I know this is going to be a disaster but I am going to try and have a conversation on the boneyard without resulting into schoolyard taunts. I didn't know that our best big man's coach was a relatively short guy. So maybe your right a small guy who is very perceptive could teach big man skills. I will admit you are more knowledgeable than me so why do you think or what is the prevailing opinion on why in recent years are big men are not improving? Question open to anyone with a theory.
No disaster, low skilled and low basketball IQ recruits are the only reasons. For KO he's had Phil, AB, Kentan, Deandre and Steve now as his bigs for the most part. Phil was limited as we all saw, AB is a shot blocker, KF is an athlete and Steve we will need to watch the next year or 2. Deandre did get better under KO's staffs involvement although I wouldn't consider him a big per se. Heck Niels played the big spot as well as most mentioned during the NC run just because he understood what he had to do in the short minutes he played there. They get these guys to do repetitive practice moves throughout their summers, then they get a couple hours per week prior to the official practices (I've seen these personally in Gampel) in which they work on their weaknesses to ensure that when they hit the court they are ready to be stronger in these areas. As you can see hardly a change in KF or AB in regard to offense. I will take that back, KF has shown the ability to offensive rebound and get into the lane and throw up a jump hook on occasion but no consistency. AB still has trouble getting square on the low block and getting a jump hook to the rim. You can see he knows what he wants to do with the ball but he just can't do it. That move is something they have worked with him on thousands of times alone with a defender with a broom or whatever, yet he is unable to after 3 years. It's not coaching I can promise that.
Steve seems to have skills offensively already but he needs to polish his footwork on the defensive end, we will see. Hope Diarra can learn as well as a healthy Durham, and the year after Brown seems to have some skills so they will have a chance to help him improve those immediately.
Hey I'm not saying that the guys on the staff are great "big man" coaches, maybe they aren't and maybe people have a bitch. But they don't need to be "big" to coach the skills into them. But the players need to have basketball acumen and some natural ability. All the improved over the years had that, Rod-Travis-Jake-Emeka-Josh-Hilton-Thabeet etc etc...
