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I really think Bill Self would like some KJ Lewis, so let's break down his game in another
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transfer portal potential target episode.
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You are Lockdown J-Hawks, your daily podcast on the Kansas J-Hawks, part of the Lockdown
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Podcast Network, your team, every day.
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How's it going Derek Johnson here with another Lockdown J-Hawks episode, bonus episode
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We're going to be breaking down KJ Lewis's in the transfer portal.
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I'm going to say that KU had some interest in last office season, does he make sense
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this office season will get into his potential fit with the team, strengths and weaknesses
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of his scattering report, and just some info on KJ Lewis, let's start right there.
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Again, KU showed a little bit of interest last office season, I don't know to what extent,
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but at least you see these social media tweets of like, oh, these teams have reached out
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and showed interest.
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I mean, they offered a scholarship, they tried to get them to visit, did that just mean
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they called and said, hi, who knows.
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But he is a six foot four, 210 pound guard who's going to be a senior this upcoming season
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He was a top 100 recruit out of high school, goes to Arizona and immediately hit the
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He was all packed 12 freshman team honorable mention over six points, three rebounds per
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game on what was a two seed Arizona team.
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And then as a sophomore, he goes up to 26 minutes per game, he averaged 10.8 points per
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game, 4.6 rebounds per game, 2.9 assists per game, and 2.1 stocks per game on an Arizona
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team that made it to the sweet 16 before losing to Duke, wonky shooting line in that season.
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43% from the floor, which is lower than you would like, 19% from three, which is very
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much lower than you would like.
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But yes, of course, when he played KU, he did make a three in the big 12 tournament.
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And then he was 81% at the foul line.
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That is a wild shooting line, right?
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So he transferred from Arizona to go to Georgetown.
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I resumed that was because Braden Burries was coming into town in Arizona.
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And I'm going to imagine if you were Arizona, they were picking between Jaden Bradley, your
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KJ Lewis pair with Burries, and obviously they made the right decision here.
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But Lewis did have a good season at Georgetown, 14.9 points per game, 5.1 rebounds per game,
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2.5 assists per game, and 2.7 stocks per game for what was a not great hoist team once
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again in Georgetown.
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But he had six games this year, did Lewis with 20 or more points.
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And I think pertinent for KU, Kansas was a really bad turnover and steel creation team
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Well, Lewis would certainly bring that in for KU, he had 10 games with three or more
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steals along with plenty of other games where he had a block and or two plus steals for
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So very chaotic creating defender, right?
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And the metrics look pretty good here too, 96% town, RAPM, 75th percent town, win shares
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per 40, 91st percent town, PER, and 91st percent town, wins above a placement player.
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The defensive numbers, as you would imagine, are a bit better than the offensive numbers
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and some of the metrics, but all of them are actually strong.
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And he had a huge on-off impact for Georgetown, which I think speaks to a couple of things.
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When you're looking at on-off numbers, it doesn't just speak to the player, it speaks
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to the guys coming in for that, right?
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Because let's say that you have an average center, but you have a walk-on as the backup,
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versus you have an all-American center with a dude who, like, let's say, your backup is
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like in the year that T-Rob was one of the Moore's twins backup.
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You know, Marcus Moore's might be a better player than this other player who's an average
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center, but the other player who's an average center might have a better on-off rating because
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the player behind him is worse, you know?
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So the drastic nature of the plus minus is going to look even better.
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So that is important to remember, especially as we're talking about Georgetown team,
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again, was not very good to wear how many other great players did they have around KJ Lewis
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to wear when he was not on the floor, is the drop-off more stark than at another school.
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But still, pointing that all out, the Hoyos were over six points better per 100 possessions
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offensively with him out there.
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They were seven points per 100 possessions better defensively.
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And the overall on-off net rating for him was 13.8.
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That put him in the 88th percentile nationally, so he clearly was making an impact.
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If you do go back to his time at Arizona, he was in that negative on offense.
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He was a positive on defense.
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That was the original 18% from three, though.
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So if you could just get up to 30% from three, then would he have been a, you know,
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net positive at both?
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The prior in a smaller role, he was basically in that neutral.
