Ok, I'll say it. Kemba was better as a 2-guard than a point last year, and the team was better with him there and Shabazz running the team.
Now that doesn't mean Shabazz is a better player than Kemba by any stretch. It's just that being a point guard is as much a mentality as it is a skillset. Napier has always come across to me as having that point guard moxie. I think that's what Blaney is referring to here.
Yeah, I understand what George is driving at, but if Kemba had a Kemba type player at the 2G while playing the point, he'd be a pretty darn good PG IMO.
Maybe I'm wrong and Kemba is closer to Ben Gordon than Marcus Williams, but I think Kemba is what I consider a 1/2 Combo PG who can score compared to a 2/1 combo who finds himself at the 1 because he's small and can handle the ball.
Now I'm not saying that Kemba is the most creative floor general who knows how to thread that ball in tight spaces. I do think Bazz has better instincts in that regard. Kemba was a pretty good passer off penetration. His game winning dish to Lamb in the UL game (I think it was that game) is an example of that. Last season is a bit of a blur, but I think Napier was better than Kemba at tossing it into the post within the flow of the half-court, though at times he would try to thread the needle a tad too tight resulting in a turnover or deflected pass out-of-bounds.
To some degree, the old adage,
necessity if the mother of invention, is at work here. Since the team needed scoring, Kemba focused the majority of his game on such. If he had a lot of scoring weapons he could count on, he might have shown a more balanced game.
Conversely, Bazz usually had a few reliable scorers on the floor with him in Kemba & Lamb, so his role dictated the use of his lead guard skills, which were quite advanced for a freshman. People forget that Bazz was a scorer in HS similar to Boatright who would take over when his team needed him to score. I think at times, Bazz was in a cold sweat wanting to jack up Js and drive it to the hole, but he played within what was expected of him. Not that we didn't see him take an ill advised shot or two.
I think he and Boatright will be interchangeable at some point in time. Early on, I imagine Bazz will be running the team when both are in the game together due to his experience and Ryan's skill and athleticism that lends itself to him being ready sooner to contribute as a scorer compared to a running the team for long stretches.
I'm interested to find out if my assessment on these players is anything close to what will happen over the next couple years.
