Then we agree on the overall point. Just think we should focus on guys that actually play the 3 and/or 4 and how Leon matches up against them. Thread seemed to be worrying about 5’s Leon won’t be the primary defender on regardless of whether he’s technically our 3 or 4
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At some point you just have to roll with what you got and not worry about every contingency.
Maybe we will have trouble matching up w/ Carolina (sucks) and (fck) Duke, but that’s only a few games, and I’d remind you that this was a Final 4 team:
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Yeah wouldn’t worry about it until we see him on the floor. Height not the most important factor
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I agree on staying put, subject to holding the spot for Jarin, that’s why I kicked this all off by saying this:
re: Big man. Maybe I’ve misunderstood some scuttlebutt, but I’ve been assuming we are content to stay put with Minor, Dunn, Blake, and Bond** as our frontcourt pieces, if need be, and are prioritizing leaving a spot for Jarin, if he decides he wants it, over bringing in another big.
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In my opinion, people get way too hung up on height when it comes to these discussions. Length, foot speed, and bounce are just as, if not more, important for determining who a guy can guard.
Justin Anderson and Jayden Gardner are the same height too. I’d bet money that Anderson would have been much more of menace defensively playing the same position as Gardner did last year.
I won’t project Leon to be a defensive monster right off the bat, but the comparisons of him and Gardner and what they can do at the 4 don’t really make a lot of sense to me. They are not very alike (except for being similar in height and not yet having a three point shot).
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I somehow missed the trade between Clemson and NC State where they swapped Middlebrooks and Clark lol. Transfer portal is wild.
Lol Traudt always in the way back- background lol.
But to your point- yes I want Bond to stay the three at the three spot as well, and for our program to be able to develop slashers…I can’t remember anybody developing as a slasher/three point shooter except for Brogdon, Dre and Hall.
I watched Bond and Dunn a lot during warm ups before home games, and we all have to agree that’s the best way to judge a player’s abilities and where and how much they will play in the future. Dunn and Bond looked remarkedly similar in their movement, ball skills, and shooting, except that Dunn was a couple of inches taller and his arms were a couple of feet longer. So I kinda see Bond’s path to playing time as similar to Dunn’s this past year-- Bond is going to have to bring a ton on defense to make it on the floor next season given his current offensive limitations. It’s possible that happens, though, because Bond looks like he’s very switchable on defense.
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Yeah, I’ve made that same point before. Bond’s role hopefully looks similar to Dunn’s last year, where he comes off the bench to provide a defensive spark and maybe throw down some dunks. I see him as potentially being able to hound the Cormac Ryans and Justin Taylors of the league out on the perimeter, where Dunn is maybe a little more in the rim protection business. Hopefully Dunn progresses in scoring a little bit, otherwise I don’t know that you can have both on the floor much together, but man the possibility of having that level of athleticism on defense is enticing.
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*Without Cain joining? Are you hearing/seeing something about him not joining?
Miami was a Final Four team, BUT they play a different offensive and defensive scheme than us. Offensively we need “blockers”, and defensively we need “shot-blockers”. Ryan Dunn was able to play very well defensively as a shotblocker, but offensively he mostly stayed on the perimeter while our guards worked.
Bond is shorter than Dunn so can we even consider them the *same position offensively and defensively *regardless of if they are a 3 or 4?
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This is the point- Gardner played at the 4, and Bond is a *completely different player than that, HOWEVER he may have better length, bounce, and foot speed as you said which may make him a better 4- but I tend to think he will be a 3.
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We don’t “need blockers,” that’s only if we’re running Sides. Blockers aren’t needed for CBS, for Inside Triangle, for 4/5-out, etc. You’d like to think the “Bennett only runs Sides” narrative has been long since dispelled by this point.
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I don’t consider them the exact same position. When I say “play a similar role” I just mean serve a similar purpose, i.e. bring some athleticism to the floor and make some shit happen.
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Right. He has options and he’ll try to run whatever sets fit the players he has just as much as he will try to fit the players to the sets.
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In November of 2022 it was widely reported that Bond was a better player than Dunn in practices.
He is a year younger since Dunn did the Prep School thing so Ryan did not want to redshirt … redshirting puts Bond as the same age as most incoming 2023 freshmen. With a whole year of college practices against Gardner and Dunn and BVP and Franklin.
I couldn’t care less worrying about who he’s gonna guard. the answer is anybody in front of him.
My question is who can guard him? He was a top 75 recruit for a reason.
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First off I didn’t say we ONLY run sides, BUT we DO run sides. as a matter of fact that’s exactly what happened and what we defaulted to during the ACC tournament No? We no longer had BVP so we went with Papi and Kadin in order to free up our guards and get some open shots for iMAC.
Sides/Blocker Mover are a *staple in the TB household, so unless he decides to completely throw it out the window (which he hasn’t yet) then we will be playing some sort of sides.
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Gotcha- Yes I look forward to some shotclock violations, steals, and defensive wing presence at the perimeter positions.
I know it’s just warm ups, but was pretty impressed with Bond’s outside shot given my modest expectations. Think he will be really damn good from mid range. If he is at least some threat from deep, he is going to be dangerous in time.
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Well. that supports my hope that maybe he can play on the perimeter.
I think Bond has upside just not as guarding 6’9" stretch 4s.
I think in an ideal world, we have 3-4 guys who can guard multiple positions e.g.,
Reece could guard 1-2 and the 3 when teams ran 3 guard, McKneely can guard 1-3 (with more experience and conditioning), Bond could guard 2-3 and some small 4s for spells, Dunn could guard 3-5 (for spells) and Minor could guard 4-5. That solves a lot of the difficulties we have had where guys like Garnder were too small to cover 5s for any amount of time, Kihei was too small to guard 2s and 3s for any period of time, etc.
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