I will say this: fans tend to be much harder on their own teams then is true, or I do anyway. Especially after watching this particular uconn team, you can imagine how I could have a hard time thinking too highly of any player on the team, especially when none stood out as excellent. During the title run, there is no doubt he was essential. he WAS the big man.. there was no drummond...and he though inconsistent at times, he was part of the reason that teams could not do much offensively against them down the stretch. Now, I don't know what changed this year (obviously other than the loss of a certain kemba walker...who was a very very good defender as well), but the defense was as bad as the offense sometimes. Now, there could be a couple reasons for that: a) no kemba, so a less stable perimeter defense, and b) drummond, who didn't really know what he was doing. I think that both of those could have put an undue pressure on alex, and sometimes when the defense fell apart, it was him trying to hold it together...and it was just simply perception (and in my rage at the team, you can't imagine I wanted to go back and figure out exactly who was at fault for every defensive breakdown)...so maybe i am being harsher than I should have been. He did only average 6.7 and 5 a game, for someone who should be a double double machine. Given, uconn's offense was downright horrific, so the decrease in points numbers is highly understandable...but the effort in getting rebounds didn't seem to be there (and that could be a reflection of his seeming unhappiness with both calhoun and sharing PT with Drummond, Oleander, and whomever else)
Either way, what I don't want is duke fans to get their hopes up that this guy is going to be able to anchor the team on both ends of the floor, to be the "banger" down low that so many have wanted for so long. Maybe he can be. Maybe the overall terribleness of the rest of this particular uconn team, I'll use the word incompetence, maybe it made him look like a lot worse player than he really was. I just think he could have given more effort, shown more improvement over the previous year, and taken more of a leading role a team that desperately needed it.
I'm just worried that if he were here, some of the attitude problems (want for minutes, lack of 100% effort) would end with him on the bench even more unhappy, and being more of a handicap for the team. I don't think he's worth the risk for one year...I just don't. Uconn's offense is simpler (lol nonexistent...95% iso...) There defense is simple (very little switching) that he would look like a freshman in K's system, in all honesty. By the time he figured it out, the year would likely be close to done...would he have the patience to figure it out? His disapproval of his benching would seem to indicate he doesn't have that patience.
He will go somewhere where he can start, get a lot of minutes, and be the center of the team, and I don't think that duke would be the best fit for him, and I don't think he is worth the risk for duke.