I’m not advocating for Wagner to play the 4. I’m simply stating that if he can develop into an option at the 4 over this off season, it gives us the best shot at competing with the top of the conference.
Like you said, the answer to our problems at the 4 is more than likely not on this roster. Wagner however can shoot a little from his recruiting tapes. It’s not completely out of the question he can develop into an option at the 4 though unlikely.
I’ll also say that sacrificing a little on offense for more toughness around the block is fine by me.
Wagner just doesn’t seem quick enough to be an effective 4. I think our best bet is to make him stronger and heavier and have him play 5. Beilein is going to want Walton, Maar, Robinson and Irvin on the floor as much as possible because those are his favorite players. x will be getting playing time no matter what because wewill not have a pg the following year except for him. I doubt JB will displace any of those five guys minutes by making Mo a 4 and effectively given minutes to either Donnal, Teske, Doyle, DJ or Davis. Only way it would make sense is if TEske or Davis are studs from day 1. I think that is doubtful.
It would be great if he could play the 4. I’d love to add some size and toughness as well.
The problem with Irvin at the 4 (in addition to his defensive issues) is that he isn’t quick enough to consistently make teams pay for putting a bigger, slower guy on him. Someone like that Bentil kid from providence would be an amazing 4. He can shoot, put it on the deck, and mix it up down low.
I like how Chatman improved over the season. IF he keeps improving just by little bits, I’d like to see him in there. Donnal/Wagner and Chatman will stretch the defense just as much and we could use a boost on defense. (addition of Kam, subtraction of Duncan = big difference)
Robinson and Wagner give you firepower off the bench.
Chatman at 4 brings less quickness and athleticism than Irvin. I don’t get the love for him. Did he improve yes but IMO he improved from being atrocious to just awful.
JBlair’s projected lineup seems much more plausible than any lineup that has Wagner at 4 (with the current lineup of 5’s on our roster). Irvin will be better if he is not run down from playing against much stronger 4’s. chatman and Irvin defending 4 is roughly the same in my opinion.
The way the roster is made up, the 4 position is going to be a little give and take on both ends of the court. If we go with Irvin, he’ll still struggle defensively against the bangers. But he should be better equipped to take advantage of them on the other end if his back is healthy. If we go with Wagner at the four, he is going to struggle with anybody quicker than him. But he’ll be able to guard the Swanigans of the world. But he’s also got to stretch the floor on the other end if he’s gonna be a 4.
In a perfect world, Wilson and Chatman develop consistency with their shots. They can play the four. Wilson’s a rail, but his length would still bother most of the fours in the league. Chatman is not athletic, but he’s got more meat on him than Irvin. And I thought his perimeter defense was not atrocious (compared with Irvin, Robinson and Dawkins at least). Then Irvin can shift over to the 3, limiting the minutes or Robinson/Dawkins to matchups and whoever is hot. Watson can RS and gain mass, and both our incoming bigs can take their time to develop. Wagner starts at the 5, Donnal off the bench and suddenly that position is not a major net loss anymore (assuming they both improve in the offseason).
That is why I say change based on the matchup. When we play a team that will have a Swanigan or Deyonta Davis at the 4 play a bigger guy at the 4 and adjust. If we play a team like Indiana with Troy Williams at the 4 play someone like Irvin or Chatman at the 4. The problem is that JB does not adjust and plays one way. That was my point I tried making.
A perfect example is what Notre Dame did vs us. Normally they would play Bonzie Colson at the 4 and play two bigs but instead they put in the extra guard and rotated Colson and Augste and made the matchup much more even. That is what I wish JB did.
MAAR is definitely not a 32 minute a game player, and Chatman has shown nothing to justify 16 minutes a game. If we’re forced to play either of them that much, we’re in trouble. Have to cross our fingers and hope that Ibi Watson is worth 15-20 a game, but who knows?
There’s no doubt, whether we like it or not, the only guys averaging a consistent 32-35 minutes a night will be Irvin and Walton. They showed they can lead this team and with another summer to work on consistency, should make us a pretty good team. I’m thinking there’s room for improvement but Irvin having a summer to workout should do him wonders. MAAR is older than Walton and Irvin so the people who say he has room to grow and others don’t are not considering that fact. All 3 of them need to fix their decision making and need to be the starting pg, sg, and sf. Let the PF and C spot figure itself out. We MUST get Irvin away from guarding bigger guys. 35 minutes for Walton and 30 for MAAR seems like a legit projection, leaving 15 minutes or so for Simpson. If Wagner can make the leap people saw Dawkins and chatman making this team could be rather good. 25-26 wins is think. I know that’s only 2 more wins but I’d be ok winning that many games every year. If Dawkins really isn’t going to get any better maybe Watson can come in and do what Irvin did as a freshman and be our shooter. Here’s to hoping this summer is good for all our players and no one gets injured.
Would like to see both Chatman and Robinson get bigger and stronger to the point that they could defend consistently against a 4 and Irvin could play the 3 full time. Chatman did show a couple of glimpses of good post defense, the obvious one was the block against Swanigan. Neither player is a good perimeter defender, so I say bulk them up and lets see if they can bang a little. I do realize that with Robison being so skinny this may be a stretch, but if he put on 15 pounds you never know what might happen.
Maar’s minutes per game for the last 6 games: 38, 38, 34, 34, 41, 36. Maar is the only player on the roster who doesn’t have a noticeable drop off in performance after 28 minutes.
We need both Wagner AND Chatman to come on strong to be a real threat next year. And we need a healthy Zak and Walton. I think it’s reasonable to imagine that three of those four are obtainable, and I would love to see Kam become strong for us.
“who doesn’t have a noticeable drop off in performance after 28 minutes”
Those are specific conditions at the end of this year, after Walton and Irvin wore themselves down on both ends of the court for an entire season. Wouldn’t assume to much about next year from them.
Well, I’m not saying that he WON’T end up playing that much, only that he really isn’t talented enough to play that much on a high quality team. If we end up having to use him 30+ minutes a game, we can probably count on a season worse than this year, rather than better. He’s just not a good enough shooter to be an effective 2 in a small Beilein offense.
As far as Watson, given our limited options at the 2, I have to think that if he’s any good at all, he’ll see the floor. How much is the question, of course, but if he’s so limited that he has to redshirt, then that’s a big problem for us. I don’t think it’s crazy to think that Watson may surprise people, though.
No doubt that Irvin was a warrior. I am surprised he was able to battle through fatigue given his back surgery. I also agree having Irvin guard opposing 4’s is a big loss of energy. Hopefully Chatman can alleviate some of that responsibility but given the roster makeup I still see Irvin logging at least twenty minutes at guarding opposing 4’s.