Senior G Jaleel Wheeler
Recruiting juco guards is a favorite carnival game for college coaches. The landscape of the sport is littered with guys who sliced and diced mediocre 2-3 zones for 20 points a game before finding that D1 defenses weren't so easy to solve. But every once in a while, someone hits on a Rob Gray or an Aubrey Coleman, and everyone else lines back up to take their shot.
I get why coaches love these guys. They show up to campus looking like grown men next to the new freshmen. And they've got the swagger to match. They're low risk because you don't have to dream on what they could be someday. But that also means they're nearly fully formed ballplayers and what you see is pretty much what you get. They're bandaids to bridge the gap. For Wheeler, what we saw in his very first college game was 15 points, 4 rebounds, 1 assist, and 6 turnovers.
Here's the thing, Jaleel Wheeler isn't a bad player. The kamikaze drives into a circus layup can be frustrating to watch, but he's not half bad at actually making them (51%) or drawing free throws (109 of them) when he doesn't turn the ball over like he did a quarter of the time last year. And the coaching staff has talked up his defense this offseason ("DaQuan and Jaleel have done a really nice job defensively. Those are two guys who I think can be defensive stoppers and we need that out of both of them."). So while he won't repeat the playing time of last season, Wheeler's definitely going to play a factor and could be a nice depth piece to have coming off the bench this year.
2017 stats: 29.2mpg, 9.3ppg, 4.3rpg, 2.0apg, 0.5spg, 2.3topg, 0.3bpg, 51.0% 2PT, 29.5% 3PT, 72.5% FT
2018 proj.: 19.8mpg, 7.0ppg, 3.0 rpg, 1.4apg, 0.5spg, 1.6topg, 0.1bpg, 48.6% 2PT, 30.1% 3PT, 72.1% FT
Recruiting juco guards is a favorite carnival game for college coaches. The landscape of the sport is littered with guys who sliced and diced mediocre 2-3 zones for 20 points a game before finding that D1 defenses weren't so easy to solve. But every once in a while, someone hits on a Rob Gray or an Aubrey Coleman, and everyone else lines back up to take their shot.
I get why coaches love these guys. They show up to campus looking like grown men next to the new freshmen. And they've got the swagger to match. They're low risk because you don't have to dream on what they could be someday. But that also means they're nearly fully formed ballplayers and what you see is pretty much what you get. They're bandaids to bridge the gap. For Wheeler, what we saw in his very first college game was 15 points, 4 rebounds, 1 assist, and 6 turnovers.
Here's the thing, Jaleel Wheeler isn't a bad player. The kamikaze drives into a circus layup can be frustrating to watch, but he's not half bad at actually making them (51%) or drawing free throws (109 of them) when he doesn't turn the ball over like he did a quarter of the time last year. And the coaching staff has talked up his defense this offseason ("DaQuan and Jaleel have done a really nice job defensively. Those are two guys who I think can be defensive stoppers and we need that out of both of them."). So while he won't repeat the playing time of last season, Wheeler's definitely going to play a factor and could be a nice depth piece to have coming off the bench this year.
2017 stats: 29.2mpg, 9.3ppg, 4.3rpg, 2.0apg, 0.5spg, 2.3topg, 0.3bpg, 51.0% 2PT, 29.5% 3PT, 72.5% FT
2018 proj.: 19.8mpg, 7.0ppg, 3.0 rpg, 1.4apg, 0.5spg, 1.6topg, 0.1bpg, 48.6% 2PT, 30.1% 3PT, 72.1% FT
