“Limited offensive player, great leader. good defender who can get beaten by taller guards” seems a pretty solid middle ground, but people are howling.
When you quote the stats from the Montana and Houston games, you leave out a very important point, i.e., the guards you reference were very inefficient–well below their season averages–in reaching those point totals. Per Bart Torvik, Rohrie of Montana, who averaged 111.4 efficiency throughout the season, was an 89.6 against Michigan on 6-17 shooting. Gray, who had a 115.4 efficiency rating for the year, was 97.6 versus us on 8-22 shooting. The two best players on those teams were 14-39 from the floor in those games. Obviously, as Chezaroo points out, some of that came from help or team defense, but not all of it and not even most of it. Simpson, though he was not good offensively in either game (and that’s generous), was a key on defense.
Simpson has plenty of offensive issues. Those are fair game, as are any questions about where his defensive prowess fits within the team’s success last year. But defensive ability–I just don’t get it.
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Those are fair, and I agree with you that he is generally a lockdown defender. The stats you provided were awesome in my eyes.
Rohrie was 2 points below his season average. Montana also got out to a 10-0 start after Simpson picked up 2 fouls in the first 4 minutes of that game. That game never should have been a scare, but it was.
Rob Gray scored 4 points above his season average, and frankly, despite it being slightly more inefficient than normal, it was enough to beat us.
He was called for the worst foul call in NCAA Championship history guarding DiVencenzio for a 3point play at the hoop that basically got him going.
Why do you think he will coming off the bench? Simpson is the PG; Teske the center; Matthews one forward, but every other position is open. Yes, at the moment I would pencil in Iggy and Poole, but we don’t know for sure.
I went back and looked, and that’s accurate. The same can be said for MAAR. The guy was just on fire.
I think we’re all overlooking a few other things. When the season started last year, Simpson was displaced as the starter and, for several games, did not play much. By January, he had emerged as our starting point guard and the team was very good in conference play. He was instrumental in our road win over MSU, and our run in the Big Ten tourney which culminated with consecutive wins over top 10 teams MSU and Purdue to claim the championship.
Offensively, he was bad in the NCAA tourney. But he’s got two full years left here as our starting PG. He may never be a great outside shooter, but I think it’s likely that he continues to improve as a driver and playmaker, and I would also think he’ll continue to improve defensively, where he’s already quite good.
In short, I think Simpson will be a very good college point guard over the next two years, and this team will win a lot of games during that time.
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Thank you! Without any games to debate, these pre-season looks are vital to us M basketball fans. For me, I took away two great encouragements. One, Eli Brooks took an expected leap from his freshmen to sophomore years. We will need him as second PG and a shooter. Two, Simpson has continued to grow, although his shot remains broken. Surround him with scorers, and he can run the offense effectively. The comparison for me is to Montgomery at MSU. Don’t care whether he makes the pros or not except that I’m rooting for him to do so because I imagine he wants to do so.
To be fair, DiVencenzio could torch Michael Jordan that night, it was one of the greatest personal performance in final four history. I won’t argue that X has a future in NBA, he probably does not, but he is a great defender at the college level and will only gets better this season and next.
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The thing that I like about Z is his ability to produce in an up tempo game. That’s his strength. Unfortunately that’s very limited at Michigan.
His offensive numbers are never going to be good in half court sets. He has no range and CANT shoot off the dribble. Plus he is a tremendous FT liability.
He made his defensive reputation off of the two MSU games where he performed magnificently and he
built on it from there.
I don’t think it’s unusual that he tends to struggle against bigger stronger physically more athletic scorers.
His tools to be successful in those matchups are very limited. He’s a rock solid competitor who competes on every possession however.
Can you count on him nightly to lock down every opponent? Of course not, it’s matchup dependent. That’s why to me he will never be a complete “lock down defender” that can shut down every opponent.
Unless we play MSU 32 Times a season.
I don’t think this is a fair assessment. X was ridiculous good defensively for most of the last two months of the season. You are downplaying that significantly.
On the other hand, any questions about his offense and free throw shooting are fair game. It will be interesting to see how that works out this year and what adjustments Michigan has made offensively.
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Respect his efforts. He will struggle in unfavorable matchups this year though. Just like last year.
I do like how he competes and plays passing lanes though. He’s a disrupter off the ball.
Not as enamored in his 1-1 abilities however. To matchup dependent.
I totally accept that others are however.
If Jordan Poole air balls that shot the narrative on the entire team changes just as drastically as it does for Simpson. I don’t think that’s a fair reason to discount what he did. Poole hit the shot and Simpson got to show us how absurdly he can shut down opposing perimeter players for 4 more games.
I think people getting worked up over the criticism of the “Simpson has ZERO shot at ever making an NBA roster in any capacity” comment need to realize that this is all that is being said with regards to that. He probably does not. There’s an incredibly small chance. Same with Duncan Robinson. I don’t deal in absolutes regarding things like this.
Most opposition is regarding the claim that he’s not an elite defender, which is very shaky, and that he wasn’t a main factor in leading us to the championship. Again, defense got us there. He led the defense. Take from that what you will…
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no one wins every 1-1 battles, but I am fairly confident that X will win most of the battles at this level.
I agree, but this debate is the one producing “Simpson led Michigan to a national championship” opinions, so I think it’s fair to point out him specifically and how his narrative would be different. He didn’t play well in my opinion in those first two games, and without an insanely lucky shot, the season should have ended there.
He’s a great defender. He defended well in the tournament as he did all year. There’s a bunch of other factors that I think were more important than Simpson’s individual performance defensively and offensively in the tournament that led the team to the title game. A lucky shot, the easy draw, and performances from other players on the team included.
I will say, Zavier Simpson played his best basketball all year in the Big Ten tournament, and was a much more primary reason for the team’s success during that run in my opinion than in the NCAA Tournament.
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Your definition of a “lock down defender?”
very much an off-topic on this thread, but Duncan has the size and can shoot.
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Re: Simpson’s NBA chances - I would put it at 0.1%
People may not believe me, but during Duncan’s first year I thought he had a chance to make the NBA. My thoughts on that obviously went down as his career progressed, but he’s always had a chance since he was a 6’8" dead eye shooter. Simpson has none of those advantages. Aaron Craft is the best version of Simpson, and he was never given a chance even though he played quite well in the DLeague
Aaron Craft also as 3-4 inches on Simpson. Again, incredibly unlikely. I’ve also seen more bizarre things happen. You never know when some perfect storm of circumstances happens.
If he develops a jumper (Never impossible under Beilein) he’ll become a totally different player. Maybe it won’t happen. Who knows.
there is no such thing as lock down against elite offensive players. It is all relative to what you can do defensively compared to other defenders against the same players, even not able to stop them, make them earn every points.
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