His freshman season was typical of a talented freshman. He was good all year, and exploded right at the end.
Clayton is a very gifted offensive player who can score in a variety of ways. At the same time, he showed last season to be an average, at best, ball handler and defender, and that is why he pulled out of the NBA Draft and returned to school. Love the way the kid plays and hopefully he can improve on his weaknesses and make himself a first or early second round draft pick next summer.
Average, at best? You talking about Walter Clayton Jr who plays for the Florida Gators? The guy who had dreads last year and wore a headband? That guy? Surely, you can't be. I mean... he had one or two rough stretches in two games last year, but he was not an average, at best, ball handler. Like... compared to who is he average or below average? Let's not get crazy.
He was quite passive early on, deferring to the older guys...which is old school, I love it, but it became quite evident too that he was the best on the team and so Billy encouraged him to be more aggressive, more assertive...and he started lighting it up. There's a reason he went #3 in the draft
He’s an incredible athlete. And now an incredible basketball player. His stop and pop mid range jumper is outstanding.
Clearly Walter, Richard and Martin will be the center of offensive production. The first game certainly illustrated that. Regarding Clayton, he is, IMO, the most FUN Gator to watch hoop since Cheese. I won't be surprised if he makes first team all SEC if he stays healthy or maybe even National honors.
I feel like this is a joke in response to other threads where I spoke about conditioning, but not sure.
It will be interesting to see how Walter handles defenses geared to take him out of his game. As Gatorhead says and I agree, he could become an All-SEC player. With that kind of production, teams will start to change how they guard him and force our offense to flow differently. I'm glad that we have options going into the season and Walter was the 2 guard last year. I can't wait to see how Coach Golden adapts and if Walter can rise above these challenges.
Clayton looks bigger to me this year. Did he grow or put on some weight? He looks primed for a great season!
One thing I remember about Beal at Florida was that Donovan asked him and all the other guards that year to put a lot of their energy and focus into rebounding to make up from some deficiencies. That's a lot to ask of a freshman and he did very well at it. The offensive assertiveness came later.
He also looks so much stronger taking it to the basket. I think he really focused on conditioning and improving his weak spots after spending time at NBA draft camp.
