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[QUOTE="Niastri, post: 5434651, member: 722"]
Hmm, good point. I always am the optimist. Looking at that post though, I wasn’t wrong.

(It felt really weird using bolded font on my own quote from a year ago.)

My comparison in this case was about size.  Brown and Taylor were just too small and consistently getting overpowered… They also were consistently just being shot over like they weren’t there.

Lampkin never got overpowered, and Freeman vs. Taylor was a complete mismatch size and talent wise. We also didn’t get beat up on the boards as badly with Lampkin.

But, as frustrating as watching the Taylor and Brown interior defense was at times, this past season’s defense was even worse. No doubt, my optimism was misplaced.

In the end, though, there’s no way to know how good the team could have been. We effectively lost McLeod and Westry before the season started, we lost Freeman halfway through. Maybe my prediction would have been correct if we had Lampkin, Freeman and McLeod playing, with a small dose of Davis, instead of Davis starting.

Unfortunately, last year’s guesses didn’t include McLeod being out almost all season, nor did it include Freeman’s injury.

Either way, we have pivoted from immovable (and almost immobile) 300+ lb center Lampkin and McLeod to extremely athletic, much smaller center Kyle and Souare.

One thing is certain, Lampkin and McLeod were not great at playing pick and roll, and couldn’t switch on screens. The new forwards all are athletic enough to switch, allowing other options we just couldn’t do last season.

Nice work pointing out my eternal optimism, though. I refuse to put a stop to that, at any rate. ;)
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