Originally Posted by
Kedsy
I don't know why Javin has been shooting so poorly this season, especially at the rim (where he continues to take 75%+ of his shots). But considering his history, I expect that will come around. Beyond that, I don't think the article has any validity at all.
First of all, I've said this before, but Javin does appear to have improved his game since last season. His turnovers are way down from last season, his assists are up. His rebounding is up, his steals are up, and his usage has almost doubled, meaning he's being much more aggressive on the offensive end. And he continues to be an outstanding defender. Does he foul too much? Absolutely. Again as I've said before, this is the primary hurdle to him being an extremely productive college player.
As far as our lesser recruits not playing as well as similar (or even lower) recruits at other schools, I think the largest part of that is opportunity. You see it in the NBA all the time. A top player gets hurt, and the backup who generally played 10mpg starts playing 35mpg and starts scoring 18 ppg with 8 rpg (or 6 apg or whatever). It's astonishing -- where did that come from? But the thing is almost all NBA players are really good and if they get 35mpg they can produce. Invariably, when the injured star comes back, the backup returns to his 10mpg, low-output life and people forget how many numbers he put up in his brief chance.
It's the same thing in college (obviously at a lower level). If Joey Baker was playing 36mpg and scoring almost 15 ppg, few people would say he was underachieving. If Javin got even 20mpg and was putting up 5.5 ppg and 7 rpg, with almost 2 steals and one block per game, that article never would have been written - instead people might be writing about "Duke's secret weapon." At other schools, those guys might be getting those minutes, and someone around here would be complaining how come those kinds of players do so much better at those schools than at Duke.