Ah, now your posts make a lot more sense, since you became an SU fan because of some association with Gbinije [maybe even a family member, friend, neighbor, or something along those lines]. Here are a couple of quick reactions to your post above:
#1, I root for the name on the front of the jersey, not the back. I do not root for one player on the team to succeed, but another to fail because it suits an agenda, or because I'm personally invested in only one player. I can appreciate that you have a rooting interest in Gbinije, but I don't resonate with rooting for one of our players over the others.
#2, I don't recall ever having made a specific comparison between Cooney's athleticism and Gbinije's. I think this is an example of you taking anything positive said about Cooney as a slight toward the player that you specifically root for. Trust me, I want them both to succeed. And I stand by my observations. Cooney seems to be more explosive than Gbinije--certainly in terms of leaping ability and lateral mobility. I've never "questioned Gbinije's athleticism," I've stated my opinion based upon observation. And maybe I'm selling Gbinije short, but to me his athleticism seems more akin to a Ryan Blackwell or Preston Shumpert than the more athletic wings that we've had over the years. And to be clear, having "average" athleticism for a wing at Syracuse means that he's more athletic than 99% of the population, just that he isn't a rim rattling skywalker in the mold of Hak, Grant, Dion, MCW, or others that we've had here. I've seen little evidence to the contrary [especially after observing him in practice], but look forward to seeing what he can do in an expanded role.
#3, I think that there is some validity to the playing out of position / being asked to do new things argument. In your zeal to condemn me for putting down your favorite player, you must have missed dozens of pasts I made throughout the season where I defended Gbinije as a function of inexperience. He barely played at Duke, then sat out, and was getting his first taste of legitimate game action and NCAA competition this year, so there were bound to be growing pains. But he also got two starts this year at forward--ostensibly his more natural position--and in those two games he got a grand total of 1 rebound. Not good.
#4, that said, I didn't see much evidence of the offensive game you speak of. Here are his stats for the season:
View attachment 11063
What I DID see was a player who didn't do anything particularly well offensively. Shot a little better from three than I expected, given the hitch in his mechanics, but didn't finish as well as I expected. I hope that he is capable of doing more--I really do. But I'll remain skeptical until I see it on display in games. In fact, I think that BJ Johnson has the potential to be both a more potent wing scorer and a better shooter [he hasn't done it in games, either; but I'm basing that upon having watched them both in practice last year]. But bottom line: we need to collectively shoot better as a team, and Gbinije will have the opportunity--along with BJ, Buss, and Joseph--to give us a much needed infusion of complimentary outside shooting next year.
#5, For the record, I predicted last summer than Gbinije would start over Cooney in the backcourt. Then I watched the Canadain tour and got confused about his capabilities, because he seemed more heavy footed / less explosive than I expected athletically, and he didn't seem to have a refined offensive game. Then I watched him in practice and came away with the same impression. That doesn't mean that he won't improve as a function of experience. Next year, he'll go from being highly inexperienced to one of the more experienced players on the team, for having played in tough games all year long. And I expect him to improve. But I think that his scoring upside might have a lower ceiling that what you project [I could see him being about a ~7-9 ppg scorer over the next two years]. But here's the thing: THERE'S NOTHING WRONG WITH THAT! If that's all he achieves, he can still be a very valuable team guy who plays major minutes and contributes to a lot of team success. He'll also be counted on to provide important leadership next season as one of the veterans on the team--another important contribution--and he'll need to rise to the occasion [along with Cooney and Rak] to deliver that to an otherwise young team. Again, I see him as more of a Ryan Blackwell-esque glue guy / role player than a high scoring NBA prospect. But I don't mean that as a put down, and I'd love to be wrong.
#6, Gbinije is going to get stuck playing the role of backup point again next year, so he might not start given that the team needs his versatility in reserve. I see his ideal role as the 6th man [again] who is comfortable coming in and playing numerous positions. But in a post I made earlier this week, I actually predicted that he had a very good chance to start at the three. Will be interesting to see how it plays out.
#7, scrimmages don't matter at all. While it's great to hear that Gbinije is playing well, it is virtually impossible to extrapolate how someone is playing in unstructured games and use that to predict game performance. Paul Harris was the king of scrimmages, he dominated when the unstructured games. But it is much more difficult in organized ball to properly execute half court offensive sets, to run a structured offense, to get good shots within the framework of a team offensive concept, etc.
At the end of the day, I think you're making more out of my comments than I intended, due to your rooting interest in Gbinije. I think that most posters who've read my practice reports will back me up on the fact that I'm pretty pragmatic and objective when it comes to player assessments. I like Gbiinije, and again--my active rooting interest is for SYRACUSE, the name on the front of the jersey--not the names on the back. Nothing would please me more than to see Gbinije come out next season and kill it. Based upon what I've seen, I don't necessarily expect that to happen--but I do envision that Gbinije is going to be a figural player for the remainder of his career and play an important contributing role toward a LOT of wins.
And if my assessment above end up being off-target, I'll happily admit it. Nothing would please me more than for Gbinije to emerge as the player I expected him to be heading into last summer, when I predicted he'd start ahead of Cooney.
