Andrew Nembhard - NBA draft prospects good

Great analogy!


BTW, I like Kramer...in measured doses. I think I see "him" coming with Glover now.



You have to go to 1:35. Sorry, this was all I could find.

 

The question is would he have fared so well had he stayed?

 

It depends on whether he listened to White or not.



I won't say whether that would have been beneficial or damaging.

 

I do not disagree, but we don't always get to project upward. About the best analogy (although there are basketball analogies) is Cam Newton. He left and then he was a Heisman Trophy winner. How much of his progress was based on his maturity by changing his environment? No, I am not saying AN was a malcontent who needed to move to the West Coast to finally get what Mike was asking him to do, I am saying one more year older and a change of scenery can do a LOT of things.

And I am not into parsing the qualities of all the parts of any team (including UF's), but I would say THE biggest issue with AN at UF wasn't his not getting what Mike wanted him to do, it was the remaining players, the bigs especially, who weren't getting what Mike wanted from them.

To me, he was the basketball equivalent of Mus-take. He saw the game through too limited glasses. He gave the offense base value to success but was manic in what he wanted from defense. And his direction gave everyone a bad case of "Paralysis by Analysis." Probably THE most damning player - and there were plenty - showing Mike's coaching disconnect was the freshman white shooting forward on either the 2018/19 or 2019/2020 team (I do not recall his name and number). He was a talented shooter and capable on defense, but Mike's coaching completely took him out of his game, and he left the program. Mike just didn't recover from losing all the bigs all the time.

 

2020-21 Men's Basketball Roster - Florida Gators

Are you talking about Ruzhentsev?

 

Better, IMO. I think the Gators would have been better, and he would have gotten a majority of the credit. At Gonzaga, he was overshadowed by Suggs and Holmgren in media coverage and hype. At UF, he was the main focus. Probably a 1st round pick out of Gainesville.

 

You have to keep in mind that he played two years at Gonzaga. So we are not talking about last season, but the season when Mann and Lewis were drafted. Clearly, Mann has a higher upside than Nembhard and is simply a better athlete and better skilled. Any competent coach would have relegated Nembhard to the bench which might not have had such a negative connotation on a team playing for a national championship, but playing for a lower-tier SEC program, it would have hurt his draft stock.

 

Nembhard would have started at the 1 and Mann at the 2.

 

There is no way they wouldn’t both be on the court at same time as starters. Both can play 1 or 2. I’d put nembhard at 1 and mann at 2

 

AN was constantly thinking of going pro and immature while at UF. Missed critical summer development period playing with Canadian team and following year missed time while working out for NBA teams prior to deciding to return to college. Was not invested in team while at UF.

 

I get your points but he was practicing/playing with an Olympic team that summer. I think that was pretty good experience/development

 

Mann is not a shooting guard and neither is Nembhard. Both need the ball the majority of the time to be effective. It is why Nembhard transferred. He knew that Mann was a superior talent as a freshman and really should have started over him his freshman year. But because we were dealing with the level of professionalism or lack thereof with White, he basically stagnated Mann's freshman year, and allowed Nembhard to prove what we already knew, that he could not run the offense that White wanted to run.

I hope both of their careers soar in NBA, but I don't know if you are going to see the same level of takeover ability from Nembhard as we saw last year in the NBA from Mann.

 

Mann is not a shooting guard and is a way better penetrator than Nembhard and finisher. Nembhard is a superior passer, but in order for Mann to be at maximum productivity, he has to have the ball. That is why Nembhard left. Nembhard would be disastrous at the 2. His superior skill set is in dishing the ball and creating mismatches.

 

Mann is the prototypical point guard in modern basketball. He is not a shooting guard. If someone else (see his freshman year at Florida) is going to get the primary responsibility for handling the ball, then you are going to get a severely diminished version of Mann. He can be downright lethal when he handles the ball, however.