Anyone know why the waiver was granted? Transferring from Kentucky to fucla.

What else would you expect?

oskidunker said:

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Anyone know why the waiver was granted? Transferring from Kentucky to fucla.

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You wrote your answer: "transferring from Kentucky to UCLA".
If he'd transferred from, say, Fresno State to, say, Cal - then no waiver.

isn't he from southern cal?

HoopDreams said:

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isn't he from southern cal?

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Yes, He played for Harvard-Westlake. Family wanted him closer with the COVID shutdown, but he probably would have signed with UCLA if Cronin had been there sooner.

I hear it doesn't hurt if you have a connected attorney help you make the pitch. Have no idea if that was the case here...

We need to be getting our share of the top SoCal guys like Juzang. Bradley was nice, but we need more.

Big C said:

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I hear it doesn't hurt if you have a connected attorney help you make the pitch. Have no idea if that was the case here...

We need to be getting our share of the top SoCal guys like Juzang. Bradley was nice, but we need more.

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Was nice? Bradley is nice, with two more seasons to play, hopefully.

SFCityBear said:

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Big C said:

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I hear it doesn't hurt if you have a connected attorney help you make the pitch. Have no idea if that was the case here...

We need to be getting our share of the top SoCal guys like Juzang. Bradley was nice, but we need more.

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Was nice? Bradley is nice, with two more seasons to play, hopefully.

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In my use of "was", I was referring to the "getting" of him. The getting was nice; the having is nice. Very nice.

Big C said:

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SFCityBear said:

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Big C said:

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I hear it doesn't hurt if you have a connected attorney help you make the pitch. Have no idea if that was the case here...

We need to be getting our share of the top SoCal guys like Juzang. Bradley was nice, but we need more.

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Was nice? Bradley is nice, with two more seasons to play, hopefully.

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In my use of "was", I was referring to the "getting" of him. The getting was nice; the having is nice. Very nice.

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I understand. I'm sorry if I offended in any way. I think all Cal fans are glad Cal got him, and that Cal has him.

SFCityBear said:

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Big C said:

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SFCityBear said:

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Big C said:

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I hear it doesn't hurt if you have a connected attorney help you make the pitch. Have no idea if that was the case here...

We need to be getting our share of the top SoCal guys like Juzang. Bradley was nice, but we need more.

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Was nice? Bradley is nice, with two more seasons to play, hopefully.

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In my use of "was", I was referring to the "getting" of him. The getting was nice; the having is nice. Very nice.

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I understand. I'm sorry if I offended in any way. I think all Cal fans are glad Cal got him, and that Cal has him.

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Not a problem at all. How much do you think the two grad transfers will contribute this next season?

Big C said:

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SFCityBear said:

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Big C said:

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SFCityBear said:

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Big C said:

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I hear it doesn't hurt if you have a connected attorney help you make the pitch. Have no idea if that was the case here...

We need to be getting our share of the top SoCal guys like Juzang. Bradley was nice, but we need more.

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Was nice? Bradley is nice, with two more seasons to play, hopefully.

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In my use of "was", I was referring to the "getting" of him. The getting was nice; the having is nice. Very nice.

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I understand. I'm sorry if I offended in any way. I think all Cal fans are glad Cal got him, and that Cal has him.

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Not a problem at all. How much do you think the two grad transfers will contribute this next season?

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Given that the guys they replace played the most minutes after Bradley, even while struggling, and we will have even less depth at guard than last year, I'd say we will see them a lot, even if they struggle too. There is the possibility we will see more of Kuany or Bowser at the 3 and Bradley at the 2, which would reduce our reliance on the grad transfers, and Fox has mentioned it, but he had that option last year too and we did not see it much. Even if we do, we will see the grad transfers a lot, especially Foreman at PG, just out of necessity.

Coleman left two years ago

bluesaxe said:

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calumnus said:

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Big C said:

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SFCityBear said:

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Big C said:

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SFCityBear said:

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Big C said:

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I hear it doesn't hurt if you have a connected attorney help you make the pitch. Have no idea if that was the case here...

We need to be getting our share of the top SoCal guys like Juzang. Bradley was nice, but we need more.

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Was nice? Bradley is nice, with two more seasons to play, hopefully.

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In my use of "was", I was referring to the "getting" of him. The getting was nice; the having is nice. Very nice.

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I understand. I'm sorry if I offended in any way. I think all Cal fans are glad Cal got him, and that Cal has him.

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Not a problem at all. How much do you think the two grad transfers will contribute this next season?

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Given that the guys they replace played the most minutes after Bradley, even while struggling, and we will have even less depth at guard than last year, I'd say we will see them a lot, even if they struggle too. There is the possibility we will see more of Kuany or Bowser at the 3 and Bradley at the 2, which would reduce our reliance on the grad transfers, and Fox has mentioned it, but he had that option last year too and we did not see it much. Even if we do, we will see the grad transfers a lot, especially Foreman at PG, just out of necessity.

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He had the option of playing a raw Kuany who had an injury issue and had to learn the offense and defense. It's different this year. He's got a year under the belt and hopefully he's had some chance to work on skills. I think the kid has a lot of potential.

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I've been stoked about Kuany playing the small forward position ever since I saw his recruiting mixtape. The problem is that we have very young bigs aside from Kelly, and they have very few skills. I'm talking about Lars and DJ. Kelly would also have to improve his stamina, and reduce his propensity for fouling, so that he can stay on the floor for 30 plus minutes. So Kuany may still be needed inside to be one of the bigs. I expect, or hope, at least, that Lars and/or DJ will improve a lot, and if not a lot, then at least enough to allow Kuany more time at the small forward, where I think he is more effective. I see him as becoming a lot like Jabari Bird one day, taller, longer, and maybe a little more athletic. He is still a little raw, however. We need someone to step up and play that small forward spot, so we can free up Bradley to move to a guard, a more natural position for him.

bluesaxe said:

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calumnus said:

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Big C said:

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SFCityBear said:

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Big C said:

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SFCityBear said:

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Big C said:

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I hear it doesn't hurt if you have a connected attorney help you make the pitch. Have no idea if that was the case here...

We need to be getting our share of the top SoCal guys like Juzang. Bradley was nice, but we need more.

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Was nice? Bradley is nice, with two more seasons to play, hopefully.

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In my use of "was", I was referring to the "getting" of him. The getting was nice; the having is nice. Very nice.

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I understand. I'm sorry if I offended in any way. I think all Cal fans are glad Cal got him, and that Cal has him.

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Not a problem at all. How much do you think the two grad transfers will contribute this next season?

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Given that the guys they replace played the most minutes after Bradley, even while struggling, and we will have even less depth at guard than last year, I'd say we will see them a lot, even if they struggle too. There is the possibility we will see more of Kuany or Bowser at the 3 and Bradley at the 2, which would reduce our reliance on the grad transfers, and Fox has mentioned it, but he had that option last year too and we did not see it much. Even if we do, we will see the grad transfers a lot, especially Foreman at PG, just out of necessity.

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He had the option of playing a raw Kuany who had an injury issue and had to learn the offense and defense. It's different this year. He's got a year under the belt and hopefully he's had some chance to work on skills. I think the kid has a lot of potential.

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I still would have liked to see more of Kuany at the 3 last year with Bradley at the 2 and Grant at the 4, especially with South struggling.

calumnus said:

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bluesaxe said:

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calumnus said:

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Big C said:

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SFCityBear said:

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Big C said:

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SFCityBear said:

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Big C said:

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I hear it doesn't hurt if you have a connected attorney help you make the pitch. Have no idea if that was the case here...

We need to be getting our share of the top SoCal guys like Juzang. Bradley was nice, but we need more.

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Was nice? Bradley is nice, with two more seasons to play, hopefully.

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In my use of "was", I was referring to the "getting" of him. The getting was nice; the having is nice. Very nice.

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I understand. I'm sorry if I offended in any way. I think all Cal fans are glad Cal got him, and that Cal has him.

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Not a problem at all. How much do you think the two grad transfers will contribute this next season?

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Given that the guys they replace played the most minutes after Bradley, even while struggling, and we will have even less depth at guard than last year, I'd say we will see them a lot, even if they struggle too. There is the possibility we will see more of Kuany or Bowser at the 3 and Bradley at the 2, which would reduce our reliance on the grad transfers, and Fox has mentioned it, but he had that option last year too and we did not see it much. Even if we do, we will see the grad transfers a lot, especially Foreman at PG, just out of necessity.

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He had the option of playing a raw Kuany who had an injury issue and had to learn the offense and defense. It's different this year. He's got a year under the belt and hopefully he's had some chance to work on skills. I think the kid has a lot of potential.

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I still would have liked to see more of Kuany at the 3 last year with Bradley at the 2 and Grant at the 4, especially with South struggling.

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I think many of us would have liked to have seen that. As Bluesaxe said, Kuany had an injury issue, and had to learn Fox's system. He could have been slow recovering from the injury or slow to learn Fox's system, or a little of both. Now Kuany's and his teammates' progress as a team in his system will have been stalled by the lockdown over spring and now summer. If the season happens, I would not expect to see much progress at the start. It could be late season again before the team begins to jell.

SFCityBear said:

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calumnus said:

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bluesaxe said:

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calumnus said:

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Big C said:

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SFCityBear said:

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Big C said:

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SFCityBear said:

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Big C said:

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I hear it doesn't hurt if you have a connected attorney help you make the pitch. Have no idea if that was the case here...

We need to be getting our share of the top SoCal guys like Juzang. Bradley was nice, but we need more.

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Was nice? Bradley is nice, with two more seasons to play, hopefully.

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In my use of "was", I was referring to the "getting" of him. The getting was nice; the having is nice. Very nice.

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I understand. I'm sorry if I offended in any way. I think all Cal fans are glad Cal got him, and that Cal has him.

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Not a problem at all. How much do you think the two grad transfers will contribute this next season?

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Given that the guys they replace played the most minutes after Bradley, even while struggling, and we will have even less depth at guard than last year, I'd say we will see them a lot, even if they struggle too. There is the possibility we will see more of Kuany or Bowser at the 3 and Bradley at the 2, which would reduce our reliance on the grad transfers, and Fox has mentioned it, but he had that option last year too and we did not see it much. Even if we do, we will see the grad transfers a lot, especially Foreman at PG, just out of necessity.

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He had the option of playing a raw Kuany who had an injury issue and had to learn the offense and defense. It's different this year. He's got a year under the belt and hopefully he's had some chance to work on skills. I think the kid has a lot of potential.

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I still would have liked to see more of Kuany at the 3 last year with Bradley at the 2 and Grant at the 4, especially with South struggling.

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I think many of us would have liked to have seen that. As Bluesaxe said, Kuany had an injury issue, and had to learn Fox's system. He could have been slow recovering from the injury or slow to learn Fox's system, or a little of both. Now Kuany's and his teammates' progress as a team in his system will have been stalled by the lockdown over spring and now summer. If the season happens, I would not expect to see much progress at the start. It could be late season again before the team begins to jell.

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Everyone had to learn Fox's system. He was a first year coach.

Maybe you can explain the injury to me.
Kuany appeared in 28 games averaging 6.6 minutes per game. He missed 4 games due to injury? Did injury limit his minutes in the other 28 games? Because he was very effective when he played.

Per 100 possessions, Kuany was our best rated offensive player (followed by Bradley and Kelly). Those three players dominated our advanced statistical measures (offense and defense contributions to wins) per minute played/per 100 possessions. Not only was he a good 3pt shooter and rebounder, but he was our best at getting to the free throw line (per 100 possessions). Bradley is our best player AND he dominated the total numbers because he played our most minutes while 9 players played more than Kuany. Maybe Kuany's numbers would not have held up if he played more, but it was worth finding out.

Arguing that he was hampered by injury or was having trouble with offensive and defensive schemes is good for explaining low offensive and defensive productivity from a player, but it is a curious explanation for why a player who is VERY productive when he is on the court does not play more.

calumnus said:

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SFCityBear said:

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calumnus said:

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bluesaxe said:

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calumnus said:

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Big C said:

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SFCityBear said:

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Big C said:

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SFCityBear said:

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Big C said:

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I hear it doesn't hurt if you have a connected attorney help you make the pitch. Have no idea if that was the case here...

We need to be getting our share of the top SoCal guys like Juzang. Bradley was nice, but we need more.

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Was nice? Bradley is nice, with two more seasons to play, hopefully.

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In my use of "was", I was referring to the "getting" of him. The getting was nice; the having is nice. Very nice.

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I understand. I'm sorry if I offended in any way. I think all Cal fans are glad Cal got him, and that Cal has him.

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Not a problem at all. How much do you think the two grad transfers will contribute this next season?

