I think we all have to do some soul searching if we think George is the real deal. I believe he is and if he's not we're screwed anyway so might as well stand by him.Starling last season had a lot of bad shots because there was nobody else that could score. Every game, he took multiple prayer type threes because the alternative was a shotclock violation.
If you took all those terrible shots he was forced to take out of the equation, I think his 3pt percentage improves dramatically. He's not going to become a great shooter, not by any means, but if he shoots 5 open threes a game, he's going to hit 35% or more.
The offense got him open threes against Buffalo, which is a shot we want everybody but Kyle and Souare taking. Open threes are the way you win games.
I get your point about small sample sizes and wanting to choose the larger sample (of his whole career), but I am arguing that there is a key difference systemically from last year. He won't be asked to carry the whole offense and he won't have the ball in his hands every time the clock starts winding down.
We traded out Davis, Lucas Taylor and Carlos for Betsey, George, Kingz and Anthony this offseason. Now Starling can afford to let them cook a little instead of being the only competent chef like last year.
He's playing about 6 min clips then sitting 6 mins. I expect him to be +15 more mins a game so basically be on the bench about 1-2 mins a half.
I haven't seen him actually sweat yet. Lame to make excuses but looked like he got fouled 3-4 times with no calls and he just packed up his lunch and went through the motions rest of the game.
Also just looking how he played last year at GTech, his best games were middle of ACC play, he had some stinkers at GT early on in their noncon too. Sucks cuz we might have the classic playing down to competition thing with him and that comes with the territory with this staff.
These guys are going to have to come together. If that mean Sadiq and Freeman need to put a boot up the rest of the team's butts and Autry's early in games then so be it.