Does the strong push for Lawrence indicate that the staff things they may lose Christmas after this season or do they feel that Lawrence will be able to provide depth at either forward position and still get plenty of playing time. The staff must be telling a kid with this much potential that he has a legit chance for playing time.
We're also recruiting 6'10 PF Chris Walker from the '13 class, but if we can't pull him out of Florida, Lawrence sounds like a godsend. Excellent height but not so much bulk that he can't move out to the wing. His shooting range could pull a big outside against M2M coverage.
The reason I'm excited about Lawrence and Walker is our lack of depth at PF. That was a big reason our rebounding numbers were abysmal last year. With X-Mas not being ready, we were forced to play a 3 (CJ) there. CJ turned out to be surprisingly crafty inside. Even so, he was not an inside force and our rebounding (in addition to being challenged b/c of the zone) really suffered. The 2011-12 squad had the talent to make up for that in other ways. This year we won't be as lucky. Obviously, Walker/Lawrence won't give us any immediate help -- but either could help in 2 years with some of the off-the-ball shotblocking we were looking for with NN.
In the meantime, X-Mas starts at PF again (IMO). I'm praying that he takes the next step that we've all been waiting for -- inside eraser and supplemental low-post scorer. But even if starts meeting these expectations, he can only play so many minutes (25?). Once he get's gassed, or has a bad game, picks up fouls or gets nicked up, we get significantly smaller inside. Why the staff hasn't gone after another big is a mystery to me.
This fall offers no relief. Grant is not going to play inside, at 6'6 185 lbs. What will wind up happening is that CJ will have to plug into the 4, with Dirty taking over the SF role (Grant to back up). That's a lineup I would like to see -- fast, balanced offensively. But it still leaves us in the same rebounding boat we were stuck in last year -- getting humped on the glass.