Darryn Peterson
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Article did confirm one thing to me, which is that he obviously loves basketball. I think everyone here knew that, but the whole "He doesn't like playing basketball" narrative was probably the dumbest one I saw. All his basketball role models (Kobe, MJ) are total driven psychopaths and DP is a good, not great athlete with a ridiculous level of skill. You don't get to that level of skill without constantly playing ball and running through drills etc. Stuff you wouldn't do if you didn't love the game
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@rcjhdraft It's just that he doesn't "look" like he enjoys playing basketball. He doesn't smile; he doesn't high five; and he doesn't interact much with his teammates. Maybe . . . he was so talented as a child that his parents forced bball on him. I feel like he's making his teammates put up with him. It's still a mystery to me.
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The basic problem is that DP, for all his obvious talent, isn't making his teammates better. The offense isn't fluid and the ball doesn't move quickly when he is on the court. The others appear to be deferring to him. When he is on, like the first half of the BYU game, it doesn't matter that much, because he is capable of carrying the offense. But when he isn't, as in the Cincy game, the offense completely bogs down. We scored 82 against the Wildcats without DP. Just 68 against a .500 team with him playing 30+ minutes. If his shots aren't falling then I would argue he has a negative impact - high usage but very low assist ratio. He and Tiller are the only two players with more TOs than assists.
At this point, he would ideally be in a Remy-like off-the-bench role. Let the others get into the flow and come in to generate instant offense off the bench esp. given the paucity of bench scoring. Obviously that isn't going to happen with a projected #1 (or 3 or 5) pick...
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Good article. You come away thinking, "Man, if Coach Self and the team figures this out... Wow."
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@JoJoAndMe I think that's just his face and demeanor. Not much you can do about that. I fully believe he's a silent killer on the court when he's healthy. His teammates haven't said anything negative about him and they seem to appreciate his presence. Just have to get playing time with each other.
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Agree... I don't read much into the smiling thing.
When I was working, I don't think I was smiling much. And when he's on the court, he's working.
I mean, I smiled when I was in conversation with people and was friendly in those kinds of settings. But when I was focused on my work, I doubt that I was smiling much. We don't have much of a view into the locker room or the non-working interactions of Darryn Peterson, so this doesn't seem like a fair indicator to me.
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Another 30 minutes from DP tonight, I thought he played the best defense off ball he has all year. Let’s keep it going young fella
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Looked like a good teammate too!
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@DCHawker I have had some similar thoughts on this and will talk about them among friends but I avoid it on X or the bigger boards because it just devolves into people getting upset about the subject for some reason. It's very clear to me that when he is out there in loafing mode for the sake of being out there that it really and truly hurts the team.
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@DCHawker 100% agree and I’ve said similar above.
