Jalen Adams | Page 2 | The Boneyard

Jalen Adams

UConn990411 said:
It would be foolish to make Gilbert the primary point guard considering how well Jalen has looked in that role. Alterique will certainly get his share of minutes at the point, but he should be the secondary ballhandler like Boatright was.
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I wrote "when he's in..."

I don't expect Alterique to start.
 
intlzncster said:
Not sure I understand.

I was just countering the statement about "not taking an All American PG off the ball". It's exactly what they did with Kemba and Bazz...and we won a NC with that.
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My unstated implication: Adams is a superior playmaker to Kemba (college-aged Kemba), while Kemba's gift has always been his ability to score the ball. Adams is not as natural a scorer.

Moving Kemba off the ball made sense. Moving Adams off the ball for any extended period doesn't.
 
Matrim55 said:
My unstated implication: Adams is a superior playmaker to Kemba (college-aged Kemba), while Kemba's gift has always been his ability to score the ball. Adams is not as natural a scorer.

Moving Kemba off the ball made sense. Moving Adams off the ball for any extended period doesn't.
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I definitely agree that it appears Adams best self is when he's facilitating. He played better last year when he was in control and it appeared the same earlier this year when Alterique was playing the primary PG.

But I still think he benefits from developing that part of his game next year. Alterique is a pure PG and the two of them should absolutely see the floor together.
 
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tykurez said:
But I still think he benefits from developing that part of his game next year.
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Agree.

Alterique is a pure PG and the two of them should absolutely see the floor together.
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Agree they should see the floor together, but to me Alterique is very much a drive-and-kick guard rather than a floor general. Think about the skip passes Jalen throws, or the ability to get a ball to a guy curling off a screen right in rhythm... didn't see much of that from Gilbert. Don't really see much of that from any high school PG, save for the very best – these things are learned over time.

I do expect Gilbert to improve quite a bit over his years here, and to become a floor general. But that's not what I saw from him back in November, nor in high school.
 
intlzncster said:
Not sure I understand.

I was just countering the statement about "not taking an All American PG off the ball". It's exactly what they did with Kemba and Bazz...and we won a NC with that.
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Exactly, Kemba was running point for most of those games. Bazz came in for 15 minutes.
 
Well, it may be a good sign that people see Adams in so many different ways, most positive. I consider him a scorer primarily. Always impressed by his ability to find the hoop on a drive, kisses off the glass, midrange game, and now this year he has added an outside shooting game.

Put him up against sophomore year Kemba and I'd say the two were similar in terms of their scoring capability.
If anything, Kemba had a better handle which made him more capable of running point.
 
upstater said:
If anything, Kemba had a better handle which made him more capable of running point.
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Kemba as a sophomore averaged 5.1 a/2.9 to with a 29% assist rate. Adams is 6.7/3.2 with a 42% assist rate.
 
Matrim55 said:
Kemba as a sophomore averaged 5.1 a/2.9 to with a 29% assist rate. Adams is 6.7/3.2 with a 42% assist rate.
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I was actually complimenting Adams as being just as highly capable a scorer as Kemba was Soph. year.

The comment about his handle compared to Kemba's was just a throw-in. However, it certainly gives Kemba an advantage in terms of being a point guard.
 
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Matrim55 said:
My unstated implication: Adams is a superior playmaker to Kemba (college-aged Kemba), while Kemba's gift has always been his ability to score the ball. Adams is not as natural a scorer.

Moving Kemba off the ball made sense. Moving Adams off the ball for any extended period doesn't.
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until he he can hit that jumper... I love his mid range game but his three ball needs work... but at this point the way he's playing (minus some turnovers) the ball needs to be in his hands
 
I love that he has confidence and you can see him chirping at players and fans... not saying I want him to get to the level of being obnoxious or come of as a jerk, but the past several teams have not had any toughness and have been the furthest thing from bullies. The last team we had like that was '09. Kemba and AO were a too and bazz, but as a team we havent had one since '09
 
upstater said:
Well, it may be a good sign that people see Adams in so many different ways, most positive. I consider him a scorer primarily. Always impressed by his ability to find the hoop on a drive, kisses off the glass, midrange game, and now this year he has added an outside shooting game.

Put him up against sophomore year Kemba and I'd say the two were similar in terms of their scoring capability.
If anything, Kemba had a better handle which made him more capable of running point.
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Handle helps but you also gotta have vision and Adams makes passes to set guys up that Kemba wasn't close to making at the same point in their college careers.
 
UConnSwag11 said:
until he he can hit that jumper.. I love his mid range game but his three ball needs work.. but at this point the way he's playing (minus some turnovers) the ball needs to be in his hands
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He is shooting 38% from 3 as a soph. That's pretty decent. Better than Kemba.
 
You want Adams touching the ball in the paint as much as possible. How we go about that will be dictated by a few things, most notably how defenses are guarding ball screens and whether our forwards are good enough to alleviate some of the pressure.

For instance, how is Larrier as a screener? If he's a good one, for his size, then you want him and Adams to pick and pop as much as possible. With the '11 team, we really only had three playmakers on the court at one time since neither Roscoe or Oriakhi could make plays in traffic, so it made sense to move Kemba off the ball to spots on the floor where it became harder for the defense to trap.

It seems like Durham and Jackson are both fairly skilled, so I'd imagine the pieces will fit together well.

One thing to consider about Vital's emergence: Gilbert better be able to shoot or he's going to have a tough time playing significant minutes. For a while there in '14, Boat was clogging the floor and making things more difficult than they had to be for Bazz. It'll be interesting to see how things play out.
 