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Given that the guys they replace played the most minutes after Bradley, even while struggling, and we will have even less depth at guard than last year, I'd say we will see them a lot, even if they struggle too. There is the possibility we will see more of Kuany or Bowser at the 3 and Bradley at the 2, which would reduce our reliance on the grad transfers, and Fox has mentioned it, but he had that option last year too and we did not see it much. Even if we do, we will see the grad transfers a lot, especially Foreman at PG, just out of necessity.

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He had the option of playing a raw Kuany who had an injury issue and had to learn the offense and defense. It's different this year. He's got a year under the belt and hopefully he's had some chance to work on skills. I think the kid has a lot of potential.

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I still would have liked to see more of Kuany at the 3 last year with Bradley at the 2 and Grant at the 4, especially with South struggling.

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I think many of us would have liked to have seen that. As Bluesaxe said, Kuany had an injury issue, and had to learn Fox's system. He could have been slow recovering from the injury or slow to learn Fox's system, or a little of both. Now Kuany's and his teammates' progress as a team in his system will have been stalled by the lockdown over spring and now summer. If the season happens, I would not expect to see much progress at the start. It could be late season again before the team begins to jell.

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Everyone had to learn Fox's system. He was a first year coach.

Maybe you can explain the injury to me.
Kuany appeared in 28 games averaging 6.6 minutes per game. He missed 4 games due to injury? Did injury limit his minutes in the other 28 games? Because he was very effective when he played.

Per 100 possessions, Kuany was our best rated offensive player (followed by Bradley and Kelly). Those three players dominated our advanced statistical measures (offense and defense contributions to wins) per minute played/per 100 possessions. Not only was he a good 3pt shooter and rebounder, but he was our best at getting to the free throw line (per 100 possessions). Bradley is our best player AND he dominated the total numbers because he played our most minutes while 9 players played more than Kuany. Maybe Kuany's numbers would not have held up if he played more, but it was worth finding out.

Arguing that he was hampered by injury or was having trouble with offensive and defensive schemes is good for explaining low offensive and defensive productivity from a player, but it is a curious explanation for why a player who is VERY productive when he is on the court does not play more.

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I believe he was injured coming into the season, which could have hampered his development early on. Just because a guy scores a couple of baskets in limited minutes doesn't always automatically equate to more minutes. That requires confidence from the coaches, who are watching the player more than a couple of minutes on game nights.

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Everyone had to learn Fox's system. He was a first year coach.

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Of course, but Kuany was a freshman, and it is a lot easier to learn a new system when you are not having to learn a whole new life style, how to live away from home, live with roommates, learn how to study, learn the new system, and learn to play with your teammates, and most important, he had to learn fundamentals. College coaches are going to break you down, break down your ideas of how to play, and your ideas of what is important on the court. He would be learning how to play defense for the first time. In games, he will be learning to playing against opponents, who are as fast or faster, as quick or quicker, can jump as high or higher, and most of them will be older and more experienced than he is.

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Maybe you can explain the injury to me.
Kuany appeared in 28 games averaging 6.6 minutes per game. He missed 4 games due to injury? Did injury limit his minutes in the other 28 games? Because he was very effective when he played.

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Well, none of us know what the injury was, or how severe it was, or if he fully recovered from it. Fox did not release that information. So I can't explain it to you. It is just a possibility that it may have bothered his progress. I would disagree that Kuany was "very effective" when he played. He produced very little in the way of made baskets, only one every other game on average.

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Per 100 possessions, Kuany was our best rated offensive player (followed by Bradley and Kelly). Those three players dominated our advanced statistical measures (offense and defense contributions to wins) per minute played/per 100 possessions. Not only was he a good 3pt shooter and rebounder, but he was our best at getting to the free throw line (per 100 possessions). Bradley is our best player AND he dominated the total numbers because he played our most minutes while 9 players played more than Kuany. Maybe Kuany's numbers would not have held up if he played more, but it was worth finding out.

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The fact that Kuany was rated as our best rated offensive player is one reason not to place too much faith in statistics, advanced or otherwise. Remember that Bradley's shooting percentage went way down this season from the previous season, and that South had the worst shooting season in his career, and also that some of Cal's other players were not good shooters (Austin, Gordon, Lars, Thorpe, Kelly, JHD, Brown, etc., so being at the top of that group is not any kind of accomplishment, warranting more minutes. I think Fox brought Kuany along slowly, and he began to play him more minutes, and that was correct, from what little knowledge I have of Kuany's play of a few short minutes per game. He showed enough promise at the end to warrant a good look in the upcoming practices before the season starts.

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Arguing that he was hampered by injury or was having trouble with offensive and defensive schemes is good for explaining low offensive and defensive productivity from a player, but it is a curious explanation for why a player who is VERY productive when he is on the court does not play more.

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I would second Civil Bear's reply. I think we were all anxious to see Kuany on the floor, but he just was not experienced enough, skilled enough, or performing well enough to add a great deal more than he did. I think he has tremendous upside. Picking out a few statistics where a player has seemingly achieved some numbers based on a tiny sample does not correlate into more playing time. If you look at Kuany's pre-conference season, he averaged only 3 minutes per game and only made 2 field goals in 9 games. He finally got a chance to play more, 17 and 15 minutes in the early blowouts by USC and UCLA, and he only made one basket and got two rebounds in each game, which was a regression, statistically, for him. He did not play a lot of minutes again until the last 6 games, where he averaged 12 minutes per game, and scored a total of 6 baskets, or one per game on average, more than doubling his output during the pre-conference season. Overall, he only made 14 field goals in 28 games, which is not very effective play in my book. If he had come into games and knocked down 2 or 3 baskets in a row, it might have gotten me excited. But the bottom line, the reason why Kuany did not play more, is because Fox did not feel he was ready, and Fox, above all, needed to win games. He brought Kuany along slowly, for whatever reason, and Kuany had improved to where he he could play more minutes at the end of the season, and he produced a little bit more when he was given the chance. Be patient. Kuany will get there. I see him starting as a junior, maybe even this season.

SFCityBear said:

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Everyone had to learn Fox's system. He was a first year coach.

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Of course, but Kuany was a freshman, and it is a lot easier to learn a new system when you are not having to learn a whole new life style, how to live away from home, live with roommates, learn how to study, learn the new system, and learn to play with your teammates, and most important, he had to learn fundamentals. College coaches are going to break you down, break down your ideas of how to play, and your ideas of what is important on the court. He would be learning how to play defense for the first time. In games, he will be learning to playing against opponents, who are as fast or faster, as quick or quicker, can jump as high or higher, and most of them will be older and more experienced than he is.

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Maybe you can explain the injury to me.
Kuany appeared in 28 games averaging 6.6 minutes per game. He missed 4 games due to injury? Did injury limit his minutes in the other 28 games? Because he was very effective when he played.

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Well, none of us know what the injury was, or how severe it was, or if he fully recovered from it. Fox did not release that information. So I can't explain it to you. It is just a possibility that it may have bothered his progress. I would disagree that Kuany was "very effective" when he played. He produced very little in the way of made baskets, only one every other game on average.

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Per 100 possessions, Kuany was our best rated offensive player (followed by Bradley and Kelly). Those three players dominated our advanced statistical measures (offense and defense contributions to wins) per minute played/per 100 possessions. Not only was he a good 3pt shooter and rebounder, but he was our best at getting to the free throw line (per 100 possessions). Bradley is our best player AND he dominated the total numbers because he played our most minutes while 9 players played more than Kuany. Maybe Kuany's numbers would not have held up if he played more, but it was worth finding out.

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The fact that Kuany was rated as our best rated offensive player is one reason not to place too much faith in statistics, advanced or otherwise. Remember that Bradley's shooting percentage went way down this season from the previous season, and that South had the worst shooting season in his career, and also that some of Cal's other players were not good shooters (Austin, Gordon, Lars, Thorpe, Kelly, JHD, Brown, etc., so being at the top of that group is not any kind of accomplishment, warranting more minutes. I think Fox brought Kuany along slowly, and he began to play him more minutes, and that was correct, from what little knowledge I have of Kuany's play of a few short minutes per game. He showed enough promise at the end to warrant a good look in the upcoming practices before the season starts.

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Arguing that he was hampered by injury or was having trouble with offensive and defensive schemes is good for explaining low offensive and defensive productivity from a player, but it is a curious explanation for why a player who is VERY productive when he is on the court does not play more.

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I would second Civil Bear's reply. I think we were all anxious to see Kuany on the floor, but he just was not experienced enough, skilled enough, or performing well enough to add a great deal more than he did. I think he has tremendous upside. Picking out a few statistics where a player has seemingly achieved some numbers based on a tiny sample does not correlate into more playing time. If you look at Kuany's pre-conference season, he averaged only 3 minutes per game and only made 2 field goals in 9 games. He finally got a chance to play more, 17 and 15 minutes in the early blowouts by USC and UCLA, and he only made one basket and got two rebounds in each game, which was a regression, statistically, for him. He did not play a lot of minutes again until the last 6 games, where he averaged 12 minutes per game, and scored a total of 6 baskets, or one per game on average, more than doubling his output during the pre-conference season. Overall, he only made 14 field goals in 28 games, which is not very effective play in my book. If he had come into games and knocked down 2 or 3 baskets in a row, it might have gotten me excited. But the bottom line, the reason why Kuany did not play more, is because Fox did not feel he was ready, and Fox, above all, needed to win games. He brought Kuany along slowly, for whatever reason, and Kuany had improved to where he he could play more minutes at the end of the season, and he produced a little bit more when he was given the chance. Be patient. Kuany will get there. I see him starting as a junior, maybe even this season.

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I think you misunderstand my point about the grad transfers and about Kuany. His overall productivity (offense and defense) per minute and per possession was statistically the best on the team last year. The best. Both full season and conference only. You are the one cherry picking stats and conflating low minutes played with low output. The data says he was very productive, the most productive on the team. He played in 18 games, not the smallest sample. You cannot say he was not productive and didn't play well when the data says the exact opposite, he was the most productive on the team per minute and per possession.

Now, to your point, maybe that would not have held up if he was given more minutes. In my experience the opposite is true, players tend to gain confidence and play better when they get a chance to be more in the flow, but who knows? I for one would have liked to find out. But I also agree, I am not the coach.

Also, I am also not advocating for Kuany next season or any other season. I am (generally) for playing the most productive players as much as possible. Thus I would have played Kuany more last year at the 3 with Bradley at the 2 and played Brown and South (two of our least productive players per minute or possession) less. No point in arguing it. You won't change my opinion, the season is over it is done and I am not the coach. Similarly, you are entitled to your opinion that Kuany should not have played any more than he did and giving all those minutes to Brown and South at the 2 was "perfect." We have no way of knowing what would have happened otherwise. I will only dispute your saying he did not play well when he was in when the numbers say the exact opposite.

Next year is a new season with some changes in the roster. Players improve, players have slumps. Maybe Bowser is a revelation? Maybe Klonarias starts playing really well? Maybe Kuany has a sophomore slump? The only thing we know is two guys Austin and South, the later who played a lot of minutes despite very poor productivity, are gone. The only returning PG is Brown who, statistically, had a very bad freshman year. That was the basis of my prediction that the grad transfer guards will see a lot of time. Necessity, and Fox's observed preference for playing 3 guards even when the guys he has playing at the 2 are among the worst statistically on the team. But primarily necessity. If they are playing well, and I have a good feeling they will, I have absolutely no problem with Bradley at the 3 and Kuany playing limited minutes again.

calumnus said:

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I think you misunderstand my point about the grad transfers and about Kuany. His overall productivity (offense and defense) per minute and per possession was statistically the best on the team last year. The best. Both full season and conference only.

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How would you know whether I misunderstand your point about the grad transfers? I never said a word in this thread about any point you made on the grad transfers. Maybe you are thinking of another poster. As to Kuany's productivity being the best on the team, maybe not. According to sports-reference.com, Kuany is ranked #1 in getting to the FT line which you mentioned, and also #1 in fewest turnovers per minute, which you did not mention, which is excellent. They have Kuany at #2 on the Cal team in win shares per 40 minutes, behind Matt Bradley. Still very good, but not the best. And the formula, as near as I can tell, does not take into account the opponents. Basketball is all about matchups, and Kuany, as usually the last player off the bench, will often be playing against the opponent's last players off the bench, while Cal's starters will usually be playing against the best players the opponent has to offer.

Contributions and Win Shares are not statistics. They are artificially calculated, using an extremely complex formula, which includes several variables, constants, multipliers and other operators to manipulate the data in a way to give a subjective result, depending on the importance assigned to each statistic in the data set. I studied nuclear physics for a while at Cal, and this basketball formula is more complex than any formula I saw at Cal. It is esoteric and very far divorced from the actual statistics themselves.