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So it's tough to see exactly what is the value here, right?
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But I think this would be interesting because I think the idea here to me would be is
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to build self-interested and kind of replicating last year's back court, where you have the
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defensive athletic guy, Elvin Council, that would be KJ Lewis.
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And then you have the shopmaker freshmen, Darren Peters in this year would be Taylor and
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Because I do think there's some comparisons you can make.
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Well, make those get to the strengths and weaknesses.
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And what is the full fit here?
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Does it make sense for Kansas and Bill South next?
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Thanks for joining us continue on with our KJ Lewis deep dive and know for you can check
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out the every day or club where you can get the ad free version of the show to our discord
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It's code March to get in at locked on J Hawks dot supercast dot com.
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I was making the mention of like I think if bill self is interested here, which I think
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there's always going to be a difference of how I approach these podcasts like I'm going
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to try to give you my opinion on the player.
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I'm going to try to give you my opinion how he would fit with what I think bill self would
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want, which you know, I'm not always going to know what everything the bill self wants
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right or that he likes.
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But we can try to make educated guests is there right and I do think this is a player
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that I'm not as in on, but I could see bill self being in on I guess is where I'm kind
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And going back to the idea that you have, okay, Darren Peterson is your shot making
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Taylin Kenny would be your shot making freshman and you pair him with a defensive athletic
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Now, a little bit of a difference.
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Kenny is going to have the ball in his hands a little bit more.
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I would think and Lewis more of an off guard who can play on as opposed to counsel is more
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You know, so you look at it now Lewis for his career has worse three point shooting numbers
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than Melvin counsel, but if we take Lewis's most recent season at Georgetown, he was
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at 30.5% on three point eight takes per game.
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So I'm proved from the year before it Arizona.
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Melvin counsel's finally your same Bonaventure use 29.9% on three point nine takes per game.
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So you're pretty much identical there, right?
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And then counsel this year at Kansas 30.8% on three on three point four times per game.
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So we're just talking about the shooting perspective.
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You could say yes, Lewis is not a great shooter, but Kansas made it work with Melvin
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counsel and there are other similarities there with both being athletic guards who are around
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six, three, six, four that can get up and down on transition that can be good defenders.
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I think there's a little more to the offensive game of counsel, including his passing ability.
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I think there's actually a little more disruption to Lewis's game on the defense event.
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So the strengths here for Lewis rebounding from the guard spot is one of them.
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That was something else counsel was good at, but Lewis 76%ile among guards and offensive
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rebound rate 88th percentile in defensive rebound rate among guards.
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He also gets the free throw line 82nd percentile free throw attempt rate and he makes them at a
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strong clip as well. He's also a very strong, like I said, fast break player 96th percentile
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in fast break points per game. He was above the 83rd percentile in efficiency on fast breaks,
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both of his years at Arizona, efficiency dipped a bit at Georgetown.
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Then in previous seasons, he was really good at attacking and kicking, so a little bit of a passing
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thing there. Numbers did take a nose dive a bit there at Georgetown, which maybe that just boils
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down to worse players who were shooting it after he passes it out. He was solid at finding cutters
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as a passer and a good passer on the pick and roll. Again, I don't think he's
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but this is more of a passer than just a strict shooting guard, right? He's also a very good defender.
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He's got good size. He's got good strength. He's got good athleticism. He uses it to not just be
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a good defender, but to also be a chaotic defender. 98th percentile in steel rate, 91st percentile
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in block rate amongst guards. Those are all appealing and you know, those will be appealing for
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Bellself, especially because Kansas didn't get nearly enough steals this past season. Some of the
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weaknesses though, shooting, we talked about it, right? Just 27% from three for his career.