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blackbird said:
Kemba wasn't playing off the ball. Shabazz was pg in name only. ( And, Adams is much more of a true PG than Kemba is.)
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I'm trying to figure out what you mean by this. Clearly, Kemba was off the ball when Shabazz was running the offense.
 
Kemba had the ball in his hands a majority of the time. Seriously, he was the offense.

You just don't take your Jr. point guard..a real floor general..and move him off ball for a freshman, just because the freshman also likes to have the ball in his hands. It's stupid.
 
RichZ said:
I'm still having some problems with his demeanor. He spent way too much time chastising CV last night, and then when CV was headed to the line late, he came over and tried to hug him and encourage him, CV just pushed him away with a look of disgust.
Maybe it's a Yankees/Red Sox, Knicks/Celts, Giants/Patriots thing, I don't know. But there's a dynamic developing there that I find worrisome.
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Upon further review, while there's no question there was some tension between them during the 2nd half, they were both smiling with each other at the end. So I guess all is well.
 
blackbird said:
Kemba had the ball in his hands a majority of the time. Seriously, he was the offense.

You just don't take your Jr. point guard..a real floor general..and move him off ball for a freshman, just because the freshman also likes to have the ball in his hands. It's stupid.
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He played off the ball a lot because Bazz could run the offense and it allowed Kemba to rest which let him play more minutes. I'm not sure what you are getting at. Of course in big spots Kemba had the ball, but the first half of the shot clock Bazz would take the harder portion.
 
blackbird said:
Kemba had the ball in his hands a majority of the time. Seriously, he was the offense.

You just don't take your Jr. point guard..a real floor general..and move him off ball for a freshman, just because the freshman also likes to have the ball in his hands. It's stupid.
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Sigh. No one has disagreed with this.

We are all talking about when Shabazz came in and Kemba played off the ball.
 
intlzncster said:
Not sure I understand.

I was just countering the statement about "not taking an All American PG off the ball". It's exactly what they did with Kemba and Bazz...and we won a NC with that.
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Those two were moved off the ball for brief stretches, mainly for rest purposes. When it mattered, they both dominated the ball.
 
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Excalibur said:
Those two were moved off the ball for brief stretches, mainly for rest purposes. When it mattered, they both dominated the ball.
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Whenever Shabazz was in the game, Kemba was off the ball. That doesn't mean he didn't get the ball every play and asked to create.
 
This conversation is assuming that Gilbert or MAL prove that they can handle the responsibilities of running a team if Adams moves off the ball. We're comparing a kid who played a few college games before going down with a recurring injury and a recruit who has never played a minute of college basketball with Boatright and his ability to play pg and let Bazz move off the ball. Let's slow down with that silly talk. I fully expect Adams to be running the show and initiating the offense next year, and if one of those two can show they can do it more effectively then him then I'm sure KO will reevaluate. You don't just take the ball out of a proven pg to hand it to two kids without any experience
 
For the life of me, I can't understand why this keeps happening in this thread. We have people saying that Shabazz came in to give Kemba a blow at running things, and this allowed Kemba to play off the ball, and play well. For stretches during a game. Then others counter that we are saying that this is the way things should run all game. We are not saying that. But despite maybe 10 posts to the contrary, the replies persist.
 
PAHusky said:
This conversation is assuming that Gilbert or MAL prove that they can handle the responsibilities of running a team if Adams moves off the ball. We're comparing a kid who played a few college games before going down with a recurring injury and a recruit who has never played a minute of college basketball with Boatright and his ability to play pg and let Bazz move off the ball. Let's slow down with that silly talk. I fully expect Adams to be running the show and initiating the offense next year, and if one of those two can show they can do it more effectively then him then I'm sure KO will reevaluate. You don't just take the ball out of a proven pg to hand it to two kids without any experience
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They better have an answer at backup point guard next year, unless you envision Adams going 40 minutes at PG every game.
 
dwalks93 said:
As far as improvement I think Adam's conditioning needs to get better. A lot is expected of him and he seems to wear out over the course of the game. Give the kid credit he never quits and continues to man up but he looks beat down at the end of games in a way I don't remember other Husky greats showing. The other area for improvement for Adams is the inexplicable mental errors. Adams seems to have a least 2 unforced turnovers a game. It usually comes in the form of a lazy pass or sloppy dribble and often directly leads to an easy transition basket for the other team. I'm not sure Adams is yet capable of 40 minutes of mental focus in a game but that comes with experience.
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I liked most of your post, but this paragraph is completely unfair IMO. Adams is averaging 36 minutes per game, and he's literally the only point guard on the team. In the back-to-back Tulsa and Memphis games, he played every minute of those games, one of which went to overtime. The only other sophomore (that I can remember, anyway) that we relied on this heavily to lead the team and play a vast majority of minutes was Caron in 2002, and even he played off the ball. People can bring up Kemba, but what he did in 2011 was otherworldly, and while it would be great if Adams can pick up a team on his back next season like that, I'm sure as hell not expecting it, and he can still be an All-American without doing so.
 
Gilbert was making plays and shooting 60% inside the arc at a time where the whole team besides Larrier could not buy a bucket to save their lives, and that includes Jalen. I'm not sure he's not a floor general just because he wasn't racking up assists. The kid looked special to me, and he's going to need the ball in his hands a lot.

I love Vital, but if his shot isn't on, I can see Gilbert getting more burn than him. Regardless, all 3 of the guards I've mentioned will get a lot of playing time, and I don't think either Vital or Gilbert are the type to cry over who's on the court for the tip. They love seeing each other succeed.
 
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