We may have had a similar disagreement in another thread, IIRC, but in my mind it’s a tougher sell to Mike to have him come in and be a likely backup to a multiyear starter in Eli and the “jewel” of our freshman class in JC. So I’m not as sure Smith would’ve still come. We do have an example of a guy who’s made that sacrifice right now on the roster with Chaundee, but I think he’s the exception that proves the rule.
In any case, I imagine we’re all more than happy with how things turned out and, with the benefit of hindsight, wouldn’t change how any of this has played out.
Good points about a guy like Smith. Smith specifically has his eyes on Ross so maybe he would have still come, but in general I think that’s a good point.
Exactly, so I don’t really think there was any overlap between the two recruitments. Michigan needed a PG… it would have needed a PG even with Christopher.
The two things I’d say:
Isaiah Livers’ decision probably gets a lot harder if Isaiah Todd is in the picture.
Chaundee Brown is never at Michigan if Josh Christopher is.
Yeah looks like I’m wrong on that. The timeline surprises me for some reason. Clearly Mike Smith didn’t care whether or not JC was coming in. Major credit to Juwan for selling him on coming here despite the role uncertainty. I imagine it’s similar to what he must have pitched Chaundee with Livers’ NBA future still uncertain at the time.
For sure. But without Christopher, Smith was pretty much automatically locked in for 30 minutes every night. Is that true if Christopher comes? I assume there’s a lot more uncertainty, and probably a lot of preseason ink devoted to putting Eli in the nominal PG role because you could leave JC to do the half court playmaking. Smith still gets real minutes in that scenario, though, just something closer to what Chaundee gets now. That was my thinking at least but the timing certainly shows Mike was more than happy being the only game-ready true point guard on the roster.
Depends on which message boards you go back and read. A lot of people said Smith was just a 10-15mpg backup even without JC because it would be Brooks, Brown, Wagner, Livers or Brooks, Wagner, Livers, Johns.
I doubt that either Smith/Brooks would have been benched for JC…but I think JC would have a similar role to Brown off the bench with more of a lean toward instant offense than defense.
If we win a national championship this year I have a feeling decades from now message boards will still be pondering if Josh Christopher would have played 20+ minutes on this team.
That’s true, a lot of people wanted to slot Franz into that playmaking off-guard role. There were some internal disagreements on this board even.
I really have no idea what the guard rotation would be with JC in the fold. I’m skeptical he comes off the bench though, just don’t know who he replaces in the starting lineup. Can he defend? (I haven’t watched any of his games closely enough at ASU.) That might make the difference.
Todd absolutely made the right decision to go to the G-League. I’ve seen some people say he should have come to Michigan, but he’d be getting less minutes here than he does in the G-League and the optics of a highly ranked recruit playing 20< minutes isn’t great for either the program nor the player. And also I doubt he would have been a positive factor here. For example I’m not sure if we win vs OSU if we had given Todd minutes. Whereas W/L doesn’t really matter in the G-League and if he keeps up his play it would be a total disgrace if he didn’t get drafted.
I do disagree about why he chose not to come - I’m pretty sure he de-committed when Christopher de-committed am I wrong? I’ve always seen that as the main factor.
I think you’re wrong on the second paragraph. I recall him attacking some people with profanities on IG Live and elsewhere on social media for pressing him on whether he was coming to Michigan or not, and telling them he’s answered the question over and over again that he was 100% coming over (I might have posted about this). That’s why there was a lot of outrage for him de-committing at first.
I also recall him being mad at people afterwards for being disappointed with his honesty throughout the process. And so I wouldn’t put too much blame on someone who doesn’t really want to root for him, though I definitely do because I invested a lot of time watching him in high school LOL
I’ve thought for months that it’s obvious we’re better off without Christopher. This is a team. Guys fit in their roles and the guys who needed the room to flourish didn’t need that mouth to feed.