D. Daniels

[huskymagic]

No, not kidding actually. Kind of wondering aloud. I am no talent evaluator. All I know is that Daniels was ranked higher, in some cases significantly so, by those that are (supposedly) talent evaluators. If given the same opportunity for minutes and a green light to shoot at will would he be putting up the sam numbers? If they switched teams would their statistics be reversed? No one can say for sure but I'm not convinced they wouldn't. Kind of the Cleveland Melvin Syndrome. I doubt he would have put up the same numbers had he come to UConn.

Well we all know how accurate those talent evaluators are when Jeremy Lamb wasn't even on the top 100 of the Espn 100 list and look where he is now. Being ranked higher doesn't mean your a better player than someone. In my opinion Moe Harkless is a much better talent than Daniels. Harkless can be a first round pick in the NBA draft this year and he would have been a great addition to this UConn team making this team I believe almost unbeatable. Daniels has a long way to go and hopefully he becomes more aggressive and contributes to a national title for us this year and for years to come.

 

[Waquoit]

In my opinion Moe Harkless is a much better talent than Daniels.

You are certainly entitled to your opinion and you may be right. I think it's too early to say. Harkless is on a lousy team with a new roster and an absentee head coach and he has the luxury of firing at will with no repercussions. Daniels might well be doing the same thing in a similar environment.

 

[tykurez]

You are certainly entitled to your opinion and you may be right. I think it's too early to say. Harkless is on a lousy team with a new roster and an absentee head coach and he has the luxury of firing at will with no repercussions. Daniels might well be doing the same thing in a similar environment.

This is 100% correct.

 

[RoderickSpode]

It is almost always a mistake to assume that freshman A is better than freshman B simply because A is forced to start and carry the scoring burden (due to a lack of other options), while B is forced to sit behind more experienced players and has to earn his minutes the old-fashioned way.

 

[huskyharry]

I think many of you are peering through the Husky-colored glasses again. I strongly support our players and I hope the best for Deandre...but any objective basketball analyst would conclude that Melvin is a much more accomplished/skilled/effective player than Roscoe Smith (but importantly he does not have a NC ring!) and Harkless is a much more accomplished/skilled/effective player than DD.

I disagree that it is time to "invest more minutes" in DD...that part of the season has finished. We are fighting for our lives in the Big East now and players have to EARN their minutes.

 

[tykurez]

I disagree that it is time to "invest more minutes" in DD...that part of the season has finished. We are fighting for our lives in the Big East now and players have to EARN their minutes.

I can't say I necessarily agree with this ... he's too good to get 3 minutes. There's obviously reasoning behind it, which is why Calhoun is the coach and we're not, but he needs to see the floor more. I do agree that he has to earn it, but I don't think the part of the season where you "invest more minutes" is over.

Giffey has played well in practice, it obviously hasn't fully translated to the game yet. Roscoe is either affected by his injury or is just in a funk. They need a spark from the 3-spot. Daniels provided one earlier, there's no reason to believe he can't provide it again.

Lamb emerged last season after a large lull in production. If we went by the same premise, I'm not sure we'd have seen his arrival so soon.

 

[huskymagic]

I think many of you are peering through the Husky-colored glasses again. I strongly support our players and I hope the best for Deandre...but any objective basketball analyst would conclude that Melvin is a much more accomplished/skilled/effective player than Roscoe Smith (but importantly he does not have a NC ring!) and Harkless is a much more accomplished/skilled/effective player than DD.

I disagree that it is time to "invest more minutes" in DD...that part of the season has finished. We are fighting for our lives in the Big East now and players have to EARN their minutes.

What huskyharry is saying is absolutely right. I am not stating that Harkless is a better player than Daniels because he is starting on an average St Johns team. He is just a better overall player and does everything better than Daniels meaning he shoots better, he drives better, is stronger, more athletic, more effective etc, etc. You better believe that if Harkless came to UConn he would be starting for sure on this team, and we wouldnt be having a discussion as who to start at the 3 spot.

I love Daniels and all but until he starts playing like the number 10 rated recruited on Rivals he should sit on the bench in favor of Roscoe/Giffey. Shout out to Roscoe hoping he plays well from now on and gets the nod.

 

[caw]

Your kidding I hope. Mo Harkless is a much better player than Daniels already and was a big loss for us. I wanted him to come to UConn big time. Daniels has the tools to be a good player but he won't be as good as Harkless. Harkless reminds me of Rudy Gay actually.

The Daniels/Harkless comparison is def. in Harkless' favor ATM. Who knows how they develop though. Daniels has a lot to offer down the line. Physically Harkless is better prepared for life in the BE.

