gardenofsound wrote:This is the first I'm hearing of any rift between them. What did WCJ do?
This actually occured after the 1st game of the season. I noticed it right away.
i.e. They avoided making eye contact with each other. If one of them was shooting a FT then the other would not slap hands with him. If one of them made a good play the other would run the other way (no high fives etc.).
I wrote about it in several threads but no one would aknowledge it.
Chicagoat wrote:WCJ has said publicly that he wants to play the 4 next year and that he isn't a natural 5. People took it as a shot towards Lauri.
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There may be some element of this left over from when WCJ was forced to play center at Duke when he wanted to play PF. He went along with the program, but his mother came out and crtized the Duke recruiting process. So WCJ feels that he can be a better PF in the NBA than Lauri.
During the season I created a vote thread on this topic and something like 50% of the votes said that it should be tried. But the people that voted "No" were adamant that WCJ could never play PF in the NBA
Another development is that Gafford is going to probably be getting more time at center, so that would eat into WCJ minutes if he can't at least move over to PF when Gafford is in the game.
In one thread I suggested that our new FO trade one of them during the Draft if they can make a deal.
FriedRise wrote:If he's been watching the playoffs like the rest of us, I hope he sees a lot of himself in Adebayo, who clearly plays the 5 full time in Miami. They're both pretty similar in talent, and if WCJ can slim down to 250-260 lbs range, they'll look pretty similar physically. Bam is obviously more athletic, but under the right coach I think WCJ can match him defensively and he DOES actually have a jumper.
My take is Boylen just didn't know how to use his bigs outside of being a floor-spacing PF (the roles he assigned to both Lauri and Thad) or a garbage man screen-setting C (WCJ, Gafford, and Felicio playing the exact same role). Donovan should immediately correct that if he's to cater to the strengths of his personnel.
When the NBA officially verified measured were released, WCJ was listed at 6-9, 255 lb. (before he'd always been listed at 6-10)
Losing weight would actually bring him down to 245-250 lb. most likely.