Locked On Jayhawks - Daily Podcast On Kansas Jayhawks Football & Basketball - Kansas Jayhawks Basketball Top Takeaways From Puerto Rico Trip: Which Dajuan Harris will KU get?

Starting point is 00:00:00 On today's Locked on Jayhawks, I got Nick Schwertan here. We are having our biggest takeaways from the Puerto Rico trip for KU basketball. We'll finish up with whose stat line is it anyway? You are Locked on Jayhawks, your daily podcast on the Kansas Jayhawks, part of the Locked on Podcast Network, your team every day. I'm Eric Johnson. You can hear me as well Monday through Friday from 3 to 6 p.m. on KLWN in Lawrence with Rock Chalk Sports Talk. Joined today by Nick Schwert.

Starting point is 00:00:35 You can give him a follow, Nick underscore Schwert, on Twitter. Myself, D. Johnson Radio on Twitter. Thanks for making Locked on Jayhawks your first listen every day. We are free and available wherever you get any of your podcasts. You can find our show, like and subscribe to it on our YouTube page also. And today's episode of the show is brought to you by FanDuel. Make every moment more. Right now, when you bet on a Super Bowl winner,

Starting point is 00:00:56 you can get bonus bets every time they win in the regular season with FanDuel.com slash Locked On. Okay, so Nick, on today's show, we're going to be talking Puerto Rico game takeaways. They beat the Puerto Rico select team on Thursday. They split with the Bahamian national team on Saturday and Monday. Is there a player or something about the team just in general, whether it was something that backed up,

Starting point is 00:01:22 something you might've thought about the team, or maybe something that surprised you, changed your mind a little bit on something that you take away from this Puerto Rico trip overall? You know, I kind of tried to go into the Puerto Rico trip without many expectations in terms of how the team was going to play, what the rotations were going to look like. And I also tried to go in with the mindset of, I'm not going to draw many conclusions from this. Something that you and I talked about,

Starting point is 00:01:50 the only thing that I really felt strongly about going into this weekend and going into the season in general is that Hunter Dickinson is going to be like the only known commodity in terms of, I know what he does well. I know he's going to fit with this team. And I know he's going to be one of the best players in the country. A bit of a slow start in that first game. But when you look back at the stat line, you say, okay, if that's a down game for him, albeit against a JV squad, then I'll take it. But then he really showed out over the course of the weekend. So that's the first thing I kind of looked at was, okay, that box is checked. Don't have to worry.

Starting point is 00:02:28 No unforeseen circumstances with him. The other part was the KJ Adams aspect. I've had a couple of conversations with different people about how Hunter Dickinson coming in, going to play all of his minutes at the five, what that's going to do to KJ Adams and his role. Is he a natural four? How are they going to use him? Is he going to have to see a minutes decrease because of the fact that he's not a natural four? That's not going to happen. And very rarely do you see a season where a guy plays a ton, earns the trust of this coaching staff, and then the next year, because of personnel,

Starting point is 00:03:02 they decide to pull it back a little bit. KJ Adams was this coaching staff's guide next year, because of personnel, they decide to pull it back a little bit. KJ Adams was this coaching staff's guy last year. And I've been kind of operating under the pretense that I don't know what he's going to look like. I don't know how they're going to use him, but he's going to be used and he's going to be one of the key figures on this team. Those three games down in San Juan only reinforced the fact that we can have a lot of conversations about what KJ is going to look like and how they're going to have to use him. But I think the fact remains, he is going to be an integral part of this team. I don't think Hunter Dickinson coming in and the rotation changing a little bit is going to alter his role maybe as much as some people expect yeah I thought KJ and

Starting point is 00:03:46 Hunter looked really good kind of passing with each other and it's such a small sample but KJ even going two for three from three just showing that he can make one that that is in there hitting a mid-range shot from the free throw line like that's going to be so important this year I thought DeJuan Harris was maybe the most interesting case study because yeah Hunter Dickinson uh you kind of feel like you know what you're going to get there uh I agree with you study because yeah, Hunter Dickinson, you kind of feel like you know what you're going to get there. I agree with you, the KJ Adams, Hunter Dickinson fit was my biggest thing going into it. But you look at the first two games, DeJuan Harris goes two points, nine assists in the first two games each. And he went combined one for 12 in the first two games.

