After last night's drubbing, I thought it worthwhile to check into a few conference stats to see if the best lineups are receiving appropriate court time, and after peering at the data, I have a couple of takeaways.
1) Budke needs more minutes, at Hurt's expense. Stephen has been underwhelming in most categories. He doesn't rebound well, especially considering his size (conference average for TRB% is somewhere between 10-12%), hasn't blocked a shot, and while he shoots the ball okay, he doesn't shoot it enough to be effective, imo. Budke, on the other hand, has a TS% of .859(!), eFG% of .778(!), a PER closer to average, and plays much harder, imo. I don't like that I'm advocating for this, but it appears he needs to see the court more.
2) Ron Freeman's PER is 57.5(!!!!!!!). I'm not at all suggesting he's an upgrade over Stokes, Brown, Ervin, Edwards, etc., but he needs to see more time on the floor, imo, if for no other reason to see what he has and to at least get some realistic game experience for next season. 5 MPG isn't unreasonable, imo.
3) Edwards (somewhat surprisingly) is still this team's best player, as terrible as he's often looked. This squad really needs him to get going.
4) Wade's TRB% is much better than it once was. He still gets manhandled down there too often, imo, but he's making strides.
Feel free to add any further thoughts/suggestions/inferences.
Here is the full link.
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