Doesn’t really matter who is the two and who is the three. There’s a chance that Brown guards the smaller player of the two and Franz handles more perimeter offense. At the end of the day, I think you can play them both with Livers on the floor and make it work.
Neither player is a “two” by trade but together you get enough unique traits to make things click.
Yeah, would be a great lineup to get out and run with for sure.
I also think John’s at the 5 would be a huge defensive upgrade as well.
As long as John’s is a willing shooter teams will have to respect it, so he’ll provide spacing. Would also expect him to the best at finishing off rolls.
Not really enough info to say one way or the other. He was willing to roll with it against Oregon, then Livers injuries pretty much took the option away.
Outside shooters best to worst – agree or disagree?
Theoretically Nunez should be towards the top. Will he ever prove if on the big stage? Not sure he’ll get over the mental block and I’m not sure it will matter as he doesn’t project to any minutes imo. Not counting Nunez id go
Livers
Smith
Eli
Franz ( last years a fluke)
Johns
Brown
Zeb
Williams
Hunter
Davis
My order of guys who might really play at some point in meaningful minutes.
I think that there is a better chance that we see Nunez play meaningful minutes than I do Zeb. I like Zeb but Nunez will be a junior and he played real minutes at times lars year
If Brown is eligible, I don’t see where Nunez gets minutes with Wagner, Livers, and Brown each playing 25-35mpg. Also, Zeb may have to play because we need ball handlers, especially if Smith struggles to adjust to this level.
I will concede, however, that in garbage time you would see Nunez first off the bench ahead of Zeb or Williams.
Nunez will get minutes if he can provide a spark shooting 3s. He hasn’t done it yet, but there is a role for him once he can fill it. It’s pretty much the same with Zeb’s ball handling and defending. I can see Williams getting squeezed out this year, even if he’s a little better than those two.
I agree on Zeb over Nunez, mostly because Zeb fills the ball handling role which we may need at some point even with Smith and Brooks at 30 plus minutes a game. There will be times that one of them tweaks something or gets into foul trouble and we will need spot minutes from Zeb. Hopefully he is up for it.
Y’all are sleeping on Brandon Wade…
In all seriousness I don’t see time from Nunez or Zeb unless injuries. Just depends on who gets injured.
Yeah I agree there. I was more thinking that we’ve seen Franz struggle with staying with guards defensively.
I’ve been wrong before but I’d be shocked if Nuñez is ever a rotation player barring significant injury - at this point he seems like a shooter merely because people say he is.
I think Brooks will post the second highest three point % on the team provided most of his minutes aren’t played as the primary ball handler. If he does need to shoulder that role, the shots he taking will bear basically no similarity to what he did last year, and at that point, who knows (this is a large part of why I think it’s important Smith can hang as the primary ball handler).
That being said, I’m not sure Eli is much better a shooter than Smith - I think the types of shots they took were extremely different (Eli mostly shot open threes off the catch, Smith’s looks were a mixture of off the bounce and a ton of flaming bags).
Franz I’m going to take a mulligan with given his tale of two seasons shooting-wise.
The shot charts in this piece that I split out by phase (transition/on ball/off ball) really illustrate the different kind of shots that Eli and Mike Smith took last year. Obviously different levels of comp, but you make a great point.
With all due respect to both you and Dylan I think the distinction is largely meaningless in offense, but not defensively. Livers has struggled to guard smaller players as has Franz (Franz also sometimes got bullied by bigger ones).
I think the issue is more is that the three of them will play together quite a bit (basically any time either Eli or Smith sits in my mind - in other words the distinction isn’t that meaningful between Brown and Wagner because they are are very often going to play together, not in place of another).
This is where all of the positional talk becomes a bit convoluted IMO. To me, your position is very much defined by what you do on offense. The position that you occupy in a set, etc.
Your ability to be on the court and play that position depends on you being able to guard someone on the other team in a scheme that allows your whole team to match up.
An example of this might be Jordan Poole and Charles Matthews… Matthews was very much the three on offense and Poole was the two, but Matthews would guard the opponents’ 2-guard if he was the best offensive player.
So the defensive part is key. I think Chaundee gives U-M a bit more defensive versatility to make that trio work. Usually he’ll guard the smaller player than Franz I’d say, but I’d grade Chaundee as more of a “pretty good defender at many spots” than a lock down defender at any spot. I think there’s a chance he looks better defensively than last year though, given the injury issues.
In reality though, with Franz/Brown/Livers on the wings I think you’ll see A LOT of switching screens and guys guarding different players because they are all pretty similar.
Zeb will get some minutes.
We can’t enter 2021/22 with guards who have never played before.
I don’t think we’ll give him minutes just so he has a few under his belt for the next year. At least not any that he hasn’t earned
I see it like this:
PG: Brooks (25), Smith (15)
SG: Brown (30), Zeb (10)
SF: Wagner (30), Williams (10)
PF: Livers (30), Johns (10)
C: Dickinson (20), Johns (10), Davis (10)
Did we? Franz was the only one who didn’t really struggle defensively in the Wisconsin game. When Trice tried to ISO him he forced him to a garbage step back three, which of course he made. He also forced Winston into a contested three that he missed when he was switched onto him in the second MSU game. The only game Wagner was picked on defensively is when he was bullied inside by that scrub four man from Minnesota.
Offensively there may be no distinction between players but defensively there is. I felt like we struggled when we had bigger guys guarding smaller. In no way am I a representative sample but I hated guarding smaller/quicker guards but would gladly have guarded bigger guys.