Starting point is 00:04:19 And then game three was the complete opposite, 23 points on 10 of 14 shooting with two assists and so I think this brings up an interesting you know I don't know conversation about what do you think DeJuan Harris's season looks like like do you think more often than not we're going to see the guy from the first two games where he is maybe even more passive than he was a season ago because maybe there are even more threats to score around him that maybe the point per game total actually goes down from where it was last year or do you think we're going to see a good amount of those, you know, kind of explosion outputs where he did have 23 points and you hear, you know, Eric Gordon comments and stuff like that after the game about them telling him to shoot the ball more?

Starting point is 00:04:59 I feel like that's sort of, that's a repeat of what we heard a lot last year, right? Bill Self would come out and say he just needs to shoot the ball. He just needs to keep defenses honest. So I think statistically speaking, I kind of expect him to have a similar season to what he had last year. Doesn't mean he can't be an improved player or that he won't have a better season, right? But in terms of a statistical output from him, he's just not a guy that I'm looking to to say, okay, we're going to see a big increase in scoring. You're going to be the second or third leading scorer on this team. Quite frankly, if that is the case, if DeJuan needs to be your second or third option scoring,

Starting point is 00:05:41 I think you've probably got bigger issues that you need to work through as an offense. But for the most part, like we know what DeJuan is. He is a facilitator. He is a true point guard, a true one in the purest sense of that definition. And I think KU would be getting away from what they do best. And he would be getting away from what he does best individually. If they ask him to be more than that. He can add to his game. That's fine. But at the end of the day, I want him running the offense. I want him driving the car and getting everybody else involved, putting them in their best

Starting point is 00:06:14 positions to score. I think that's when KU's at their best. Yeah, I think those three games are honestly kind of a microcosm of what he could be in an individual game, because we saw that last year. The Indiana game comes to mind of, I think for the most part, he'll be more of the facilitating type guy, but I think there will be moments. And this is what a good point guard does.

Starting point is 00:06:31 They know when to go and they know, Hey, the other team's on a six, so Ron, everybody around me, this lineup just isn't good on offense or everybody's struggling or, you know, we, we, we're in a rut. We need somebody to make a play. That's when he'll show the aggressiveness, which you'll get spurts of that. You'll get certain games like the Texas Tech game last year where he went five for five from three. But yeah, I think for the most part, it is going to be the guy we see in that first game.

Starting point is 00:06:54 Okay, I want to get into thoughts on some of the newcomers here in a second. First, though, this episode of the show is brought to you by FanDuel Sportsbook. Football season is about to kick off and FanDuel is giving you the chance to win all season long because right now, when you bet on a Super Bowl winner, you can get bonus bets every time they win in the regular season. So if you just want to be a homer, you want to bet on the Chiefs, you want to bet on somebody else, you bet on them in a future pick, and then every regular season win, you're getting bonus bets back.

Starting point is 00:07:20 Just pick any team to win the Super Bowl. Get those bonus bets that you can use on spreads, player props, over-under bets. You can bet on Kansas to make the Final Four to win the National Championship in basketball with some of those bonus bets. Visit Fanduel.com and start earning bonus bets with America's number one sportsbook. That's Fanduel.com So I have some of the stats tallied up. I don't know how well you can see this of what happened in Puerto Rico over the three games. And, you know, obviously Hunter Dickinson jumps off. He led the team in points. He led the team in rebounds. He had the second game, which was his best game, scoring 28 points on 11 of 13 shooting. But outside of Hunter Dickinson, the obvious one there.

Starting point is 00:08:09 Did you have any of the newcomers that, you know, getting to see him for the first time, you had any new thoughts or you were maybe most impressed with from the week in Puerto Rico? I mean, just based off the first game alone, Arterio Morris is the guy I think everybody would kind of point to what was the final stat line 25 and five in that game now again we look back on it especially compared to how the second and third games went we said okay we're taught we're looking at a different level of competition that they were playing with the uh the select team there so i'm trying not to draw too many conclusions from it but that guy looked like a very natural fit as a sort of off guard swing guard at the two who can play the point, but is also very comfortable going and getting his own shot.

