I'm pretty ambivalent about our 3 bigs, but after last night I was thinking how genius Matta is by rotating all three to minimize the damage playing one for an extended length of time can do. The problem with going small ball is there are so many teams in the B1G that have bigs with both length and girth.
Lee seems to be the most consistent of the inconsistent bunch. Unfortunately, he is the least physical of the three and sometimes gets over-matched on defense. He is the best option of the three offensively, but if I had my druthers they would all be under strict orders to rebound, block shots, play defense, and only dunk the ball.
McDonald has a lot of heart and works harder then Amir, but he also has defensive lapses. Plus, for some reason when he gets the ball in the post and is well defended, he thinks he is Hakeem Olajuwan, and instead of kicking it back out to an open wing, he bulls ahead and tries some weird half hook brick...ugh!
Amir Williams has had enough posted about his mixed bag of tricks (but that won't stop me). I have never been more frustrated by a player in my life, with the possible exception Joe Bauserman. One minute he makes a great block, then the next time down he doesn't even challenge a shot in the lane. Forget jump, he doesn't even raise his arms sometimes. On offense he will do that spin move and make a reverse layup one minute, then he either butterfingers, or puts the ball on the floor to be knocked away on the next three obvious dunks. He is consistently out rebounded by guards and forwards, Lenzell and Q last year, this year it is Russell and Tate out rebounding him....double ugh!
With Loving coming back for MSU, I am hoping that we start trying more of a front line rotation of Tate/Thompson/Loving/Bates-Diop. I really think that Bates-Diop has great length and can rebound and block shots as well as any of the three bigs, with a huge upside on offense. His issue is defense and that will come (I hope) with playing time.
If only Lee had Amir's body or Tate was 4 inches taller, we would be a final 4 team.
Your thoughts?
