2021 Transfer Portal Thread

[JFCats22]

Cal needs to work hard for Carr. He'd really help us next year.

He's a scorer but a terrible shooter and an even worse defender. His defensive rating would have been the worst on this year's UK team by a big margin. He averaged 19 points per game but that was on 16 FG attempts and 7 FT attempts. He is really inefficient. He does not turn the ball over much and his assist numbers are pretty solid.

In looking at his numbers a bit more and knowing this would be his third school in four years I am not sure Cal will pursue him very aggressively.

[Joneslab]

If he's returning to college and Cal doesn't pursue him aggressively Cal needs to be fired on the spot. (Unless Skyy Clark is definitely reclassifying.)

Carr isn't that bad of a shooter really. Shot it 36% his sophomore year, hit 52 threes. That's about where Tyler Ulis was.

Defensive efficiency statistics in college are meaningless. Don't pay any attention to them. Ever. At all. Virtually worthless stats. They don't really mean a whole lot in the NBA. In college, where defenses switch a lot more and you're dependent on other players about 50% of the time, they mean nothing. They are metrics that should not be kept because they're wildly flawed. I don't even love teamwide defensive metrics because they say more about pace than anything.

[George]

If he's returning to college and Cal doesn't pursue him aggressively Cal needs to be fired on the spot. (Unless Skyy Clark is definitely reclassifying.)

Carr isn't that bad of a shooter really. Shot it 36% his sophomore year, hit 52 threes. That's about where Tyler Ulis was.

Defensive efficiency statistics in college are meaningless. Don't pay any attention to them. Ever. At all. Virtually worthless stats. They don't really mean a whole lot in the NBA. In college, where defenses switch a lot more and you're dependent on other players about 50% of the time, they mean nothing. They are metrics that should not be kept because they're wildly flawed. I don't even love teamwide defensive metrics because they say more about pace than anything.

Not to mention defenses collapsed on him all the time. He was more often than not his team's primary threat, and he was double-teamed every game as a result.

[JFCats22]

If he's returning to college and Cal doesn't pursue him aggressively Cal needs to be fired on the spot. (Unless Skyy Clark is definitely reclassifying.)

Carr isn't that bad of a shooter really. Shot it 36% his sophomore year, hit 52 threes. That's about where Tyler Ulis was.

Defensive efficiency statistics in college are meaningless. Don't pay any attention to them. Ever. At all. Virtually worthless stats. They don't really mean a whole lot in the NBA. In college, where defenses switch a lot more and you're dependent on other players about 50% of the time, they mean nothing. They are metrics that should not be kept because they're wildly flawed. I don't even love teamwide defensive metrics because they say more about pace than anything.

Totally disagree on defensive metrics being meaningless. That's nonsense and just silly to say.

Also, why reference his sophomore stats? He just completed his junior season and shot 31% from three and 38% overall...that's awful (and that's being nice).

He is certainly better than anything UK has so I am 100% in favor of him joining. But, there are some definite flaws with him. He could be a huge piece to next year's team for sure though.

[Joneslab]

Totally disagree on defensive metrics being meaningless. That's nonsense and just silly to say.

The reason is because defenses are designed a lot of times to funnel and collapse and sag. There is no metric that exists that will give you a full picture of a guy on the defensive end unless you want to look at obvious stuff like blocked shots or something.

Nobody should ever pay a lick of attention to those defensive numbers. Those fringe stats have been an attempt by people to moneyball the sport of basketball, and it's impossible to do that in college.

In the pros, maybe. Many more games, many more iso situations, less defensive switching. But I'm leary of them even in the pros because in the pros those guys don't kick it in until March or April, so you've got all this meaningless flab across a season that is statistically going to give you a flawed picture of a guy.

Also, why reference his sophomore stats? He just completed his junior season and shot 31% from three and 38% overall...that's awful (and that's being nice).

I don't even think he was that bad from three this past year. Hit 60 on the year and shot 32%. That's not awful for a point guard on that team. He was going to be asked to take a lot of bad shots I would imagine, and probably took a lot of bad shots on his own volition. That's the stuff that happens on teams like that.

[Joneslab]

Also regarding defense, I don't watch a whole lot of Minnesota basketball but if Richard Pitino is like his dad, he plays zone most of the time.

[George]

UK plans to get involved with Carr.

[Joneslab]

Honestly what last year's team showed us is that talent is crucial (as always), but what's way more important in this sport is just the mental aspect of the thing. You've got to have gamers.

This past team had one, maybe two gamers. Mintz and at times Jackson. That was it.

If you don't have talent you can't play at this level. Everybody knows that. But if you are a fighter and will battle the other guy every time out, that can offset talent or skill issues a lot of times.

This is why I don't love statistics just generally in college basketball. Basketball is the ultimate gut sport. You can take a guy who really wants it and that guy will beat the super-freaky athlete or the "long" player a lot of times. Now if you get the freaky athlete who has that heart you have a superstar, but what we saw on this past team was mostly a failure of desire, not ability.

A guy like Olivier Sarr for instance had talent. Guy did some things on the court that basketball people kill for. But he was not a gamer. At all. We've got to get people in here who will fight.

[George]

To your point, you could compare De'Aaron Fox's stats to Fatts Russell's, and you'd see a very similar player -- but no one is taking Russell over Fox. Ever.

[Joneslab]

I wouldn't be opposed to Fatts Russell coming here only because we'd have a guy who sounded like a 1930s billiards player running point.

[George]

I wouldn't be opposed to Fatts Russell coming here only because we'd have a guy who sounded like a 1930s billiards player running point.

WHAT IF WE GOT FATTS AND SLICE AT THE SAME TIME???

[JFCats22]

WHAT IF WE GOT FATTS AND SLICE AT THE SAME TIME???

There would definitely be some backroom, illegal poker games going on.

[George]

There would definitely be some backroom, illegal poker games going on.

Tommy guns, straight blades, pinstripes. God, bring it on.

[Catsrock]

Some guy came up with some formulas to assign defensive numbers to teams and individuals in 2009 and went back and applied them to NBA games back to 1973 from boxscores. Other than steals and blocked shots I cannot look at a boxscore from last nights games and tell you who played good defense. And until scorekeepers or some stat geek starts recording how many times players stop their guy or get roasted by their guy no one will be able to. We all may have biases on players we like or don’t like but watching a guy play defense tells us more than a boxscore does. They simply are not designed to do so.

[Joneslab]

Some guy came up with some formulas to assign defensive numbers to teams and individuals in 2009 and went back and applied them to NBA games back to 1973 from boxscores. Other than steals and blocked shots I cannot look at a boxscore from last nights games and tell you who played good defense. And until scorekeepers or some stat geek starts recording how many times players stop their guy or get roasted by their guy no one will be able to. We all may have biases on players we like or don’t like but watching a guy play defense tells us more than a boxscore does. They simply are not designed to do so.

A lot of times what makes a good defensive player is a guy who knows how to play team defense. With all these offenses designed to spread the court and look for threes, the best defensive players are guys who know how to position themselves correctly so they can recover and close out.

Very rarely at this level do you see guys just getting driven past. It happens certainly but if a player can't stay in front of anybody he can't play at this level.

The elite defensive players are usually built for it, a la your shot blockers or guys like Deandre Liggins or MKG. They also have these crazy motors that just make it so that they don't tire. But those guys are as rare as offensive freaks who can go out and hit 4 threes a game.