Random Thoughts on Luke Wilson
Because it has become a thing, let's cover Appalachian State where our new center comes from. They play in the Sun Belt, which was 21st among conferences in SRS, 20th in NET.
The team was 191 in the NET, 206 in SRS.
We are trying to judge another low ranking conference transfer and how they will perform in the 4th rated ACC (by both SRS and NET).
First, let's discuss his size. Wilson came to college listed at 285, probably because he was also a football recruit. He was offered by 4 low D1 programs as a Defensive end/Tight end. He redshirted his freshman year on the App State basketball team, and plays at a slimmed down 255, though that might be underestimating his weight. It is unusual for basketball players to "slim down" to 255, usually they only get so big after years working hard in the weight room.
I posted earlier that he has 600 lb squat legs, unfortunately I couldn't confirm or deny that randomly thrown out number in a Google search. His football background explains his enormous legs.
In spite of his mighty thews, Wilson's highlights show him to be a nimble athlete with respectable leaping ability. He doesn't play under the rim per se, making the frequent Arinze Onuaku references in this thread less applicable.
Wilson was the Sun Belt Defensive Player of the Year. He has an interesting set of characteristics which allows him to be a dominant low major defensive player that might translate to the ACC. He is big and strong, which helps against burly middle men even at the highest levels. He is long armed and has decent timing for blocking or altering shots. But his ability to be switchable and give hard hedges on the pick and roll is critical to modern defenses. While obviously Wilson is only one of five players, his defense in the middle allowed App State to be top50 in 8 defensive categories. Most importantly when judging a center's impact, they were 16th in defensive FG% and 17th in defensive 2PT%, both highly affected by a good defensive center.
On offense, Wilson is decent, scoring 10.2 on .642 shooting. He knows his limitations and attempted zero threes last season. His TS% was .625 because he is a bad FT shooter. His offense is decent, and he was often double teamed in his low major conference, and showed decent footwork to get layups at a high rate. He seems to overpower smaller players well, which will be less available to him in the ACC. If he can average 10ppg again, I would be pleasantly surprised. But he is at least a threat to score on more than just alley oops and drive and dish dunks.
Wilson is a good rebounder, not great. He is a well rounded rebounder, unlike some players we have seen recently that excel at only offense or defense rebounding. His defensive rebound % is 19.4, which would have been slightly better than William Kyle, ranking second on the team after Freeman's near elite defensive rebounding. He also cleared 12.8% of his own teams misses, which would have led our team. His total rebound percentage was 16.2%, a very respectable number, though coming from a lower league.
Since the percentages aren't competition adjusted, I'll give a few data points for comparison.
William Kyle had almost exactly the same rebounding percentages at South Dakota State and Syracuse, though he dropped at little at his stop at UCLA in the Big Ten.
Jyare Davis, coming from the CAA, dropped slightly coming to Syracuse.
Eddie Lampkin was actually much better at Syracuse than his previous stops in the PAC 12 and Big 12.
Without running a full analysis, my conclusion is that rebound% is relatively stable even moving up conferences... Playing style of both player and team matters more. Lampkin was the outlier, in that he never tried to block shots so was always in position to rebound when at Syracuse.
One of my major concerns about the roster as it is currently constructed is the lack of rebounding. White is a bad rebounder for his raw athletic ability, securing only 15.7% defensive and 12.5% total rebounds. Goodrick is better, getting 21.2% and 19% respectively. Doty, even with his slight build, might have been the second best rebounder on the roster before Wilson committed, at 17.4% and 11.4%. Tobiason and Dual are average rebounders for their position. Anthony avoids rebounding if he can help it. Everybody else is kind of unknown, though I have hopes for Sibi while being doubtful MMM will help much on the boards.
Wilson definitely shores up the impending rebounding issues, as would White making the sophomore leap in effectiveness.
That leads me to a tangent, of how much of this current roster relies on White being much more effective year over year. He had his moments and the advanced stats didn't hate him, but his PER of 16.7 and BPM of 1.8 and other advanced metrics indicate a lot of room for improvement. As of right now, we have him as the only power forward on the roster, with his backups playing out of position. While his TS% of .567 wasn't terrible, White was often an afterthought in the offense and thus didn't command defensive attention. We need White to improve his offense enough where defenses can't leave him alone. Improving his shooting, or expanding his ability to penetrate off the dribble or his post up game would help tremendously. White's .368 percentage wasn't bad, but he often failed to take wide open threes because the offense and defense didn't count him as a shooter. His 1.6 3pt attempts per 40 minutes were almost always wide open when the defense dared him to shoot.
In the context of a post about Luke Wilson, I wonder how Wilson and White will work together on offense. In many of Wilson's highlights, he enough of a post threat (strength of competition warning) to command double teams, and we will need to find the open man to prevent defenses packing in the middle. White needs to either shoot well enough to keep things open, or be on the bench when Wilson is working in the post. Having Dual out there will compound the problem, because defenses won't need to respect his .316 shooting percentage either.
In a lineup where we have a Center, White, 2 of Tobiason, Doty and MMM, and Dual on offense could conceivably have de facto double teams on Tobiason and MMM with a double team rotating to cover Wilson when he gets the ball in the post. We will need to punish defenses for that, and White and Dual will need to be responsible for that. If White develops confidence and efficiency he raises our ceiling by a lot. Dual likely is who he is as a player at this point, a defensive specialist who can keep the offense moving. I doubt he is going to revolutionize his shooting at this point in his career, but White might.
Wilson seems to contribute to a roster that has a theme... Gritty, defensive players who defend hard, steal the ball at a high rate, can switch on defense effectively and will need to rely on defense and transition baskets to win games.
The exception is MMM and Tobiason who are both above average offensive players, along possibly Doty, though my doubts about his transition to the ACC are well covered by this point.
All things considered, I think with Wilson, Goodrick and Sibi, Center might be our second strongest position group, after the Wings with MMM, Tobiason, Anthony and Doty covering those two positions.
