This kid obviously is a spectacular talent. The problem is that he was neither fish nor foul this past season. He tried to be a shooter and a facilitator, and ended up doing neither of them very well. He hit 35.4% of his shots from the arc, which is not bad, not great; but he shot only 38.3% overall, which is awful. He made 79% of his FTs, which is good, but he only went to the line 53 times, which was 6th on the team, and that is not very many for a kid who was 2nd on the team in FG attempted. He led the team in assists at 4.2 per game, which is normal for the starting point guard, but his A/TO ratio was an anemic 1.27. He led the team in steals, which bodes well for the future.
As Zack Graber used to say, a point guard's statistic is wins. His own personal stats are irrelevant. He makes his team win, because he triggers both the offense and the defense. Obviously, in that statistic Nowell failed. As was typical for this team which wasn't a team, HE scored a lot of points, but he did not make his team a better team. On a team with as many scorers as we had this year, a point guard should have been licking his chops and having a field day as a distributor.
All in all, Nowell did not have an awful season for a true freshman. Not good, but not awful. But in the one statistic that matters, he failed abysmally. I know I am a reactionary curmudgeon, but Nowell needs to forget about the playgrounds of New York and worry about becoming an efficient, reliable distributor on a college team. What we need is a fundamentally-sound point guard, not one that is fancy. And it is the coach's job to make that happen. I am not going to hold my breath.
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