Starting point is 00:08:52 And that's really interesting because you look back at his first year at Texas, that was something he kind of struggled that when you look at some of the advanced shooting numbers for Morris, one of his weaknesses was shooting off the dribble. Now, I think we know that if you're somebody who can get your own shot off the dribble at will, you're not going to be playing in college very long because the NBA is full of dudes who can go and get their own shot. But if you can just be a little bit of that, and I feel like it's a carbon copy every single year when we're talking about what does this team need what do they need more of we always go to well they need a playmaking guard like okay well those dudes are starting in the NBA all-star game there aren't that many guys who can play that sort of

Starting point is 00:09:39 game but I think Morris might be the closest that this roster has to that. We'll see how he can do it over the course of the season. But I kind of went into that weekend not really sure what that pecking order was going to look like for that second guard spot between Morris and Marco Jackson. And then I guess a distant third would be Nick Timberlake. At least based off the early indication, I still think there's going to be a healthy competition between Morris and Jackson, but he certainly asserted himself in that first game. Do you know what the 24-7 sports scouting profile player comp is for Artario Morris?

Starting point is 00:10:18 This is coming out of high school? Yes. And I'll even add to this. Now, it has a dash nba second round projection okay so that tells me that the player is a very good player um was this player an all-star in 2023 i think so but they might have had some off-the-court troubles that prevented them from it. Oh. Kyrie Irving. Ja Morant.

Starting point is 00:10:51 Okay. All right. Which I love seeing that being like, hey, we have this guy who is like this MVP candidate. He is one of the most athletic point guards we've ever seen. Second round pick. That's why I like, you know, the ringer does the draft profiles. They always say shades of, right? They don't say this guy is the next John Morant they say he's got a little John Morant in his game that's an easier way for me to process it yeah uh if I told you that a KU basketball player a newcomer so it can be freshman or transfer in

Starting point is 00:11:21 outside of Hunter Dickinson was all big 12 to some level. So first team, second team, third team, who would be your pick? Would it be arterio? Johnny Furphy. Okay. Okay. Well, if you want to get into Furphy, I think that's interesting because there were some very interesting comments that were made, I think by bill self to Gary Bedore, the Kansas city star, and on kind of the post game on the radio side of him basically saying he is a rotation player. And I I'd be interested to hear your take on this. because I have a couple of ways I can go with it. One, is it just you're not trying to, you know, smush a kid you just got immediately in and be like, hey, you're actually not going to play. Like, what did you expect? You just signed up here.

Starting point is 00:11:57 Or could it just be like he actually does expect him to play? And what would that mean for the rotation? Because right now I think it's pretty obvious who the top seven guys are do you dare make Furphy the eighth and does that mean Parker Brown doesn't play do you dare say nine man rotation and Bill Self those those words just you know they're they're magnets that don't go together right I don't think it affects Parker Brown because I still think that guy'll get minutes even if it's I think I talked with somebody last week and I put the over under like seven and a half minutes per game for Parker Brown like you're gonna need a backup big man even if it's not every game or even if it's two minutes here four minutes here you need a backup five a legit five and so he'll still get some run the guy I think it probably hurts the

Starting point is 00:12:38 most is Nick Timberlake like if he can come in and be a more well-rounded player we know Timberlake is being sort of this offensive minded guy. Who's a bit of a weakness on the other end. If Murphy can come in and just give you a little bit more defensively while still being a threat offensively, then all of a sudden, boom, you make that decision that much easier. That's as serious as I'm going to get on my Johnny Murphy takes because all of my love and adoration for this kid is built primarily on the fact that

Starting point is 00:13:07 we know nothing about him. Nobody knew who this guy was six months ago, shows up at the NBA international event. I don't even know what it was. He balls out, Duke, North Carolina, Kansas, come calling. The guy's got a mullet. He jumps out of the gym. He can shoot. They signed him at the 11th hour. This reminds me a lot of the Svee signing back in, what was that, 2015? Nobody knew who this guy was. Then all of a sudden, Larry Brown's coming out and saying that this kid's a top 10 shooter in the country. They sign him when he's 16 years old and you've got this like mysterious Ukrainian kid now on the roster. That's how I feel about Johnny Furphy.

