Heck of a question knowing what we know now. No idea truthfully.
Best guess would be Trey sees the floor enough taking minutes from both Douglass and Morris.
Guys can leave early, take a leave of absence and still come back and get their degree. Winston could go pro and if it doesn’t work out, it’d be easy for him to go back and finish it a few years later and he’ll still be really young and have 40+ years of his career left off the court.
I think Devin Bush said he was coming back right after the OSU game and then obviously that didn’t happen. I don’t think what players say in the immediate aftermath or even during the season is all that relevant.
If you have potential to play well enough to move up 20 spots in the draft after a year in college, it’s definitely a discussion worth having from an economics perspective. Even as a late 1st rounder it’s a 50/50ish shot that you’re going to stick in the league past that first contract, so there can be a lot of value in making that contract as big as possible.
Yeah I think the age argument is precisely backwards - they aren’t less desirable because they played four years/are 22, they played four years/are 22 year old rookies BECAUSE they are less desirable prospects (broadly speaking)
That is to say, if Zion Williamson were to stay at Duke and put up a 28/14 as a senior he’d still be the #1 pick.
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I think much of it comes down to where these kids come from.
There are certainly a percentage of kids whose families really need the money. In those situations, I understand why kids turn pro. Of course, you still have to be smart about it - if staying in college is going to help you get a second contract, you should stay.
And, of course, some kids just don’t like school that much. GRIII was a good example of that. He probably could have improved his game and draft status had he stayed, but he’s now lasted long enough in the NBA that it doesn’t matter.
One thing that works against us, IMO, is that we don’t recruit a lot of kids from Michigan, so they don’t grow up living and dying with Michigan basketball.
But I agree with you - if there’s no pressing family need for money, you only get to experience college, and college basketball, once.
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Obviously all speculation, but Ant says “20% chance he declares for the draft and returns to Michigan, 70% chance he transfers out, 10% chance he declares for the draft and stays in”
Transferring would make 0 sense. That’s a wasted year. He’s going to the NBA or coming back to Michigan.
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Not having listened to the pod yet, but if Poole believes that he is an NBA prospect but that Beilein/Michigan isnt going to get him there, transferring would make sense. Losing Poole to another school would hurt a lot.
Yeah a transfer would just be dumb. You go pro or you come back. Why sit a year when you’re already an established college basketball player entering your junior season?
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All this over Ian Vedder, who’s likely an MSU fan?
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Poole’s been some fun to have on the team, no doubt, and he’ll have that signature moment, but if the fit isn’t right for both sides than maybe it’s time to move on.
Agree that a transfer would be shocking, and I personally don’t see how that would get him any closer to the NBA than staying at Michigan could.
But I can also see how Jordan and his family may see it differently with Simpson coming back next year. I just have doubts that Jordan will ever be used as the primary guy in the pick and roll while X is still around because the fit doesn’t make sense.
That said, Jordan’s been my favorite player for two seasons. I really hope he returns to the team and I think it would be a huge huge loss for the program if he leaves
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Unfortunately I think Ant has done the opposite of what he was trying to do with his pod. Just gonna rile people up more with speculation.
I definitely might’ve missed it since I skipped around his pod, and if so disregard!
How does he keep repeating Simpson needs to improve his 3pt% for spacing and never once mentioned Matthews hurting spacing this year as well?
Not one mention of Livers replacing Matthews, helping space the floor. It doesn’t all just fall on Simpson to create more spacing. It’s also a huge miss not to call out Livers replacing Matthews.
Pretty bad miss on his part. And I also don’t think he has any sources ha.
Good point on Matthews. Looking back, I hadn’t realized how bad the shooting woes across the roster were this year. Matthews and Teske shot 29% from three on lots of attempts. Simpson shot 30%.
I think Ant focused on Simpson because in order for Poole to take the next step at Michigan, he needs to have the ball in his hands and that requires Simpson to be an adequate enough shooter off ball to make it worth taking the ball away from a point guard with such a high assist rate.
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He did mention Matthews as somebody who teams had to somewhat respect from the outside. I don’t really agree that Matthews was a good floor-spacer, but he was a more willing shooter than X. I think he’s correct in his primary argument that having X off the ball kills spacing and makes it impossible for Poole to act as a primary P/R ball-handler.
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Not just his job, but given the ball is in his hands, and defenders have the option to go under screens, it was a bigger impact IMO.
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IMO his next big step is to prove he can shoot volume 3s at a good percentage. The NBA wants that first and foremost.