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You are the one cherry picking stats and conflating low minutes played with low output. The data says he was very productive, the most productive on the team. He played in 18 games, not the smallest sample. You cannot say he was not productive and didn't play well when the data says the exact opposite, he was the most productive on the team per minute and per possession.

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The actual data, not the complex formula calculated results, the game by game data is more applicable to whether a coach ought to give a player more minutes than any calculation of the results for the entire season, especially when all the player's best productivity came in 5 games at the end of the regular season. That formula of yours greatly skews the result, making Kuany look better for the entire season, when in fact, it only looks that way because of how well he performed in the last 5 games compared to the previous 22 games. And Kuany played in 28 games, not 18, so the sample is bigger than you said. Your end of season formula calculated results showing Kuany as the best or 2nd most productive player, and were not available to Coach Fox all during the first 22 games of Kuany's season, so during the time when Fox had to make the game by game decisions of how much to play Kuany, he could not have known what you and I know now. What you are using is hindsight, and Fox didn't have that advantage.

Here is what Kuany did in his last final 5 PAC12 games:

In just 5 games, he scored 33 points, 54% of his total points for the season.
He made 6 FGs, 43% of his total for the season
He made 3 three-pointers, 60% of his total for the season
He made 18 FTs, 64% of his total for the season.
He got to the free throw line 22 times, 52% of his total for the season.
He got 9 rebounds, 28% of his total for the season.
He had 4 blocks, 100% of his blocks for the season
His FG% was 37.5% for those 5 games, while it was 40% for his other 23 games.
His 3PT% was 50% for those 5 games, while it was 25% for his other 23 games.
His FT % was 82% for those 5 games, while it was 50% for his other 23 games.
One of the 5 games, vs Oregon, Kuany made 3 FGs, the first and only game all season that he made more than one field goal. He was rewarded with a start in the next game, vs Oregon State, where he scored 11 points and fouled out in just 13 minutes.

So the esoteric calculation is perhaps valid for some discussions, but not this one, because it was so heavily skewed by the big increase in Kuany's minutes and his output in the final 5 games, it creates the false impression that he was that good of a player all season long and should have played more. He wasn't that good earlier, probably due to not being in game shape early on, maybe still affected by injury, and being behind in able to practice much early on. There were 2 early games he played in which he played less than half a minute each, and others where he played only a minute or two. . Do you realize that Kuany did not score a point in 14 of the 22 earlier games in which he played? Or get a single shot block? And in 16 of those games, he did not get a single field goal. In 11 of those games, he did not get a single rebound.

Here is how Kuany's season went: In his first 9 games, during the pre-conference season, Kuany scored 8 points in 28 minutes, averaging 3 minutes per game and 11.4 points/40 minutes. He did not make a single 3-pointer. He was 4-9 on FTs. He went 4-4 vs USF on FT's. He had 6 rebounds, or 8.6/40min. I'd don't want to spend hours to calculate it, but I'd guess he was probably in the bottom half of the rotation in your formula calculated productivity after those 9 games.

In Kuany's games 10-14, at the beginning of the PAC12 season, Fox played Kuany more, 9.2 minutes per game, but Kuany's production fell off a little, as he scored 12 points in 46 minutes, or 10.4 points/40 minutes. He finally made his first 3-pointer of the season, against UW, his 12th game. He was 4-10 on FGs, 1-5 on threes, and 3-5 on FTs. He had 6 rebounds, or 5.2 rebounds/40 minutes.

In his games 15-22, Kuany was relegated to the end of the bench again, as he played only 4.6 minutes per game in that stretch. His production slipped in these 8 games, as he scored only 8 points in 37 minutes, or an average of 8.6 points/40 minutes. He was 2-4 on FGs, 1-1 on threes, 3-6 on FTs. He had 8 rebounds or 8.2/40 min.

I don't think Kuany's calculated productivity at any time during those 22 games would have been anywhere near the best on the team. Kuany had not shown much productivity to the naked eye except perhaps potential. I'm glad that Kuany got more minutes at the end, and he was healthy enough to play. I think he has earned a shot at being considered for many more minutes next season, with two cautions: Fox started him against Oregon and he did well, but fouled out in 13 minutes, and also Kuany played 13 minutes against Stanford in the PAC12 tourney game, and failed to score. That was one of the most important games of the season, and Kuany did not play have much productivity in it. I think Kuany's season was affected by injury more than we know. I don't think we can say he shoots well yet, because the sample is so small. He was 5/14 for the season on threes, and shot 36%, which is average or little above. If he had missed one of those 5 shots, his percentage drops to 28%, which is very low. He is not yet a good rebounder, and not very good at finishing at the basket. He is our best at getting to the FT line, and our best at not turning the ball over. He is not very consistent yet. He is a freshman. I think he has high potential.

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Now, to your point, maybe that would not have held up if he was given more minutes. In my experience the opposite is true, players tend to gain confidence and play better when they get a chance to be more in the flow, but who knows? I for one would have liked to find out. But I also agree, I am not the coach.

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I agree with this.

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Also, I am also not advocating for Kuany next season or any other season. I am (generally) for playing the most productive players as much as possible. Thus I would have played Kuany more last year at the 3 with Bradley at the 2 and played Brown and South (two of our least productive players per minute or possession) less. No point in arguing it. You won't change my opinion, the season is over it is done and I am not the coach. Similarly, you are entitled to your opinion that Kuany should not have played any more than he did and giving all those minutes to Brown and South at the 2 was "perfect." We have no way of knowing what would have happened otherwise. I will only dispute your saying he did not play well when he was in when the numbers say the exact opposite.

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I don't know enough to have said Kuany should not have played more, and if I did, then I made a mistake. To know that, I'd need to know more about his health, and had to have watched him in practices. I never said what you accuse me of saying that "giving all those minutes to Brown and South at the 2 was "perfect"". I challenge you to find where I said that. Nothing the Cal team did last season was perfect. They did some very good things sometimes, but they are a long way from perfect. I never agreed with playing Brown at the 2 at all. 2 is a shooting guard, and every shot from Brown is an adventure.

SFCityBear said:

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calumnus said:

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I think you misunderstand my point about the grad transfers and about Kuany. His overall productivity (offense and defense) per minute and per possession was statistically the best on the team last year. The best. Both full season and conference only.

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How would you know whether I misunderstand your point about the grad transfers? I never said a word in this thread about any point you made on the grad transfers. Maybe you are thinking of another poster. As to Kuany's productivity being the best on the team, maybe not. According to sports-reference.com, Kuany is ranked #1 in getting to the FT line which you mentioned, and also #1 in fewest turnovers per minute, which you did not mention, is excellent. They have Kuany at #2 on the Cal team in win shares per 40 minutes, behind Matt Bradley. Still very good, but not the best. And the formula, as near as I can tell, does not take into account the opponents. Basketball is all about matchups, and Kuany, as usually the last player off the bench, will often be playing against the opponent's last players off the bench, while Cal's starters will usually be playing against the best players the opponent has to offer.

Contributions and Win Shares are not statistics. They are artificially calculated, using an extremely complex formula, which includes several variables, constants, multipliers and other operators to manipulate the data in a way to give a subjective result, depending on the importance assigned to each statistic in the data set. I studied nuclear physics at Cal, and this basketball formula is more complex than any formula I saw at Cal. It is esoteric and very far divorced from the actual statistics themselves.

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You are the one cherry picking stats and conflating low minutes played with low output. The data says he was very productive, the most productive on the team. He played in 18 games, not the smallest sample. You cannot say he was not productive and didn't play well when the data says the exact opposite, he was the most productive on the team per minute and per possession.

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The actual data, not the complex formula calculated data, the game by game data is more applicable to whether a coach ought to give a player more minutes than any calculation of the results for the entire season, especially when all the player's best productivity came in 5 games at the end of the regular season. That formula of yours greatly skews the result, making Kuany look better for the entire season, when in fact, it only looks that way because of how well he performed in the last 5 games compared to the previous 22 games. And Kuany played in 28 games, not 18, so the sample is bigger than you said. Your end of season formula calculated results showing Kuany as the best or 2nd most productive player were not available to Coach Fox all during the first 22 games of Kuany's season, so Fox could not have known what you and I know now during any of the previous weeks of the season, when he had to make the game by game decisions of how much to play Kuany. What you are using is hindsight.

Here is what he did in his last final 5 PAC12 games:

In just 5 games, he scored 33 points, 54% of his total points for the season.
He made 6 FGs, 43% of his total for the season
He made 3 three-pointers, 60% of his total for the season
He made 18 FTs, 64% of his total for the season.
He got to the free throw line 22 times, 52% of his total for the season.
He got 9 rebounds, 28% of his total for the season.
He had 4 blocks, 100% of his blocks for the season
His FG% was 37.5% for those 5 games, while it was 40% for his other 23 games.
His 3PT% was 50% for those 5 games, while it was 25% for his other 23 games.
His FT % was 82% for those 5 games, while it was 50% for his other 23 games.
One of the 5 games, vs Oregon, Kuany made 3 FGs, the first and only game all season that he made more than one field goal. He was rewarded with a start in the next game, vs Oregon State, where he scored 11 points and fouled out in just 13 minutes.

So the esoteric calculation is perhaps valid for some discussions, but not this one, because it was so heavily skewed by the big increase in Kuany's minutes and his output in the final 5 games, it creates the false impression that he was that good of a player all season long and should have played more. He wasn't that good earlier, probably due to not being in game shape early on, maybe still affected by injury, and being behind in able to practice much early on. There were 2 early games he played in which he played less than half a minute each, and others where he played only a minute or two. . Do you realize that Kuany did not score a point in 14 of the 22 earlier games in which he played? Or get a single shot block? And in 16 of those games, he did not get a single field goal. In 11 of those games, he did not get a single rebound.

Here is how Kuany's season went: In his first 9 games, during the pre-conference season, Kuany scored 8 points in 28 minutes, averaging 3 minutes per game and 11.4 points/40 minutes. He did not make a single 3-pointer. He was 4-9 on FTs. He went 4-4 vs USF on FT's. He had 6 rebounds, or 8.6/40min. I'd don't want to spend hours to calculate it, but I'd guess he was probably in the bottom half of the rotation in your formula calculated productivity after those 9 games.

In Kuany's games 10-14, at the beginning of the PAC12 season, Fox played Kuany more, 9.2 minutes per game, but Kuany's production fell off a little, as he scored 12 points in 46 minutes, or 10.4 points/40 minutes. He finally made his first 3-pointer of the season, against UW, his 12th game. He was 4-10 on FGs, 1-5 on threes, and 3-5 on FTs. He had 6 rebounds, or 5.2 rebounds/40 minutes.

In his games 15-22, Kuany was relegated to the end of the bench again, as he played only 4.6 minutes per game in that stretch. His production slipped in these 8 games, as he scored only 8 points in 37 minutes, or an average of 8.6 points/40 minutes. He was 2-4 on FGs, 1-1 on threes, 3-6 on FTs. He had 8 rebounds or 8.2/40 min.

I don't think Kuany's calculated productivity at any time during those 22 games would have been the best on the team. Kuany had not shown much productivity to the naked eye except perhaps potential. I'm glad that Kuany got more minutes at the end, and he was healthy enough to play. I think he has earned a shot at being considered for many more minutes next season, with two cautions: Fox started him against Oregon and he did well, but fouled out in 13 minutes, and also Kuany played 13 minutes against Stanford in the PAC12 tourney game, and failed to score. That was one of the most important games of the season, and Kuany did not play well in it. I think Kuany's season was affected by injury more than we know. I don't think we can say he shoots well yet, because the sample is so small. He is not yet a good rebounder, and not very good at finishing at the basket. He is our best at getting to the FT line, and our best at not turning the ball over. He is not very consistent yet. He is a freshman. I think he has high potential.

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Now, to your point, maybe that would not have held up if he was given more minutes. In my experience the opposite is true, players tend to gain confidence and play better when they get a chance to be more in the flow, but who knows? I for one would have liked to find out. But I also agree, I am not the coach.

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I agree with this.

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Also, I am also not advocating for Kuany next season or any other season. I am (generally) for playing the most productive players as much as possible. Thus I would have played Kuany more last year at the 3 with Bradley at the 2 and played Brown and South (two of our least productive players per minute or possession) less. No point in arguing it. You won't change my opinion, the season is over it is done and I am not the coach. Similarly, you are entitled to your opinion that Kuany should not have played any more than he did and giving all those minutes to Brown and South at the 2 was "perfect." We have no way of knowing what would have happened otherwise. I will only dispute your saying he did not play well when he was in when the numbers say the exact opposite.

