I remember the first time I saw Kendall Marshall. I was surfing around the internet and stumbled upon a blurb that a sophomore PG had committed to North Carolina. So I looked around to see if there was any highlights of him. If he committed his sophomore year to a super elite program that doesn't just give offers on a whim, he must have been super elite himself. I found a 2 minute video of him. It was a compilation of a very small, skinny left handed point guard throwing full court and transition passes to teammates in summer league games. Just pretty stock footage. A slick kid throwing alley oops for dunks in blowout AAU games.
But even in that footage, there was something about these passes. The timing, the precision, the unique delivery. There was something I intrinsically loved about the kid. The offer made sense from the first minute I saw him. His court savvy and deliberate pace was there. He saw the floor. He took risks. Great awareness and patience.
And he's carried that with him to Carolina, as we have seen him take his team to a much higher level. Great floor general. Every pass he makes is on time. He rarely puts a teammate in a bad spot. He throws the ball ahead better than any guard in the country. You never see him take one more dribble than he has to before he passes. The ball is out of his hands on time. He has a great relationship with Tyler Zeller and Jon Henson. He puts the ball on the hands of those guys exactly where they like it. He's made them much more effective, which has been an integral part of their growth as a team in January and February. And he's the player that guys on team are looking to when they're tired. He's instilled a toughness and a confidence in a lot of those guys. We all know Harrison Barnes is a stud, who had a tough adjustment period the first two months. Well, he's been a go to guy beast in 2011 and I don't think that's a coincidence. I think thats because he plays with much more confidence with Marshall calling the shots.
It'll be fun to watch them next week. I wouldn't want to see them on my side of the bracket if I was a coach. But Marshall and guys like him are just constant proof that there are a ton of ways to be a great hooper. Getting buckets and making 3's is great. But guys that play the floor game and do intangible things at a high level are in short supply. Think Chris Kramer of Purdue last year. Think D.J Byrd of Purdue this year. When you watch him, you see a guy hammering people with screens, moving the ball, offensive and defensive rebounding, talking to his teammates, helping and reconvering, making free throws, taking charges, etc. He's a guy you wanna be teammates with.
Worry about playing the floor game well, and the layups and jump shots will take care of themselves.
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