I was impressed how poise he was considering how little run he's received during meaningful game moments. He looked comfortable receiving the ball at the top of the arc and distributing it without turning it over and setting screens where he established position in a timely way. Most inexperienced bigs often set them too late and are moving resulting in contact yielding an immediate foul.
As noted many times in this thread, his D and rebounding was solid. I like how he fought for good rebounding position instead of trying to block everything.
The one thing I'm sure the coaching staff will work on him is to go right up and attack the rim or make one fake then go up if he gets the offensive rebound close to the basket where there's a full or partial path. On his second rebound there was no one between him and the basket, and would have been an easy put back. His kickouts were spot on though, where he should have had at least 1 assist. He'll learn.
Lastly, based on what we've seen when he's been given meaningful minutes and how he looked in some practice clips where he looked pretty good scoring around the basket if my memory serves me, I think he's going to carve out solid meaningful minutes in years 3 and 4. His trajectory doesn't seem that much different than Samson Johnson, who didn't begin to get meaningful minutes at the 5 till his junior season. Granted he had some early injury issues when he first started out, but I don't think any of us thought he'd be a 5. Didn't he start out as a stretch-4 that Hurley said could knock down 3s? I think so, though few, if any of us, bought it. They've transformed him into an entirely different player that fits his strengths and what the team needs. Maybe I'm wrong, but I see his trajectory similar to Johnson's though likely without the starter's opportunity, but more a solid rotation player at the 5. Let's revisit this sometime next season.