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I don't know enough to have said Kuany should not have played more, and if I did, then I made a mistake. To know that, I'd need to know more about his health, and watched him in practices. I never said what you accuse me of saying that "giving all those minutes to Brown and South at the 2 was "perfect"". I challenge you to find where I said that. Nothing the Cal team did last season was perfect. They did some very good things sometimes, but they are a long way from perfect. I never agreed with playing Brown at the 2 at all. 2 is a shooting guard, and every shot from Brown is an adventure.

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All the time we gave to Brown at the 2 last year was the point.

Again, the thread is in answer to Big C's question about how much we expect to see of the grad transfer guards. My guess is that we will see them a lot. As part of the evidence I pointed to the fact Fox favored playing Bradley at the 3 with other guards at the 2 even when those guards were struggling mightily and he had another option (Kuany at the 3 and Bradley at the 2) for at least some of the time. It reveals his preferences, which is the point.

Foreman is going to play for sure as one of only 2 PGs on the roster. He could realistically challenge Brown as the starter or his shooting could earn him a major, if not starting, role at the 2.

Similarly Betley could see a lot of time, even start, especially if he plays well (better than South). With Hyder ineligible and Celestine a freshman. That goes even moreso if Foreman is the PG.

The other option is we could see Kuany, Klonarias or now Bowser at the 3 with Bradley at the 2. My observation is that does not appear to be something Fox prefers, since last year he stuck with Brown and South at the 2, despite their playing poorly and Kuany playing really well, albeit in relatively limited minutes as you keep pointing out. However, that just bolsters my point about Fox's observed preference to play three guards.

If I am the coach, I give Kuany more minutes to find out if his good play continues, but not at the expense of Bradley, which means playing them together (with Bradley at the 2). You argue against that but also say you wouldn't have played Brown at the 2 at all without saying what you would do instead. If you didn't give those minutes to Brown at the 2 who would you have given them to? However, while an interesting side discussion, it doesn't matter, we can't replay last season and neither of us are the coach.

So back to the original topic: How much will we see of the grad transfers? Our starting PG is gone and I think we will get much better play from Foreman and Betley this year than we got from Brown and South last year. Thus i think Fox will play them a lot. That is just my guess, based on the logic I laid out. However, they might play poorly, Brown might improve dramatically and lockdown the PG position, Fox might change his preferences, Bowser or Celestine might be a revelation and play so well they demand more PT, Fox might have more confidence in Kuany or Klonarias as sophomores....there are other possibilities and the future is uncertain.

calumnus said:

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SFCityBear said:

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calumnus said:

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I think you misunderstand my point about the grad transfers and about Kuany. His overall productivity (offense and defense) per minute and per possession was statistically the best on the team last year. The best. Both full season and conference only.

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How would you know whether I misunderstand your point about the grad transfers? I never said a word in this thread about any point you made on the grad transfers. Maybe you are thinking of another poster. As to Kuany's productivity being the best on the team, maybe not. According to sports-reference.com, Kuany is ranked #1 in getting to the FT line which you mentioned, and also #1 in fewest turnovers per minute, which you did not mention, is excellent. They have Kuany at #2 on the Cal team in win shares per 40 minutes, behind Matt Bradley. Still very good, but not the best. And the formula, as near as I can tell, does not take into account the opponents. Basketball is all about matchups, and Kuany, as usually the last player off the bench, will often be playing against the opponent's last players off the bench, while Cal's starters will usually be playing against the best players the opponent has to offer.

Contributions and Win Shares are not statistics. They are artificially calculated, using an extremely complex formula, which includes several variables, constants, multipliers and other operators to manipulate the data in a way to give a subjective result, depending on the importance assigned to each statistic in the data set. I studied nuclear physics at Cal, and this basketball formula is more complex than any formula I saw at Cal. It is esoteric and very far divorced from the actual statistics themselves.

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You are the one cherry picking stats and conflating low minutes played with low output. The data says he was very productive, the most productive on the team. He played in 18 games, not the smallest sample. You cannot say he was not productive and didn't play well when the data says the exact opposite, he was the most productive on the team per minute and per possession.

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The actual data, not the complex formula calculated data, the game by game data is more applicable to whether a coach ought to give a player more minutes than any calculation of the results for the entire season, especially when all the player's best productivity came in 5 games at the end of the regular season. That formula of yours greatly skews the result, making Kuany look better for the entire season, when in fact, it only looks that way because of how well he performed in the last 5 games compared to the previous 22 games. And Kuany played in 28 games, not 18, so the sample is bigger than you said. Your end of season formula calculated results showing Kuany as the best or 2nd most productive player were not available to Coach Fox all during the first 22 games of Kuany's season, so Fox could not have known what you and I know now during any of the previous weeks of the season, when he had to make the game by game decisions of how much to play Kuany. What you are using is hindsight.

Here is what he did in his last final 5 PAC12 games:

In just 5 games, he scored 33 points, 54% of his total points for the season.
He made 6 FGs, 43% of his total for the season
He made 3 three-pointers, 60% of his total for the season
He made 18 FTs, 64% of his total for the season.
He got to the free throw line 22 times, 52% of his total for the season.
He got 9 rebounds, 28% of his total for the season.
He had 4 blocks, 100% of his blocks for the season
His FG% was 37.5% for those 5 games, while it was 40% for his other 23 games.
His 3PT% was 50% for those 5 games, while it was 25% for his other 23 games.
His FT % was 82% for those 5 games, while it was 50% for his other 23 games.
One of the 5 games, vs Oregon, Kuany made 3 FGs, the first and only game all season that he made more than one field goal. He was rewarded with a start in the next game, vs Oregon State, where he scored 11 points and fouled out in just 13 minutes.

So the esoteric calculation is perhaps valid for some discussions, but not this one, because it was so heavily skewed by the big increase in Kuany's minutes and his output in the final 5 games, it creates the false impression that he was that good of a player all season long and should have played more. He wasn't that good earlier, probably due to not being in game shape early on, maybe still affected by injury, and being behind in able to practice much early on. There were 2 early games he played in which he played less than half a minute each, and others where he played only a minute or two. . Do you realize that Kuany did not score a point in 14 of the 22 earlier games in which he played? Or get a single shot block? And in 16 of those games, he did not get a single field goal. In 11 of those games, he did not get a single rebound.

Here is how Kuany's season went: In his first 9 games, during the pre-conference season, Kuany scored 8 points in 28 minutes, averaging 3 minutes per game and 11.4 points/40 minutes. He did not make a single 3-pointer. He was 4-9 on FTs. He went 4-4 vs USF on FT's. He had 6 rebounds, or 8.6/40min. I'd don't want to spend hours to calculate it, but I'd guess he was probably in the bottom half of the rotation in your formula calculated productivity after those 9 games.

In Kuany's games 10-14, at the beginning of the PAC12 season, Fox played Kuany more, 9.2 minutes per game, but Kuany's production fell off a little, as he scored 12 points in 46 minutes, or 10.4 points/40 minutes. He finally made his first 3-pointer of the season, against UW, his 12th game. He was 4-10 on FGs, 1-5 on threes, and 3-5 on FTs. He had 6 rebounds, or 5.2 rebounds/40 minutes.

In his games 15-22, Kuany was relegated to the end of the bench again, as he played only 4.6 minutes per game in that stretch. His production slipped in these 8 games, as he scored only 8 points in 37 minutes, or an average of 8.6 points/40 minutes. He was 2-4 on FGs, 1-1 on threes, 3-6 on FTs. He had 8 rebounds or 8.2/40 min.

I don't think Kuany's calculated productivity at any time during those 22 games would have been the best on the team. Kuany had not shown much productivity to the naked eye except perhaps potential. I'm glad that Kuany got more minutes at the end, and he was healthy enough to play. I think he has earned a shot at being considered for many more minutes next season, with two cautions: Fox started him against Oregon and he did well, but fouled out in 13 minutes, and also Kuany played 13 minutes against Stanford in the PAC12 tourney game, and failed to score. That was one of the most important games of the season, and Kuany did not play well in it. I think Kuany's season was affected by injury more than we know. I don't think we can say he shoots well yet, because the sample is so small. He is not yet a good rebounder, and not very good at finishing at the basket. He is our best at getting to the FT line, and our best at not turning the ball over. He is not very consistent yet. He is a freshman. I think he has high potential.

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Now, to your point, maybe that would not have held up if he was given more minutes. In my experience the opposite is true, players tend to gain confidence and play better when they get a chance to be more in the flow, but who knows? I for one would have liked to find out. But I also agree, I am not the coach.

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I agree with this.

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Also, I am also not advocating for Kuany next season or any other season. I am (generally) for playing the most productive players as much as possible. Thus I would have played Kuany more last year at the 3 with Bradley at the 2 and played Brown and South (two of our least productive players per minute or possession) less. No point in arguing it. You won't change my opinion, the season is over it is done and I am not the coach. Similarly, you are entitled to your opinion that Kuany should not have played any more than he did and giving all those minutes to Brown and South at the 2 was "perfect." We have no way of knowing what would have happened otherwise. I will only dispute your saying he did not play well when he was in when the numbers say the exact opposite.

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I don't know enough to have said Kuany should not have played more, and if I did, then I made a mistake. To know that, I'd need to know more about his health, and watched him in practices. I never said what you accuse me of saying that "giving all those minutes to Brown and South at the 2 was "perfect"". I challenge you to find where I said that. Nothing the Cal team did last season was perfect. They did some very good things sometimes, but they are a long way from perfect. I never agreed with playing Brown at the 2 at all. 2 is a shooting guard, and every shot from Brown is an adventure.

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All the time we gave to Brown at the 2 last year was the point.

Again, the thread is in answer to Big C's question about how much we expect to see of the grad transfer guards. My guess is that we will see them a lot. As part of the evidence I pointed to the fact Fox favored playing Bradley at the 3 with other guards at the 2 even when those guards were struggling mightily and he had another option (Kuany at the 3 and Bradley at the 2) for at least some of the time. It reveals his preferences, which is the point.

Foreman is going to play for sure as one of only 2 PGs on the roster. He could realistically challenge Brown as the starter or his shooting could earn him a major, if not starting, role at the 2.

Similarly Betley could see a lot of time, even start, especially if he plays well (better than South). With Hyder ineligible and Celestine a freshman. That goes even moreso if Foreman is the PG.

The other option is we could see Kuany, Klonarias or now Bowser at the 3 with Bradley at the 2. My observation is that does not appear to be something Fox prefers, since last year he stuck with Brown and South at the 2, despite their playing poorly and Kuany playing really well, albeit in relatively limited minutes as you keep pointing out. However, that just bolsters my point about Fox's observed preference to play three guards.

If I am the coach, I give Kuany more minutes to find out if his good play continues, but not at the expense of Bradley, which means playing them together (with Bradley at the 2). You argue against that but also say you wouldn't have played Brown at the 2 at all without saying what you would do instead. If you didn't give those minutes to Brown at the 2 who would you have given them to? However, while an interesting side discussion, it doesn't matter, we can't replay last season and neither of us are the coach.

So back to the original topic: How much will we see of the grad transfers? Our starting PG is gone and I think we will get much better play from Foreman and Betley this year than we got from Brown and South last year. Thus i think Fox will play them a lot. That is just my guess, based on the logic I laid out. However, they might play poorly, Brown might improve dramatically and lockdown the PG position, Fox might change his preferences, Bowser or Celestine might be a revelation and play so well they demand more PT, Fox might have more confidence in Kuany or Klonarias as sophomores....there are other possibilities and the future is uncertain.

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If the minutes given to Joel Brown was the point of your argument, then maybe you need to state that more clearly. I was just too dense to see that, I guess.

The original thread was about Johnny Juzang. Big C asked either me or asked all who read his post how much did I or all who read his post feel the new grad transfers would contribute. I did not answer his post because I know so little about any incoming player, I always try to refrain from speculating. I'd rather see them play first, before passing judgment or making predictions for next season.

You answered Big C's question with predictions for the grad transfers usage this season. Neither Big C nor anyone else responded to you with any points about the grad transfers. So maybe you think the thread was about grad transfers, but you are the only one writing about them so far in this thread.

You made some comments about Kuany being Cal's most productive player, and seemed to be criticizing Coach Fox for not playing him more minutes. I answered you with the reasons why Fox might not have played him more minutes.

Once again you are accusing me of saying things I did not say. You say that I argued that Kuany and Bradley should not play together on the floor at the same time. Where did I ever say that? It never happened. I have only said that Bradley's natural position is the 2 guard. He is too small to be playing up front, even though he has been effective at the SF position, his 3-point shooting percentage dropped way off in his second year. I have also said several times that Kuany's best position would be at the 3 or small forward. With the loss of Sueing, Cal had no veteran small forward. Kuany doesn't have the bulk yet, and is not a good enough rebounder yet to play power forward And I also stated that Brown's best (and until he learns to shoot better) position is point guard, and I said I didn't agree with playing Brown at the 2 guard. I never said if I was coach I wouldn't play Brown at the 2. Still Brown is a heckuva defender, so he is not a liability at the 2 guard in that sense. He is a better defender than Austin, and so if Brown and Austin play together, Fox has the option of having Brown on the opponent's best guard, either the point guard or the shooting guard. Brown is not an embarrassment at the 2 guard, just not very effective offensively.