Harkless is not Rudy Gay in one regard. He is not nearly the leaper Gay was/is.

 

[caw]

What huskyharry is saying is absolutely right. I am not stating that Harkless is a better player than Daniels because he is starting on an average St Johns team. He is just a better overall player and does everything better than Daniels meaning he shoots better, he drives better, is stronger, more athletic, more effective etc, etc. You better believe that if Harkless came to UConn he would be starting for sure on this team, and we wouldnt be having a discussion as who to start at the 3 spot.

I love Daniels and all but until he starts playing like the number 10 rated recruited on Rivals he should sit on the bench in favor of Roscoe/Giffey. Shout out to Roscoe hoping he plays well from now on and gets the nod.

Hmmm...

Let's start with shooting and Harkless being a better shooter:

2 PT% 3PT% FT% FG% 2PT FGM 2PT FGA 3PT FGM 2PT FGA FTM FTA PPS
Harkless 50.3% 25.0% 68.3% 44.7% 78 155 11 44 41 60 1.15
Daniels 54.0% 25.7% 79.2% 37.7% 14 26 9 35 19 24 1.21

I may be missing something, but I don't see anywhere that Harkless is shooting better from the field than Daniels. Harkless does have a large majority of his shots inside the arc, whereas Daniels skews more towards the 3PT line which lowers his overall shooting percentage.

Harkless has a much, much higher usage at SJU (duh) and is focused on by defenses more so that could hurt his shooting percentages. Of course, repetition can also help raise ones shooting percentages.

Driving better:

I agree with this. One of my issues with Daniels is that he doesn't attack (though this could be game planning) and dribbles backwards more than forwards in the half-court. Part of this is the positions the two have for their teams. Daniels is playing the 3, Harkless the 4. Different type of situation driving against a bigger/slower player and a smaller/quicker player. This is one of the reasons Rudy Gay was bad at driving to the hole in college (to an extent).

Stronger:

No brainer, yes.

More Athletic:

This is debatable and depends on your definition of athletic. Daniels is pretty darn athletic, as is Harkless. Not sure how to quantify this one. Neither jumps like Rudy Gay or Stanley Robinson. They are both very athletic and it's splitting hairs to try and quantify this argument.

More Effective:

This is a by-product of their situations at least in some respects. For example Harkless has a higher Points Per Minute average than Daniels but has a lower Points Per Shot. What does that mean, Harkless shoots the ball a ton more per minute than Daniels does, which is a function of Daniels being the 5th or maybe the 4th option when he is on the floor and Harkless being the 1st option (or at worse the 2nd) when he is on the floor.

Blocks/Assists/TO/Fouls/Steals all are pretty even on a per minute basis. Rebounding favors Harkless which has a lot to do with position on the floor (a 4 rather than a 3) and the fact he is stronger and he isn't competing with Drummond/Olander/Lamb/Oriakhi for rebounds.

I guess this favors Harkless b/c of rebounding, but it's not a huge amount.

In the end, if Harkless was here competing with Giffey and Roscoe, I'm not sure it's so clear cut he would be the starter at the 3 or has more potential than Daniels. Harkless shoots more per game than anyone on UConn.

 

[Kitaman]

Is all this comparison stuff necessary?

Justifying and comparing makes us look like insecure or threatened UConn fans. As if saying "no way can another team's player be better than ours"

btw: Even if Harkless is better, is that a bad thing, harmful to our future or something?

 

[DogMania]

I was surprised after looking up Daniels' numbers that they have been quite modest throughout the season. He has not been in double digit points since November 11th where he scored 15 against Maine. The only other double digit scoring game was the prior one against Wagner where he scored 11.

DD averaged 35 minutes the next two games but put up only 5 and 3 pts respectively. After getting 6 points in 21 minutes in his next game his PT has fluctuated dramatically between 3 (lowest this past game) and 19 (a couple times) since. During that stretch he's averaging consistently between 3 and 5 shots a game, usually hitting 1 to 2 of them.

So what does this all mean? I'm not sure. If I go by the eye test, he doesn't look as active and confident as he did early in the season. Maybe I'm wrong, but he's got that "I'm afraid to screw up" look and has become passive. Being a role player on a JC coached team is a difficult one. You're damned if you play too passively and damned if you try to do too much and take shots away from the primary scorers. My guess is that DD needs to do a better job of taking what the D gives him. As long as he's not jacking up 3s with 25 seconds left on the shot clock, I'm sure JC is fine with him taking good shots where his feet are set and he lets 'em go with confidence.

Where it gets really tough for the role players is when they're in there in a tight game where getting points during that possession is critical or close to it. In those circumstances you better make sure you're taking a good shot and feel good about it, or making sure the ball gets back to the right person who will be taking the shot or delivering the pass to that preferred shot-maker.

