I am happy with Red. He was my first choice. I am also happy with his recruits. I will support him even if our season is not up to most people's expectations. We had no choice with Joe and Jesse.
Never-the-less, our best bigs are Benny and Brown. I expect Benny and Judah to hit threes. JJ and Chance are unlikely to hit threes. I hope that Cope and Cuffe will hit threes but so far I am disappointed. We shall see.
I think the shooting fears are simultaneously valid and overblown.
We haven't a Boeheim, Rautins, Nichols, Shumpert or McNamara on this team.
We've nobody who you absolutely want taking a three for you if you're down three points and down to your last possession.
But we do have Bell, Williams and Taylor, each of whom I would give at least 50% odds of sticking a three given time and space. They are good shooters, they'll do enough. Two of them are going to be on the court most of the time we are playing, unless somebody else really steps up.
We also have Starling, Mintz and Cuffe who have demonstrated some ability to hit a three (although Cuffe was a surprise winning the the point contest). They probably won't be great, but we aren't talking Rajon Rondo type bad. They'll hit enough where teams aren't going to just let them shoot.
The other guys, Copeland and Brown, and our centers, aren't going to be expected to shoot threes. But even Brown and Copeland have demonstrated the ability, at least in practice and in highlights.
All things considered, we're probably going to get a lot of open threes, because our team wide ability to get to the basket is superior to our shooting. The open man is going to be found very often as teams hedge hard to shut off the drive. We're going to hit enough.
I'm a crazy optimist, though. We did what we were supposed to do against overmatched teams, which we haven't always done. And we did it without our full team, as Brown, Mintz and Williams are at least in our top 6. I'm assuming Westry won't really play much this calendar year, if at all.
Add in a bunch of new players, new roles, new coaches... I thought the results were pretty good considering the circumstances.