TrentTuckerForever wrote:Horace, I'm a Mayo fan so I read all this as "alpha dog development" not, "he's a supporting player only." Floyd did play him off the ball at USC, and my understanding (I personally only saw a couple games) is that they would throw him the ball a lot at the end of the shot clock and hope Mayo would bail them out. He won't be used that way in the NBA... McHale talked about playing two 6-4 guards together, and how you can post them up to take advantage of smaller guards. That was the formula that the Rockets used (and the Spurs still do, come to think of it): a bunch of 6-4 to 6-7 guys around a dominant post player, no true point guard.
Finally, on your Batman/Robin thing: you're 100% right. And Mayo might end up being Robin... which is fine as long as Jefferson becomes Batman. But Mayo seems to me like he'll end up one or the other, which is why he's my favorite for the #3.
It isn't that I'm not a Mayo fan, in the end, at this point I'm hoping the Timberwolves draft him because he gives them the biggest chance at knocking the pick out of the park, and his work ethic gives him a fairly low bust factor. I do have some concerns about him, but they aren't enough to keep me from drafting him. I'm just trying to take a realistic approach, because since we got the #3 pick, this board has become so pro-Mayo you'd think it was sponsored by Hellman's.
In regards to the "alpha dog development," it's interesting that you brought up young Kobe. I remember the airballs against Utah, but I saw them as Kobe knowing that his team needing someone to step up, and he attempted to do so, despite only being an 18 year old rookie. He takes many similar shots these days, the only difference is that he makes most of them. My concern with Mayo wasn't that he'd come up short in those situations like Kobe when he was younger, but that Mayo kind of disappeared in them. He stepped up in those situations in a couple of the postseason high school All-Star games, so it may not be a problem, I just wish I would have seen more of it at the collegiate level. Learning when to pick his spots isn't uncommon for a young player, but it isn't something that's guaranteed to happen.
Still, if you'd said a year ago we had a chance to get Mayo in the draft, I would have taken it and ran. It's not quite the slam dunk this year it would have been then, but it's still a nice ray of sunshine after a fairly dreary Timberwolves season.
