In Reply to: Re: The 5's posted by jerseybruin on November 22, 2025 at 10:17:04
Teams need "players" at every position. A "player" as I define it is someone who does his job and is a presence on the floor. They don't need to be dominant. They don't need the offense to run through them. They don't need to accumulate a lot of stats. They just need to play and impact the game.
As an example, one of the things that bothers me about Trent Perry is that he tends to disappear. There are times when he has zero impact on the game - even sometimes when he has the ball in his hands. Someone, on the other hand, like Eric Freeny, who often isn't accumulating stats and doesn't play that much seems to almost always having a presence and an impact on the game while he's in there.
Jamerson has that ability on defense and sometimes on offense. The same is true for Booker. But both, especially Booker, tend to disappear too much. The obvious thing last night was just how inept both were at creating a presence and a threat down low. They don't necessarily have to score, but the outside players need to be able to get the ball to them and they need to be enough of a threat so the defense has to react to them.
Well, the outside players couldn't get them the ball to them even with the advantage they had inside so that aspect of drawing the defense in to open up the outside often just wasn't there. The offense needs to stretch and flatten the defense. Make the defense move. Make them react to everyone and every move. That's how the offense creates gaps, openings, mismatches, open looks, and ultimately just breaking down the defense.
Being a player, requiring attention from the other team, having a presence on the floor, and having an impact on play is being effective.