Mahaney needs a grace period, folks. It took Tristen almost a full season to really get comfortable - he looked like a whiff in February and then was able to turn the corner. Cam was in a great situation being able to function off the ball and be a second facilitator. That would probably be a better role for Mahaney to start out with, being able to run off the ball and be a triple threat. But Newton isn’t here, and Diarra and Mahaney is a small backcourt that would involve taking Solo or Liam off the floor. We’ve won with small backcourts a lot before (Kemba-Bazz, Bazz-Boat, Taliek-Ben, Ricky-Khalid) but one of the two was always a go to scorer.
So with our current personnel, Aidan is running a complicated offense with players who aren’t used to playing with each other. And he’s trying to do it with frankly much worse screeners than Tristen and Cam had. Sanogo and Clingan were A+ screeners. Big wide guys who knew how to use their bodies and give Newton space and get the defense scrambling (and be lob targets). Reed may get there as a screener, but it’ll take him some time too.
Maybe AK needs to be put in more passing situations until Mahaney settles in, but we’ll need a confident Mahaney to get where we need to go.