Fox was left with very few good choices. Kuany was injured and very inexperienced. Brown was limited offensively. Paris Austin was a little limited offensively, and not good defensively. Lars was not very athletic, and played shorter than he was. Thorpe was athletic, limited offensively, and very inexperienced. Aside from the pre-conference season, South disappointed. Gordon and Harris Dyson were both injured, and both disappointed. Bradley and Anticevich were the only two dependable players to start the season, and Fox did not even know how dependable Anticevich would be. I think Fox did a helluva job with the hand he had to play, especially bringing his players along. Most of them seemed to improve in different areas as the season progressed, and by the end they were also playing better as a team. You want me to admit that Kuany should have played the 3 and Bradley should have moved to the 2, but that only works in a perfect world. Neither one could play 40 minutes and certainly not both of them. And more important, neither you nor I know what Kuany's health was, nor do we know what Fox's reasons were for not playing Kuany more. He is not a stupid coach. He knows what he is doing, and the improvement in Kuany, most of the players, and the team showed us that in the last few games of the season and in the PAC12 tournament.

SFCityBear said:

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calumnus said:

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SFCityBear said:

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calumnus said:

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I think you misunderstand my point about the grad transfers and about Kuany. His overall productivity (offense and defense) per minute and per possession was statistically the best on the team last year. The best. Both full season and conference only.

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How would you know whether I misunderstand your point about the grad transfers? I never said a word in this thread about any point you made on the grad transfers. Maybe you are thinking of another poster. As to Kuany's productivity being the best on the team, maybe not. According to sports-reference.com, Kuany is ranked #1 in getting to the FT line which you mentioned, and also #1 in fewest turnovers per minute, which you did not mention, is excellent. They have Kuany at #2 on the Cal team in win shares per 40 minutes, behind Matt Bradley. Still very good, but not the best. And the formula, as near as I can tell, does not take into account the opponents. Basketball is all about matchups, and Kuany, as usually the last player off the bench, will often be playing against the opponent's last players off the bench, while Cal's starters will usually be playing against the best players the opponent has to offer.

Contributions and Win Shares are not statistics. They are artificially calculated, using an extremely complex formula, which includes several variables, constants, multipliers and other operators to manipulate the data in a way to give a subjective result, depending on the importance assigned to each statistic in the data set. I studied nuclear physics at Cal, and this basketball formula is more complex than any formula I saw at Cal. It is esoteric and very far divorced from the actual statistics themselves.

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You are the one cherry picking stats and conflating low minutes played with low output. The data says he was very productive, the most productive on the team. He played in 18 games, not the smallest sample. You cannot say he was not productive and didn't play well when the data says the exact opposite, he was the most productive on the team per minute and per possession.

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The actual data, not the complex formula calculated data, the game by game data is more applicable to whether a coach ought to give a player more minutes than any calculation of the results for the entire season, especially when all the player's best productivity came in 5 games at the end of the regular season. That formula of yours greatly skews the result, making Kuany look better for the entire season, when in fact, it only looks that way because of how well he performed in the last 5 games compared to the previous 22 games. And Kuany played in 28 games, not 18, so the sample is bigger than you said. Your end of season formula calculated results showing Kuany as the best or 2nd most productive player were not available to Coach Fox all during the first 22 games of Kuany's season, so Fox could not have known what you and I know now during any of the previous weeks of the season, when he had to make the game by game decisions of how much to play Kuany. What you are using is hindsight.

Here is what he did in his last final 5 PAC12 games:

In just 5 games, he scored 33 points, 54% of his total points for the season.
He made 6 FGs, 43% of his total for the season
He made 3 three-pointers, 60% of his total for the season
He made 18 FTs, 64% of his total for the season.
He got to the free throw line 22 times, 52% of his total for the season.
He got 9 rebounds, 28% of his total for the season.
He had 4 blocks, 100% of his blocks for the season
His FG% was 37.5% for those 5 games, while it was 40% for his other 23 games.
His 3PT% was 50% for those 5 games, while it was 25% for his other 23 games.
His FT % was 82% for those 5 games, while it was 50% for his other 23 games.
One of the 5 games, vs Oregon, Kuany made 3 FGs, the first and only game all season that he made more than one field goal. He was rewarded with a start in the next game, vs Oregon State, where he scored 11 points and fouled out in just 13 minutes.

So the esoteric calculation is perhaps valid for some discussions, but not this one, because it was so heavily skewed by the big increase in Kuany's minutes and his output in the final 5 games, it creates the false impression that he was that good of a player all season long and should have played more. He wasn't that good earlier, probably due to not being in game shape early on, maybe still affected by injury, and being behind in able to practice much early on. There were 2 early games he played in which he played less than half a minute each, and others where he played only a minute or two. . Do you realize that Kuany did not score a point in 14 of the 22 earlier games in which he played? Or get a single shot block? And in 16 of those games, he did not get a single field goal. In 11 of those games, he did not get a single rebound.

Here is how Kuany's season went: In his first 9 games, during the pre-conference season, Kuany scored 8 points in 28 minutes, averaging 3 minutes per game and 11.4 points/40 minutes. He did not make a single 3-pointer. He was 4-9 on FTs. He went 4-4 vs USF on FT's. He had 6 rebounds, or 8.6/40min. I'd don't want to spend hours to calculate it, but I'd guess he was probably in the bottom half of the rotation in your formula calculated productivity after those 9 games.

In Kuany's games 10-14, at the beginning of the PAC12 season, Fox played Kuany more, 9.2 minutes per game, but Kuany's production fell off a little, as he scored 12 points in 46 minutes, or 10.4 points/40 minutes. He finally made his first 3-pointer of the season, against UW, his 12th game. He was 4-10 on FGs, 1-5 on threes, and 3-5 on FTs. He had 6 rebounds, or 5.2 rebounds/40 minutes.

In his games 15-22, Kuany was relegated to the end of the bench again, as he played only 4.6 minutes per game in that stretch. His production slipped in these 8 games, as he scored only 8 points in 37 minutes, or an average of 8.6 points/40 minutes. He was 2-4 on FGs, 1-1 on threes, 3-6 on FTs. He had 8 rebounds or 8.2/40 min.

I don't think Kuany's calculated productivity at any time during those 22 games would have been the best on the team. Kuany had not shown much productivity to the naked eye except perhaps potential. I'm glad that Kuany got more minutes at the end, and he was healthy enough to play. I think he has earned a shot at being considered for many more minutes next season, with two cautions: Fox started him against Oregon and he did well, but fouled out in 13 minutes, and also Kuany played 13 minutes against Stanford in the PAC12 tourney game, and failed to score. That was one of the most important games of the season, and Kuany did not play well in it. I think Kuany's season was affected by injury more than we know. I don't think we can say he shoots well yet, because the sample is so small. He is not yet a good rebounder, and not very good at finishing at the basket. He is our best at getting to the FT line, and our best at not turning the ball over. He is not very consistent yet. He is a freshman. I think he has high potential.

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Now, to your point, maybe that would not have held up if he was given more minutes. In my experience the opposite is true, players tend to gain confidence and play better when they get a chance to be more in the flow, but who knows? I for one would have liked to find out. But I also agree, I am not the coach.

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I agree with this.

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Also, I am also not advocating for Kuany next season or any other season. I am (generally) for playing the most productive players as much as possible. Thus I would have played Kuany more last year at the 3 with Bradley at the 2 and played Brown and South (two of our least productive players per minute or possession) less. No point in arguing it. You won't change my opinion, the season is over it is done and I am not the coach. Similarly, you are entitled to your opinion that Kuany should not have played any more than he did and giving all those minutes to Brown and South at the 2 was "perfect." We have no way of knowing what would have happened otherwise. I will only dispute your saying he did not play well when he was in when the numbers say the exact opposite.

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I don't know enough to have said Kuany should not have played more, and if I did, then I made a mistake. To know that, I'd need to know more about his health, and watched him in practices. I never said what you accuse me of saying that "giving all those minutes to Brown and South at the 2 was "perfect"". I challenge you to find where I said that. Nothing the Cal team did last season was perfect. They did some very good things sometimes, but they are a long way from perfect. I never agreed with playing Brown at the 2 at all. 2 is a shooting guard, and every shot from Brown is an adventure.

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All the time we gave to Brown at the 2 last year was the point.

Again, the thread is in answer to Big C's question about how much we expect to see of the grad transfer guards. My guess is that we will see them a lot. As part of the evidence I pointed to the fact Fox favored playing Bradley at the 3 with other guards at the 2 even when those guards were struggling mightily and he had another option (Kuany at the 3 and Bradley at the 2) for at least some of the time. It reveals his preferences, which is the point.

Foreman is going to play for sure as one of only 2 PGs on the roster. He could realistically challenge Brown as the starter or his shooting could earn him a major, if not starting, role at the 2.

Similarly Betley could see a lot of time, even start, especially if he plays well (better than South). With Hyder ineligible and Celestine a freshman. That goes even moreso if Foreman is the PG.

The other option is we could see Kuany, Klonarias or now Bowser at the 3 with Bradley at the 2. My observation is that does not appear to be something Fox prefers, since last year he stuck with Brown and South at the 2, despite their playing poorly and Kuany playing really well, albeit in relatively limited minutes as you keep pointing out. However, that just bolsters my point about Fox's observed preference to play three guards.

If I am the coach, I give Kuany more minutes to find out if his good play continues, but not at the expense of Bradley, which means playing them together (with Bradley at the 2). You argue against that but also say you wouldn't have played Brown at the 2 at all without saying what you would do instead. If you didn't give those minutes to Brown at the 2 who would you have given them to? However, while an interesting side discussion, it doesn't matter, we can't replay last season and neither of us are the coach.

So back to the original topic: How much will we see of the grad transfers? Our starting PG is gone and I think we will get much better play from Foreman and Betley this year than we got from Brown and South last year. Thus i think Fox will play them a lot. That is just my guess, based on the logic I laid out. However, they might play poorly, Brown might improve dramatically and lockdown the PG position, Fox might change his preferences, Bowser or Celestine might be a revelation and play so well they demand more PT, Fox might have more confidence in Kuany or Klonarias as sophomores....there are other possibilities and the future is uncertain.

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If the minutes given to Joel Brown was the point of your argument, then maybe you need to state that more clearly. I was just too dense to see that, I guess.

The original thread was about Johnny Juzang. Big C asked either me or asked all who read his post how much did I or all who read his post feel the new grad transfers would contribute. I did not answer his post because I know so little about any incoming player, I always try to refrain from speculating. I'd rather see them play first, before passing judgment or making predictions for next season.

You answered Big C's question with predictions for the grad transfers usage this season. Neither Big C nor anyone else responded to you with any points about the grad transfers. So maybe you think the thread was about grad transfers, but you are the only one writing about them so far in this thread.

You made some comments about Kuany being Cal's most productive player, and seemed to be criticizing Coach Fox for not playing him more minutes. I answered you with the reasons why Fox might not have played him more minutes.

Once again you are accusing me of saying things I did not say. You say that I argued that Kuany and Bradley should not play together on the floor at the same time. Where did I ever say that? It never happened. I have only said that Bradley's natural position is the 2 guard. He is too small to be playing up front, even though he has been effective at the SF position, his 3-point shooting percentage dropped way off in his second year. I have also said several times that Kuany's best position would be at the 3 or small forward. With the loss of Sueing, Cal had no veteran small forward. Kuany doesn't have the bulk yet, and is not a good enough rebounder yet to play power forward And I also stated that Brown's best (and until he learns to shoot better) position is point guard, and I said I didn't agree with playing Brown at the 2 guard. I never said if I was coach I wouldn't play Brown at the 2. Still Brown is a heckuva defender, so he is not a liability at the 2 guard in that sense. He is a better defender than Austin, and so if Brown and Austin play together, Fox has the option of having Brown on the opponent's best guard, either the point guard or the shooting guard. Brown is not an embarrassment at the 2 guard, just not very effective offensively.

