I’m not sure if this is considered blasphemy around these parts but I’m of the opinion that Salt was a player who actually blocked more talented players behind him (like Diakite and Huff) for a little while toward the end of his run. He played a role and was on some very successful teams, but he was always among the least (if not the very least) effective players in terms of PER, BPM, basically you name the metric, and the eyeball test agreed with that. He did enough to let the other players around him be special.
I don’t think those teams were successful or, elevated, because of Salt, or that the role he offered wasn’t replaceable. I think those were incredibly talented teams that were going to be talented regardless and he could have played a much smaller role on them and we likely would have had similar, if not more, success (which played out by us shifting to heavy Diakite minutes in the 2019 NCAA tournament, which was probably the biggest single shift in strategy that sparked our run).
So, to your rhetorical - it’s impossible to know, but I do actually think last year’s Shedrick would have been better than Salt in the context of those old teams, even if it wouldn’t have been at the same level of physicality that Salt contributed. Caffaro was basically Salt reincarnated and I think could have contributed at a similar level on those old teams. But, yeah. Surround last year’s Shedrick with Guy and Jerome and Hunter and Diakite and Key - I’d wager he’d have looked quite a bit better than last year’s Shedrick, too.
Good points. And yeah, playing Salt as much as he did frustrated me at times. But Diakite is also the type of mobile big that I think we need to maximize our defense. So him replacing Salt doesn’t really change that part of the equation.
All I know is our defense has dropped off significantly in the last three years. It could be the transfer issue and guys not having enough time to get comfortable in the packline. But I think a big part of it has been a lack of mobile bigs. So even if there are questions over Minor’s talent level, at least I like that he fits that mold.
Blame it on Austin Nichols. The beneficiaries of his dismissal were Salt and Diakite, who got 18.4 mins and 14.0 mins per game, respectively, in the 2017 season.
It also cuts both ways. Both would have gotten fewer minutes in 2017 and 2018 (Huff, too, in 2018) had Nichols (figuratively) kept his nose clean, and 2019 might have been different, with neither big being potentially ready to contribute in a big way to the championship run.
I like Shedrick(even if he didn’t turn out quite as good as I had hoped) and I think we would be better if he had returned. But he is gone and Minor is here. I think he will be solid if unspectacular and was the best we could do when everyone left. Rather than worry about our possible deficiencies at center I am going to concentrate on how excited I am to see the rest of the roster develop. Both this year and next when the RS’s join the rotation. Also I can think of no bigger waste of time than to look at Lunardi’s stuff during the offseason. He is a numbers guy who can look at the end result and predict who makes it at the end of the season but had never proven that he knows enough about basketball to make any intelligent conclusions before then. We all know much more about basketball than he does and we don’t know how new players(transfers and FR) will impact their new teams.
Minor is the guy who wanted to play for Tony this year as opposed to that other guy who didn’t. I’m excited to root for a guy who wants to play for this team.
In fact it can be argued that it was Kadin that imposing a low ceiling on our program.
It’s no coincidence that our two best teams under Tony (2015-16 and 2018-2019) featured no starters taller than 6’9. Kadin being over 6’9 really doomed us since the start, hence 0 wins in the tournament post natty.
Im not a math guy or anything. Just pointing out the blatant facts.
Staff demonstrates that “want” with a clear and consistent role
Those criteria seem to fit Blake and (maybe) A-Rob. Let’s focus on that. Minor could be a “just fine” stopgap b/c of the failure of good people on both sides to hit the criteria for our big men since Mamadi.
Nichols would have been the best player on both the 2017 and 2018 teams … Hoo knows the butterfly effect but both of those teams would have been way more talented offensively.
You’re my new favorite poster You hit on every point correctly here. I can’t be mad at someone that has been concussed, tooth knocked out- mono (2x), beat the hell up, and benched towards the end of his career yet took seriously his education at Uva to the point of enrolling in one of the most prestigious undergraduate programs in the country and graduated in 4 years.
Teammates of his, such as Reece Beekman stood up for him when Kadin mentioned that he wasn’t exactly sure why he got benched etc. and I believe there probably was some miscommunication/misunderstanding there (which happens in the world of sales, communications, presentations etc. - you could be communicating the most *clear message and yet a portion of the intended audience may have a different interpretation).
So with all of that said- I wish him well, and of course wish TB and our current team well!
Point being, had Nichols been there, none of those other bigs would have been given much run, so who knows how the Diakite/Salt/Huff stuff would have played out.
You hit on every point correctly here. I can’t be mad at someone that has been concussed, tooth knocked out- mono (2x), beat the hell up, and benched towards the end of his career yet took seriously his education at Uva to the point of enrolling in one of the most prestigious undergraduate programs in the country and graduated in 4 years.