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And on the heels of another season where Kansas didn't have enough offense, didn't have enough
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shooting, didn't have enough floor spacing, that would scare me a little bit. Now,
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does the fact he got up to 30% on, you know, it wasn't two attempts per game, close to four
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attempts per game at Georgetown, along with the fact that he's a career 78% free throw shooter,
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give you hope that he's continuing to improve his three point shot and then he can get it up to 33,
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34% on three or four attempts per game, right? One thing that was good was that he shot well from
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the corners this season, right? How did previous seasons did this season? Kansas a lot of times will
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use that corner for their off-ball player to try to make shots, right? So again, if you're,
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if Bill Suffs is viewing it from, oh, we made it work with Melvin Council and basically you just
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view it as, hey, we're bringing on a guard who's on par with him from three and then he does these
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other things well, that would be the reasoning. From where I'm sitting, I'm going, but I want
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even more three point shooting. I don't want to just replicate what we had last season from a three
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point shooting perspective. This is the other one that's a little scary, just 39th percentile this year
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and two point percentage. He does have a solid free throw line jumper, but the area he really struggled
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in was around the rim, which kind of odd given the, you know, athleticism and actually his last
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year at Arizona, he was, he was good at the rim. So I don't know, again, that could be a scheme thing
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that could be teams are able to pack the paint more on Georgetown than Arizona, who knows,
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maybe some of it too is that Arizona, they're playing in transition more where he was really good,
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Georgetown, you're not going to play as fast and you're going to get the half court more where he's
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better in transition than half court. I don't know, but overall, I think that leads into something
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else like he's not a super efficient half court player offensively or off ball player.
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Good transition player has some other things about his game that work excellent defender. I think
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for those reasons, Bill Suffs would be interested again, again, again, they had interest last year.
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Thanks you have for joining us here. Don't forget to check out our full episode.
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Kind of an opposite plate. Jack Karrison's here. We did a deep dive on him.
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Ultimate three-point shooter. Does he make sense for you? We've done a bunch of other deep dive episodes.
13:55
Please check them out as we await the news of what's going to happen with the K-Roster, Bill Self,
13:59
all that sort of stuff. And we'll get to that when we get to it unlocked on J-hocks. By the way,
14:03
shout out KU baseball who was up six nothing on rival Missouri on the road. They get down eight to
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six. And then they went 11 to eight over Missouri and finished it off. Brady Bollinger had a home
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run. A couple other guys had a home run for KU and a good win there on the road. So I think 18
14:19
and 10 is now the record there. All right. What is the fit here for KJ low? So like I said,
14:25
personally, I'm more interested in the guards for KU being a bunch of shop makers and creators.
14:31
So this wouldn't be the path that I would want to go down. But let's say you get a,
14:37
like I'm trying to think what the roster construction would be where I would be more in on it
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from the idea of like, okay, you do have a freshman point card coming in having a veteran back court
14:45
member who can be a good defender and show him the ropes a little bit. And at least is a solid
14:51
passer and rebounder and good defender and can help you with the steel issue. There are some
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things like there, right? To where you could say, especially, you know, I don't know what the level
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of defense is for tailing Kenny. Like there's some reports that it might not be great. But is that just
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is you not like trying all the way right now in the level he's playing at and that'll get ramped
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up a KU who knows? So if you were able to get a, let's just say a scoring wing at the three who's
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just kind of an all around player can hit threes can do other things. And then let's say you were
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able to get a four man who was able to hit consistent shots for you. Would that be enough to say
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hey, Kenny is supposed to be a good shot maker and three point shooter three man who can do a little
15:33
bit of everything and hit some threes four man who's a good three point shooter. Is that enough
15:39
if you had KJ Lewis at the two and flurry at the five or is that going to sink your spacing on
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its own? If you can make it work, I'm open to it because of the possibilities, but I would
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personally rather go down the road of fine shot makers and shot creators for KU at those guard
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positions. But what does Bill self want? We know Bill self values defense. We know Bill self values
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athleticism. KJ Lewis fits the billing on both of those. We know that Kansas was not a good enough
16:07
rebounding team and was not good enough for getting steals this year. KJ Lewis helps both of those
16:12
areas as well. So I can I can at least see the vision a little bit here. But it does make the rest of
16:17
your roster construction. I think very more specific. And I don't know that the past off seasons would
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tell us that those specificities that KU would need to work around it are ones that Bill self would
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our avenues he would actually go down to make it work. All right, that'll do for this episode.
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I'll lock down Jay Hawks. You can find our show anywhere you're podcasting, including on our
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YouTube page. We can like and subscribe to the show. See you next time on L.O.J.
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