dc wrote:ComboGuardCity wrote:If I'm a UNC fan, I'm thinking: WHere the hell was this Harrison Barnes the past two years?
Before the draft, David Thorpe predicted this from Barnes and what he'd be doing in the NBA and that people would be asking the exact same question that you just did.
Basically, it's very difficult for a wing player of Barnes' size to get into the lane at will in college ball. You can pack the lane with as many people as you want and there is no defensive 3 seconds rule. Add to this the fact that the type of players around him (two post players in Henson, Zeller and a non-shooter PG in Marshall) couldn't really space the floor favorably. Heck, they relied on Barnes to be the main shooter because of this.
Now in the NBA things are more wide open. He's playing next to Steph Curry and Thompson, two of the league's better shooters. It's no surprise he's able to get into the lane like this.
College ball is going to be dominated by quick ballhandlers who can get their own shot off (Derrick Rose, Jay Williams) or mobile post players who can take advantage of the lack of good bigs in the NCAA (Sean May, Tyler Hansbrough, Antawn Jamison). It's rare to see 6'7"-6'8" wing players dominate. Guyis like Len Bias and Carmelo are the exceptions.
Spot on.
I'm a UNC fan and, aside from the occasional mid-wee conference game or Sunday afternoon ACC game, I saw the vast majority of Harrison's college games. There's plenty of UNC fans that were saying they thought his game was better suited for the NBA and that he'd look better and come closer to living up to his pre-college hype once he got in the league. That talk really picked up once he had a less than stellar NCAA tournament this past year when UNC really needed him to come-up big.
On what you said about the lineup (started two legit back to the basket bigs and a non-shooting threat at PG), UNC also started a SG in Dexter Strickland who couldn't shoot to save his life. Only when they brought Reggie Bullock into the game did they have a lethal three point threat on the floor alongside Barnes. The spacing ont he floor was just awful and, like you said, Barnes was relegated (a lot of times) to being UNC's floor stretching shooter. There just wasn't much room for him to consistently dominate his man off the bounce and get into the lane. When he did, though, you saw flashes of his sneaky good athleticism. I always raved about his body control in traffic and in the air. He absorbs and finishes through contact very well. Don't get me wrong, he obviously had ball-handling issues, and looked like a 4th grader at times trying to penetrate, but he was also better in that aspect of the game than I think a lot of people realize.
Now he's playing on an NBA team with good shooters, and the floor is wide-open. There's still ignorant people out there that believe Barnes still can't create his own shot and beat his man off the bounce. While he's not consistently great at it, yet, anyone that's watched his last 10 games or so has seen that he's more than capable of getting into the lane and scoring off dribble penetration. I'm impressed at how much his ball-handling has improved, but I don't think it was ever quite as bad as some people assumed.
Right now I've noticed he goes long stretches of games where he doesn't touch the ball and seemingly disappears, but that seems to have a little bit to do with Curry and Thompson who average 30 shots per game between them, and the fact that Barnes spends a lot of his minutes on the floor with them.
Albeit brief, I do think we've already seen flashes of a player who, down the line, can be someone you can rely on to carry your offense for stretches by scoring in a variety of ways.