Fox was left with very few good choices. Kuany was injured and very inexperienced. Brown was limited offensively. Paris Austin was a little limited offensively, and not good defensively. Lars was not very athletic, and played shorter than he was. Thorpe was athletic, limited offensively, and very inexperienced. Aside from the pre-conference season, South disappointed. Gordon and Harris Dyson were both injured, and both disappointed. Bradley and Anticevich were the only two dependable players to start the season, and Fox did not even know how dependable Anticevich would be. I think Fox did a helluva job with the hand he had to play, especially bringing his players along. Most of them seemed to improve in different areas as the season progressed, and by the end they were also playing better as a team. You want me to admit that Kuany should have played the 3 and Bradley should have moved to the 2, but that only works in a perfect world. Neither one could play 40 minutes and certainly not both of them. And more important, neither you nor I know what Kuany's health was, nor do we know what Fox's reasons were for not playing Kuany more. He is not a stupid coach. He knows what he is doing, and the improvement in Kuany, most of the players, and the team showed us that in the last few games of the season and in the PAC12 tournament.

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Big C asked about how much we would see the grad transfers. I addressed that question with several points, the key one being that as one of 2 PGs we will certainly see Foreman a lot. The second observation was that Fox gave Brown and South a lot of minutes at the 2 even when they were struggling when he could have played Bradley there and given more minutes to someone else like Kuany at the 3 who statistically was far more productive than Brown and South when he actually played. I used this as evidence that Fox would likely prefer to play Foreman or Betley at the 2 with Bradley remaining at the 3. That would appear to be his preference. Thus, we will likely see a lot of the grad transfers. Just my guess.

You and others focused on the factuality of my saying that Fox could have played Brown at the 2 less by playing Bradley at the 2 sometimes and Kuany at the 3 instead. And that according to the advanced statistics, Kuany was our best player while Brown was one of our least, so Fox appears to prefer having Bradley at the 3 and another guard at the 2. Again, my point was not to rehash last season, it was to predict next season.

So then we devolved into a discussion about the factuality of what I said. It was implied that Kuany couldn't play more than he did because he was injured. But clearly he could have played more minutes in the games that he played in (which was most of them). It was said that Kuany played poorly when he was in, but the statistics say otherwise, especially relative to playing Brown at the 2. It was said that Kuany was new to Fox's system. Well everyone was. It was said Kuany was a Freshman. Well so was Brown. It was said Kuany had trouble adjusting to the system and played poorly. Again, according to the advanced statistics he played well when he was in. It was said Kuany's excellent numbers per minute were based on too few minutes. I said that could be true, but the fact his numbers per minute were the best of the scholarship players is a fact and if it were me I would have played him more to find out if he continued to play well. I never said he was our best player, just that he played well based on the statistics and playing him more was an option. Moreover, we had a large sample size on Brown and South at the 2 and Fox continued to play them there. I won't address your lengthy arguments about the advanced statistics other than acknowledge that we both agree that small sample size is less reliable than a large sample size.

Again, I simply take the fact that Fox didn't try to get Kuany (or anyone else) more minutes (and Brown and South less) by playing Bradley at the 2 is, to me, more an indication of Fox's preference to play Bradley at the 3 than anything else. There are many possible good reasons for that with fear that guarding a quicker 2 might put his main offensive player in foul trouble being the top that come to mind. Getting Brown, our only returning PG, game experience for the next year is another. Hoping South or Brown could play their way our of a shooting slump is another. There may be other considerations that we are not privy to. I am not questioning Fox's decision but I am asserting it was Fox's decision and appears to reveal that his preference is playing Bradley at the 3 and will play other guards at the 2 even if they are struggling.

I then extrapolated that as just part of my prediction that the grad transfer guards will play a lot. Especially if they play well (or just better than South and Brown did last year) and I think they will.

calumnus said:

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SFCityBear said:

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calumnus said:

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SFCityBear said:

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calumnus said:

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I think you misunderstand my point about the grad transfers and about Kuany. His overall productivity (offense and defense) per minute and per possession was statistically the best on the team last year. The best. Both full season and conference only.

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How would you know whether I misunderstand your point about the grad transfers? I never said a word in this thread about any point you made on the grad transfers. Maybe you are thinking of another poster. As to Kuany's productivity being the best on the team, maybe not. According to sports-reference.com, Kuany is ranked #1 in getting to the FT line which you mentioned, and also #1 in fewest turnovers per minute, which you did not mention, is excellent. They have Kuany at #2 on the Cal team in win shares per 40 minutes, behind Matt Bradley. Still very good, but not the best. And the formula, as near as I can tell, does not take into account the opponents. Basketball is all about matchups, and Kuany, as usually the last player off the bench, will often be playing against the opponent's last players off the bench, while Cal's starters will usually be playing against the best players the opponent has to offer.

Contributions and Win Shares are not statistics. They are artificially calculated, using an extremely complex formula, which includes several variables, constants, multipliers and other operators to manipulate the data in a way to give a subjective result, depending on the importance assigned to each statistic in the data set. I studied nuclear physics at Cal, and this basketball formula is more complex than any formula I saw at Cal. It is esoteric and very far divorced from the actual statistics themselves.

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You are the one cherry picking stats and conflating low minutes played with low output. The data says he was very productive, the most productive on the team. He played in 18 games, not the smallest sample. You cannot say he was not productive and didn't play well when the data says the exact opposite, he was the most productive on the team per minute and per possession.

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The actual data, not the complex formula calculated data, the game by game data is more applicable to whether a coach ought to give a player more minutes than any calculation of the results for the entire season, especially when all the player's best productivity came in 5 games at the end of the regular season. That formula of yours greatly skews the result, making Kuany look better for the entire season, when in fact, it only looks that way because of how well he performed in the last 5 games compared to the previous 22 games. And Kuany played in 28 games, not 18, so the sample is bigger than you said. Your end of season formula calculated results showing Kuany as the best or 2nd most productive player were not available to Coach Fox all during the first 22 games of Kuany's season, so Fox could not have known what you and I know now during any of the previous weeks of the season, when he had to make the game by game decisions of how much to play Kuany. What you are using is hindsight.

Here is what he did in his last final 5 PAC12 games:

In just 5 games, he scored 33 points, 54% of his total points for the season.
He made 6 FGs, 43% of his total for the season
He made 3 three-pointers, 60% of his total for the season
He made 18 FTs, 64% of his total for the season.
He got to the free throw line 22 times, 52% of his total for the season.
He got 9 rebounds, 28% of his total for the season.
He had 4 blocks, 100% of his blocks for the season
His FG% was 37.5% for those 5 games, while it was 40% for his other 23 games.
His 3PT% was 50% for those 5 games, while it was 25% for his other 23 games.
His FT % was 82% for those 5 games, while it was 50% for his other 23 games.
One of the 5 games, vs Oregon, Kuany made 3 FGs, the first and only game all season that he made more than one field goal. He was rewarded with a start in the next game, vs Oregon State, where he scored 11 points and fouled out in just 13 minutes.

So the esoteric calculation is perhaps valid for some discussions, but not this one, because it was so heavily skewed by the big increase in Kuany's minutes and his output in the final 5 games, it creates the false impression that he was that good of a player all season long and should have played more. He wasn't that good earlier, probably due to not being in game shape early on, maybe still affected by injury, and being behind in able to practice much early on. There were 2 early games he played in which he played less than half a minute each, and others where he played only a minute or two. . Do you realize that Kuany did not score a point in 14 of the 22 earlier games in which he played? Or get a single shot block? And in 16 of those games, he did not get a single field goal. In 11 of those games, he did not get a single rebound.

Here is how Kuany's season went: In his first 9 games, during the pre-conference season, Kuany scored 8 points in 28 minutes, averaging 3 minutes per game and 11.4 points/40 minutes. He did not make a single 3-pointer. He was 4-9 on FTs. He went 4-4 vs USF on FT's. He had 6 rebounds, or 8.6/40min. I'd don't want to spend hours to calculate it, but I'd guess he was probably in the bottom half of the rotation in your formula calculated productivity after those 9 games.

In Kuany's games 10-14, at the beginning of the PAC12 season, Fox played Kuany more, 9.2 minutes per game, but Kuany's production fell off a little, as he scored 12 points in 46 minutes, or 10.4 points/40 minutes. He finally made his first 3-pointer of the season, against UW, his 12th game. He was 4-10 on FGs, 1-5 on threes, and 3-5 on FTs. He had 6 rebounds, or 5.2 rebounds/40 minutes.

In his games 15-22, Kuany was relegated to the end of the bench again, as he played only 4.6 minutes per game in that stretch. His production slipped in these 8 games, as he scored only 8 points in 37 minutes, or an average of 8.6 points/40 minutes. He was 2-4 on FGs, 1-1 on threes, 3-6 on FTs. He had 8 rebounds or 8.2/40 min.

I don't think Kuany's calculated productivity at any time during those 22 games would have been the best on the team. Kuany had not shown much productivity to the naked eye except perhaps potential. I'm glad that Kuany got more minutes at the end, and he was healthy enough to play. I think he has earned a shot at being considered for many more minutes next season, with two cautions: Fox started him against Oregon and he did well, but fouled out in 13 minutes, and also Kuany played 13 minutes against Stanford in the PAC12 tourney game, and failed to score. That was one of the most important games of the season, and Kuany did not play well in it. I think Kuany's season was affected by injury more than we know. I don't think we can say he shoots well yet, because the sample is so small. He is not yet a good rebounder, and not very good at finishing at the basket. He is our best at getting to the FT line, and our best at not turning the ball over. He is not very consistent yet. He is a freshman. I think he has high potential.

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Now, to your point, maybe that would not have held up if he was given more minutes. In my experience the opposite is true, players tend to gain confidence and play better when they get a chance to be more in the flow, but who knows? I for one would have liked to find out. But I also agree, I am not the coach.

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I agree with this.

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Also, I am also not advocating for Kuany next season or any other season. I am (generally) for playing the most productive players as much as possible. Thus I would have played Kuany more last year at the 3 with Bradley at the 2 and played Brown and South (two of our least productive players per minute or possession) less. No point in arguing it. You won't change my opinion, the season is over it is done and I am not the coach. Similarly, you are entitled to your opinion that Kuany should not have played any more than he did and giving all those minutes to Brown and South at the 2 was "perfect." We have no way of knowing what would have happened otherwise. I will only dispute your saying he did not play well when he was in when the numbers say the exact opposite.

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I don't know enough to have said Kuany should not have played more, and if I did, then I made a mistake. To know that, I'd need to know more about his health, and watched him in practices. I never said what you accuse me of saying that "giving all those minutes to Brown and South at the 2 was "perfect"". I challenge you to find where I said that. Nothing the Cal team did last season was perfect. They did some very good things sometimes, but they are a long way from perfect. I never agreed with playing Brown at the 2 at all. 2 is a shooting guard, and every shot from Brown is an adventure.

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All the time we gave to Brown at the 2 last year was the point.

Again, the thread is in answer to Big C's question about how much we expect to see of the grad transfer guards. My guess is that we will see them a lot. As part of the evidence I pointed to the fact Fox favored playing Bradley at the 3 with other guards at the 2 even when those guards were struggling mightily and he had another option (Kuany at the 3 and Bradley at the 2) for at least some of the time. It reveals his preferences, which is the point.

Foreman is going to play for sure as one of only 2 PGs on the roster. He could realistically challenge Brown as the starter or his shooting could earn him a major, if not starting, role at the 2.

Similarly Betley could see a lot of time, even start, especially if he plays well (better than South). With Hyder ineligible and Celestine a freshman. That goes even moreso if Foreman is the PG.

The other option is we could see Kuany, Klonarias or now Bowser at the 3 with Bradley at the 2. My observation is that does not appear to be something Fox prefers, since last year he stuck with Brown and South at the 2, despite their playing poorly and Kuany playing really well, albeit in relatively limited minutes as you keep pointing out. However, that just bolsters my point about Fox's observed preference to play three guards.

If I am the coach, I give Kuany more minutes to find out if his good play continues, but not at the expense of Bradley, which means playing them together (with Bradley at the 2). You argue against that but also say you wouldn't have played Brown at the 2 at all without saying what you would do instead. If you didn't give those minutes to Brown at the 2 who would you have given them to? However, while an interesting side discussion, it doesn't matter, we can't replay last season and neither of us are the coach.

So back to the original topic: How much will we see of the grad transfers? Our starting PG is gone and I think we will get much better play from Foreman and Betley this year than we got from Brown and South last year. Thus i think Fox will play them a lot. That is just my guess, based on the logic I laid out. However, they might play poorly, Brown might improve dramatically and lockdown the PG position, Fox might change his preferences, Bowser or Celestine might be a revelation and play so well they demand more PT, Fox might have more confidence in Kuany or Klonarias as sophomores....there are other possibilities and the future is uncertain.

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If the minutes given to Joel Brown was the point of your argument, then maybe you need to state that more clearly. I was just too dense to see that, I guess.

