Originally Posted by
Chicago 1995
Defense.
Setting aside the discussion of Greg's offensive prowess for a moment, Greg's defensive struggles really hurt this team.
Greg can't handle quick PGs and can't effectively stop good penetrators off the dribble. When Scheyer went down with the cut in the last two minutes of the VCU game, Greg for some reason got switched onto Maynor and he was torched, and left defending air as Maynor scored. That's just the last example. Certainly not the only one.
Even when Greg wasn't getting killed on penetration, the adjustments we had to make defensively to cover for him really hurt our D -- and are a large reason our defensive efficiency struggled as the season wore on. We switched almost every screen on D to cover for Greg. Teams invariably figured this out, and in the second half of games, teams would screen until the switch lead to a mismatch. Sometimes that was a mismatch allowing a team to attack Greg -- Maynor, Vasquez, Lawson. Other times, teams would attack a different mismatch -- guards switched onto McRoberts, Thornton guarded by McClure in the post. The result was the same. We couldn't get stops when we needed them, and we lost leads and games because of that inability to get stops.
As for Greg's offensive improvement. He shot the ball better. That's it. He still can't create off the dribble. How many possessions against VCU, State, UNC or Maryland did we end up with the ball in Greg's hands to create something with the dribble as the shot clock wound down? How many of those possessions came up empty? Most of them. Greg's not able -- even against Engin Atsur, to create off the dribble.
Greg's offensive troubles won't be as bad next year, presumably. King and Singler and a stronger Scheyer should allow us to spread the floor, giving more kick out options and more space for Greg to penetrate. But his lack of athleticism that requires him to back the ball down the court against guys like Singletary and Crittendon isn't going to be aided in any way by those additional weapons. He's still going to have a heck of a time running the offense while he struggles to hold onto the ball against elite athletes.
I know there's a tendency here to view everything through Royal Blue glasses, but any defense of Greg that tries to compare him favorable with Lawson or Singletary let alone Hurley or Jason Williams is beyond Kool-Aid drinking and is well into fantasy land.
I give Greg a ton of credit for working on his shot and making himself into a shooting threat. The problem is that he's a pretty one-dimensional shooting guard who apparently is the only option we've got at PG not just for next year, but for the next two years. He's a player that brings value to our team, and I don't disagree for a second about his heart, toughness and leadership or his captaincy. But none of that changes the fact that he's not a point guard, and we're a team that needs a point guard.