I agree. Absolutely a good dude. He’s a young man of faith who has suffered adversity in his life and has overcome those adversities.
My take aways:
He embraces the opportunity and the role Juwan has tasked him with to mentor the young players and especially Frankie.
He is a hard worker who is driven to prove his doubters wrong, but more than that he is driven to be successful which he measures in winning as a team, and personally in making it to the NBA. He wants feedback and he WANTS to get better. He will fit in as a player who BELIEVES in the value of hard work in achieving his goals.
Hearing him say, and I paraphrase, when Michigan started recruiting me I got like 2000 new followers and they gave me a lot of love. I really appreciated that. I say that because I think anyone who says kids don’t pay attention to what fans say on message boards and elsewhere is fooling themselves. This is an example of the “love” and the 2000 followers being important to him. He appreciated it, and he spoke of it without being prompted to speak of it.
He is effusive in his praise of other players, which I see is a reflection of being unselfish. And, while he CAN score, he loves to get the ball to his teammates. He wants to average 10 assists…or was it 7 or 8? In any case he wants to share the ball and he loves seeing teammates score.
He prides himself on his defense. I think he’ll fit in there, too, with that Juwan Howard mantra of being a tough defensive team. I also liked the his use of the word “dog” several times.
Finally, when asked to give the Michigan fans three goals he said, conference championship, regular season championship, National Championship.
Edit: Oh, and I loved his talk of how a combination of experience and youth can be very powerful. That is something I’ve personally believed, in many areas of life, for a long time.
I hope all of DJ’s dreams at Michigan and beyond come true!
Dunno but it sure opens the door for Top 25 lists of players with 3 things to prove, with 5 things to prove, with 4-6 things to disprove, with 10-15 interesting theories etc. Entirely new content vertical now available.
Joins the large list of guys who claim they would have gone to _____ if not for _____ and if only ______ had happened. Easy to say in hindsight. Probably not actually true since Minnesota is garbage
Amount of belief I put into that quote: less than zero. Good for viral content, though.
Minnesota finished on a 2-14 slide at the timeframe Suggs says (near the end of his sophomore year) but if they would have just shown up to a few more games he would have committed?
This is just something kids say. I’m also not sure that the working relationship between Pitino’s Minnesota and Suggs’ AAU team was very functional if it existed at all.
Fast forward to the Sweet 16… Michigan vs. Memphis and CBS airs a feature about how Emoni would have loved to stay home but Michigan never really showed him the love
I very much appreciate that this is a sweet sixteen matchup and not a final four matchup. I really want to see the Memphis program burn with disfunction this year
I can’t speak for others but I am not annoyed with Memphis - I find them to be a fun villain and they also provide a level and feel of what we get with reality tv.
What did Memphis do again? Picked up a bunch of a high ranking recruits due to a likeable head coach with other former NBA players as assistants? Hmm…I’m glad my favorite team doesn’t do that! Or embraced the new NLI so these college kids can make money? Egregious.
In any case he wants to share the ball and he loves seeing teammates score.
