oldrunner said:
All of the things being said about Senglin were being said about lillard at the same point in his development. Lillard's first year he was tried at point and it was a disaster. His second year was a transition year and there were still some grumblings about him being played out of position. His third year, nobody was grumbling any more and I don't hear a lot of criticism coming out of Portland right now.
Yes, Senglin came in as a tweener and it is a project for him to develop into a fulltime point. In his second year, like Lillard, he has made a lot of progress and, like lillard, that progress will continue through the spring, summer, and fall. This isn't Stockton to Malone. Rahe's offense is not set up to give one player 10+ assists per game. In his offense the assists are spread around. My feelings are that leadership is more important than anything else in the point guard position and Senglin has made big strides in that arena.
The same things weren't being said by me. I never remember thinking Lillard wasn't playing in a position he could best help the team. I've wondered that all year with Senglin. It's not easy to make the comparison because Lillard was a special talent and IMO was surrounded with better teammates, with the emphasis on team. Jeremy is a great talent and may end up going down as an all-time Weber great, but he's no Lillard, especially comparing Sophomore year to Sophomore year-- Lillard made bigger strides across the board.
From an assist standpoint, I don't think Senglin is too far off of where we'd like him to be but there's a lot of factors with that too. Many recorded assists are simply because your teammates shot the ball well, not necessarily because your PG was a great facilitator. I already mentioned that I thought Lillard had better teammates surrounding him, teammates who I thought fulfilled their roles better than we saw this year. It's also difficult to compare Lillard with Senglin with assists when Lillard has always been a stronger rebounder than assist guy. Even still, Lillard was significantly better in this regard his Sophomore year.
As far as Rahe's "offense" goes, well, lets just say I have a difficult time seeing his offense and do not share in any optimism of him being able to get the most out of the talent he's had. If Senglin would benefit the team best playing the 2/wing, what would be so bad about that? If there's a better facilitator that would see the floor better as a PG, that wouldn't limit Senglin from shooting and/or driving, and maybe would create some much needed movement offensively. Leadership isn't going to amount to much if everyone is standing around. I can't be the only who who saw how much more offensive movement most opponents had. Combine that with a poor rebounding year and some spacing problems at times and it's not difficult to understand why they struggled.
We don't need Stockton-to-Malone; we don't need a 10 APG guy; but we certainly do need solid post presence, a solid facilitator, offensive movement, and a desire to rebound. The talent to do these things exists but fundamentals are missing and/or a foot in the ass to make it happen.