The original thread was about Johnny Juzang. Big C asked either me or asked all who read his post how much did I or all who read his post feel the new grad transfers would contribute. I did not answer his post because I know so little about any incoming player, I always try to refrain from speculating. I'd rather see them play first, before passing judgment or making predictions for next season.

You answered Big C's question with predictions for the grad transfers usage this season. Neither Big C nor anyone else responded to you with any points about the grad transfers. So maybe you think the thread was about grad transfers, but you are the only one writing about them so far in this thread.

You made some comments about Kuany being Cal's most productive player, and seemed to be criticizing Coach Fox for not playing him more minutes. I answered you with the reasons why Fox might not have played him more minutes.

Once again you are accusing me of saying things I did not say. You say that I argued that Kuany and Bradley should not play together on the floor at the same time. Where did I ever say that? It never happened. I have only said that Bradley's natural position is the 2 guard. He is too small to be playing up front, even though he has been effective at the SF position, his 3-point shooting percentage dropped way off in his second year. I have also said several times that Kuany's best position would be at the 3 or small forward. With the loss of Sueing, Cal had no veteran small forward. Kuany doesn't have the bulk yet, and is not a good enough rebounder yet to play power forward And I also stated that Brown's best (and until he learns to shoot better) position is point guard, and I said I didn't agree with playing Brown at the 2 guard. I never said if I was coach I wouldn't play Brown at the 2. Still Brown is a heckuva defender, so he is not a liability at the 2 guard in that sense. He is a better defender than Austin, and so if Brown and Austin play together, Fox has the option of having Brown on the opponent's best guard, either the point guard or the shooting guard. Brown is not an embarrassment at the 2 guard, just not very effective offensively.

Fox was left with very few good choices. Kuany was injured and very inexperienced. Brown was limited offensively. Paris Austin was a little limited offensively, and not good defensively. Lars was not very athletic, and played shorter than he was. Thorpe was athletic, limited offensively, and very inexperienced. Aside from the pre-conference season, South disappointed. Gordon and Harris Dyson were both injured, and both disappointed. Bradley and Anticevich were the only two dependable players to start the season, and Fox did not even know how dependable Anticevich would be. I think Fox did a helluva job with the hand he had to play, especially bringing his players along. Most of them seemed to improve in different areas as the season progressed, and by the end they were also playing better as a team. You want me to admit that Kuany should have played the 3 and Bradley should have moved to the 2, but that only works in a perfect world. Neither one could play 40 minutes and certainly not both of them. And more important, neither you nor I know what Kuany's health was, nor do we know what Fox's reasons were for not playing Kuany more. He is not a stupid coach. He knows what he is doing, and the improvement in Kuany, most of the players, and the team showed us that in the last few games of the season and in the PAC12 tournament.

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Big C asked about how much we would see the grad transfers. I addressed that question with several points, the key one being that as one of 2 PGs we will certainly see Foreman a lot. The second observation was that Fox gave Brown and South a lot of minutes at the 2 even when they were struggling when he could have played Bradley there and given more minutes to someone else like Kuany at the 3 who statistically was far more productive than Brown and South when he actually played. I used this as evidence that Fox would likely prefer to play Foreman or Betley at the 2 with Bradley remaining at the 3. That would appear to be his preference. Thus, we will likely see a lot of the grad transfers. Just my guess.

You and others focused on the factuality of my saying that Fox could have played Brown at the 2 less by playing Bradley at the 2 sometimes and Kuany at the 3 instead. And that according to the advanced statistics, Kuany was our best player while Brown was one of our least, so Fox appears to prefer having Bradley at the 3 and another guard at the 2. Again, my point was not to rehash last season, it was to predict next season.

So then we devolved into a discussion about the factuality of what I said. It was implied that Kuany couldn't play more than he did because he was injured. But clearly he could have played more minutes in the games that he played in (which was most of them). It was said that Kuany played poorly when he was in, but the statistics say otherwise, especially relative to playing Brown at the 2. It was said that Kuany was new to Fox's system. Well everyone was. It was said Kuany was a Freshman. Well so was Brown. It was said Kuany had trouble adjusting to the system and played poorly. Again, according to the advanced statistics he played well when he was in. It was said Kuany's excellent numbers per minute were based on too few minutes. I said that could be true, but the fact his numbers per minute were the best of the scholarship players is a fact and if it were me I would have played him more to find out if he continued to play well. I never said he was our best player, just that he played well based on the statistics and playing him more was an option. Moreover, we had a large sample size on Brown and South at the 2 and Fox continued to play them there. I won't address your lengthy arguments about the advanced statistics other than acknowledge that we both agree that small sample size is less reliable than a large sample size.

Again, I simply take the fact that Fox didn't try to get Kuany (or anyone else) more minutes (and Brown and South less) by playing Bradley at the 2 is, to me, more an indication of Fox's preference to play Bradley at the 3 than anything else. There are many possible good reasons for that with fear that guarding a quicker 2 might put his main offensive player in foul trouble being the top that come to mind. Getting Brown, our only returning PG, game experience for the next year is another. Hoping South or Brown could play their way our of a shooting slump is another. There may be other considerations that we are not privy to. I am not questioning Fox's decision but I am asserting it was Fox's decision and appears to reveal that his preference is playing Bradley at the 3 and will play other guards at the 2 even if they are struggling.

I then extrapolated that as just part of my prediction that the grad transfer guards will play a lot. Especially if they play well (or just better than South and Brown did last year) and I think they will.

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OK. We don't agree on much, and we've spent enough time on it. I hope you are right about the grad transfers being able to contribute, and I hope that somehow the players are finding a way during this shut down to try and improve their individual skills.

Stay safe and be well.

SFCB

SFCityBear said:

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calumnus said:

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SFCityBear said:

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calumnus said:

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SFCityBear said:

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calumnus said:

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I think you misunderstand my point about the grad transfers and about Kuany. His overall productivity (offense and defense) per minute and per possession was statistically the best on the team last year. The best. Both full season and conference only.

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How would you know whether I misunderstand your point about the grad transfers? I never said a word in this thread about any point you made on the grad transfers. Maybe you are thinking of another poster. As to Kuany's productivity being the best on the team, maybe not. According to sports-reference.com, Kuany is ranked #1 in getting to the FT line which you mentioned, and also #1 in fewest turnovers per minute, which you did not mention, is excellent. They have Kuany at #2 on the Cal team in win shares per 40 minutes, behind Matt Bradley. Still very good, but not the best. And the formula, as near as I can tell, does not take into account the opponents. Basketball is all about matchups, and Kuany, as usually the last player off the bench, will often be playing against the opponent's last players off the bench, while Cal's starters will usually be playing against the best players the opponent has to offer.

Contributions and Win Shares are not statistics. They are artificially calculated, using an extremely complex formula, which includes several variables, constants, multipliers and other operators to manipulate the data in a way to give a subjective result, depending on the importance assigned to each statistic in the data set. I studied nuclear physics at Cal, and this basketball formula is more complex than any formula I saw at Cal. It is esoteric and very far divorced from the actual statistics themselves.

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You are the one cherry picking stats and conflating low minutes played with low output. The data says he was very productive, the most productive on the team. He played in 18 games, not the smallest sample. You cannot say he was not productive and didn't play well when the data says the exact opposite, he was the most productive on the team per minute and per possession.

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The actual data, not the complex formula calculated data, the game by game data is more applicable to whether a coach ought to give a player more minutes than any calculation of the results for the entire season, especially when all the player's best productivity came in 5 games at the end of the regular season. That formula of yours greatly skews the result, making Kuany look better for the entire season, when in fact, it only looks that way because of how well he performed in the last 5 games compared to the previous 22 games. And Kuany played in 28 games, not 18, so the sample is bigger than you said. Your end of season formula calculated results showing Kuany as the best or 2nd most productive player were not available to Coach Fox all during the first 22 games of Kuany's season, so Fox could not have known what you and I know now during any of the previous weeks of the season, when he had to make the game by game decisions of how much to play Kuany. What you are using is hindsight.

Here is what he did in his last final 5 PAC12 games:

In just 5 games, he scored 33 points, 54% of his total points for the season.
He made 6 FGs, 43% of his total for the season
He made 3 three-pointers, 60% of his total for the season
He made 18 FTs, 64% of his total for the season.
He got to the free throw line 22 times, 52% of his total for the season.
He got 9 rebounds, 28% of his total for the season.
He had 4 blocks, 100% of his blocks for the season
His FG% was 37.5% for those 5 games, while it was 40% for his other 23 games.
His 3PT% was 50% for those 5 games, while it was 25% for his other 23 games.
His FT % was 82% for those 5 games, while it was 50% for his other 23 games.
One of the 5 games, vs Oregon, Kuany made 3 FGs, the first and only game all season that he made more than one field goal. He was rewarded with a start in the next game, vs Oregon State, where he scored 11 points and fouled out in just 13 minutes.

So the esoteric calculation is perhaps valid for some discussions, but not this one, because it was so heavily skewed by the big increase in Kuany's minutes and his output in the final 5 games, it creates the false impression that he was that good of a player all season long and should have played more. He wasn't that good earlier, probably due to not being in game shape early on, maybe still affected by injury, and being behind in able to practice much early on. There were 2 early games he played in which he played less than half a minute each, and others where he played only a minute or two. . Do you realize that Kuany did not score a point in 14 of the 22 earlier games in which he played? Or get a single shot block? And in 16 of those games, he did not get a single field goal. In 11 of those games, he did not get a single rebound.

Here is how Kuany's season went: In his first 9 games, during the pre-conference season, Kuany scored 8 points in 28 minutes, averaging 3 minutes per game and 11.4 points/40 minutes. He did not make a single 3-pointer. He was 4-9 on FTs. He went 4-4 vs USF on FT's. He had 6 rebounds, or 8.6/40min. I'd don't want to spend hours to calculate it, but I'd guess he was probably in the bottom half of the rotation in your formula calculated productivity after those 9 games.

In Kuany's games 10-14, at the beginning of the PAC12 season, Fox played Kuany more, 9.2 minutes per game, but Kuany's production fell off a little, as he scored 12 points in 46 minutes, or 10.4 points/40 minutes. He finally made his first 3-pointer of the season, against UW, his 12th game. He was 4-10 on FGs, 1-5 on threes, and 3-5 on FTs. He had 6 rebounds, or 5.2 rebounds/40 minutes.

In his games 15-22, Kuany was relegated to the end of the bench again, as he played only 4.6 minutes per game in that stretch. His production slipped in these 8 games, as he scored only 8 points in 37 minutes, or an average of 8.6 points/40 minutes. He was 2-4 on FGs, 1-1 on threes, 3-6 on FTs. He had 8 rebounds or 8.2/40 min.

I don't think Kuany's calculated productivity at any time during those 22 games would have been the best on the team. Kuany had not shown much productivity to the naked eye except perhaps potential. I'm glad that Kuany got more minutes at the end, and he was healthy enough to play. I think he has earned a shot at being considered for many more minutes next season, with two cautions: Fox started him against Oregon and he did well, but fouled out in 13 minutes, and also Kuany played 13 minutes against Stanford in the PAC12 tourney game, and failed to score. That was one of the most important games of the season, and Kuany did not play well in it. I think Kuany's season was affected by injury more than we know. I don't think we can say he shoots well yet, because the sample is so small. He is not yet a good rebounder, and not very good at finishing at the basket. He is our best at getting to the FT line, and our best at not turning the ball over. He is not very consistent yet. He is a freshman. I think he has high potential.

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Now, to your point, maybe that would not have held up if he was given more minutes. In my experience the opposite is true, players tend to gain confidence and play better when they get a chance to be more in the flow, but who knows? I for one would have liked to find out. But I also agree, I am not the coach.

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I agree with this.

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Also, I am also not advocating for Kuany next season or any other season. I am (generally) for playing the most productive players as much as possible. Thus I would have played Kuany more last year at the 3 with Bradley at the 2 and played Brown and South (two of our least productive players per minute or possession) less. No point in arguing it. You won't change my opinion, the season is over it is done and I am not the coach. Similarly, you are entitled to your opinion that Kuany should not have played any more than he did and giving all those minutes to Brown and South at the 2 was "perfect." We have no way of knowing what would have happened otherwise. I will only dispute your saying he did not play well when he was in when the numbers say the exact opposite.

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I don't know enough to have said Kuany should not have played more, and if I did, then I made a mistake. To know that, I'd need to know more about his health, and watched him in practices. I never said what you accuse me of saying that "giving all those minutes to Brown and South at the 2 was "perfect"". I challenge you to find where I said that. Nothing the Cal team did last season was perfect. They did some very good things sometimes, but they are a long way from perfect. I never agreed with playing Brown at the 2 at all. 2 is a shooting guard, and every shot from Brown is an adventure.

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All the time we gave to Brown at the 2 last year was the point.