Starting point is 00:13:50 I don't know anything about him, but the mystery is why he is my favorite player. And I am about 99% certain that this kid is going to be an absolute star future Kansas legend name hanging in the banners of Allen Fieldhouse go ahead shades of Joe Ingles Andrew Bogut Matthew De La Vadova Patty Mills yeah yeah Josh Giddy yeah yeah Josh Giddy is a perfect one white athletic wing with long hair he is Josh Giddy that's right all right I've got two who stat line is it anyways today, Puerto Rico edition.

Starting point is 00:14:27 So I hope you were paying attention to when I flashed the graphic on some of the stats there. First though, this episode of the show is brought to you by bird dogs, bird dogs, make you look good. There are stretch khaki shorts are designed to fit slimmer through the thigh and leg,

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Starting point is 00:15:42 We promise you that. All right. I've got a couple of whose stat lines. Is this any way, um, on this edition, these are all Puerto Rico additions. Maybe I should do a 24, seven sports, uh, scouting profile comp one. That would actually be a fun one in a week. Maybe we'll do that in the future. Uh, but here's the first one, 13.7 points per game, 6.3 rebounds per game, 4.7 assists per game. All of those were second on the team. Well, I know who was first, so that eliminates one player. I'm going to go with the rebound is the one that's throwing me off a little bit.

Starting point is 00:16:25 Hmm. Give me KJ Adams. This is Kevin McCuller. Okay. Yeah, the assists. I didn't feel good about the assist number. I was like, did KJ quietly rack up a bunch of assists? Okay.

Starting point is 00:16:41 Quiet weekend. Quiet but productive weekend for Kevin. Yeah, I think the last game he had 19 points, eight rebounds, seven assists. That'll do it when you're going up against Buddy Heald. I thought Kevin looked really good. I don't know what you thought. Like you said, there were times where it was kind of a quiet ho-hum weekend,

Starting point is 00:16:55 but also there were a couple moves that he had in there that I didn't see last year. Kind of this like spinning turnaround, fadeaway mid-range jump shot that it just looked super pure. He hit it probably a couple times last year but I didn't remember it as much I guess there was one I think in the Arkansas game now that I'm thinking back to it but um when you hear Bill Self going back to the the presser that he gave before they left for Puerto Rico saying that he's the best player on

Starting point is 00:17:16 the team I didn't necessarily take that as like oh well if we think Hunter Dickinson's a national player of the year candidate that means Kevin McCuller is a National Player of the Year candidate. I didn't take it that way. I took it as like he does a lot of little stuff too, like he's the best all-around player because he plays great defense. He's the best. You add in the leadership traits, stuff like that. But what do you think the reasonable expectations for Kevin McCuller is?

Starting point is 00:17:37 Do you think he could be like All-American level? First off, I think Bill Self saying that is him saying, I want Kevin McCuller to think he's the best player on the team. Right. We don't need to worry about Hunter Dickinson. He's going to give you 20 and 10. But we need Kevin to tap into that same mindset that Ochai found two years ago that Jalen found last year, which is, hey, the guy ahead of you is gone. You can't afford to just be the same dude. You have to take your mentality to the next level. In terms of what I think his ceiling is, it's kind of funny because I wouldn't have banked on

Starting point is 00:18:18 Ochai or Jalen becoming Big 12 Player of the Year All-American candidates, yet here I am looking at Kevin and saying the same exact thing. I think both of those aforementioned players had shown a higher ceiling offensively. And the only way Kevin gets to that, like he can be a really good player. He could be a first-team All-Big 12 guy or a second-team All-Big 12 guy. The only way he gets to that next level is if he becomes an above average shooter not an average shooter because he's below average right now become an above average shooter think about this too Derek how good was Grady Dick last year really good right second team all big 12 so it's tough for me to look at Kevin and say, no, your ceiling next year is going to be

Starting point is 00:19:06 higher than what we saw from Grady Dick, albeit as a freshman, but he was a lottery pick. I'm not willing to go there. I guess this could end up causing me to have egg all over my face, but I just, I don't quite see it. I could see him being a, you know, you flash his stats if he ended up being a 13 5 and 3 guy that's a tremendous season from him but i i just i don't know that i see like a 17 18 point per game year from him yeah and it's tough to get that all-american team like the counting stats do matter i was looking back at uh mikhail bridges the year that Villanova was just unstoppable in the tournament. He averaged 17.7 points over five rebounds, about two, two and a half assists per game, a couple steals and shot like 45% from three. And he was third team All-American.

