Alan played awful last night. Forced 2 bad 3s that were both air balls. Threw a crazy pass with almost no chance of success. 3 awful mental errors.
What JB has been asking Alan to do is exactly what Buddy was doing last night. Get some penetration, get into the paint, get quality mid range jump shots. This is not something Alan has done. He is clearly uncomfortable doing it. Has made a lot of turnovers trying to beat his man, back him man down. He is way behind Buddy here but he is working on it and his career at Syracuse is very much tied to how success he is getting his mid range game going (also would like to see him sometimes finish at the basket).
I will say that I think one of the things Alan does best is finish plays in transition. He is fast and athletic and at his best in fast paced games where he can get out in 2 on 1 type situations. We are asking him to help out with defensive rebounding and focus on getting boards, so that part of his game has largely been taken away.
For Alan to truly thrive, he probably should be playing the 2. In that role, he would get a lot more good scoring chances. This would also require him learning to play the 2-3 up top. That is a problem.
He has usually been a major liability in the 2-3 zone. When Alan is in games, teams are routinely targeting his area of the zone to attack. Buddy is no Kadary playing in the zone but he is at least average. Asking him to start over and learn the responsibilities playing up top might not be the best strategy right now.
Anyway, I completely disagree with you about Alan doing things as well as Buddy, at least at guard. He can rebound better than Buddy for sure and I think he is a better finisher. Buddy is way better in the mid range game, he has far better judgement (look at the turnovers, my God) and is better defensively.
It is great to see Edwards and Kadary playing well. I hope they both get quality minutes the rest of the season. Hope there is PT made available for Braswell or Woody too...whichever is playing better in practice. I hope JB takes advantage of the developing bench and uses it to rest all the starters.
But unless Alan starts playing well soon, I suspect he is going to lose the most playing time of the starters. Who knows, maybe he had a cold or a pulled muscle last night. We have seen games where AG is terrific. He just needs to find a way to be more consistent. Along with the rest of this team.