Again, the thread is in answer to Big C's question about how much we expect to see of the grad transfer guards. My guess is that we will see them a lot. As part of the evidence I pointed to the fact Fox favored playing Bradley at the 3 with other guards at the 2 even when those guards were struggling mightily and he had another option (Kuany at the 3 and Bradley at the 2) for at least some of the time. It reveals his preferences, which is the point.

Foreman is going to play for sure as one of only 2 PGs on the roster. He could realistically challenge Brown as the starter or his shooting could earn him a major, if not starting, role at the 2.

Similarly Betley could see a lot of time, even start, especially if he plays well (better than South). With Hyder ineligible and Celestine a freshman. That goes even moreso if Foreman is the PG.

The other option is we could see Kuany, Klonarias or now Bowser at the 3 with Bradley at the 2. My observation is that does not appear to be something Fox prefers, since last year he stuck with Brown and South at the 2, despite their playing poorly and Kuany playing really well, albeit in relatively limited minutes as you keep pointing out. However, that just bolsters my point about Fox's observed preference to play three guards.

If I am the coach, I give Kuany more minutes to find out if his good play continues, but not at the expense of Bradley, which means playing them together (with Bradley at the 2). You argue against that but also say you wouldn't have played Brown at the 2 at all without saying what you would do instead. If you didn't give those minutes to Brown at the 2 who would you have given them to? However, while an interesting side discussion, it doesn't matter, we can't replay last season and neither of us are the coach.

So back to the original topic: How much will we see of the grad transfers? Our starting PG is gone and I think we will get much better play from Foreman and Betley this year than we got from Brown and South last year. Thus i think Fox will play them a lot. That is just my guess, based on the logic I laid out. However, they might play poorly, Brown might improve dramatically and lockdown the PG position, Fox might change his preferences, Bowser or Celestine might be a revelation and play so well they demand more PT, Fox might have more confidence in Kuany or Klonarias as sophomores....there are other possibilities and the future is uncertain.

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If the minutes given to Joel Brown was the point of your argument, then maybe you need to state that more clearly. I was just too dense to see that, I guess.

The original thread was about Johnny Juzang. Big C asked either me or asked all who read his post how much did I or all who read his post feel the new grad transfers would contribute. I did not answer his post because I know so little about any incoming player, I always try to refrain from speculating. I'd rather see them play first, before passing judgment or making predictions for next season.

You answered Big C's question with predictions for the grad transfers usage this season. Neither Big C nor anyone else responded to you with any points about the grad transfers. So maybe you think the thread was about grad transfers, but you are the only one writing about them so far in this thread.

You made some comments about Kuany being Cal's most productive player, and seemed to be criticizing Coach Fox for not playing him more minutes. I answered you with the reasons why Fox might not have played him more minutes.

Once again you are accusing me of saying things I did not say. You say that I argued that Kuany and Bradley should not play together on the floor at the same time. Where did I ever say that? It never happened. I have only said that Bradley's natural position is the 2 guard. He is too small to be playing up front, even though he has been effective at the SF position, his 3-point shooting percentage dropped way off in his second year. I have also said several times that Kuany's best position would be at the 3 or small forward. With the loss of Sueing, Cal had no veteran small forward. Kuany doesn't have the bulk yet, and is not a good enough rebounder yet to play power forward And I also stated that Brown's best (and until he learns to shoot better) position is point guard, and I said I didn't agree with playing Brown at the 2 guard. I never said if I was coach I wouldn't play Brown at the 2. Still Brown is a heckuva defender, so he is not a liability at the 2 guard in that sense. He is a better defender than Austin, and so if Brown and Austin play together, Fox has the option of having Brown on the opponent's best guard, either the point guard or the shooting guard. Brown is not an embarrassment at the 2 guard, just not very effective offensively.

Fox was left with very few good choices. Kuany was injured and very inexperienced. Brown was limited offensively. Paris Austin was a little limited offensively, and not good defensively. Lars was not very athletic, and played shorter than he was. Thorpe was athletic, limited offensively, and very inexperienced. Aside from the pre-conference season, South disappointed. Gordon and Harris Dyson were both injured, and both disappointed. Bradley and Anticevich were the only two dependable players to start the season, and Fox did not even know how dependable Anticevich would be. I think Fox did a helluva job with the hand he had to play, especially bringing his players along. Most of them seemed to improve in different areas as the season progressed, and by the end they were also playing better as a team. You want me to admit that Kuany should have played the 3 and Bradley should have moved to the 2, but that only works in a perfect world. Neither one could play 40 minutes and certainly not both of them. And more important, neither you nor I know what Kuany's health was, nor do we know what Fox's reasons were for not playing Kuany more. He is not a stupid coach. He knows what he is doing, and the improvement in Kuany, most of the players, and the team showed us that in the last few games of the season and in the PAC12 tournament.

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Big C asked about how much we would see the grad transfers. I addressed that question with several points, the key one being that as one of 2 PGs we will certainly see Foreman a lot. The second observation was that Fox gave Brown and South a lot of minutes at the 2 even when they were struggling when he could have played Bradley there and given more minutes to someone else like Kuany at the 3 who statistically was far more productive than Brown and South when he actually played. I used this as evidence that Fox would likely prefer to play Foreman or Betley at the 2 with Bradley remaining at the 3. That would appear to be his preference. Thus, we will likely see a lot of the grad transfers. Just my guess.

You and others focused on the factuality of my saying that Fox could have played Brown at the 2 less by playing Bradley at the 2 sometimes and Kuany at the 3 instead. And that according to the advanced statistics, Kuany was our best player while Brown was one of our least, so Fox appears to prefer having Bradley at the 3 and another guard at the 2. Again, my point was not to rehash last season, it was to predict next season.

So then we devolved into a discussion about the factuality of what I said. It was implied that Kuany couldn't play more than he did because he was injured. But clearly he could have played more minutes in the games that he played in (which was most of them). It was said that Kuany played poorly when he was in, but the statistics say otherwise, especially relative to playing Brown at the 2. It was said that Kuany was new to Fox's system. Well everyone was. It was said Kuany was a Freshman. Well so was Brown. It was said Kuany had trouble adjusting to the system and played poorly. Again, according to the advanced statistics he played well when he was in. It was said Kuany's excellent numbers per minute were based on too few minutes. I said that could be true, but the fact his numbers per minute were the best of the scholarship players is a fact and if it were me I would have played him more to find out if he continued to play well. I never said he was our best player, just that he played well based on the statistics and playing him more was an option. Moreover, we had a large sample size on Brown and South at the 2 and Fox continued to play them there. I won't address your lengthy arguments about the advanced statistics other than acknowledge that we both agree that small sample size is less reliable than a large sample size.

Again, I simply take the fact that Fox didn't try to get Kuany (or anyone else) more minutes (and Brown and South less) by playing Bradley at the 2 is, to me, more an indication of Fox's preference to play Bradley at the 3 than anything else. There are many possible good reasons for that with fear that guarding a quicker 2 might put his main offensive player in foul trouble being the top that come to mind. Getting Brown, our only returning PG, game experience for the next year is another. Hoping South or Brown could play their way our of a shooting slump is another. There may be other considerations that we are not privy to. I am not questioning Fox's decision but I am asserting it was Fox's decision and appears to reveal that his preference is playing Bradley at the 3 and will play other guards at the 2 even if they are struggling.

I then extrapolated that as just part of my prediction that the grad transfer guards will play a lot. Especially if they play well (or just better than South and Brown did last year) and I think they will.

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OK. We don't agree on much, and we've spent enough time on it. I hope you are right about the grad transfers being able to contribute, and I hope that somehow the players are finding a way during this shut down to try and improve their individual skills.

Stay safe and be well.

SFCB

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Agreed. Take care and Go Bears!

My expectations for the two grad transfers are modest: 15-or-so semi-productive minutes per game on a team that wins maybe five more games than last season. When they approach the scorer's table to enter the game, we don't groan. Basically "Kareem South + 1" (nothing against South, who helped us last season).

Agree. They would have went to an ncaa team if they were offered.

oskidunker said:

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Agree. They would have went to an ncaa team if they were offered.

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The question is not exactly how good they are, it is how much will they will play? South, Austin and Harris-Dyson played 30, 28 and 15 minutes per game with Brown playing 19. Foreman is one of two PGs on roster so I think he plays at least as much as Brown did last year and quite probably more. Betley is far more questionable. I think his PT will largely depend on his ability to defend 2s in the PAC-12 (and knock down shots as a secondary consideration). If Fox sees him as a 3, he has a lot more competition for PT.

calumnus said:

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oskidunker said:

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Agree. They would have went to an ncaa team if they were offered.

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The question is not exactly how good they are, it is how much will they will play? South, Austin and Harris-Dyson played 30, 28 and 15 minutes per game with Brown playing 19. Foreman is one of two PGs on roster so I think he plays at least as much as Brown did last year and quite probably more. Betley is far more questionable. I think his PT will largely depend on his ability to defend 2s in the PAC-12 (and knock down shots as a secondary consideration). If Fox sees him as a 3, he has a lot more competition for PT.

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Fox wants Bradley at his natural position so he should be a lock for 35 minutes at the 2. Betley will likely get the bulk of his minutes at the 3.

Civil Bear said:

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calumnus said:

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oskidunker said:

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Agree. They would have went to an ncaa team if they were offered.

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The question is not exactly how good they are, it is how much will they will play? South, Austin and Harris-Dyson played 30, 28 and 15 minutes per game with Brown playing 19. Foreman is one of two PGs on roster so I think he plays at least as much as Brown did last year and quite probably more. Betley is far more questionable. I think his PT will largely depend on his ability to defend 2s in the PAC-12 (and knock down shots as a secondary consideration). If Fox sees him as a 3, he has a lot more competition for PT.

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Fox wants Bradley at his natural position so he should be a lock for 35 minutes at the 2. Betley will likely get the bulk of his minutes at the 3.

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Makes sense to me. What do you (or Fox) see as the major difference between this year and last year when Bradley played only 30 minutes and almost exclusively at the 3?

calumnus said:

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Civil Bear said:

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calumnus said:

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oskidunker said:

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Agree. They would have went to an ncaa team if they were offered.

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The question is not exactly how good they are, it is how much will they will play? South, Austin and Harris-Dyson played 30, 28 and 15 minutes per game with Brown playing 19. Foreman is one of two PGs on roster so I think he plays at least as much as Brown did last year and quite probably more. Betley is far more questionable. I think his PT will largely depend on his ability to defend 2s in the PAC-12 (and knock down shots as a secondary consideration). If Fox sees him as a 3, he has a lot more competition for PT.

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Fox wants Bradley at his natural position so he should be a lock for 35 minutes at the 2. Betley will likely get the bulk of his minutes at the 3.

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Makes sense to me. What do you (or Fox) see as the major difference between this year and last year when Bradley played only 30 minutes and almost exclusively at the 3?

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Fox has replaced sg South, with sf Betley. South was the new guy Fox trusted with the most minutes so Bradley slid to the 3. There shouldn't be a need for that this year.

Edit: I suppose I should say Bradley is a lock for 35 minutes in games where the outcome is in question, he's healthy, and not in foul trouble.

Civil Bear said:

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calumnus said:

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Civil Bear said:

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calumnus said:

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oskidunker said:

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Agree. They would have went to an ncaa team if they were offered.

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The question is not exactly how good they are, it is how much will they will play? South, Austin and Harris-Dyson played 30, 28 and 15 minutes per game with Brown playing 19. Foreman is one of two PGs on roster so I think he plays at least as much as Brown did last year and quite probably more. Betley is far more questionable. I think his PT will largely depend on his ability to defend 2s in the PAC-12 (and knock down shots as a secondary consideration). If Fox sees him as a 3, he has a lot more competition for PT.

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Fox wants Bradley at his natural position so he should be a lock for 35 minutes at the 2. Betley will likely get the bulk of his minutes at the 3.

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Makes sense to me. What do you (or Fox) see as the major difference between this year and last year when Bradley played only 30 minutes and almost exclusively at the 3?

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Fox has replaced sg South, with sf Betley. South was the new guy Fox trusted with the most minutes so Bradley slid to the 3. There shouldn't be a need for that this year.

Edit: I suppose I should say Bradley is a lock for 35 minutes in games where the outcome is in question, he's healthy, and not in foul trouble.

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Yes, everyone last year was new to Fox. A grad transfer last year is different than a grad transfer this year. I'd still think a grad transfer playing poorly would have changed that calculus and it still doesn't explain playing Brown, a freshman who couldn't shoot well, at the 2 instead of playing Bradley there,but whatever. Good to hear Fox is moving Bradley to the 2. With Bradley at the 2, it will he really interesting to see who gets the most minutes at the 3. A lot of candidates.