hit you with sawed off length of rubber hose: His recruiting has been downright atrocious. The former would turn out to be iffy - with several players mailing it in and later hitting the portal. But this is where I remind you, Brad Bohannon came to Capstone with rave reviews, particularly as a players coach and recruiter. Roger is enamored of him, and I’ve not heard anyone speak ill of him, as far as a motivator or in-game skipper.
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