A perfect example was Giffey a couple games ago. Niels was set up nicely twice in the corner for wide open 3s, which he front rimmed twice. JC got all into him, but come on!!!! Why have him in there and receiving the ball there if you don't want him to shoot it. IMO, they were the right shots, just bad execution. Now Niels (Deandre or Roscoe) need to knock down shots much better than they have been thus far. If JC is going to put them out there, they need to have the green light on shots they're capable of making. That doesn't mean jacking up the first lightly contested shot. They have to weigh the situation and decide to either let it fly, fake & take it to the paint, or pass it to someone else who has a better opportunity.

As I think about all 3 wings, none of them tend to take bad shots that they have no business of taking. Even the shots Roscoe has been taking haven't been bad. They all just seem to be struggling to knock 'em down. Roscoe's problem was being turnover prone. He seems to have gone from being aggressive and TO prone to passive lately which doesn't help. DD has been passive and unsure of himself which sometimes carries over to the defensive end. Giffey has been the best of the 3 lately. Even though he struggles some games with his shot, he works the hardest of the 3, diving for balls, trying to make things happen with the dribble even though he needs to improve his handle. He boxes out all the time. Rarely throws it away and is a pretty good passer.

With that said, DD in most people opinions has the biggest upside and most suited for the wing. Roscoe seems somewhere between a 3 and a 4. He came to UConn as a very good 3 pt shooter, but somewhere along the way has lost that. He clearly needs to improve his handle and ability to create. Niels is the least gifted athletically and the smallest of the 3, but shows the highest IQ and intensity. We really should be getting solid play at the 3 with three very good options, and I'm surprised that we're getting so little from that position.

 

[ctchamps]

Well we all know how accurate those talent evaluators are when Jeremy Lamb wasn't even on the top 100 of the Espn 100 list and look where he is now. Being ranked higher doesn't mean your a better player than someone. In my opinion Moe Harkless is a much better talent than Daniels. Harkless can be a first round pick in the NBA draft this year and he would have been a great addition to this UConn team making this team I believe almost unbeatable. Daniels has a long way to go and hopefully he becomes more aggressive and contributes to a national title for us this year and for years to come.

You could be correct but the first thing that came to my mind is how someone can believe they are better talent evaluators than someone else. Evaluations are just opinions with some basic evidence to support them. There have been proven talents and proven busts at all levels of the evaluation spectrum. So I always take evaluations with a grain of salt including an evaluation by a poster who dismisses other evaluators.

 

[ctchamps]

No, not kidding actually. Kind of wondering aloud. I am no talent evaluator. All I know is that Daniels was ranked higher, in some cases significantly so, by those that are (supposedly) talent evaluators. If given the same opportunity for minutes and a green light to shoot at will would he be putting up the sam numbers? If they switched teams would their statistics be reversed? No one can say for sure but I'm not convinced they wouldn't. Kind of the Cleveland Melvin Syndrome. I doubt he would have put up the same numbers had he come to UConn.

Nice post. No way of knowing how players would perform if they switched teams. Scottie Haralson was recruited for his 3 point shooting and he didn't do well at UConn. He transferred to Tulsa and is doing well.

JC and Geno are perfectionists with little patience. They rarely let kids work through bad performances or games. The upside is the teams are usually polished by the end of the season. The downside is that some kids become collateral damage. The worst case scenario occur when the team is loaded with players who cannot handle the demands.

Their track record proves that their method is successful even if it isn't always the kindest.

 

[caw]

Is all this comparison stuff necessary?

Justifying and comparing makes us look like insecure or threatened UConn fans. As if saying "no way can another team's player be better than ours"

btw: Even if Harkless is better, is that a bad thing, harmful to our future or something?

I was just bored.

 

[DogMania]

Hmmm...

Let's start with shooting and Harkless being a better shooter:

...

I guess this favors Harkless b/c of rebounding, but it's not a huge amount.

In the end, if Harkless was here competing with Giffey and Roscoe, I'm not sure it's so clear cut he would be the starter at the 3 or has more potential than Daniels. Harkless shoots more per game than anyone on UConn.

I'm not surprised that someone brought Harkless up. Another one to bring up would be Cleveland Melvin who also was a brief UConn commit.

As pointed out, it's always hard to compare a player who's one of the primary scoring options on a mediocre to bad team to a player on a top team that has a lot of depth at their position.

Harkless and Melvin have the luxury of taking a ton of shots and not worry about that they are taking shots away from the team's primary scorers. No biggie if they miss 3, 4 or 5 in a row, when it's okay that you take 10, 12 or whatever number of shots a game.

