Freshmen with playing time

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Jason94
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Freshmen with playing time

Post by Jason94 »

Now that we've actually seen a bit more of Dort and Shelby to go along with the PT that Smith has had, we are starting to see what each are capable of.

Smith has gotten the most time, and appears to be a pretty solid, if not spectacular player. He has shown he can shoot the ball a bit, but hasn't been comfortable shooting inside the arc. I would like to see him be able to finish more often inside given his height, but I do like that he has been able to draw some fouls despite playing a supporting role on offense. He does rebound the ball a fair amount, mainly on the offensive end, has limited his TO's, and defended without fouling. He could become a pretty good player over time and looks like a 4 year guy.

Shelby appears ultra confident in his shot, and is starting to figure out his limitations. He has the highest shot percentage of anyone on the team, not just the freshmen, having attempted almost 30% of the shots while he is on the floor. He almost exclusively takes threes, and has hit them at a fair rate given how often he shoots it, but I'd like to see him venture inside the arc from time to time. Amazingly, he has not turned the ball over yet this season, and has a very low assist rate, and is a little bit of a black hole so far. He also hasn't really rebounded the ball, which is a little odd. As he learns discretion, it wouldn't surprise me if he get up near 40% from three.

Dort's minutes have been extremely limited so far, and his numbers agree with the conflict between his rawness and tremendous talent. He has great size - not just height but is a legitimate big body at over 250 lbs. But for his size he has wonderful athleticism, and gets up very quickly. For his rawness, this is best captured by his TO rate and Foul rate. He has turned the ball over in 1/3 of his possessions, though to be fair, he has only turned the ball over once in his last three games over 24 mintues of game time. He also has a foul rate of over 10 fouls per 40 minutes. That indicates a bit of wildness, but again, he only had 1 foul in his last two games over 16 minutes, though he did have 4 fouls in the previous game (8 minutes). But for all the rawness, I see tremendous potential - he is shooting 9-13, a lot of those shots putbacks and dunks. It doesn't seem like we run much offense for him, and he is scoring through effort plays. More impressively, is his rebounding rates - he is grabbing 17% of offensive boards and 27% of defensive boards while he on the court on average. These numbers are likely somewhat skewed by limited playing time, but I don't think it is very bold to suggest he could be a monster rebounder - he has the size (height and width) and quick jumping to be an extremely strong rebounder. His block rate is also over 17%. It many not end up being that high with more PT, but it will be pretty high.

The more I see Dort play, (and Shelby to a lesser extent), the more I think he should be our backup center option following Robbins. Dort absolutely needs PT - he may be as raw as Luke was as a freshman, but his physical talent is not something we've seen at that position since Ezeli. If he plays more, he could end up being one of the best rebounders Vanderbilt has had in over 30 years. He has to figure out to play without fouling, but a lot of that will come by actually playing.

The guys who should be playing are Robbins, Manjon, Wright, Stute and Lawrence. I'm not completely sold on Thomas, though he has begun to be more selective with his shot, which is coinciding with a rising FG% (as it usually does for everyone). After that Smith, Shelby and Dort should be in the rotation, with QMB available should there be foul through from the two centers (which there likely will be).