He's also probably been asked to do too much. Last year it seemed like him and Flory were the only guys who wanted to play aggressively, the other guys were mostly passengers.
He just can't really be the first (and ideally second) option
My personal opinion is that he is an alpha whose personality and playing style is not fit for being a role player. Everything about him wants the ball in his hands and his leadership style is leading from the front, not leading from the bench.
I'm as low as about any KU fan on Melvin because of his shooting, but it seems like you are just making things up right now. Literally yesterday at team media day:
"Melvin said he wants to earn his role on this year's team. He's fine coming off the bench behind TK/Blyden. He is just happy there are players who can take some minutes off his plate."
And Self has already said he's not starting Council for the exhibition game tonight.
Whether or not he can be an effective off-ball player on offense, we'll see. But if he just plays defense and takes open shots when he gets them, he can be a winning player. This year's KU team doesn't need him to have the ball in his hands all the time, because Stokes/Blyden/TK can all handle the ball and initiate the offense.
The percentages of his shots from 3 vs from 2 have been very very similar each of his 3 years of Division 1 basketball. It is way more 2s than 3s already. He already did the things you like and that he is good at. It’s remarkable how his stats are so similar each year across 3 different teams and 3 different levels. You are suggesting that he become a role player and that would have a positive outcome for the team, and I’ll admit it is possible that could happen, but he has a long history of extremely high usage and inefficiency and no history of low/medium usage or efficiency. Trying to change his role to low usage probably won’t work out imo.
I can see self reducing his minutes to head off any possible eligibility issues that he might have anyway. Also to be fair to the people he recruited first.
That's really one way to do it. I also saw council being overutilized last year because Darryn was MIA.
Maybe he's still inefficient, but I'll hope for a completely different utilization.
Coach Self can reduce the minutes, but I don’t think he can reduce the usage per minute or efficiency. I also think trying to reduce his roll would reduce his effectiveness. He is an alpha personality and he is ball dominant and I don’t think he is built to take a back seat or to play off-ball much. I’m interested to see how it goes.
I see where you're coming from. We hope to just use his size and speed and aggression and defense and handles. Not necessarily his shooting. Maybe not realistic to hope for a diff player.
But he's going to have to take a back seat. Tyran is the real alpha. Tre and Dawes are scorers
5
u/lousy_at_handles Kansas Jayhawks 1d ago
He's also probably been asked to do too much. Last year it seemed like him and Flory were the only guys who wanted to play aggressively, the other guys were mostly passengers.
He just can't really be the first (and ideally second) option