But when you're the UConn wing on a team that has scorers like Lamb, Boatright, Napier and Drummond, you simply need to be careful to take good shots and make the most of them. Not an easy thing to do.

With that said, Harkless & Melvin are more physically ready to play at this level and seem to be able to do some of the physical things better like rebounding and taking it to the basket. I had thought that DD had a plus handle for a kid his size, but it seems he's a bit skittish in traffic lately. I think he's going to develop into an excellent all around player but is at least a year away from that. I think by mid-season next year, he'll become more confident in his abilities. Right now it seems the moments are a tad too big for him.

I hope I'm wrong and he starts playing like he's ready to make plays during the biggest of moments such as winning time. Though I'll settle for making plays throughout the first 30 minutes of the game.

 

[huskymagic]

You could be correct but the first thing that came to my mind is how someone can believe they are better talent evaluators than someone else. Evaluations are just opinions with some basic evidence to support them. There have been proven talents and proven busts at all levels of the evaluation spectrum. So I always take evaluations with a grain of salt including an evaluation by a poster who dismisses other evaluators.

You know I like to play devil's advocate on issues . I always show love for Roscoe even though a majority on this board are ok with daniels starting over him. My point is that Harkless was a big loss for us and that we could of really used him. I love our team but I am objective when it comes to talent and up side, and I expected more from Daniels when we signed him. I do think Daniels can be a really good player for us especially if he gets stronger, and learns to drive. Too often he drives on the base line, and when the defender rotates to block his lane, he holds the ball or passes the ball back out instead of dunking the ball on the guy or pulling up for a short easy jumper or floater like Lamb was able to do since the beginning.Daniels needs to get tougher mentally and physically to be a great player for us and help us win national championships.

 

[champs99and04]

Daniels isn't playing a lot because he can't beat his man off the dribble and he's not hitting a ton of his shots. That's easy to figure out. Even in high school, Daniels wasn't exactly blowing by people, he was just able to shoot over them, which obviously he cannot with players of similar size guarding him.

I do think Daniels has a lot of skill, as he can hit the three and has a nice floater in the lane, but it remains to be seen if he can be an efficient scorer at the Big East level. He's not going to be creating his own shot much, but I think he has enough skill to get his shot up with limited space. I would suggest setting some more screens for him in an attempt to get him this space he needs. I do think Daniels' game is very similar to Lamb's, as neither are blazing quick, but both are extremely smooth, almost as if they are in slow motion at times. It took Lamb a while to adjust to the Division One level, and it may be the same deal with Deandre. I think Deandre will be playing a very large role for this team by the end of the season, and I think he just needs one big game to get him going. Once he adjusts he won't look back.

 

[ktuck911]

Daniels isn't playing a lot because he can't beat his man off the dribble and he's not hitting a ton of his shots. That's easy to figure out. Even in high school, Daniels wasn't exactly blowing by people, he was just able to shoot over them, which obviously he cannot with players of similar size guarding him.

I do think Daniels has a lot of skill, as he can hit the three and has a nice floater in the lane, but it remains to be seen if he can be an efficient scorer at the Big East level. He's not going to be creating his own shot much, but I think he has enough skill to get his shot up with limited space. I would suggest setting some more screens for him in an attempt to get him this space he needs. I do think Daniels' game is very similar to Lamb's, as neither are blazing quick, but both are extremely smooth, almost as if they are in slow motion at times. It took Lamb a while to adjust to the Division One level, and it may be the same deal with Deandre. I think Deandre will be playing a very large role for this team by the end of the season, and I think he just needs one big game to get him going. Once he adjusts he won't look back.

Nice post bro...

 

[caw]

Daniels isn't playing a lot because he can't beat his man off the dribble and he's not hitting a ton of his shots. That's easy to figure out. Even in high school, Daniels wasn't exactly blowing by people, he was just able to shoot over them, which obviously he cannot with players of similar size guarding him.

I do think Daniels has a lot of skill, as he can hit the three and has a nice floater in the lane, but it remains to be seen if he can be an efficient scorer at the Big East level. He's not going to be creating his own shot much, but I think he has enough skill to get his shot up with limited space. I would suggest setting some more screens for him in an attempt to get him this space he needs. I do think Daniels' game is very similar to Lamb's, as neither are blazing quick, but both are extremely smooth, almost as if they are in slow motion at times. It took Lamb a while to adjust to the Division One level, and it may be the same deal with Deandre. I think Deandre will be playing a very large role for this team by the end of the season, and I think he just needs one big game to get him going. Once he adjusts he won't look back.

Skinny players will almost always start slower than more muscled ones in D1 unless you are highly skilled.