Hey - thanks for your responses and time/thoughts!
I do disagree with your points and wrote a response to each, but it felt like too many words/too much after re-reading it. Happy to share if you’d like; but didn’t want it to come across as contentious.
The main thing I’m contesting is just the implied premise behind “Under Tony, players who are good play.” That is true on its surface that good players do play, but the implication is that if you’re not playing it’s been universally true that you just aren’t good enough to get on the floor, that he’s always been correct in those assessments or that they players who are playing are always better options than those sitting behind them, and I disagree with that.
More specifically in the context of discussion, the idea that we might not be able to afford to try high talent prospects like Gertrude and Buchanan for a few minutes each game and then flex their time up if they’re playing well because of how tight college basketball margins are, juxtaposed with not having a concern with a decision like playing Taine Murray his most non-buy game minutes during the biggest game of the season despite him not playing well or, better stated, having a positive impact when he was in there. It’s hard to reconcile those thoughts, at least to me, and I hope we can agree that it was a mistake to give Taine such extended run in that game and, if not, we will probably just have to agree to disagree there.
IMO, playing high 4-star guys a couple of minutes each game and only flexing that up if they’re playing well is a comparative low risk/high reward option considering you don’t have to keep them in if they look unready in any given game. All we’re talking about is consistent opportunity in each regular season game (a few minutes per and then if they pop stick with it) rather than burying them altogether. With players of that level of talent, it’s possible/probable that there will be times when they outperform their baseline or CTB’s expectation and those moments can be a platform for more opportunity/longer term glimpses of what that can feel like and how they need to play regularly to earn more time. There’s also a load management aspect that I haven’t really made a big part of my argument but I think is relevant. All of Beekman, Clark, and BVP could have benefitted by the end of the season from fewer minutes throughout in that regard last year.
I do agree with you in that I’m also optimistic about what this team can be this coming season.
Also, it sidesteps the issue we spend most of our time debating, which is “how much do they play?”
My current take (at about 11:30am EST on August 2, 2023) on the PT thing is that we should spend more time in an experimental phase of lineup construction. The length of that phase to vary by circumstances (e.g., more in a 16-17 type year / less in an 18-19 type year). At least last year, and arguably the year prior, the lineup got a bit sclerotic by mid-February or so, leaving us with not much time to adapt. This year, IMO, looks like a year we should spend more time trying to figure things out and less time convincing ourselves that we have it figured it out.
So Fresh, was that Gertrude in the video clip they posted last week? I was gonna mention it in the mailbag. I remember people here saying it was. But then I went back and watched and damned if I could tell. Great content they put out.
Hey Xavier Venom, I appreciate the hardwork and analysis that you put into your site. I wanted to ask if there is a an application that can be embedded onto the site that would allow the text to be read to us? I ask because I like to listen to news articles, podcasts, audible books while commuting, doing chores etc. and I think this would be a great opportunity to fully digest your stuff.
If you’re on an iPhone, under the accessibility options, you can enable “spoken content” and have any text on the screen read to you. There’s probably something similar for android too.
Very exciting news for Bliss. He will have his work cut out for him in practice bringing up the ball against Reece and Dante on one end and guarding IMac on the other. But it hopefully means he will be a ready heir apparent next year