Starting point is 00:19:55 So it's just, it's tough. He could be one of the most 20 impactful players in the country, but probably not going to end up on one of those All-American teams. Okay, here's the last one we have for who stat line. Is it anyway, Puerto Rico edition shooting line of 71.4% from two 66.7% from three and 78% at the foul line. But 66 point that tells me he went two for three.

Starting point is 00:20:22 So this is how I'm going to reverse engineer this one. Who only took three threes? We know it's not KJ because he only made one. Oh, 71%. I really don't want to go over two. You already have. Well, this would crush me to miss another one. How's that? No, I over two. You already have. Well, this would do crush me to miss another one. How's that?

Starting point is 00:20:48 No, I'm saying like you already have, you have already eliminated the answer. Oh, it was KJ. Yeah, it was KJ. Oh yeah. He did make two. That was my initial. I don't know. I feel like I'm just like in this KJ mindset, but okay.

Starting point is 00:21:01 I guess that checks out. So how about the 78% free throw? Remember how bad he was to start last year? Yeah. I think it was the Tennessee game or I don't know, something along the battle for Atlantis where like, he just kept missing and people were freaking out and then he ended up being like, actually pretty good. Yeah. That was like worse than you. Yeah. It's crazy. And now he's just money just automatic from the stripe. Yeah. So he was actually your, just automatic from the stripe. Yeah. So he was actually your,

Starting point is 00:21:26 he was like the best free throw shooter among people who took more than I think it was four. I think people took five or more. He was the best free throw shooter. He was your best at two points. And then he was your best three point shooter. Now, if you don't count, you know, if you're like, oh, you only took three,

Starting point is 00:21:39 then Nick Timberlake would be the guy who took actually the most and shot 40%. But I think this goes back to what we kind of talked about at the beginning. I thought KJ Adams looked good playing next to Hunter Dickinson. Sometimes you just bet on the talent or you bet on the player more than the role. I think we have a tendency to kind of overanalyze, how is this guy going to look playing next to this guy?

Starting point is 00:22:03 What's his role? Is there too much competition in that spot? Right? Like we've done that a lot with KJ this summer and saying, well, now he's going to play the four. So he's got to develop a little bit of an outside game. And then you look back on how he even got to this point. He wasn't supposed to be the starter last year.

Starting point is 00:22:20 Right? And then all of a sudden the guys ahead of him just weren't ready. So they threw KJ out there. And he even said in an interview last year that he never thought he was going to be the starter all season. He knew he was kind of a placeholder, but he just kept doing all the little things. And the team looked so much better when he was on the court. He moves the ball. He's assertive. He got better over the course of the season. So as much as we want to talk about the fit and spacing and all of that stuff, and I get that it's important, at the end of the day, I just look at the player and say, all he's done is got better, like at a pretty rapid

Starting point is 00:22:54 pace since he got to Kansas. I don't know how it's going to look or how the fit is going to end up working out, but I'll bet on the player because he has passed every single test he's been given so far. All right. He's Nick Schwert. Give him a follow at Nick underscore Schwert. Anything you want to plug before we go? No, not yet, man. You keep, you know what, man, you keep grilling me about stuff to plug and now you make me feel like I'm behind schedule. I just got to trust the process. I'll have something for you soon though. For now, this is my weekly outlet for KU basketball. There we go.

Starting point is 00:23:27 You can give me a follow at DJohnsonRadio. Find us wherever you get any of your podcasts and like and subscribe to the show on YouTube. See you next time.

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Locked On Jayhawks - Daily Podcast On Kansas Jayhawks Football & Basketball - Kansas Jayhawks Basketball Top Takeaways From Puerto Rico Trip: Which Dajuan Harris will KU get?

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