UNC Basketball: Are the Heels Overcrowded On the Perimeter?
By Matt Hamm
The North Carolina Tar Heels lost a whole lot of firepower to the NBA Draft. With Tyler Zeller graduating and John Henson, Kendall Marshall and Harrison Barnes choosing to leave early the team is stripped of it’s big four. Valid concerns about the transition to a freshman point guard and the lack of superior depth in the front court exist. No such concerns exist when it comes to the teams perimeter, which on paper, should be much deeper than last years team.
But will they be better? Does the sheer numbers mean that Carolina will pose more of threat amongst it’s shooting guard and small forward combinations than last year? Not necessarily. In theory this group made up of Dexter Strickland, Leslie McDonald, Reggie Bullock, PJ Hairston and freshman JP Tokoto should run teams off the court.
Roy Williams can always keep fresh legs at those positions. If only it were that easy. Williams will have to balance the development of all these players whom are at very different phases in their careers together. At the same time, he needs to keep everyone relatively happy. No easy task.
Eighty minutes divided by five players=16 minutes per player. But you can’t just follow that simple formula. If you did, no star would be able to emerge with just 16 mins of playing time each game. How Roy divides the minutes will depend on several factors. How many minutes Strickland is needed at the point. Which will depend on how much incoming freshman Marcus Paige can handle and how much walk on transfer Luke Davis can take on, as this years version of Stillman White.
The biggest factors will likely be who defends the best and who can shoot the ball consistently. The Tar Heels will no longer be able to count on post scoring for their bigs. The perimeter will need to come through and keep defenses honest by knocking down open jump shots. If defenses don’t respect the Heels on the perimeter, it’s going to get a whole lot tougher inside for their young big men and make things much harder on Paige trying to orchestrate the offense.
Tokoto is likely to be the odd man out in the rotation no matter how you slice it. He will have a role, but I don’t see it being very big. Bullock is the likely starter at SF given his size and track record on the defensive end and on the boards. If Bullock can step up as a scorer as he started to show he can in the postseason, he’s got a great chance at becoming a star.
Hairston, McDonald and Strickland will likely battle it out for the starting SG spot with Bullock at SF. Roy Williams stated before last season the battle was going to come down to Leslie vs Dexter before McDonald tore his ACL in the NC-Pro Am tour. Add Hairston to the mix and things get a little more complicated this season.
The way I see it, Dexter Strickland would be best used as a combo guard off the bench. Give Paige 23-27 minutes and Strickland the rest. And may the best man win between Hairston and McDonald. Very similar players with great athleticism, terrific jump shots and surprising finishing ability. I give the slight edge to McDonald. Only because I think he would have won the spot last year against Strickland. People often forget, McDonald was a big time prospect coming into Chapel Hill also.
With Strickland splitting his minutes between both guard spots, Hairston or McDonald could almost split their minutes between the perimeter spots off the bench. Essentially creating a double sixth man situation in Carolina. In this situation, Tokoto would likely be relegated to a very small role between 8-12 minutes. Which isn’t a bad thing. A terrific athlete with a ton of promise, Tokoto needs to refine his overall game before taking on big minutes at the next level.
To answer the question posed in the title. No, the Heels are not overcrowded on the perimeter. Roy Williams will find the right rotation. Although I can guarantee I will disagree with his choice of rotations for much of the season, he will figure out the right one.
Here’s how I see it playing out when all is said and done. (minutes per game)
PG: Paige (24), Strickland (12), Davis (4)
SG: McDonald (22), Hairston (10), Strickland (8)
SF: Bullock (22), Hairston (10), Tokoto (8)
PF:McAdoo (28), Hubert (6), Bullock (6)
PF: James (17), Hubert (10), Johnson (13)
Bullock can handle some spot minutes at the PF spot and it helps in every possible way for rotations sake. It plugs six minutes or so back into the perimeter pool. And it helps out by giving the team another body they can send down low when they need one. And no matter who you are, every single team in America will need an extra big man at some point.
In my rotation, players wear multiple hats, four players are listed at multiple positions. In Strickland’s case it will be vital that he can play both the defensive stopper on the perimeter at times, and the backup PG every night. In Bullock’s case, he might be asked to not only become a big time scorer, but to put on his best Justin Watts impression a few mins each night.
What would your rotation be?
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